Gib and the Gray Ghost (8 page)

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.

T
HE 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.

December was well under way when Hy came down ailing, with a high fever and a whole new batch of aches and pains. Pains that, according to Hy, were “probably just the epizootic and nothin’ to worry about.” But Miss Hooper said, “Nonsense. Epizootic is a horse ailment. You may think like a horse, Hyram Carter, but you’re not quite there yet. What you’ve got is a bad case of influenza. Human influenza. And if you don’t believe me you can just ask Doc Whelan when he gets here.” Right at first Hy said he didn’t need a doctor and he wasn’t going to see one, but when Miss Hooper told him the doctor was coming to see Julia anyway Hy said as how he might look in for a minute but not any longer. But by the time Doc Whelan arrived Hy was too sick to do much arguing. So he was put to bed in his upstairs room and the doctor said he wasn’t to leave it for at least two full weeks.

Gib was mighty worried about Hy, but what with one thing and another, like getting all the barnyard work done alone in time to get himself and Livy to school, he didn’t have much chance to brood about it. All he could do was start the chores at five o’clock in the morning instead of five-thirty and work harder and faster than he ever had in his whole life. Belle, the spotted milk cow, helped out a little by going dry all of a sudden, so there was only grumpy old Bessie to milk. And to Gib’s surprise Livy helped out a little too by taking care of the chickens and gathering what few eggs the wintering hens were still producing.

A new storm that had been threatening for several days was still hanging fire on Gib’s birthday, the sixteenth of December. There was a birthday party for Gib, just like the one the year before when he turned eleven. Like before, there were presents, a stylish pinstripe suit with long pants from Missus Julia and Miss Hooper, a hand-knit wool scarf from Livy, and a big chocolate birthday cake from Mrs. Perry. As soon as the eating was finished, Gib got sent to his room to try on his new suit and when he came back, everyone made a big fuss over how grand he looked.

Gib had a real good time even though worrying about Hy kind of put a damper on his spirits. Worrying and remembering his last birthday party when Hy had sat right there at the table telling his long-winded stories about the old days when the Rocking M had been one of the biggest ranches in the state. Gib surely did wish he could hear those stories again, right at that very moment.

When Gib’s party was over Miss Hooper told him to go with Mrs. Perry when she took some chicken broth up to Hy’s room. “Just to cheer him up a little and let him see how handsome you look in your new outfit,” Miss Hooper said. So Gib went up to show off his new suit.

Hy was looking bad, pale and shriveled as a worn-out shirt, but he hadn’t changed much in some ways. His gravelly voice sounded pretty much the same when he fussed at Mrs. Perry about pestering him with mustard plasters and other such nonsense. And when she pointed out Gib’s new suit he managed to grin at Gib and tease him a little about looking like a dude.

“I’d never sign up a gol-durned city slicker like that to ride for any outfit of mine,” he said. But then his honking laugh turned into a bad fit of coughing. And all Gib could do was to keep on laughing so as not to let Hy see how worried he was.

In bed that night Gib stayed awake a long time worrying about Hy and then, when his mind began to drift toward sleep, about why he still couldn’t get anyone to tell him ... “To tell me—what?” he asked his sleep-drowned mind. And the only answer was, “What I’m doing here.” And the rest of that night, every time he woke up, the question was still right there.