The axe was a beauty, though. Shining steel, with a sharp edge on both sides of the head, and a long heavy steel handle. Omri laid it at Little Bull’s side.
“Little Bull—”
But he was still in a trance – communicating with his ancestors, Omri supposed. Well, he would find everything when he came to. There was quite a trail of spilt earth leading behind the crate. Omri flashed down the stairs, grabbed his anorak and his lunch-money and was gone.
The Chief is Dead, Long Live the Chief
He got to school early by running all the way. The first thing he did was to head for the upper school library shelves. He felt that a Ladybird book on Indian tribes would not meet the situation; he wanted a much more grown-up book. And to his joy, he soon found one, under the section labelled ‘Peoples of the World’ – a book called On the Trail of the Iroquois.
He couldn’t take it out because there was nobody there to write him down for it; but he sat down then and there on a bench and began to read it.
Omri was not what you’d call a great reader. He couldn’t get into books, somehow, unless he knew them already. And how, as his teacher never tired of asking, was he ever going to get to know any more books until he read them for the first time?
And this On the Trail of the Iroquois was not exactly a comic. Tiny print, hardly any pictures, and no fewer than three hundred pages ‘Getting into’ it was obviously out of the question, so Omri just dipped.
He managed to find out one or two fairly interesting things straight away. Iroquois Indians were sometimes called ‘The Five Nations’. One of the five were the Mohawks, a tribe Omri had heard of. They had indeed lived in longhouses, not wigwams, and their main foods had been maize and squash (whatever they were) and beans. These vegetables had, for some strange reason, been called ‘The Three Sisters’.
There were many mentions of the Algonquins as the Iroquois’ enemies, and Omri confirmed that the Iroquois had fought beside the English while the Algonquins fought for the French some time in the 1700s, and that both sides had scalped like mad.
At this point he began to get really interested. The book, in its terribly grown-up way, was trying to tell him something about why the Indians had done such a lot of scalping. Omri had always thought it was just an Indian custom, but the book seemed to say that it wasn’t at all, at least not till the White Man came. The White Man seemed to have made the Iroquois and the Algonquin keen on scalping each other, not to mention scalping White Men, French or English as the case might be, by offering them money and whisky, and guns … Omri was deep in the book, frowning heavily, several minutes after the bell had rung. Someone had to tap him on the shoulder and tell him to hurry in to Assembly.
The morning lasted forever. Three times his teacher had cause to tell Omri to wake up. At last Patrick leant over and whispered, “You’re even dreamier than usual today. What’s up?”
“I’m thinking about your Indian.”
“Listen,” hissed Patrick. “I think you’re having me on about that Indian. It was nothing so marvellous. You can buy them for a few pence in Yapp’s.” (Yapp’s was their local newsagent and toyshop.)
“I know, and all the equipment for them! I’m going shopping at lunchbreak; are you coming?”
“We’re not allowed out of school at lunch unless we eat at home, you know that!”
“I’m going anyway. I’ve got to.”
“Go after school.”
“No, I’ve got to go home after school.”
“What? Aren’t you staying to skateboard?”
“Omri and Patrick! Will you kindly stop chattering?”
They stopped.
At long last lunchtime came.
“I’m going. Are you coming?”
“No. There’ll only be trouble.”
“I can’t help that.”
“You’re a twit.”
Twit or not, Omri sneaked out, ran across the playground, through a hole in the fence (the front gate was locked to keep the infants from going in the road) and in five minutes, by running all the way, had reached Yapp’s.
The selection of plastic figures there was good. There was one whole box of mixed cowboys and Indians. Omri searched till he found a Chief wearing a cloak and a full feather headdress, with a bow in his hand and a quiverful of arrows slung across his back. Omri bought it with part of his lunch money and rushed back to school before he could be missed.
He showed the Chief to Patrick.
“Why get another Indian?”
“Only for the bow and arrows.”
Patrick was now looking at him as if he’d gone completely screwy.
In the afternoon, mercifully, they had two periods of handicrafts.
Omri had completely forgotten to bring the tent he’d made, but there were plenty of scraps of felt, sticks, needles and thread lying about the handicrafts room and he’d soon made another one, much better than the first. Sewing had always bored him rigid, but now he sat for half an hour stitching away without even looking up. He was trying to achieve the patched look of a real tepee made of odd-shaped pieces of hide, and he also found a way of bracing the sticks so that they didn’t fold up every time they were nudged.
“Very good, Omri!” remarked his teacher several times. “What patience all of a sudden!” Omri, who usually liked praise as much as anyone, hardly heard her, he was concentrating so hard.
After a long time he became aware that Patrick was standing over him, breathing through his nose rather noisily to attract his attention.
“Is that for my Indian?”
“My Indian. Yes.”
“Why are you doing it in bits like that?”
“To be like a real one.”
“Real ones have designs on.”
“So will this. He’s going to paint proper Iroquois ones.”
“Who is?”
“Little Bull. That’s his name.”
“Why
