Gib and the Gray Ghost

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  He’d known it was something he’d have to face up to sooner or later. But now that it was about to happen, there were some questions he would have liked to ask if Miss Hooper and Livy hadn’t been acting like a pair of wet hens. But since they were, he could only try to push his mind in the general direction of transcendentalism and keep his mouth shut. It wasn’t until Miss Hooper was dismissing class that she said, “And so, Olivia, I guess Hy and your mother think the weather’s going to stay settled long enough to make it worthwhile for you to start in again at the Longford School.”

  Livy nodded stiffly. “Yes, ma’am,” she said with exaggerated, little-girl politeness. “That’s what Hy says.” Then she picked up her books and marched out of the room.

  So that was that, but all afternoon while he was working in the barn and the cowshed Gib’s mind was extra busy. There was a lot to think about, like the differences between how things had been when he was at the Rocking M before and how they were now.

  All last school year, for instance, while Mr. Thornton had taken Livy to the Longford School every day on his way to the bank, Gib had only been allowed to study with Miss Hooper. And only then if he’d finished all his work in the barnyard. And now he was to go to school too. Which a body might take to mean he was no longer just a farm-out. “Or then again,” he told Silky while he was picking her hooves, “it just might mean that Livy needs someone to drive the team.”

  But there were other thoughts that pestered Gib all that afternoon, churning out of the dark corners of his mind like small dark twisters. Thoughts about how he was going to like being at Longford School. At a school where, like as not, he’d be the only orphan farm-out.

  Gib slapped Silky’s flank to make her move over so he could get to her right hind foot. The slap was harder than he’d meant it to be and Silky snorted accusingly. But Gib only snorted back impatiently and jerked her hoof up off the ground. “They’ll all know what I am,” he said between clenched teeth. “And even if they don’t know right off, Livy’s bound to tell them.”

  In bed that night Gib thought a lot about Longford School. Scenes kept cropping up in his mind. Clear, vivid scenes like the ones he used to have in his dreams about the future, except that there wasn’t anything very hopeful about these particular imaginings. Most of them were about things like walking into a classroom where a lot of boys, and girls too, he reminded himself, would be staring at him. The thought of being stared at by girls was particularly troublesome to someone who’d grown up in a Home for Boys, where you didn’t get much practice at that kind of thing.

  And Livy would be there too, of course, saying things like “This is Gibson Whittaker, the orphan farm-out who works for us.” It was, he told himself, the kind of thing Livy was sure to say.

  Chapter 9

  THE WEATHER WAS FINE that day, cold and nippy but with a hazy sun shining in a cloudless sky. A sky that sat over the snowy prairie like an enormous blue hat edged in white where it met the snowy horizon. Livy was wearing her warmest coat and the new fur-trimmed bonnet, and Gib was pretty bundled up too. And during that long ride Livy was extra nice, at least most of the time.

  The only time Livy wasn’t exactly friendly was when Gib brought up the subject of Morrison. He started out by saying he’d heard that Mr. Morrison had bought a lot of land from her father, all right “But nobody said anything about stealing. What did you mean when you said he stole your mother’s land?”

  “What did I mean?” Livy’s voice cracked like a whip. “I mean he stole it. When you get something away from someone who doesn’t want to sell it, it’s stealing, isn’t it?”

  She put her mittened hands up over her face and held them there for quite a while before she jerked them away and said, “Besides, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  So Gib changed the subject by talking about horses, which usually got Livy’s attention. He began by asking Livy if she’d ever noticed how he tapped Comet with the whip once in a while. Comet but not Caesar.

  “Yes,” Livy said, “I noticed. My father did that too. I thought he just hated Comet the most. Why do you do it?”

  Gib chuckled. “ ’Cause Comet needs it. A body might expect a matched pair like those two to behave about the same. But they’re just about as different as can be. For instance, look how Caesar is always right up there into the collar, working hard. But old Comet just lays back and loafs unless you tap him with the whip now and then, just enough to keep his mind on what he’s supposed to be doing. But Caesar’s no angel. He’s the one who’ll try to take a nip out of you while you’re cleaning his stall. And Comet never bites, or kicks either. You can crawl right under Comet’s belly without him batting an eye.”

