The Key to the Indian (7 page)

Omri put the book down. “Have you found out if it’s true, what Little Bull said? Were the English being rotten?”

His dad was silent for a moment. “You know, Om, we British were top dogs in the world for quite a long time, but top dogs often think that power is enough, and that hanging on to power is more important than behaving well. We haven’t as much to be ashamed of as a lot of colonial powers, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t
anything
to blush for. Have you ever heard the expression ‘Perfidious Albion’?”

“No? What does it mean?”

“Well, Albion was an old word for England, and perfidious of course means treacherous. In two words, it means promise-breakers, double-dealers. Englishmen always prided themselves on being men of their word, but our rulers haven’t always lived up to that. I’m sorry to say that our treatment of the Indian tribes that helped Britain in its colonial wars was not a shining example of honour.”

“So we kind of owe them.”

“Yes. We left our Indian allies in the lurch all right, round about 1783. But there were still decisions for the Indians to take, bad ones that led to extinction and not-so-bad ones that led to survival, at least for some. You don’t know how badly I wanted to find a way to help Little Bull to make the right one.”

T
he following weekend was fixed on for the preliminary camping trip.

There was no reason at all, now, why Gillon should be excluded, and Omri had the decency, through his bad mood, to be glad of that, anyway – it would have been necessary, but mean, to scheme to keep Gillon at home if they’d been –
going
.

So their mother packed them all sorts of food and drink, and they put the old tent and their grotty old school-trip sleeping bags into the boot of the Ford (their dad borrowed Adiel’s). They put on tough ratting clothes and piled wash
things and spare trainers and underclothes and sweaters ready to stuff into a big rucksack their mother promised to produce from somewhere.

And produce it she did – triumphantly, shaking the dust and spiders of ages off it in the yard. A huge, heavy thing adorned with numerous pockets, buckles and cracked leather straps.

“It’s been among my family stuff for years. I found all sorts of strange things in it – an old solar topee and some really lovely old stuff from India.”

Omri fingered it. It was very old indeed, and looked as if it must be about to fall apart, but when he tested it by pulling hard on the straps, nothing gave.

“They made them to last in those days,” his mum said approvingly.

“What’s a solar topee?”

“A pith helmet.”

Omri looked blank.

“I’ll show you – follow me!”

Omri gave the knapsack to Gillon – who stood in the yard with it dangling from his hands, as if Omri had dumped a dead dog in his arms, staring at it with incredulous disgust – and followed her into the big barn that had once been used for pigs. A room at the end was filled with his mum’s ‘family stuff’. She picked up an old cotton bag, and lifted out of it one of those thick sun-stopping hats that explorers in the tropics used to wear. It, like the knapsack, looked old and none too clean – it even
had some spots of paint on the brim – but still usable.

“It must have been your grandfather’s,” Omri said.

“Matt’s. Yes, it was. All the Indian things are his.” She picked up a strange thing like five upside-down bowls made of bronze, engraved with dragons, with a cord going through the middle of them. Attached by a rotting piece of string was a stick. His mother held them up and struck them one by one. They made a pleasant bell-like sound, each a little higher than the last, till the smallest bowl at the bottom made a final musical
ping
.

“Why don’t you hang that indoors, Mum? It’s nice.”

“Okay! I’d forgotten I even had it till I looked inside the knapsack.”

“Was there anything else in there?”

“Yes, quite a lot. It’s all wrapped up. But I opened this – look.”

She took some yellowing tissue paper off a tiny statuette of a black elephant about five centimetres high.

“Ebony,” she said. “With ivory tusks. Isn’t he sweet? Here, you have him.”

“Thanks, Mum!” Omri took it from her and put it into his pocket, thinking he would stand it on one of the shelves in his room. “Did you know you had all this?”

“Well, yes and no. I remember some of it. Granny Marie used to let me play with some of these things when I was a little girl. There were more elephants then, they stood in a line on the mantelpiece, biggest first, smallest last. Maybe they’re all here somewhere! I really must go through all this
stuff one day… And this gong-thing hung in the hall and everyone who came to the house wanted to have a go with it. You’d hear it chiming faintly and know that someone who’d slipped out of the room had sneaked into the hall to try it out. Only very old and stuffy people resisted… Granny used to call it her young-in-heart chimes.”

The weather was quite warm for October, but on Dartmoor it might well be different – you never knew. “Very bleak, Dartmoor,” said their dad. They managed to fit all their extra clothes except wellies and anoraks into the big knapsack. Gillon thought it was revolting and said he’d be ashamed to be seen with it – “If
only
we’d had time to order some new stuff! Oh well, when we do the real trip, with Ad, we’ll have a decent nylon one. Let’s go somewhere where there’s nobody but us, Dad. They’ll think we’re paupers or something, carrying a lump of old junk like this around!”

