Gib Rides Home (8 page)

But no one could answer the other questions. Questions like, what happened after Gib and Bobby left the office? Was Georgie alive or dead? Would they cut off his hands? Would he have to go back to live with Mr. Bean? And, over and over again, was it always that bad when you got adopted?

“Yeah,” Thomas, a nine-year-old who had just come up from the juniors, said. “Remember when Georgie got adopted and we all thought he was so lucky?”

“Adopted,” Jacob snorted. “Georgie wasn’t adopted. He was farmed out.”

Gib tried to shush him. After all, not only had they promised Buster they wouldn’t tell who’d told them, they had also promised they wouldn’t talk about it. “Shut up, Jacob.” Gib poked him in the ribs. “Remember we said we wouldn’t talk about it.”

But Jacob ignored him, and before long the entire room was buzzing with talk about being farmed out and what it might be like for other senior boys who’d left in the last few months. Some of the younger boys just wouldn’t believe that other adoptions, even ones that were obviously just farming outs, could be as bad as all that.

“We’d know about it, wouldn’t we?” Abner asked. “Somebody would write and tell us.”

“Who’d tell us?” Jacob said. “Old Offenbacher won’t let us go to the library anymore, and they read our mail before we get to see it. Leastways that one letter I got from Herbie’d been read. And they probably throw it away if it says something they don’t want us to know. And we only get to see the newspaper once in a while. Like when there’s nothing in it that we’re not supposed to see.” Everyone was still staring at Jacob when Gib suddenly jumped to his feet, grabbed his coat off its peg, and started down the aisle.

“Where you going, Gib?” Jacob yelled.

At the door Gib turned back long enough to say, “To the barn. I got to go back to the barn. We forgot to feed Juno.”

“Hey, come back,” Jacob yelled. “You can’t do that. It’s suppertime.”

“Yeah, I know.” Gib was walking out the door backward. “I’ll bet that’s what Juno’s thinking.”

Jacob threw up his hands. “Okay. Go ahead. Get your dumb backside beaten to death. See if I care.”

T
HAT FRIDAY NIGHT, THE
night they found Georgie in Juno’s stall, seemed to go on and on forever. The blizzard finally blew itself out and a full moon shone down, making the whole outdoors into a coldly glittering world of snow and ice. Standing at a window in Senior Hall, his bare feet aching with the cold, Gib stared out into a cruel white world. And later, curled into a ball in his cot, he watched the brilliant moonlight make sliding patterns on the hardwood floors. Watched wide-eyed to keep from sleeping or even blinking, because the minute his eyes closed he was tormented by images that seemed to be printed on the insides of his eyelids.

Toward morning he slept a little, but every now and then he found himself wide awake, staring at the creeping patterns of moonlight and asking himself painful questions.

Questions about what had happened the day before, and what might happen next. About Georgie mostly, and all the rest of the Lovell House boys who had been adopted or farmed out. And also about the ones who might be next to go.

Of course, there was no way to get any answers. No answers, and no hope of getting any for a long time. Not for hours, anyway, and maybe even days or weeks. Or quite likely not ever.

“We probably never will find out what they did with Georgie,” Gib told Jacob as they were on their way down to breakfast the next morning. “It will probably be another secret that everybody guesses about but nobody knows the truth of.”

Jacob agreed with him. “Yeah,” he said. “Like that story about somebody dying in the Repentance Room a long time ago. Nobody knows if that’s true.”

Not long afterward, though, it began to look like there might be some news about Georgie after all. Breakfast was almost over when Miss Offenbacher came into the dining room and said she had an announcement to make. But the announcement only turned out to be that everyone above six years of age was to remain in the dining hall for a special assembly right after breakfast. The assembly, she said, would be about the rumors that were being spread around Lovell House that morning.

The assembly was about rumors all right, and not much else. Except for a brief mention that Georgie Olson was in the Harristown public hospital and was doing as well as could be expected, the whole assembly was about how destructive and evil the spreading of rumors could be, and how, as of that very day, the repetition of rumors would be severely punished. She didn’t exactly come right out and say so, but what it came down to was that talking about Georgie Olson and what had happened to him was strictly forbidden.

