Free The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

scraping the dry beans off the plate with his nails. He took the fragment of firelighter and the twigs out of his pocket and arranged them in the center 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 Erector set had once been neatly laid out, but which was now in chaos, he took a rod, ready bent into a handle shape, and pushed this through the meat. Then, from small bits of the set, 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 Bear—come and see your fire,” said Omri.
    Little Bear 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 Bear wrinkle up his nose.
    “Stink,” he cried. “Spoil meat!”
    “No it won’t!” Omri said. “Turn the handle of the spit, Little Bear.”
    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 gray and then brown. The good juicy smell of roasting beef began to compete with the spirituous reek of the firelighter.
    “Mmm!” said Little Bear appreciatively, turning 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?”

Cowboy!
    O mri 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 toward 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 off onto the carpet. Little Bear, with a yell, had leaped 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. He felt a squishy feeling under his shoe.
    “Now look! We’ve spoiled 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 burned stuff, squashed meat, and bent Erector set. Little Bear let put 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 his fingers. He tried to brush it clean but it was no use—it was all mixed up with the smelly stuff of the