Nevertheless, he put the knapsack on the back seat, which he’d “bagged” because he always fell asleep on car-journeys and, despite his disgust, he wanted to use it to lean against. That suited Omri, who far preferred to sit up front.

At long last – it was nearly noon by the time they were finally ready – their mother kissed them all through the various windows, and then ran off because she thought she heard the phone ringing from across the lane.

“Ready, boys? Right. We’re off.”

And their dad put the key in the ignition and switched on the engine.

The next moment, Omri wasn’t in the car any more.

He had the most extraordinary jigging, jumping sensation. He seemed to be being pulled from his head, from his hands – even his feet were being lifted and dropped to a strange rhythm. He was dancing! But not of his own free will. Someone, or something, was
making
him dance.

His eyes, which a moment before had been looking through the windscreen of the car into the deeply-shadowed back of the parking bay, were suddenly blinded with bright light so that he screwed them shut. But his body kept up this senseless rhythm, his arms and legs flying, his head bobbing.

And now he could hear noises. Squawking music like a tinny horn, loud, strange voices, but most clearly of all – a drumbeat, quite close to him. It was drumming out the rhythm he was dancing to.

He was terribly shocked and frightened. But he had to see what was happening. He opened his squeezed-shut eyes a crack – and then wider.

An amazing scene met his eyes.

He was out in the open air – hot air, blazing with sunlight. Before him was a colourful crowd of people, women, men, children, most of them staring at him. They were brown people with black hair. Many of the men wore white turbans and baggy clothes. The women wore—

The women wore saris
.

Omri knew a sari when he saw one. They brought just one word into his addled aching head:
India
.

India. Indians
. What had happened? Could the magic
make a mistake like a person – take him back to
the wrong Indians
? The notion was so bizarre that if he had’nt been so completely shocked and scared, he would have burst out laughing.

The thought only lasted a nanosecond, and after that for a while his brain simply refused to function. All he knew was that he mustn’t show these staring people that he was alive. The forcible pulling and dropping of his limbs and head went on to the throbbing of the drum and the tootling of the music. He let himself stay limp, and just tried to orientate himself.

Something kept moving and dangling in front of him. He saw it was strings – two of them. He followed them downward with his eyes and saw that they were attached to the cloth above his knees. It was these strings that were pulling his legs up in the dance. As his knees were lifted up, he saw that his legs were covered in bags of bright purple silk.

He swivelled his eyes to the side, and thought he heard a surprised gasp from the people who were grouped in front, watching. He turned his head a little to the left. His arm was in a sleeve, a full sleeve of red and gold material. There was a string round his wrist that kept up a steady pulling and releasing to make his arm move.

He felt his head jerked till it faced forward. Then he felt himself being moved from the spot – he was being made to dance to the left – then back to the right – he could have resisted, but he dared not. Because he knew, now, not only where he was, but what he was.

He was a marionette. He’d brought a string-puppet to life!

But how?
How?
Jerking on the ends of the strings, his head on fire with pain, he tried to think, but it didn’t make any sense!

Even when he had been part of Little Bull’s tepee, and the Algonquin warriors had been attacking the village and threatening to set the tepee on fire, Omri had not been more frightened than he was now. At least then he had had some vague idea of what was happening and where he was. He’d known that Boone and Twin Stars were somewhere close at hand. He’d known that Patrick was at the other end, that he knew what to do, that he could bring him back if only he turned the key in time.

But this was different. This was a trip he hadn’t planned or prepared himself for. Besides, he was in pain. The string for his head was fixed to his hair. Every time that string was jerked, pain ran all over his head so that he wanted to shout out.

But he mustn’t!

He did the only thing he could. Apart from holding his head up, he went limp and let the puppet-master dance him around. His thoughts were fuzzy with fear. He mustn’t give himself away, that was all he knew. That one eye-movement had nearly done it – some in the audience had noticed that he turned his eyes like someone alive. He stared to the front and let his body be jiggled and jerked and just let the fear wash through him.

The music ended. The strings made him fall forward into a bow. The audience clapped and shouted. The head-string
agonisingly pulled him upright. And then he saw somebody pushing through the crowd, coming to stand in front of the low wooden stage. A big, smiling white man in a khaki safari suit with – with a – what was it called? – a solar topee on his head.

He said something in a language Omri couldn’t understand. It was something approving, praising. Then he put out his hands and took the strings above Omri’s head away from the puppeteer. There was a lot of laughter and interest in the crowd, which was gathering around now. Some dark-skinned little boys wearing only white cloths wrapped around their hips and legs were trying to touch Omri and stroke him, but the big man held him high, out of reach of their hands, and laughed, and seemed to tell them not to touch.

Omri had to force his eyes to stay wide open. But as soon as he was above the eye level of the children he was able to blink and close them for a moment against the glare and the frizzling heat.

