Gib and the Gray Ghost

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  Grabbing hold of Gib’s coat, Rodney yelled, “Catch him, Al.” Bowlegged old Alvin gave it a try. But Bertie had a good head start, and after a short dash and two or three stumbles on the icy snow, Alvin gave up and came panting back.

  “Never mind.” Rodney was still holding on to the front of Gib’s mackinaw. “We got this one.”

  Alvin looked uneasy. “But Bertie’s going to tell,” he said. “He’s going to go in there and tell Miss Elders.”

  “Naw, he won’t,” Rodney said. “Bertie knows better than to tell on me.” Turning back to Gib, Rodney went on, “You hear me, orphan. Nobody tells on Rodney Martin if they know what’s good for them. You hear me?” He jerked Gib toward him with one hand and swung his other fist, hard and fast, right at Gib’s face.

  But Gib saw it coming. Ducking his head, he butted it into Rodney’s chest, grabbed him with both arms, and shoved hard. Gib had done his share of shoveling and hoeing and had the strong arm muscles to prove it. So when he grabbed and held on, Rodney had a hard time shaking him loose. A split second later the two of them were rolling around on the icy ground.

  The rolling lasted for quite a while without much damage being done. Rodney kept trying to use his fists, but with Gib plastered to his chest there wasn’t much room for a backswing. The few punches he managed to land didn’t hurt Gib all that much. But then Alvin got in on the action.

  He’d been prancing around Gib and Rodney for quite a while, yelling things like “Hit him, Rod. Hit the dirty farm-out.” And Rodney had gone on trying to, without much success. But then Alvin stopped yelling and started kicking.

  The first kick hit Gib in the ribs. It hurt real bad and, for a second or two, pretty near knocked the breath clean out of him. He was still holding on, struggling to breathe and closing his eyes against the pain, when a second kick hit his left leg up near the thigh. That one hurt too.

  But then, just as Gib was beginning to feel pretty desperate, things started changing. The first change was that Alvin stopped kicking and yelling. Gib was aware of a sudden silence and then a loud metallic noise, a sharp clanging thud, and then another one. And now it was Rodney who was yelling. Right in Gib’s ear Rodney was yelling, “Ow. Hey. Stop that.”

  Another heavy thud, and Rodney yelled again. Suddenly releasing his grip on Gib, he rolled quickly away, and as Gib struggled to his feet he found himself face to face with, of all people, Livy Thornton. A coatless, red-faced Livy whose unbonneted head was a mass of windblown curls, and in whose hands was a badly dented lunch bucket. As Gib watched in astonishment Livy walked toward Rodney, swinging the lunch pail by its handle. She missed that time as Rodney, on his feet now, jumped back out of range, but it was easy to tell that she hadn’t missed every time. Easy to guess when you saw the dents in her lunch bucket, as well as a bloody cut on Rodney’s forehead.

  For a moment all four of them stood in a panting, gasping circle, with Rodney holding his forehead and Gib his ribs, while Livy went on clutching her lunch pail. Alvin was in the circle too, jittering around in his big clumsy boots and jumping back out of range when Livy looked in his direction.

  “Come on, Gib, let’s go in.” Livy started back toward the schoolhouse and Gib limped after her. Rodney and Alvin stayed right where they were.

  Gib followed as well as he could but because he was limping a little on his left leg and holding his aching ribs, it wasn’t easy to keep up. Halfway back to the school building, Livy slowed down and watched him for a moment. “You all right?” she asked.

  “Been better. But I’d have been a lot worse if you hadn’t showed up.” He grinned. “You and that two-barreled lunch bucket.”

  Livy tossed her head and went on, walking more slowly now. When Gib caught up he asked, “How’d you know what was going on? Did Bertie tell you?”

  “No,” she said, “he didn’t have to. I saw the two of you go out. I knew where you were going. Bertie’s always taking people to meet Josephine. I was on my way to the cloakroom to put my pail away when he came running back in looking like ... She stopped and made a terrified face, big-eyed and openmouthed. “Bertie didn’t say anything to anybody,” she said. “But I knew.”