  Livy seemed really interested. She asked a lot of questions and wanted to be the one who tapped Comet the next time he needed it. After that, even when the topic of conversation changed from horses to school, it went on being pretty friendly.

  Gib liked the weather and driving the team, and what he really liked was when Livy went out of her way to tell him some things he needed to know about going to Longford School. About Miss Elders, the upper grades’ teacher, and how strict she was about whispering in class. And which boys were the meanest.

  “Rodney is the worst,” Livy said. “Or else maybe Alvin. But they’re both mean as sin, and they just love getting other people into trouble.” She looked over at Gib for a moment before she went on, “They have tricks they like to play on people. On new people especially. Things like putting toads in your lunch bucket. Alvin put a toad in my lunch bucket once and when I opened it I screamed my head off. Rodney told me who did it, so I told on Alvin and he had to write a long essay about toads, and another one about being a good citizen. Only I got scolded too, for screaming in the classroom and for tattling. Miss Elders doesn’t hold with tattling.”

  “Thanks for the warning.” Gib chuckled. “Don’t care much for toads myself. ’Specially if they’re sitting on my sandwich.”

  Livy giggled. “Did the boys at the Lovell House school do mean things like that to each other?” she asked.

  “At school?” Gib shook his head. “Don’t recollect much meanness going on during classes....” Then he remembered how Elmer Lewis had written a dirty word on his spelling paper and gotten him sent to the Repentance Room, and he told Livy.

  “The Repentance Room?” Livy asked eagerly. “That sounds terrible. Tell about the Repentance Room.”

  So Gib started in on how, when you got into trouble at Lovell House, you got locked up in a little closet way up on the top floor. And how you had to miss dinner and stay there till after bedtime. Livy listened big-eyed and slack-jawed, and when he finished she asked a lot of questions and giggled some when Gib tried to make the whole thing sound sort of ridiculous, which it really was when you thought about it from a distance. From a good big distance.

  Livy looked pretty horrified when he told how cold it had been, and how he’d worried that they might forget about coming to let him out. So he kind of made a joke out of how he’d wondered if they’d be sorry when they found his poor old skeleton. “Yep, nothing but a poor old skeleton messing up the Repentance Room floor.” Gib chuckled, and after a moment Livy laughed too.

  The ride went real fast. Gib was surprised how soon they topped the last little rise and there, up ahead, was the schoolhouse. When Gib reined the team to a stop in front of Longford School, Livy was pointing and bouncing around on the buggy seat. “See, there it is,” she was saying. “Longford Elementary School.” Just ahead of them a short lane led to a two-story stone building with two big chimneys and two smaller ones, and lots of tall, narrow windows.

  Gib chuckled. “Yep, I see it. Didn’t know you were that crazy about schooling.”

  “Oh, I’m not,” she said. “I just like seeing everybody again. All my friends and ... Without even finishing what she was saying, she suddenly jumped out of the buggy and took off down the lane at a run, waving her hand at two girls who were going up the front steps of
the schoolhouse. Gib watched for a moment before he clucked the team into a trot and headed for Appleton’s Livery Stable.

  There was, Hy had told him, a leaky old stable out behind the schoolhouse. According to Hy, a few students from nearby farms left their critters in the stable’s dirty old tie stalls during the school day. Mostly plow horses and a donkey or two, Hy said. But Missus Julia didn’t want her horses kept there. So Gib was to go on in to Appleton’s Livery Stable, where they’d always been kept when Mr. Thornton drove to the bank every day. “But don’t you wait to unhitch them,” Hy said. “Just turn them over to old Ernie and hike back to the school. Won’t take you more’n fifteen minutes or so.”

  So Gib found Ernie, the old man who worked as a stable boy, turned the team over to him, and started hiking. Stepped right along too, for more reasons than one. He didn’t want to be late on his first day, for one thing, and for another, keeping his mind on hurrying kept him from thinking about what might be going to happen once he got where he was going. And also from thinking about how Livy, after being so friendly in the buggy, had dashed off to see some school friends without even saying good-bye. And without waiting to answer some important questions that Gib hadn’t gotten around to asking. Questions like where he should go once he was inside the building.