He heard the clink of money. He risked a quick peep. He saw what must be the puppeteer, a big man in a turban in bright, showman’s clothes, bowing and smiling through his black beard. A huge hand came and fondled Omri, and the man said some words that Omri guessed were some kind of fond farewell. He realised that he had been sold to the white man in the solar topee.

The solar topee…

As the white man moved away, still holding Omri up by
the strings, high above the heads of the children who followed, laughing and reaching up their hands to touch and grab him, he was dangling just level with the big man’s head. The solar topee had a mark on the top of its brim that he recognised. He had seen it, only a short while before – just before he had been dragged back through time. White dots, as if some small spots of paint had fallen on it.

And then he knew who this white man, who had bought him from the puppet master, was.

It was Matt. His own great-grandfather.

T
he little crowd of children followed, shouting and jostling, for a long way through the hot, noisy, exotic streets. Matt got tired of holding Omri-the-puppet high above his head, and handed him to a man walking behind him. He was an Indian – a servant, Omri guessed.

At last the children stopped following and the man lowered his arm and draped Omri by the strings over his shoulder. The pull of the head-string on Omri’s hair was simply agonizing and Omri thought all his hair would be pulled out before they got wherever they were going.

Mercifully, Matt decided to ride rather than walk. He
hailed a sort of cart with two wheels and long shafts, but to Omri’s amazment, instead of a horse it was pulled by a man in a loincloth and bare feet, who grasped the shafts in either hand and ran along, pulling Matt through the devastating heat. The servant didn’t ride, he ran along behind, but Matt wanted to look at his purchase, so he took Omri away from the servant and laid him on the worn leather seat beside him.

The awful pulling on his hair stopped. Omri lay on his face. He felt Matt examining his costume, fingering the silk. It seemed impossible he wouldn’t notice that the ‘doll’ inside the costume was warm and alive, but he didn’t.
Everything
here was hot, which perhaps explained it.

The rickshaw man ran through more streets and pulled up. Matt picked Omri up – by the waist, fortunately. Omri drooped at both ends. How he wished he were back in his own time, the controller, the one in charge! What on earth was going to happen when Matt inevitably noticed that he was alive? Maybe he’d think there was something devilish about him and destroy him! That would almost certainly happen if an Indian were to discover him. Maybe Matt would take a more rational, less superstitious view. But what was rational about this?

The blazing heat abruptly cooled down as they entered a building. The light became dimmer; the windows were shuttered against the boiling sun. Omri became aware that he was sweating all over. He felt a faint swish of cool air, coming and going, and risked a peep around as he hung upside down. He saw an Indian in a white turban and baggy trousers sitting
cross-legged in a corner pulling rhythmically on a rope. Omri saw that the rope led upwards to a huge swaying fan near the ceiling.

The next moment everything went wild.

He was flying through the air, and fear shot along his limbs, but the flight was short and he landed softly on a piece of furniture. Matt had tossed him a short distance into a wicker chair. Luckily it had a cushion on it.

Omri heard Matt clap his hands. A servant came in and bowed, and Matt gave him an order which, though it was in English, Omri was too wrought-up to understand. Then Matt slumped into another chair and took off the solar topee. He laid it on his knee and scowled as he examined its brim.

Omri could see him clearly. He was a handsome man, just as Jessica Charlotte had said – tall and straight with thick fair hair and rather a red face, and a blond moustache. He wore a short-sleeved khaki shirt and shorts, knee socks and lace-up shoes. Despite the heat he looked quite unrumpled, and apart from sweat stains under his arms you would think he had just got dressed.

“My great-grandfather,” thought Omri wonderingly. His fear lessened a little. He remembered everything Jessica Charlotte had written about how kind and good Matt was. But then she was in love with him. And he hadn’t been ‘good’ enough to let her go on seeing Lottie. Omri had decided when he read the Account that his great-grandfather had a hard side to him.

Omri lay very still, just as he had fallen. His arms and legs
began to ache from tension. When the servant came back with a small tray on which was a bottle of whisky and a glass, Matt poured himself what Omri’s father would certainly have regarded as a stiff drink, got up with it and strolled to the other side of the room, where he stood with his back to Omri, fiddling with something. This gave Omri a chance to shift a bit in his sweaty silk clothes. Despite the fan, he was desperately hot.

What was going to happen?

He thought about what
had
happened.

What was the last thing before he had arrived here? They’d been in the car, the three of them, and his father had put the key into the ignition and switched on the engine.

It came upon him with the force of revelation. The little elephant had brought him back! Obviously, the key was magic after all – the original carkey that had gone back with Jessica Charlotte. How could this be possible?