  They grinned at each other and then laughed out loud. But back in the classroom Livy went straight over to her giggling girlfriends.

  Chapter 11

  LYING IN BED THAT night, Gib did a lot of careful tossing and turning while he waited for his mind to shut off and let him go to sleep. Careful tossing because his leg, and especially his ribs, were still remembering Alvin’s big old boots. But even though he was feeling tired and sore, nothing, not the ticking clock that kept reminding him how late it was, not even his aches and pains, could keep his mind from shuffling through the things that had happened that day, like a gambler shuffling through a deck of cards.

  Some of the memories were pretty painful, but some others weren’t, except when they made him laugh. Laughing was out because right at the moment a real hard belly laugh didn’t do his ribs any good at all. But even aching ribs couldn’t keep him from chuckling a little over what had happened during elocution class.

  The bell for the end of lunch hour was still ringing when Miss Elders started writing on the blackboard. “Elocution Class,” she wrote. “Recitations from the Romantic Poets.” And after that in large print, “LAST CHANCE!!!”

  “Your very last chance,” she told the class. Then she paused and added, “Except for Olivia and Gibson, of course. Olivia,” she went on, “and you too, Gibson. See me after class for your assignment and we’ll expect to hear from you next week.”

  Then Miss Elders went on to explain that everyone had been given a poem to memorize and recite before the class. Your final grade, she explained to Gib and Livy, would be based not only on how thoroughly you had memorized your material, but also on pronunciation and projection, and most of all on stage presence and dramatic presentation. The four P’s, Miss Elders called them—Pronunciation, Projection, stage Presence, and dramatic Presentation. She went on to explain why the four P’s were so important when you had any sort of public speaking to do. “As most of you will, at some point in your life,” the teacher told the class. Gib’s mind wandered for a moment while he considered what kind of public speaking an orphan farm-out might be expected to do. But he pricked up his ears in time to listen to Miss Elders tell about how well everyone had done. Nearly everyone, at least.

  Actually, Miss Elders said, the recitations had been due last week and nearly everyone had been well prepared. Except for a few people who’d needed more time to complete their memorization, or because they’d forgotten to bring a stage prop they needed for their presentation.

  She looked then at a paper on her desk before she said, “Matilda. I trust you’ve not forgotten your skylark again?”

  Matilda Reed, a big blond girl with a twitchy smile, jumped to her feet. “No, Miss Elders. Got it right here.” Reaching into her desk, she brought out what looked to Gib like a stuffed crow. Then she scurried to the front of the room and began to recite. Matilda’s poem was by a poet named Shelley, and it was a long one. Every time Matilda mentioned the word skylark she held the stuffed bird way over her head and gazed up at it.

  Gib thought she seemed a bit nervous and jittery, so maybe her grade for stage presence might not be too good, but you had to admit her presentation was mighty dramatic. All the girls and most of the boys clapped like crazy when Matilda finished. Everyone seemed to think that having a stuffed bird as a stage prop was a clever idea, and Gib did too, but he couldn’t help wondering if a skylark really did look that much like a crow.

  The next recital was by a fifth-grade boy named Jack who waved an American flag while he recited a poem about patriotism by Sir Walter Scott. It was a short poem but Jack’s presentation was very dramatic and he got a lot of applause too. The next name Miss Elders called was Rodney Martin.

  Gib had been keeping an eye on Rodney during the first two recitations. Slumped down low in his seat, Rodney had
been dabbing at his forehead with what looked to be a red-and-white bandanna. But when Miss Elders called his name he quickly stuffed the bandanna into his pocket and got to his feet. Holding his head at a strange angle to keep the right side of his face turned away from the teacher, he walked slowly to the front of the room.

  Miss Elders looked at her list and said, “I believe Rodney has chosen to favor us with a recital of ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade.’ Is that right, Rodney?” With his head still turned sideways, Rodney nodded stiffly and began, “ ‘The Charge of the light Brigade’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.” Rodney did have a good loud speaking voice, and he seemed to have the start of his poem pretty well memorized, but he’d hardly gotten to the part about “Cannon to right of them,/Cannon to left of them,” when Miss Elders stopped him.

