Free The Key to the Indian by Lynne Reid Banks Page B

thought only lasted a nanosecond, and after that for a while his brain simply refused to function. All he knew was that he mustn’t show these staring people that he was alive. The forcible pulling and dropping of his limbs and head went on to the throbbing of the drum and the tootling of the music. He let himself stay limp, and just tried to orientate himself.
    Something kept moving and dangling in front of him. He saw it was strings – two of them. He followed them downward with his eyes and saw that they were attached to the cloth above his knees. It was these strings that were pulling his legs up in the dance. As his knees were lifted up, he saw that his legs were covered in bags of bright purple silk.
    He swivelled his eyes to the side, and thought he heard a surprised gasp from the people who were grouped in front, watching. He turned his head a little to the left. His arm was in a sleeve, a full sleeve of red and gold material. There was a string round his wrist that kept up a steady pulling and releasing to make his arm move.
    He felt his head jerked till it faced forward. Then he felt himself being moved from the spot – he was being made to dance to the left – then back to the right – he could have resisted, but he dared not. Because he knew, now, not only where he was, but what he was.
    He was a marionette. He’d brought a string-puppet to life!
    But how? How? Jerking on the ends of the strings, his head on fire with pain, he tried to think, but it didn’t make any sense!
    Even when he had been part of Little Bull’s tepee, and the Algonquin warriors had been attacking the village and threatening to set the tepee on fire, Omri had not been more frightened than he was now. At least then he had had some vague idea of what was happening and where he was. He’d known that Boone and Twin Stars were somewhere close at hand. He’d known that Patrick was at the other end, that he knew what to do, that he could bring him back if only he turned the key in time.
    But this was different. This was a trip he hadn’t planned or prepared himself for. Besides, he was in pain. The string for his head was fixed to his hair. Every time that string was jerked, pain ran all over his head so that he wanted to shout out.
    But he mustn’t!
    He did the only thing he could. Apart from holding his head up, he went limp and let the puppet-master dance him around. His thoughts were fuzzy with fear. He mustn’t give himself away, that was all he knew. That one eye-movement had nearly done it – some in the audience had noticed that he turned his eyes like someone alive. He stared to the front and let his body be jiggled and jerked and just let the fear wash through him.
    The music ended. The strings made him fall forward into a bow. The audience clapped and shouted. The head-stringagonisingly pulled him upright. And then he saw somebody pushing through the crowd, coming to stand in front of the low wooden stage. A big, smiling white man in a khaki safari suit with – with a – what was it called? – a solar topee on his head.
    He said something in a language Omri couldn’t understand. It was something approving, praising. Then he put out his hands and took the strings above Omri’s head away from the puppeteer. There was a lot of laughter and interest in the crowd, which was gathering around now. Some dark-skinned little boys wearing only white cloths wrapped around their hips and legs were trying to touch Omri and stroke him, but the big man held him high, out of reach of their hands, and laughed, and seemed to tell them not to touch.
    Omri had to force his eyes to stay wide open. But as soon as he was above the eye level of the children he was able to blink and close them for a moment against the glare and the frizzling heat.
    He heard the clink of money. He risked a quick peep. He saw what must be the puppeteer, a big man in a turban in bright, showman’s clothes, bowing and smiling through his black beard. A huge hand