The Indian in the Cupboard

“‘Listen, I don’t know how it happened that you came to life, but it must be something to do with this cupboard, or perhaps the key—anyway, here you are, and I think you’re great, I don’t mind that you stabbed me, only please can I pick you up? After all, you are my Indian,’ he finished in a very reasonable tone.”

Omri tries to make sense of the miracle of a toy figurine come to life. He wants to befriend the tiny man, but he still sees him as a curio that he owns and not as a full person. Little Bear, however, knows full well what he is and will not tolerate any mistreatment.

“Although the Indian felt strong, Omri could sense how fragile he was, how easily an extra squeeze could injure him. He would have liked to feel him all over, his tiny arms and legs, his hair, his ears, almost too small to see—yet when he saw how the Indian, who was altogether in his power, faced him boldly and hid his fear, he lost all desire to handle him—he felt it was cruel, and insulting to the Indian, who was no longer his plaything but a person who had to be respected.”

“Not only was his Indian no mere toy come to life, he was a real person, somehow magicked out of the past of over two hundred years ago. It occurred to Omri for the first time that his idea of Indians, taken entirely from Western films, had been somehow false. After all, those had all been actors playing Indians, and afterward wiping their war paint off and going home for their dinners, not in tepees but in houses like his. Little Bear was no actor. Omri swallowed hard. Thirty scalps…phew!”

There is a lot to learn from Little Bear, who is a real person from the past and a fierce and powerful warrior. As Omri’s respect for the man grows, he begins to fear him. The challenge for Omri is to become a person who is big enough to respect and help the stranded Iroquois without being intimidated by him.

“The ground was dry and as Indian and horse raced along, a most satisfying cloud of dust rose behind them so that Omri could easily imagine that they were galloping across some wild, unbroken territory. More and more, he found, he was able to see things from the Indian’s point of view. The little stones on the path became huge boulders that had to be dodged, weeds became trees, the lawn’s edge an escarpment twice the height of a man.”

Omri’s perspective shifts as he watches Little Bear gallop along the backyard path on Crazy-horse. He is learning to understand the world from his new companion’s point of view. Eventually, Omri will view Little Bear as a man learning to cope with a world of giants—and later, as a friend.

“‘Good-by,’ [Omri] said. ‘Perhaps, sometime, you could dream me again.’ ‘A pleasure,’ said the soldier cheerfully. ‘Tommy Atkins, at your service. Any night, except when there’s an attack on—none of us gets any sleep to speak of then.’ And he gave Omri a smart salute.”

After calming the miniature English medic with the excuse that he’s having a dream about a giant boy, Omri convinces Tommy to attend to Little Bear’s leg wound. Omri then returns him to the cupboard, where he changes back into a toy figurine. The boy realizes that his magic cupboard transports people from other times and places into his toy figurines and back again. He learns quickly to respect them as people, and their presence teaches him about human history.

“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 white men, French or English as the case might be, by offering them money and whiskey and guns.”

Little Bear claims 30 scalps, and this frightens Omri, who finds a book about the Iroquois that explains all the warfare as an effect of European colonization. This throws into fatal disarray the carefully managed, if strained, relations between the Iroquois and the Algonquin. Little Bear is not a “savage”; he is a warrior and a hero to his people, who have been dragged into bloody conflict by outside forces that threaten to swamp their own civilization.

“‘The old Indian—I think he’s fainted!’ He carried Little Bear to the cupboard and Little Bear stepped off onto the shelf. He stooped beside the crumpled figure. Taking the single feather out of the back of his own headband, he held it in front of the old man’s mouth. Then he shook his head. ‘Dead,’ he said. ‘No breath. Heart stop. Old man. Gone to ancestors, very happy.’”

This is the first time a person has inhabited one of Omri’s toys and died. It is an accident—the boy meant only to steal the chief’s weapons for Little Bear—but he learns that the cupboard causes real-world effects. The cupboard, not Omri, chooses who will be transported; that person, in turn, will react in their own way, and not in some manner that Omri wishes for.

“‘Listen,’ said Omri, and then stopped, and then started again. ‘The Indian isn’t plastic. He’s real.’ Patrick heaved a deep, deep sigh and put the cowboy back in his pocket. He’d been friends with Omri for years, ever since they’d started school. They knew each other very well. Just as Patrick knew when Omri was lying, he also knew when he wasn’t. The only trouble was that this was a non-lie he couldn’t believe. ‘I want to see him,’ he said.”

To Patrick, either Omri has lost his mind, or something very interesting is happening to his toys. Omri can no longer hide this from his best friend; he simply must let him in on the secret, or Patrick will push until the information spills out and Omri loses control of it. From now on, the two boys must share the adventure.

