LITMIR.BIZ

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a lot of bullying, Omri managed to get him to wash at least a few more bits of himself.

      “You’ll have to wash your clothes some time, too,” he said.

      But this was too much for Boone.

      “Ain’t nobody gonna touch muh duds, and that’s final,” he said. “Ain’t bin washed since ah bought ’em. Water takes all the stuffin’ outa good cloth. Without all the dust ’n’ sweat they don’t keep ya warm no more.”

      At last they were ready, and Omri pocketed them and ran down to breakfast. He felt tense with excitement. He’d never carried them around the house before. It was risky, but not so risky as taking them to school – he felt that having family breakfast with them secretly in his pocket was like a training for taking them to school.

      Breakfast in his house was often a dicey meal anyway, with everybody more or less bad-tempered. Today, for instance, Adiel had lost his football shorts and was blaming everybody in turn, and their mother had just discovered that Gillon, contrary to his assurances the night before when he had wanted to watch television, had not finished his homework. Their father was grumpy because he had wanted to do some gardening and it was raining yet again.

      “I know I put them in the laundry basket,” Adiel was saying fretfully.

      “If you did, I washed them, in which case they’re back in your top drawer,” said his mother. “But you didn’t, because I didn’t, and they’re not! Now listen to me, Gillon—”

      “It’s only a tiny bit of history, one mini little castle to draw and a mouldy paragraph on mottes and bailies to write,” said Gillon. “I can do it at school.”

      “Stinking climate,” muttered their father. “Those onion sets will rot if I don’t get them in soon.”

      “Gillon, did you borrow them?” put in Adiel.

      “I’ve got my own.”

      “You actually told me a lie last night—” said his mother.

      “I did not! I said I’d nearly finished.”

      “There was no mention of ‘nearly’!”

      “You probably didn’t hear.”

      “Probably not,” retorted their mother. “With the row going on from The Water Margin.”

      Omri ate his cereal in silence, grinning to himself, hugging his secret. He slipped a couple of cornflakes in his pockets.

      “I bet Omri took them!” said Adiel suddenly.

      Omri looked up. “Took what?”

      “My shorts.”

      “What on earth would I want your shorts for?”

      “It might be your idea of a joke to hide them,” Adiel retorted.

      This was not as outrageous as it sounds. It had, until very recently, been a common form of revenge, when Adiel or Gillon had been specially unbearable, for Omri to sneak some valuable possession and hide it.

      Now, however, Omri felt very far away from such babyishness, and was quite insulted.

      “Don’t be stupid,” he said.

      “So you did,” said Adiel in triumph.

      “I did not!”

      “You’re red in the face – that’s proof you’re guilty!”

      “I swear!” said Omri.

      “They’re probably under your bed,” said their mother to Adiel. “Go up and have a look.”

      “I have looked! I’ve looked everywhere.”

      “Oh, my God, it’s starting to hail now,” said their father despairingly. “So much for the apple blossom.”

      Under cover of the moans that went up about the prospect of no apples in the autumn, and the exclamations about the size of the hailstones, Omri slipped his coat on and ran through the bouncing ice-lumps to school. On the way he stopped under a protecting yew tree and took the little men out. He showed them each a large hailstone, which, to them, was the size of a football.

      “Now, when we get to school,” said Omri, “you must lie very still and quiet in my pockets. I’m putting you in separate ones because I can’t risk any fighting or quarrelling. If you’re seen I don’t know what will happen.”

      “Danger?” asked Little Bull, his eyes gleaming.

      “Yes. Not of death so much. You might be taken away from me. Then you’d never get back to your own time.”

      “You mean we’d never wake up outa this here drunken dream,” said Boone.

      But Little Bull was staring at him very thoughtfully. “Own time,” he said musingly. “Very strange magic.”

      Omri had never arrived at school with more apprehension in his heart, not even on spelling-test days. And yet he was excited too. Once he had taken a white mouse to school in his blazer pocket. He’d planned to do all sorts of fiendish things with it, like putting it up his teacher’s trouser leg (he had had a man teacher then) or down the back of a girl’s neck, or just putting it on the floor and letting it run around and throw the whole class into chaos. (He hadn’t actually dared do anything with it except let it peep out and make his neighbours giggle.) This time he had no such plans. All he was hoping was that he could get through the day without anybody finding out what he had in his pockets.

      Patrick was waiting for him at the school gate.

      “Have you got him?”

      “Yes.”

      His eyes lit up. “Give! I want him.”

      “All right,” said Omri. “But you have to promise that you won’t show him to anybody.”

      Omri reached into his right-hand pocket, closed his fingers gently round Boone, and passed him into Patrick’s hand.

      The moment he’d let go of him, things started to happen.

      A particularly nasty little girl called April, who had been playing across the playground at the moment of the transaction, was at Patrick’s side about two seconds later.

      “What’ve you got there then, what did he give you?” she asked in her raucous voice like a crow’s.

      Patrick flushed red. “Nothing! Push off!” he said.

      At once April pointed her witchy finger at him. “Look at Patrick blu-shing, look at Patrick blu-shing!” she squawked. Several other children speedily arrived on the scene and soon Patrick and Omri found themselves surrounded.

      “What’s he got? Bet it’s something horrid!”

      “Bet it’s a slimy toad!”

      “A little wriggly worm, more like.”

      “A beetle!”

      “Like him!”

      Omri felt his blood begin to get hot in his head. He longed to bash them all one by one, or better still, all at once – Bruce Lee, knocking down hordes of enemies like skittles. He imagined them all rolling backwards down a long wide flight of steps, in waves, bowled over by his flashing fist and flying feet.

      The best he could manage in reality, though, was to lower his head and, keeping his hand cupped stiffly over his left pocket, barge through the chanting circle. He caught one of them a good butt in the stomach which was rather satisfying. Patrick was hot on his heels, and they belted across the playground and in through the double doors, which fortunately had just been opened.

      Once inside, they were relatively safe. There were teachers all over

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