  “Rodney,” she said sharply, “I’m sorry to interrupt you, but ... Hurrying across the room, she took Rodney’s chin in her hand and turned his face so that she, and the whole class, could see that a small stream of blood was oozing out of a cut on his forehead and trickling down his right cheek. He was starting to wipe the blood away when Miss Elders caught his arm. “You’re really bleeding,” she said. “I thought at first that you’d made yourself up to look like a wounded brigadier, but that’s real blood, isn’t it? What happened to you, Rodney?”

  Rodney didn’t answer right away. Taking the blood-spotted handkerchief out of his pocket, he dabbed at his forehead. “Nothing. Nothing happened,” he finally muttered. “I’m all right.”

  “What happened, Rodney?” Miss Elders said again in a tone of voice that made the whole class sit up straighter and taller. “You haven’t been fighting again, have you? I’m sure you remember what Mr. Shipley said about schoolyard fights, and what the punishment would be for repeat offenders. Repeat offenders like yourself, Mr. Martin.”

  Still holding the handkerchief to his head, Rodney nodded, staring down at the floor and looking so miserable that Gib could almost have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t been so worried about what Rodney was going to say about who else had been in the fight.

  When Rodney finally looked up his eyes glanced off Livy for only a split second before he mumbled something about walking into a wall.

  “A wall. What wall?” Miss Elders asked, and when Rodney only shook his head, she sighed and said, “Well, it seems obvious that this matter will need some looking into. I’ll see you after school, Rodney, in Mr. Shipley’s office.”

  Then Rodney went back to his seat, and Miss Elders sent one of the sixth-grade girls to the office to get the first-aid kit. So Rodney’s forehead got bandaged, and for the rest of the day he stayed away from Gib, and even farther away from Livy. And there were no more notes either. There were messages, though. Messages that Gib got loud and clear every time he looked in Rodney’s direction and caught him looking back. “This isn’t over,” Rodney’s look said. “I’ll get you yet, Gib Whittaker.”

  On the way home in the buggy Gib asked Livy what would happen to Rodney if they found out he’d been fighting, but she only shrugged. “I don’t know, and I don’t care. But it’s bound to be something dreadful because he’s always fighting. Like maybe they’ll make his parents come to school and talk to the principal. And if that happens his pa will probably beat the tar out of him.” She laughed. “But he’ll never tell who hit him,” she said. “Not if they beat him to death.” Her giggle had an ornery sound to it. “Rodney Martin would rather die than to have people laughing at him for letting a girl get the best of him.”

  Gib saw what she meant. “But what if Alvin tells?” he asked.

  “He’d never dare,” Livy said. “Rodney would kill him.”

  Gib was pretty sure that was the truth too. Alvin was bigger and taller but Rodney was meaner, and Alvin knew it. And Alvin knew, everybody knew, actually, that life wouldn’t be easy for a farm-out nobody that Rodney Martin was looking to beat up on.

  Lying there in his bedroom that night, even though it was his own private room, Gib had to accept the fact that he still was one, and that surely was the reason why Rodney was after him. Still a farm-out orphan, and likely to go right on being one for the rest of his life.

  Chapter 12

  THE WEATHER HELD COLD but clear for several days, and Gib and Livy went on driving the team to Longford. Livy said she was glad to be going to a real school again, and she was planning to go right on attending Longford School all the rest of the year.

  “Aren’t you glad to be going to a real school?” she asked Gib one morning as they were heading down the lane and out onto the Longford road. Gib only shrugged. When Livy pushed him for an answer he said, “Well, far as I can see there are some good things about going to school in Longford, and some bad things.”

  “Bad? What bad things?” Livy asked. “Don’t you like learning all those interesting subjects that Miss Elders teaches about? Like modern writers and elocution?”

  So Gib said, “Don’t have anything against learning about modern writers, or elocution either. But I wouldn’t mind missing out on learning any more about Rodney Martin, for instance. And the other thing is ...

  He stopped then, not wanting to sound like a whiner. But when Livy told him to go on he said going to school and the time it took to get there were using up a whole lot of daylight. “After the milking and feeding and stall cleaning, there’s not much time for Black Silk,” he said. “I haven’t given her a real good grooming lately and the last time I saddled her up was last Saturday.”

