Copyright Copyright Dedication Chapter One – Birthday Presents Chapter Two – The Door is Shut Chapter Three – Thirty Scalps Chapter Four – The Great Outdoors Chapter Five – Tommy Chapter Six – The Chief is Dead, Long Live the Chief Chapter Seven – Uninvited Brothers Chapter Eight – Cowboy! Chapter Nine – Shooting Match Chapter Ten – Breakfast Truce Chapter Eleven – School Chapter Twelve – Trouble with Authority Chapter Thirteen – Art and Accusation Chapter Fourteen – The Fateful Arrow Chapter Fifteen – Underfloor Adventure Chapter Sixteen – Brothers More than a story About the Author Also by Lynne Reid Banks About the Publisher
First published in Great Britain by J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd 1981
First published by HarperCollins 1988
This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2016
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Text copyright © Lynne Reid Banks 1981
Cover illustration © Pascal Campion 2016
Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers , Ltd 2016
Illustrations copyright © Piers Sanford 1999
Note from the author copyright © 2000 Lynne Reid Banks
Lynne Reid Banks and Piers Sanford assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007309955
Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780007379798
Version: 2016-04-16
For Omri – who else?
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One – Birthday Presents
Chapter Two – The Door is Shut
Chapter Three – Thirty Scalps
Chapter Four – The Great Outdoors
Chapter Five – Tommy
Chapter Six – The Chief is Dead, Long Live the Chief
Chapter Seven – Uninvited Brothers
Chapter Eight – Cowboy!
Chapter Nine – Shooting Match
Chapter Ten – Breakfast Truce
Chapter Eleven – School
Chapter Twelve – Trouble with Authority
Chapter Thirteen – Art and Accusation
Chapter Fourteen – The Fateful Arrow
Chapter Fifteen – Underfloor Adventure
Chapter Sixteen – Brothers
More than a story
About the Author
Also by Lynne Reid Banks
About the Publisher
Chapter One
BIRTHDAY PRESENTS
IT WAS NOT that Omri didn’t appreciate Patrick’s birthday present to him. Far from it. He was really very grateful – sort of. It was, without a doubt, very kind of Patrick to give Omri anything at all, let alone a secondhand plastic Red Indian which he himself had finished with.
The trouble was, though, that Omri was getting a little fed up with small plastic figures, of which he had loads. Biscuit-tinsful, probably three or four if they were all put away at the same time, which they never were because most of the time they were scattered about in the bathroom, the loft, the kitchen, the breakfast-room, not to mention Omri’s bedroom and the garden. The compost heap was full of soldiers which, over several autumns, had been raked up with the leaves by Omri’s mother, who was rather careless about such things.
Omri and Patrick had spent many hours together playing with their joint collections of plastic toys. But now they’d had about enough of them, at least for the moment, and that was why, when Patrick brought his present to school on Omri’s birthday, Omri was disappointed. He tried not to show it, but he was.
“Do you really like him?” asked Patrick as Omri stood silently with the Indian in his hand.
“Yes, he’s fantastic,” said Omri in only a slightly flattish voice. “I haven’t got an Indian.”
“I know.”
“I haven’t got any cowboys either.”
“Nor have I. That’s why I couldn’t play anything with him.”
Omri opened his mouth to say, “I won’t be able to either,” but, thinking that might hurt Patrick’s feelings, he said nothing, put the Indian in his pocket and forgot about it.
After school there was a family tea, and all the excitement of his presents from his parents and his two older brothers. He was given his dearest wish – a skateboard complete with kick-board and cryptonic wheels from his mum and dad, and from his eldest brother, Adiel, a helmet. Gillon, his other brother, hadn’t bought him anything because he had no money (his pocket-money had been stopped some time ago in connection with a very unfortunate accident involving their father’s bicycle). So when Gillon’s turn came to give Omri a present, Omri was very surprised when a large parcel was put before him, untidily wrapped in brown paper and string.
“What is it?”
“Have a look. I found it in the alley.”
The alley was a narrow passage that ran along the bottom of the garden where the dustbins stood. The three boys used to play there sometimes, and occasionally found treasures that other – perhaps richer – neighbours had thrown away. So Omri was quite excited as he tore off the paper.
Inside was a small white metal cupboard with a mirror in the door, the kind you see over the basin in old-fashioned bathrooms.
You might suppose Omri would once again be disappointed, because the cupboard was fairly plain and, except for a shelf, completely empty, but oddly enough he was very pleased with it. He loved cupboards of any sort because of the fun of keeping things in them. He was not a very tidy boy in general, but he did like arranging things in cupboards and drawers and then opening them later and finding them just as he’d left them.
“I do wish it locked,” he said.
“You might say thank you before you start complaining,” said Gillon.
“It’s got a keyhole,” said their mother. “And I’ve got a whole boxful of keys. Why don’t you try the smaller ones and see if any of them fit?”
Most of the keys were much too big, but there were half a dozen that were about the right size. All but one of these were very ordinary. The un-ordinary one was the most interesting key in the whole collection, small with a complicated lock-part and a fancy top. A narrow strip of red satin ribbon was looped through one of its curly openings. Omri saved that key to the last.
None of the others fitted, and at last he picked up the curly-topped key and carefully put it in the keyhole on the cupboard door, just below the knob. He did hope very much that it would turn, and regretted wasting his birthday-cake-cutting wish on something so silly (or rather, unlikely) as that he might pass his spelling test the next day, which it would take real magic to bring about as he hadn’t even looked at the words since they’d been given out four days ago. Now he closed his eyes and unwished the test-pass and wished instead that this little twisty key would turn Gillon’s present into a secret cupboard.
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