  He was almost to the schoolhouse steps when his hurrying feet wavered and, for a second, came to a dead stop. From up on the buggy’s seat the schoolhouse hadn’t brought anything in particular to mind. But now, staring straight up at the stone building, something dark and painful swarmed up into his memory, reminding him of his first glimpse of another tall gray building. His first glimpse of Lovell House Home for Orphaned and Abandoned Boys, way back when he was only six years old.

  Gib gasped and swallowed hard. He was mighty close to heading back down the stairs when the door opened and a young woman looked out. She smiled at Gib and asked, “New boy?” and when he nodded she went on asking questions. “Miss Elders’s class?” After another nod from Gib she said, “Thought so. Living at the Rocking M, aren’t you?” Gib nodded. “First door on your left. And hurry along.” Pointing to the bell rope that hung down from the tower, she added, “I’ll give you ten seconds.”

  Gib hurried. When he reached the first door on his left he stopped, took a deep breath, stepped inside, and found himself in a roomful of activity. Boys and girls were coming out of the cloakroom, hurrying up the aisle, and taking their seats. But then, only a few seconds later, at the first loud clang of the bell, there was a sudden silence. The whole class, about twenty fifth- and sixth-graders, settled into their seats. And as the bell went on clanging, they turned, one by one, to look at Gib where he was still standing just inside the door. Feeling the embarrassing red warmth spreading up his face, Gib looked down at his boots.

  Somebody giggled. There was another giggle, and then a louder, mean-sounding laugh that ended as suddenly as it began, drowned out by a loud rapping noise. Gib went on looking at his boots for a while longer before he managed to look up out of the tops of his eyes.

  A tall, slender woman wearing a dark skirt and white blouse and a no-nonsense frown was standing in front of the room. As Gib watched she rapped on her desk again with a long wooden pointer. The silence deepened.

  “Boys and girls,” Miss Elders said, “I’d like you to meet your new fellow student ... She looked down at a paper on her desk. “Your fellow student Gibson Whittaker. Please tell Gibson hello, and then get out your readers. And Gibson, take the empty desk there on your left.”

  The hellos were loud and soft, and they came with friendly smiles, blank stares, and mean, sarcastic grins. Among the blank-eyed faces there was, near the front of the room, a familiar one, surrounded by yellow-brown curls. Familiar but not particularly welcoming. Among her Longford friends Livy, it seemed, had other fish to fry.

  Trying to return the greetings, Gib stretched his lips in a counterfeit grin before he folded his long legs under a smallish desk and began one of the longest days he’d ever spent.

  Chapter 10

  THAT NIGHT, BACK IN his own room, Gib closed the door firmly and got into bed. But the door to his mind, the door that let in unwelcome recollections, was harder to close.

  Classroom recollections kept sneaking in. The constant curious stares that were there whether the new boy was trying to answer a question about the U.S. Constitution or just working quietly on long division. Some of the stares might have been just curiosity, but there were others that were downright mean. And the note that somebody put in his lunch pail was even meaner. A note that said, “Hey, orfan. Hope you like to fight.” There was no signature.

  Nothing much more than stares and notes went on in the classroom. Miss Elders saw to that. But once in a while some other things happened. A push or two and a tripping attempt when someone, probably Rodney, or else Alvin, stuck out a foot as Gib was walking down the aisle.

  Gib had met Rodney and Alvin, all right, and they were as bad as Livy said they were. Rodney was big and heavyset with a sharp-boned face that might have been good-looking if it weren’t for his squinty, snake-eyed stare. Looked like a city slicker, Gib thought. A city slicker dressed up in flashy store-bought clothes and patent leather shoes. His pal, Alvin, was taller and not as well turned out. Alvin was wearing a cowhide vest and big, scuffed-up boots. With his woolly reddish hair and ornery stare, he put Gib in mind of a bad-natured Hereford bull. Gib could see, right off, that the two of them weren’t going to be a bit friendly, but during the noon recess a couple of other people were. One of the friendly ones was a boy named Graham, who stopped by Gib’s desk to tell him about lunch recess.

