eat now, Omri, it’s nearly suppertime.”
“Just a tiny bit,” he said.
There was a lovely chunk of raw meat on a plate. Omri sniffed his fingers, wiped them hard on his sweater to get the stink of the firelighter off them, then took a big carving-knife from the drawer and, with an anxious glance at his mother’s back, began sawing a corner off the meat.
Luckily it was steak and cut easily. Even so he nearly had the whole plate off the fridge shelf and onto the floor before he’d cut his corner off.
His mother swung round just as he closed the fridge door.
“A tiny bit of what?” she asked. She often reacted late to things he said.
“Nothing,” he said, hiding the raw bit of meat in his hand. “Mum, could I borrow a tin plate?”
“I haven’t got such a thing.”
“Yes you have, the one you bought Adiel to go camping.”
“That’s in Adiel’s room somewhere, I haven’t got it. A tiny bit of what?”
But Omri was already on his way upstairs. Adiel was in his room (he would be) doing his homework.
“What do you want?” he asked the second Omri crept in.
“That plate – you know – your camping one.”
“Oh, that!” said Adiel, going back to his French.
“Well, can I have it?”
“Yeah, I suppose so. It’s over there somewhere.”
Omri found it eventually in an old knapsack, covered with disgusting bits of baked beans, dry and hard as cement. He hurried across to his own room. Whenever he’d been away from it for even a few minutes, he felt his heart beating in panic as he opened the door for fear of what he might find (or not find). The burden of constant worry was beginning to wear him out.
But all was as he had left it this time. Patrick was crouching near the seed-tray Little Bull was directing him to take the tops off several of the jars of poster paint while he himself fashioned something almost too small to see.
“It’s a paintbrush,” whispered Patrick. “He cut a bit of his own hair and he’s tying it to a scrap of wood he found about the size of a big splinter.”
“Pour a bit of paint into the lids so he can reach to dip,” said Omri.
Meanwhile he was scraping the dry beans off the plate with his nails. He took the fragment of firelighter and the privet-twigs out of his pocket and arranged them in the centre of the plate. He washed the bit of meat in his bedside water glass. He’d had a wonderful idea for a spit to cook it on. From a flat box in which his first Meccano set had once been neatly laid out, but which was not in chaos, he took a rod, ready bent into a handle shape, and pushed this through the meat. Then, from small bits of Meccano, he quickly made a sort of stand for it to rest on, with legs each side of the fire so that the meat hung over the middle of it.
“Let’s light it now!” said Patrick, who was getting very excited again.
“Little Bull – come and see your fire,” said Omri.
Little Bull looked up from his paints and then ran down the ramp, across the carpet and vaulted onto the edge of the plate. Omri struck a match and lit the firelighter, which flared up at once with a bluish flame, engulfing the twigs and the meat at once. The twigs gave off a gratifying crackle while they lasted, but the firelighter gave off a very ungratifying stench which made Little Bull wrinkle up his nose.
“Stink!” he cried. “Spoil meat!”
“No it won’t!” Omri said. “Turn the handle of the spit, Little Bull.”
Evidently he wasn’t much used to spits, but he soon got the hang of it. The chunk of steak turned and turned in the flame, and soon lost its raw red look and began to go grey and then brown. The good juicy smell of roasting beef began to compete with the reek of the firelighter.
“Mmm!” said Little Bull appreciatively, turning the handle till the sweat ran off his face. “Meat!” He had thrown off his Chief’s cloak and his chest shone red. Patrick couldn’t take his eyes off him.
“Please Omri,” he whispered, “couldn’t I have one? Couldn’t I choose just one – a soldier, or anything I liked – and make him come to life in your cupboard?”
Omri gaped at him. He hadn’t thought of this, but of course now that he did it was obvious – no boy who knew the secret could possibly rest until he had a little live person of his own.
“Patrick – it’s not like you think – just something to play with—”
“Of course not, you’ve explained all about it, now just let me put—”
“But you have to think about it first. No, no, stop, you can’t yet! And anyway I don’t agree to you using one of mine!” Omri didn’t know why he was so reluctant. It wasn’t that he was mean. He just knew, somehow, that something awful would happen if he let Patrick have his own way. But it wasn’t easy to stop him. Omri had grabbed him, but he wrenched free.
“I’ve got to—” he panted. “I’ve got to—”
He stretched out his hand towards the pile of soldiers again. They struggled. Patrick seemed to have gone a bit crazy. Suddenly Omri felt the rim of the tin plate under his shifting feet.
He shoved Patrick out of the way and they both stared downward. The plate had tipped, the fire slipped on to the carpet. Little Bull, with a yell, had leapt clear, and was now waving his arms and shouting horrible things at them. His roast meat had disappeared under Omri’s foot, which instinctively stamped down on the fire to put it out. Omri felt the Meccano crunching under his school shoe, and a squishy feeling …
“Now look! We’ve spoilt the meat!” he shouted at Patrick. “If all you can do is fight, I wish I’d never brought you!”
Patrick looked mulish. “It was your fault. You should have let me put something in the cupboard.”
Omri lifted his shoe. Underneath was a nasty mess of burnt stuff, squashed meat and bent Meccano. Little Bull let out a wail.
“You no great spirit! Only stupid boy! Fight, spoil good meal! You feel shame!”
“Maybe we can rescue it—”
He crouched down and disentangled the meat from the mess, burning