Miss Mooney was at the assembly, too, along with all of the older juniors, but during Miss Offenbacher’s talk she kept her eyes on her folded hands. Gib watched her a lot, hoping she would look up so he could catch her eye and make his face say how desperate he was to talk to her. But she didn’t look up and the moment the assembly was over she slipped away. And from then on she went right on being slippery and silent, only shaking her head and hurrying off when anyone tried to ask questions.

In the days that followed there still were no answers about Georgie. No official answers, no Miss Mooney answers, and not even any discussions about Georgie, except in very small groups with a few trusted friends.

And the only other surprising thing that happened was that Gib never did get punished for the things he did that day, or for the things he didn’t get done, either. No beating or Repentance Room time or even a scolding, though Juno hadn’t been fed until very late, her stall never did get its Friday cleaning, and, on top of everything else, Gib had been late to supper.

Jacob said he couldn’t figure that one out at all. “I mean, why did the old Paddleman let such a good excuse get away from him? Golly, Gib, he’s whupped you for a lot less than that a whole lot of times.”

“Yeah, I know,” Gib said. “I can’t figure it out. Unless ...

“Unless what?”

“I don’t know. Unless it’s that they just didn’t want to do anything that would remind anyone about Georgie. So if I got beat on for trying to help Georgie, that was just going to remind everyone.” He grinned and shrugged. “Or maybe Mr. Paddle just plain old gave up on saving me from hell. Maybe he just decided to let the old devil have me.”

Jacob snorted. “Yeah, that must be it. You’re a hopeless case, Whittaker, and that’s for sure.”

But unfortunately Mr. Paddle’s loss of interest in Gib didn’t last. In February he got whipped for losing his homework and a few weeks later for being late to supper again.

So by early spring Gibson Whittaker’s life at Lovell House had fallen back into the same old pattern. Not any better and not much worse, except at night. In bed at night, waiting to go to sleep, or waking up in the deep, still quiet of early morning, his mind continued to skirt around the adopted family hope dream, but it wasn’t the same anymore. Instead of the comfortingly boring story about other kids and animals and a mother who read books at bedtime, it had become a treacherous nightmare. A horror story that, starting out in the old way would, as daydream turned into dream, suddenly include a sour-faced, bearded man who stalked through a dimly lit room staring into one face and then another.

Or at other times the scene would fade into a dark, fear-haunted mist out of which a cringing, whimpering shadow would slowly emerge. A pitiful shadow whose bandaged arms reached out to Gib as if begging for help. And then Gib would be wide awake, looking up into the darkness and wishing desperately for morning to come.

Winter melted into spring, and spring had begun to green toward summer, when one morning at breakfast Buster came into the hall with a report notice for Gib. The notice said that Gibson Whittaker was to report to the headmistress’s office at one o’clock.

“The office?” Bobby asked him. “What did you do now, Gib? And how come the office, I wonder, instead of Harding’s torture chamber?”

“I don’t know,” Gib said. “I guess it’ll be the Repentance Room, but I don’t know why. What do you suppose I did this time?”

“I’ll bet it’s ’cause you laughed at the wrong time again,” Jacob said. “When Offenbacher was reading the chore assignments and she almost said Bacob and Jobby. You know, when she said, ‘Bacob and Job—er—Jacob and Bobby will be in the laundry.’”

Gib shook his head. “I didn’t even smile,” he said. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t.”

“You must have,” Jacob insisted. “Anyway, I think you’re mighty lucky getting sent to the Repentance Room instead of to the laundry with Bobby and me.” He grinned. “I mean, since ghosts and stuff like that don’t bother you none, you can just repent a little and then curl up and have a nice long nap.”

“Yeah,” Bobby agreed. “While me and Jacob are breaking our backs and wearing the skin off our knuckles.”