“Patrick goggled at him. ‘You mean—it’s not only him? You can do it with any toy?’ ‘Only plastic ones.’ An incredulous grin spread over Patrick’s face. ‘Then what are we waiting for? Let’s bring loads of things to life! Whole armies—’ And he sprang toward the biscuit tins. Omri grabbed him. ‘No, wait! It’s not so simple.’”

Patrick thinks the cupboard merely animates toys, but Omri explains that the box brings real people into the toys. They can be hurt; what the boys do to them will have real consequences, good and bad, for those human beings. Patrick, still a child, struggles between his desire for boyish fun and a dim awareness that he is playing with forces beyond his grasp.

“‘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?’”

Patrick is losing the battle between his respect for his friendship with Omri and his desire to have a miniature person of his own. He fails to understand that, once the toys become real, they are no longer anyone’s to possess, much less manipulate as they please. Children are the gods of their toy worlds, and Patrick feels an irresistible temptation to abuse that power.

“‘Little Bear! Calm down,’ he said. ‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’ Little Bear looked at him, blazing-eyed. Then he rushed over to the chair Omri used at his table and began chopping wedges out of the leg of it. ‘Stop! Stop! Or I’ll put you back in the cupboard!’ Little Bear stopped abruptly and dropped the ax. He stood with his back to them, his shoulders heaving.”

After Omri and Patrick accidentally damage some items important to Little Bear, the tiny man releases his frustration on Omri’s chair leg. Omri threatens him with the limbo of the cupboard. It is the first time the boy commands the Iroquois man; their relationship moves onto unstable ground.

“Omri was shattered. A cowboy crying! He didn’t know what to do. When his mother cried, as she did sometimes when things got too much, she only asked to be left alone till she felt better. Maybe all grown-ups were like that.”

Omri’s miniature human visitors are grownups, which gives him a unique view of their real natures. As small as they are, Little Bear and the cowboy must grapple with Omri’s gigantic world, and it causes them to become disoriented. Under that much tension, Little Bear becomes testy, while cowboy Boone bursts into tears. Regardless of their cultural background, some adults behave better than others under stress.

“‘Little Bear, you are not to touch him, do you hear?’ Little Bear stopped. ‘He try to shoot Little Bear. White enemy. Try take Indians’ land. Why not kill? Better dead. I act quick, he not feel, you see!’ And he began to move forward again.”

Little Bear eloquently sets out the principal Indigenous complaint against their European conquerors. Although his issue with white people goes back to the American colonies of the mid-1700s, he faces the same prejudice as did the Plains peoples of the late 1800s, who fought white settlers and their cowboys. Thus, from across the centuries, two opponents in that conflict meet in Omri’s room and promptly pick up their ancestral battle.

“‘If any of the other children saw you they’d want to grab you and mess you about—you’d hate it, and it would be terribly dangerous too, you’d probably get hurt or killed. You’ve got to lie quiet till school’s over. I’m sorry if you’re bored but it’s your own fault.’ Little Bear thought this over and then he said a most astonishing thing. ‘Want Boone.’ ‘What? Your enemy?’ ‘Better enemy than alone in dark.’”

The tiny Iroquois in Omri’s pocket is making plans of his own. Despite his size, Little Bear is able to act and negotiate with what, to him, is a giant. His resourcefulness gives him an edge; Omri is learning that it’s harder than it looks to play God with one’s toys, especially if they have minds of their own. For his part, Little Bear is beginning to see an advantage or two in getting along with his traditional enemy.

Omri felt trapped and furious. He looked into Patrick’s eyes and saw what happens even to the nicest people when they want something badly and are determined to get it, come what may. Omri slammed his empty tray down on the floor and, taking Patrick by the wrist, pulled him out of the line and into a quiet corner of the hall. ‘Listen to me,’ Omri grated out between teeth clenched in anger. ‘If you let anything happen to Little Bear, I will bash you so hard your teeth will fall out.’ (This, of course, is what happens even to the nicest people when they are in a trap.)”

Taking care of two miniature people is almost more than Omri and Patrick can handle. The excitement of the project makes them foolish, and they can barely manage their own wants, much less the needs of the tiny men they must protect. If they cannot sort it out together, they risk disaster.

“Omri went out into the playground. He felt too jumpy to stay indoors, or eat, or anything. How would he get them back from Patrick, who, quite obviously, was not a fit person to have charge of them? Nice as he was, as a friend, he just wasn’t fit. It must be because he didn’t take them seriously yet. He simply didn’t seem to realize that they were people.”

