The Mystery of the Cupboard (17 page)

It was all beyond Omri's control. His head was spinning, and he could hear the voices of Gillon and Tony coming across the paddock.

“All right!” he said. “But do it! Swear you will!”

Bert raised his right hand solemnly and rolled his eyes heavenward.

“I swear on my mother's grave, I will return the jewel case to its rightful owner, Miss Jessie's sister, at her house on Clapham Common, this very night!” he said, in pious tones.

“Now, send us back, dear,” said Elsie nervously. “My poor little pussycat will be wanting his tea.”

“And my old trouble-and-strife will think I've conked out for good,” said Ted.

Omri held Bert's eyes a few moments longer. The voices were close now, almost under the window. “Omri! Where are you?” Then Gillon's footsteps on the stairs.

“Do it,” said Omri. “Goodbye.” And he slammed the door of the cupboard and locked it.

He just had time to put it out of sight under his bed, and throw a magazine over the open cashbox, when Gillon and Tony burst in.

For the rest of the day Omri went through the motions of normality with his brain in turmoil.

Now — no, then — perhaps at this very moment — no, that wasn't it, but somewhere, sometime, Bert was (or wasn't) keeping his promise.

If he took back the jewels, what would happen?

Nothing would happen the way it did happen.

Maria might not have to sell the house. She might not have to move to the little house in the East End where Omri's mother grew up.

They might not have been poor.

Perhaps tomorrow, if Omri asked, his mother would look at him blankly and say, “What are you talking about? Of course my grandmother wasn't poor! We were quite comfortably off.” Perhaps next time she was dressing to go out, he would see her putting on an emerald bracelet, a diamond pin…

Was it possible that by forcing Bert to take part of his haul back, Omri had meddled once too often? It sounded good, but you never knew. You couldn't know what even a tiny change in history could cause.

Omri put his head on the table and groaned aloud.

“What's wrong, darling? Have you got a pain?”

“No - no. I'm okay.” He pushed himself up from the table. “Sorry. I have to go to the—”

“All right, all right,” said his father testily. “No need for a public announcement.”

Omri went upstairs to his bedroom and sat down where he had been before. Slowly he pulled the cupboard out from under the bed and opened it.

The three figures were there. Plastic now, of course. They were different from the ones you could buy today. They were the same figures Frederick had given to Jessica Charlotte when such toys first began to be made. They really were crude, as he had said — you could see where the mould hadn't fitted together properly and the liquid plastic had made a sort of frill all round the figure. They weren't painted or coloured, they were just a reddish-brown.

The other interesting thing was that the people looked young. Ted was wearing the uniform of a policeman from the turn of the century. Elsie was a young girl in a long dress with a bustle at the back and her hair piled on her head, Bert a typical burglar wearing an eye mask that he hadn't worn when he was real. But the sack was there, a little rough brown lump in Bert's plastic hand.

Omri set the cupboard where he'd thought of it being, in the centre of his line of shelves piled on the bricks. He stared at the bricks. Little Bull, Twin Stars, and the others were there in the hollows between, lying as if waiting… It wouldn't take a second to get them out, and—

But no. He'd broken enough of his promises to himself.

He decided it would be best to keep the three figures of Ted, Elsie, and Bert in the cashbox. He lifted off the magazine he'd thrown over it, and raised the lid.

Only then did he see the fifth package and remember about the aquamarine earrings.

T
he second he picked it up, he froze. It wasn't nearly heavy enough. And a faint, living warmth came through the brown paper.

It wasn't the earrings! It was another little person.

He opened the paper in a panic.

Inside was a tiny lady. She lay in the crumpled scrap of dry paper, apparently fast asleep.

Through the hastily snatched-up magnifying glass he could see her breathing. She hadn't suffocated anyway.

Omri examined her with his eyes, his heart still beating furiously. She seemed to be dressed rather like
Elsie's plastic figure, in a long period dress of a bright crimson-red. It had a bustle, and a very full skirt. Beneath the hem her minute feet stuck out, wearing high button boots. There was a big hat (a tiny big hat) with a huge feather plume, lying near her head as if it had fallen off as she lay there. She was holding something in her hand. Omri looked closer but couldn't make it out. The only bit he could see was no more than a tiny dark speck sticking out of her fist.

He couldn't understand this! Who could she be? The others hadn't mentioned anyone else besides Jenny, and the sergeant who had died at Trafalgar.

He put his finger on her shoulder and gave her several very gentle pushes. She stirred in her sleep but didn't wake.

What was he to do? Turn her back into plastic for the moment? Leave her sleeping and risk her waking up when he wasn't there?

At that moment of decision, there was a sudden commotion under his window.

He could hear a woman's voice that he knew from somewhere, saying something to his father in a breathless, frightened voice. Omri left the little figure lying on the table and went to his window.

Seen from above, he couldn't at once recognize the newcomer. But then she turned and he saw her face. It was Peggy, Tom's daughter.

“…Would go and do it… always was stubborn…” she was saying. She seemed to be on the verge of tears, and
was twisting her hands together. “I told him not to — then the very minute my back was turned, it's up with the ladder, and…”

Omri forgot everything else and dashed down the stairs and out into the garden.

“What? What's happened? Is it Tom?” he cried even before he reached them.

She turned. Her face was mottled red and white.

“It's him all right,” she said. She sounded more angry than anything. “Went up on our roof to put back a tile that'd come off… thinks he's still up to roofing, at his age, silly old man, and of course his foot slipped—” She gave a harsh sound like a sob.

Omri's father said, “Is he badly hurt?”