Omri racked his brains. When they’d looked at her figure, the key had become part of it, held in her arms – the whole key had become plastic. It had gone back in time with her, as part of her. Could it be that that, just that, being, for the journey, part of Jessica Charlotte, had put magic into it – Jessica Charlotte’s ‘gift’ magic? Or maybe it was what his father had said – that she had ‘bent all her efforts’ on making the new key, the invisible, useless key, magic. Some of that focusing, that force of her will to satisfy their request, might have spilled on to the original key.

It must have done.

In which case, they – he and his dad – could go back to Little Bull’s time, after all!

Omri felt his heart leap. It could still happen – their great adventure!
If
Omri could get out of this unplanned, unscheduled, dangerous one.

Wait.

Omri’s body must, at this moment, be in the front seat of the Ford, unconscious. Wouldn’t his father notice? Wouldn’t he guess at once what had happened?

Evidently not, or he would have turned the key and brought Omri back already.

His father must think he’d just fallen asleep.

But after a while – say, a couple of hours, the time it would take to drive to Dartmoor – surely his dad would begin to wonder why Omri didn’t wake up. If he tried to wake him and couldn’t, he’d realise then. He would guess, as Omri had, that the key was magic. He would turn it in the ignition and bring him back safe. In fact, as soon as he stopped the car and switched off the engine, it would happen.

Matt turned and came back towards Omri, a small, thin cigar in one hand and his drink in the other. He stood over the chair, looking down at him. Omri, trying to contain his wild trembling, lay as still as he possibly could.

“You’re a little beauty,” said Matt. “That rogue robbed me blind, but I couldn’t resist you. Maria will adore you… and Jessie will make you perform, perhaps.” He took a sip from his glass and laid it down. “Come on, I’ll take you to meet your lady friend.”

His
what
?

Matt’s hand reached out.

Omri found himself praying that Matt would pick him up by the strings, even though it would hurt. If he picked his body up now, he would surely notice he was not a doll. But just as Matt’s hand touched him, someone came into the room, and he turned sharply.

It was another servant, a woman. She wore a plain green sari with the end carried over her head. She put her hands together with the fingertips to her lips and bowed her head submissively.

“Yes, Jothi, what do you want?”

“You sent for my husband, Sahib. He sent me in his place.”

“He knows he’s in trouble!”

“Yes, Sahib.”

“How could any man be so stupid as to paint a ceiling and not cover everything up underneath? Look at this.”

He strode to his original chair and picked up the solar topee.

“Look! Spots of paint! It’s ruined, I shall have to get a new one.”

“I am truly sorry, Sahib. I will try to take paint away. Please, Sahib, do not punish my husband. He is not a careless man. He is full of grief that he did this thing.” She kept bowing as she spoke and there were tears in her voice as if she were really frightened.

Omri watched Matt from his prone position on the
chair. His face was redder than before, and he kept waving the solar topee angrily.

“Very well, Jothi! You take it and try to get the paint off. Then we’ll see.” His voice was stern.

The woman bowed deeply, took the solar topee with a quick, nervous movement, and ran out of the room.

Matt strode back to Omri’s chair. He scooped up the strings and swung him away from the support. The pain in his head, which he’d expected, didn’t come – the head-string was left loose and only the ones on his wrists were taut. He hung from his wrists and swung helplessly as Matt carried him briskly from the room, leaving the old man pulling patiently on the fan rope.

Omri let his head hang down and tried to subdue his fear. After a short walk along a corridor, Matt entered another large, shuttered room. It was hotter than the other; there was no fan-puller in here. It seemed to be some kind of storeroom. Big tin trunks stacked against one wall. Boxes and pieces of furniture. There was a crude bed made of wood with woven strings for a mattress. Peeping from under his hair, Omri saw something weirdly familiar lying on the bed. It was the big knapsack, only now it was clean and new with all its straps a bright tan colour, and silver buckles.

Leaning against this in a sitting position was another puppet.

It was a girl-puppet, Omri noticed, with flowing gem-coloured clothes and glittering mock jewellery. Her hair was half-hidden under a bright blue scarf with a silvery border.
She had gold shoes with turned up toes. Her strings were arranged carefully above her, over the top of the knapsack.

It wasn’t till he was level with her that Omri noticed something utterly unbelievable.

He got such a shock that he made a sound, but fortunately Matt was coughing over his cheroot and didn’t hear it. He sat Omri down beside the girl-puppet and carefully draped his strings over the top of the knapsack so they wouldn’t get tangled.

“There,” he said waggishly. “You two are a pair. Sweethearts, eh? A gift for my sweetheart. Be good now!”

And he turned and walked out, leaving a fragrant trail of cheroot smoke behind him.

Omri waited till the door closed. Then he looked again at the girl-puppet at his side.

The girl-puppet at the same moment turned her head towards him. They stared at each other.

She had Gillon’s face.