Patrick acts impulsively; it’s the worst way to deal with people in his care. He does not think through what he’s doing, lets his feelings run away with him, and focuses only on what he wants, with little thought to the living beings in his pocket. He can’t see trouble up ahead; he can only see his immediate desires in the moment.

“‘[…] they weren’t very hungry.’ ‘I bet they weren’t,’ said Omri, ‘after all they’d been through!’ ‘Cowboys and Indians are used to rough treatment,’ Patrick retorted. ‘Anyway, I left some food in my pocket for later if they want it.’ ‘It’ll get all squashy.’ ‘Oh so what? Don’t fuss so much, they don’t mind!’ ‘How do you know what they mind?’ said Omri hotly […]”

Patrick continues to treat Boone and Little Bear as he sees fit. He has no sense of them as complex humans, seeing them only as animated toys. He assumes they behave like cartoon characters who don’t suffer pain. His tussle at lunch with other students could have killed the tiny men in his pocket, but they are still alive, so he doesn’t care.

“‘Can’t I—can’t I have Boone?’ asked Patrick in a small voice. ‘No.’ ‘Please! I’m sorry I told—I had to!’ ‘They’re not safe with you. You use them. They’re people. You can’t use people.’ Patrick didn’t ask again. He gave one more hiccuping sob and went out.”

Cornered by Headmaster Johnson’s threat to call Patrick’s father, the boy reveals the tiny men. Luckily, this causes Johnson to question his own sanity, and the boys just barely manage to protect the secret. Their friendship, though, lies in tatters: Omri cannot trust Patrick to protect the two miniature people under his care.

“Omri had heard about people going gray-haired almost overnight if they had too much worry. He felt it might easily happen to him. He thought back to the time, only a few days ago, when this had all started, and he had fondly imagined it was all going to be the greatest fun anybody had ever had. Now he realized that it was more like a nightmare.”

Omri learns quickly that good times have costs. He also realizes how much effort it takes to be responsible for the welfare of others. His simple desire to have some fun with his toys has dragged him into a difficult project that’s almost too much for him to handle, and it nearly ruins his friendship with Patrick.

“The attic was just a sort of glory hole, where they could play and leave a total mess, and that was what they always did, only clearing spaces when they needed them for a new layout or for some special game. And their way of clearing was just to shove things aside into ever more chaotic heaps.”

Now that he has the adult task of caring for Little Bear and Boone, Omri suddenly can see the childishness of his earlier ways. He and Patrick have always played with their toys as the mood seizes them: selfishly and unthinkingly, with no plans and no thought about keeping the toys organized. In his newfound concern for two small people, Omri begins to see the bigger picture of his life, one that demands more care and more thought. He is growing up.

“‘Little Bear Indian brave—Indian chief. How be brave, how be chief with no other Indians?’ Omri opened his mouth. If he had not lost the key, he might have rashly offered to bring to life an entire tribe of Indians, simply to keep Little Bear contented. Through his mind flashed the knowledge of what this meant. It wasn’t the fun, the novelty, the magic that mattered anymore. What mattered was that Little Bear should be happy. For that, he would take on almost anything.”

Omri has changed completely, from a boy trying to have fun with toy pets to someone trying to help a person who depends on him. Somehow, it is the project he was meant to take on: Just as the toys transform into real people, Omri’s playtime transforms into the serious work of helping others. He’s begun to change his focus from a simplistic desire for fun into a more grown-up sense of purpose.

“‘You’re going to make him your blood brother!’ Little Bear shot him a quick, startled look. ‘Blood brother?’ ‘You both make little cuts on your wrists and tie them together so the blood mingles, and after that you can’t be enemies ever again. It’s an old Indian custom.’ Little Bear looked baffled. ‘Not Indian custom.’ ‘I’m sure it is! It was in a film I saw.’ ‘White man idea. Not Indian.’”

Communicating across cultures can be difficult and dangerous. Little Bear and Boone hold each other in contempt, and they’ve tried to kill each other; Omri, wanting them to get along, suggests a rite of brotherhood that misunderstands Native American ways. Somehow, each must see past his own biases to better appreciate the other.

“Boone bore not the slightest ill will toward Little Bear for having shot him. ‘That there’s a Injun’s natural nature. Pore simple critter c’d no more help himself than Ah kin keep away from mah horse and mah bottle!’”

In one comment, Boone manages to display his anti-Indigenous racism, suggest that “Injuns” aren’t as bad as he thought, and confess his own limitations. The young cowboy is just beginning to understand that no one is perfect, especially not himself, and that everyone is human in their own way. This is the start of a transition toward a more open-minded attitude for a man who will soon earn the right to call Little Bear his brother.