She looked at him and nodded.

“I'm really sorry. But, er - what can
we
do?” asked Omri's father.

“I called the ambulance but they said they can't come for a bit, so I called the doctor, and he's made Dad comfortable on the floor, like, till they can take him to hospital, but he looks terrible, and he keeps on saying he wants the young lad who come on Sunday. Mistle Hay Farmhouse, he said, I didn't want to leave him but he said ‘Go now'. So I got on my bike and come.”

The whole family had come out now and was crowding round.

“Why does he want you, Omri?” asked his father in an odd voice. “Why you?”

“Got something to tell him, seemingly,” said Peggy. “Please, do come, it'll put his mind at peace.”

“But he's - he's not going to die, is he?” asked Omri.

Peggy only stared at him with her mouth open.

Omri's father said, “Just let me turn the car round in the lane, and we'll take you home. Leave the bike here.”

Tom was lying on the living room floor of the little house, his head turned to face the open door. As soon as Peggy pushed Omri in ahead of her, the old man's face seemed to change.

“I remembered,” he croaked out. His face twisted with pain.

“How are you, Dad?” Peggy asked.

Tom groaned for an answer.

“They'll be comin' soon,” she said comfortingly. She gave Omri another little push. “Go and speak to him,” she whispered. “Don't be frightened.”

Omri hadn't realized he was frightened, but he was. Tom looked really bad. His face was contorted and there was a big black lump on one side of it. There was a bad smell in the room, and as Omri slowly approached, he saw that Tom had been sick.

Omri tried to ignore that. He knelt down beside Tom, who was lying on a folded blanket, avoiding the mess as well as he could. The old man moved his hand as if he wanted Omri to put his own hand into it, but
somehow Omri couldn't. It was hard enough just looking at that hurt, swollen face.

“I done for m'self this time,” muttered Tom. “Should've listened. Poor Peg. Old fool, me. Right on my silly head.”

“Why - what did you want to tell me, Mr Towsler?”

Tom moved his head a little, and winced. “Get them others out. Her too.”

Omri looked over his shoulder. Peggy and his father were in the doorway. Peggy looked baffled.

“I got to clean you up, Dad—”

“Not now! Go out. Good girl.”

Omri's father touched Peggy's arm. They went out and shut the door.

Tom's hand, rough and rather dirty, had crept to Omri's shirt. Now it clutched it and pulled his face down.

“I remembered. As I fell, like. There was somethin' else.”

Omri stared into his eyes. He didn't know if he was really dying, but he looked very strange, quite different from before. Omri could hardly breathe, not just for the bad smell but for fear. He had never been so close to someone badly hurt.

Tom's voice came out in jerks.

“She told me. What she wanted. It was hard. Hard to find it. Shops… Local no use. Too small, see. Take the bus, she said. Dorchester. No good again. Too small. Came
back. Told her. She give me money. London. Train. All that way… First time, me! Had to ask… big shops…”

He closed his eyes and his head rolled over towards the floor. Omri could only watch, helplessly. The rough hand had released his shirt, but he couldn't lean back because when the words started again, he could barely hear.

“Bought dozens of ‘em,” Tom said. “How could I know…”

“Dozens? Of what?” Omri asked sharply.

The urgency in his voice seemed to recall Tom to consciousness, from wherever he was slipping away to. His head jerked, his eyes opened. He grasped Omri again and now his eyes were piercing.

“Brought 'em back in a box,” he said with a strange, grim urgency as if giving him a vital message. “Showed 'em to her when she — on her own — she looked at 'em all — picked one. Is that the one, I said. Yes, she said. I'll throw the others out, I said. Then she give, like, a cry. No, she said. Don't do that. Take care of 'em. This one's me but everyone is someone.”

Omri stiffened and straightened his back. His eyes were wide open.

The old man's head rolled on the floor again. Omri bent to hear him, but all he said was, “On my way, Jen.”

The ambulance came while they were still there and Tom was lifted gently onto a stretcher and carried out to it.
Peggy was trying to clean up and put on her coat to go with him, and pay some attention to her ‘guests', all at the same time. She was in a state and Omri's father told her not to bother, just to go to hospital with her father.

“In fact we'll take you,” he added. “We've got a friend there who has to be brought home today.”

“I'd prefer to go with him in the ambulance,” said Peggy.

On the drive to the hospital, Omri's father kept glancing at Omri's taut face.

“I don't like all this, Omri,” he said suddenly. “I thought it was all a game at first. But I'm beginning to think it's a good deal more than that.”

Omri said nothing. He felt panicky.

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“No, Dad. I'm fine.”

His father seemed about to ask more. But then he turned back to face the road. They finished the drive in silence.

When they got to the hospital and parked, his father said, “Is Patrick in on this, whatever it is?”

Omri said, “It's nothing, Dad. There's nothing to be in on.”

“Don't lie to me, bubba,” said his father quietly. He only called the boys ‘bubba' when he was feeling something very strong for them.

Omri felt more panicky than ever, though he didn't quite know why.

*

Patrick was full of bright chat about his fellow patients all the way home. Omri kept quiet, thinking, thinking… There was no time, when they got back, to tell Patrick any of the awful lot that had happened meanwhile. He just dragged him up the stairs to his room.

“Block the doors,” he said. “Now look.”

He showed the still-sleeping lady to Patrick.

“She looks a bit like Ruby Lou,” said Patrick.

“She's years later than Ruby,” said Omri. “And a different country.” He was staring at her.

“Who do you suppose she is?” Patrick asked.