Gib and the Gray Ghost (6 page)

Miss Hooper was no help either. Not because she wasn’t talking but because it wasn’t easy to find her alone. In fact, looking to find a moment alone with Miss Hooper put Gib in mind of how hard it had been to find a minute to talk to Miss Mooney way back when he’d been a junior orphan and there were thirty other juniors trying to horn in on the conversation. There’d been one chance on Monday morning when Gib reported to the library a little early. Miss Hooper was already at the table but there was no sign of Livy. Gib hurriedly pulled out his chair, sat down—and then waited. Miss Hooper was reading a book by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Gib waited impatiently, glancing now and then at the door, where Livy would be appearing at any moment. But the reading went on and on. After a minute or two Gib cleared his throat and began, “Miss Hooper. Miss Hooper, could I ask a question?”

“Yes, what is it?” Miss Hooper was holding her place with one finger and looking impatient.

“Miss Hooper, Livy says that Mr. Morrison wants to buy the rest of the Rocking M land.” He thought about adding “And Black Silk too,” but he only said, “And the house. Livy says he wants to buy this house too.”

Miss Hooper was the only person Gib knew who could look amused and angry at the same time. “And so what’s the question, boy?” she asked. “That astounding bit of information sounded more like a statement than a question. Are you asking me if it’s true? Is that it?”

Gib nodded. “Yes, ma’am. I guess that’s what I’m asking, all right.”

But at that very moment the library door slammed open with a loud bang and Livy rushed in, chattering excitedly. “Guess what, Gib?” she said. “Guess what I just found out?”

Livy looked from Gib to Miss Hooper and back again. “Well, isn’t anyone going to guess?”

This time Miss Hooper’s frown looked fairly serious. “No, Miss Thornton,” she said. “No one is going to do any guessing, or anything at all, until you go back out and enter this classroom in a more appropriate manner.”

For a moment Livy stared back, chin jutting, before she tossed her curls and went out the door. In the moment that passed before she came back in, Miss Hooper said, “I don’t know the answer to your question, Gib. I have no idea what that foolish man wants to do.”

By then Livy was back again. Pacing slowly to the table, she curtsied to Miss Hooper with exaggerated dignity before she pulled out her chair, sat, and patted down her skirt. Then she turned to Gib and said, “Never mind guessing. I’ll tell you. Tomorrow you’re going to drive me to Longford School.” She paused, glanced at Miss Hooper, and added, “Tomorrow I’m going to start going to a real school again, and Gib’s going to go too. I just heard my mother talking to Hy about it.”

Miss Hooper’s lesson that day was about Ralph Waldo Emerson and the transcendentalists, but afterward Gib didn’t remember a whole lot about it. All the rest of the morning his mind kept slipping off transcendentalism and back onto what Livy had said about going to Longford School.

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.

T
HE 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.