  Livy only nodded and shrugged, but Gib went on thinking about that last time he’d saddled up Silky and put her through her paces. And how hard it always was to get her to settle down and tend to business when she’d gone so long between workouts.

  But even though Gib was sorry to have so little time with Silky, he had to admit he was learning a lot at Longford School. Learning important things about world history and literature and elocution. In fact, he seemed to be making good progress in just about everything except, maybe, “civilized socializing.”

  Gib didn’t mention it to Livy but he’d thought about it quite a bit. Thought and wondered about why socializing, civilized or otherwise, was just about the only subject he wasn’t doing very well in. He knew it wasn’t that he hadn’t tried, but the only people who seemed interested in socializing with an orphan farm-out were Bertie and sometimes Graham. The rest of the students in Miss Elders’s fifth and sixth grade found something else to do in a hurry whenever Gib tried to talk to them.

  That day, the rest of the way into Longford, Gib went on thinking about socializing. It was being an orphan farm-out that was the problem, he was pretty sure of that. Back at Lovell House he’d always known he could grin at someone and like as not they’d return the favor. Nobody had called it socializing but the fact was he’d done it just fine at Lovell House, where everyone was more or less in the same boat. But at Longford people just looked away. Well, nearly everyone. Not Bertie and Graham and, in a very different way, not Rodney Martin.

  The rumor was, according to Livy, that Rodney’s pa had pretty near skinned him alive and promised him he’d get it twice as bad if he got in any more fights at school. So Rodney wasn’t ready to do any more punching or kicking. Not yet anyway, but he wasn’t looking away either. Every time he caught Gib’s eye he looked long and hard and showed his teeth in that angry-dog grin he had. Gib knew what that grin meant, all right. What it meant was, “Just you wait, Gib Whittaker.” So Gib waited, not having much choice, and while he waited he spent some time wondering what might be going to happen the next time Rodney went on the warpath.

  Except for the time it took up, Gib didn’t mind driving Caesar and Comet to school every day. He liked driving a team, and he also kind of enjoyed all the talking he and Livy got done during the ride. A lot of the talk was about the team because they were taking turns driving now, and Livy usually had a lot of questions about handling the reins and using them to talk to your team. Gib liked talking to Livy about horses because it
was one subject she pretty much let him handle on his own, without a lot of interruptions and arguments.

  Another subject that came up a lot was how long it would be before Rodney thought of a way to get even with them both. Livy talked, almost every day, about what Rodney might be planning. “Sooner or later he’s bound to go after me for whacking him with my lunch pail,” Livy told Gib, “and after you for ... She paused then, looking at Gib out of the corners of her eyes and then looking away and getting real busy with the reins.

  Gib grinned. “Yeah?” he prompted her. “Get even with me for what? What did I ever do to old Rodney?”

  Livy turned to give Gib a long stare. Finally she shrugged and said, “I don’t know. For being you, I guess.”

  Gib grinned. “Can’t see how he can blame me for that. Didn’t have much say in the matter.” His grin faded. “And I didn’t exactly choose to be an orphan either.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?” Livy asked.

  “Just about everything, far as I can see.” Gib chuckled, making out that what he was going to say was some kind of joke. “Guess old Rodney just can’t stand being around people who don’t belong anywhere.”

  Livy went on staring but with a different expression on her face. Finally she shook her head and said, “I don’t think that’s it. You’ve got it all wrong. I think it’s more like he’s jealous of you.”

  “What?” Gib couldn’t believe he’d heard right. “What in tarnation—” he started, but at that very second a big old jackrabbit changed the subject. Jumping out onto the road right in front of the team, it spooked Caesar and Comet so badly they tried to make a run for it—in opposite directions. The buggy went off the road to the east and then to the west, and by the time things got back to normal the conversation was back on buggy driving and stayed there all the rest of the way to school. And the next time Gib had a chance to ask Livy what she’d meant she only shrugged and said she didn’t remember saying anything about Rodney being jealous.