LITMIR.BIZ

       7

       Uninvited Brothers

      Omri was not allowed to ride his bicycle in the road, but then he wasn’t supposed to ride it on the pavement either, not fast at any rate, so he compromised. He rode it slowly on the pavement as far as the corner, then bumped down off the curb and went like the wind.

      The hardware shop was still open. He bought the seed-tray and the seeds and was just paying for them when he noticed something. On the seed packet, under the word ‘Marrow’ was written another word in brackets: ‘Squash’.

      So one of the ‘Three Sisters’ was marrow! On impulse he asked the shopkeeper, “Do you know what maize is?”

      “Maize, son? That’s sweetcorn, isn’t it?”

      “Have you some seeds of that?”

      Outside, standing by Omri’s bike, was Patrick.

      “Hi.”

      “Hi. I saw you going in. What did you get?”

      Omri showed him.

      “More presents for the Indian?” Patrick asked sarcastically.

      “Well, sort of. If—”

      “If what?”

      “If I can keep him long enough. Till they grow.”

      Patrick stared at him and Omri stared back.

      “I’ve been to Yapp’s,” said Patrick. “I bought you something.”

      “Yeah? What?” asked Omri, hopefully.

      Slowy Patrick took his hand out of his pocket, held it in front of him and opened the fingers. In his palm lay a cowboy on a horse, with a pistol in one hand pointing upward, or what would have been upward if it hadn’t been lying on its side.

      Omri looked at it silently. Then he shook his head.

      “I’m sorry. I don’t want it.”

      “Why not? Now you can play a proper game with the Indian.”

      “They’d fight.”

      “Isn’t that the whole idea?”

      “They might hurt each other.”

      There was a pause, and then Patrick leant forward and asked, very slowly and loudly, “How can they hurt each other? They are made of plastic!”

      “Listen,” said Omri, and then stopped, and then started again. “The Indian isn’t plastic. He’s real.”

      Patrick heaved a deep, deep sigh and put the cowboy back in his pocket. He’d been friends with Omri for years, ever since they’d started school. They knew each other very well. Just as Patrick knew when Omri was lying, he also knew when he wasn’t. The only trouble was that this was a non-lie he couldn’t believe.

      “I want to see him,” he said.

      Omri debated with himself. He somehow felt that if he didn’t share his secret with Patrick, their friendship would be over. He didn’t want that. And besides, the thrill of showing his Indian to someone else was something he could not do without for much longer.

      “Okay. Come on.”

      Going home they broke the law even more, riding on the road and with Patrick on the crossbar. They went round the back way by the alley in case anyone happened to be looking out of a window.

      Omri said, “He wants a fire. I suppose we can’t make one indoors.”

      “You could, on a tin plate, like for indoor fireworks,” said Patrick.

      Omri looked at him.

      “Let’s collect some twigs.”

      Patrick picked up a twig about a foot long. Omri laughed.

      “That’s no good! They’ve got to be tiny twigs. Like this.” And he picked some slivers off the privet hedge.

      “Does he want the fire to cook on?” asked Patrick slowly.

      “Yes.”

      “Then that’s no use. A fire made of those would burn out in a couple of seconds.”

      Omri hadn’t thought of that.

      “What you need,” said Patrick, “is a little ball of tar. That burns for ages. And you could put the twigs on top to look like a real campfire.”

      “That’s a brilliant idea!”

      “I know where they’ve been tarring a road, too,” said Patrick.

      “Come on, let’s go.”

      “No.”

      “Why not?”

      “I don’t believe in him yet. I want to see.”

      “All right. But first I have to give this stuff to my dad.”

      There was a further delay when his father at first insisted on Omri filling the seed-tray with compost and planting the seeds in it then and there. But when Omri gave him the corn seed as a present he said, “Well! Thanks. Oh, all right, I can see you’re bursting to get away. You can do the planting tomorrow before school.”

      Omri and Patrick rushed upstairs. At the top Omri stopped, cold. His bedroom door, which he always shut automatically, was wide open. And just inside, crouching side by side with their backs to him, were his brothers.

      They were so absolutely still that Omri knew they were watching something. He couldn’t bear it. They had come into his room without his permission, and they had seen his Indian. Now they would tell everybody! His secret, his precious secret, his alone to keep or share, was a secret no more. Something broke inside him and he heard himself scream: “Get out of my room! Get out of my room!”

      Both boys spun round.

      “Shut up, you’ll frighten him,” said Adiel at once. “Gillon came in to look for his rat and he found it, and then he saw this absolutely fabulous little house you’ve made and he called me in to look at it.”

      Omri looked at the floor. The seed-tray, with the longhouse now nearly finished, had been moved into the centre of the room. It was that they had been looking at. A quick glance all round showed no sign of Indian or pony, but Gillon’s tame white rat was on his shoulder.

      “I can’t get over it,” Adiel went on. “How on earth did you do it, without using any Airfix glue or anything? It’s all done with tiny little threads, and pegs, and – look, Gillon! It’s all made of real twigs and bark. It’s absolutely terrific,” he said with such awe-struck admiration in his voice that Omri felt ashamed.

      “I didn’t—” he began. But Patrick, who had been gaping at the longhouse in amazement, gave him a heavy nudge which nearly knocked him over.

      “Yes,”

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