  The noon hour, Graham told Gib, was the best part of the day. In the fall and spring you could play games in the school yard, and even when you had to stay in because of bad weather you were allowed to do what Miss Elders called “civilized socializing.” Which simply meant visiting with friends. As long as it was very quiet socializing, Graham said.

  That sounded fine to Gib. So after he’d finished the lunch Mrs. Perry had packed for him, he looked around for someone to socialize with. But Livy was real busy talking to a bunch of her girlfriends and Graham was back at his desk reading a book. Gib didn’t feel like horning in on any of the other socializers, so he put on his mackinaw and went outside. But that didn’t last long either. The snow-covered playground was deserted, not to mention freezing cold.

  Back in the classroom Miss Elders was at her desk correcting some papers, and everything was pretty quiet and orderly. Gib put away his mackinaw and sat down at his desk with a history book. He read a little, but mostly he watched and listened. He didn’t hear much, though, because people kept their voices down. The bunch of girls standing around Livy’s desk even managed to giggle quietly. The noontime recess was more than half over when Bertie Jameson came over to Gib’s desk and started talking about Josephine.

  Bertie was a scrawny little fifth-grader who talked so softly that Gib only got about half of what he was saying, but after a while he made out that Josephine was probably Bertie’s riding horse.

  “Come out to the stable with me and I’ll let you see her,” Bertie whispered. Gib had been wanting to see the schoolhouse stable, so he got into his mackinaw again and out they went. The stable was maybe a hundred yards from the schoolhouse and it looked and smelled pretty bad, all right; just a row of muddy tie stalls under a saggy roof. Two of the stalls were occupied by donkeys and in the third was an enormous dirty brown critter that turned out to be Josephine.

  Gib’s guess was about right. Josephine was what you might call a riding horse if you weren’t too particular. A huge old swaybacked mare, she was rawboned and Roman-nosed, with a skimpy mane and tail and such outsized hooves that you had to figure there’d been a Clydesdale somewhere in her family tree. But Bertie insisted that she was fast as a Thoroughbred. “And she’s a real good foul-weather horse too,” he whispered eagerly. “Me and Josephine got here every day during the blizzard last week. You should
ought to see how she plows right through them three-foot drifts like they warn’t there ’tall.”

  Gib could believe it. He thought of saying that hooves that big must be almost as good as snowshoes. But he didn’t because he was afraid Bertie might think he was making fun of Josephine.

  Bertie was still fussing over his big mare, moving her to another stall that wasn’t quite as muddy, when Gib decided to head back to the schoolroom. And that was when the trouble began. Rodney and his buddy, Alvin, were waiting just outside the stable, and when Gib came around the corner they stepped in front of him, blocking his path. Rodney’s mouth was stretched into an angry-dog grin. “Howdy there, orphan,” he snarled. “You get my note?”

  Gib’s heart did an extra beat or two but he tried to ignore it. He knew what Rodney and Alvin were up to. One thing you learned early on in a Home for Boys was what a bully looked like. And also how to spoil their fun by not letting them see how scared you were.

  Taking a deep breath, Gib grinned back. Not a “dare you” grin but a slow, easy one. “Note?” he asked. “You wrote that note in my lunch pail?”

  “Yeah,” Rodney said. “I wrote it.”

  Gib nodded slowly before he reached into his pocket and pulled out the wrinkled scrap of paper. A scrap on which someone had written “Hey, orfan. Hope you like to fight.” Unfolding it carefully, he studied it for a moment before he said, “You wrote this here note that says, ‘Howdy Gibson Whittaker. Welcome to Longford School’?”

  Rodney’s angry glare changed to confusion. He was reaching out to take the note out of Gib’s hand when the sound of running feet made him whirl around. All three of them turned just in time to see Bertie Jameson dash out from the other end of the stable and head for the schoolhouse steps at a dead run. Bertie was obviously a fast runner, skimming over the icy ground like a water bug on a pond. It occurred to Gib that scrawny little boys like Bertie who had classmates like Rodney and Alvin probably learned to be fast runners in order to stay alive.