Gib grinned, too. “I’ll be thinking about you and those old scrubbing boards while I’m having a good long nap up there in the Repentance Room.”

He’d made that up to tease Jacob and Bobby, but on the way to the office he did try to tell himself that the Repentance Room really wouldn’t be too bad on such a warm day. It was at least a slightly comforting thought, but Bobby and Jacob and the weather and everything else faded from his mind a moment later when he walked into Miss Offenbacher’s office.

For a horrible moment Gib thought the man who was sitting in front of Miss Offenbacher’s desk was the same one who had taken Georgie Olson. Like Mr. Bean, the man had gray hair and a lean, gray-bearded face. But after the shock of that first glance began to wear off, Gib could see that it wasn’t the same man at all. This man’s beard was shorter and more neatly trimmed, and his eyes were wider and not so deep-set.

When Gib began to come out of his terrified paralysis Miss Offenbacher was saying, “Here he is, Mr. Thornton. I take it this is the boy you had in mind?”

“Yes, yes,” the man said, getting to his feet and motioning for Gib to approach. “I believe so.” Putting his hand on Gib’s shoulder, he asked, “What is your name, boy? And how old are you?”

“G-Gib,” Gib stammered. “Gibson Whittaker, sir. Ten, sir. Eleven in December.”

The man nodded slowly and then asked, “Where were you born?”

Gib was shaking his head when Miss Offenbacher interrupted. “We’ve made it a policy not to give full orphans any information of that sort. We’ve found that in some cases it only leads to attempts to—”

“I see,” the man interrupted. “That’s quite all right. I’m satisfied that this is the boy I’m looking for.”

Releasing Gib’s shoulder, he turned away, sat down at the desk, and as Gib’s mind reeled with fear and dread, and then the faintest echo of old hopes, the gray-bearded man signed the papers that transferred to his care and guidance one Gibson Whittaker, ten-year-old ward of the state and resident of the Lovell House Home for Orphaned and Abandoned Boys.

T
HE BUGGY WAS LARGE
and well made and the high-stepping bays were sleek and fat. From his perch on the driver’s seat next to the man called Mr. Thornton, Gib could look down across shiny bay backs and floating black tails and manes. Could almost lose himself in watching the beautiful team and forget about the stern-faced man who sat next to him saying nothing at all for mile after long, slow mile.

Nothing, that is, since Miss Offenbacher and Mr. Harding came out to see them off and to explain that no, there would be no luggage, since the orphanage policy was that any spare articles of clothing would be retained by the institution to be used by other residents. Looking surprised and a little bit annoyed, Mr. Thornton had only said, “I see,” and, slapping the reins on the bays’ backs, pulled away from Lovell House at a fast trot. It wasn’t until they had reached the end of Lovell Avenue and turned off onto Fairfax Street that he began to ask questions. Not many questions and not as if they were a part of a conversation, but only now and then with maybe a half mile of silence in between.

“Well then, young man,” he said suddenly as the bays trotted into the turn onto Willow Road and headed out across the prairie. Startled, Gib swallowed hard, found his voice, and said, “Yes sir?”

“You say you don’t recall where you were born. What memories
do
you have of your life before your—before you arrived at Lovell House?”

“Not very much, sir. I think I remember my mother a little. And the horses we had—a bay and a sorrel mare—and a little bit about the house where I lived. And a wagon. I kind of recollect a buckboard wagon.”

Mr. Thornton nodded. “Do you recall how old you were when your—when you came to Lovell House?”

“Six. I was six years old, sir. Miss Mooney, she’s one of the teachers, she told me so.”

Mr. Thornton nodded and went on driving in silence. Silence except for the creak and whir of the buggy and the steady
clop clop
of hooves. Those sounds, the beat of hooves and the grate of wheels on gravel, would, in the days and weeks to come, bring back over and over again the memory of that buggy ride. Would re-create in Gib’s mind that strange journey to a new life, with its dreamlike tangle of fear and dread shot through with brief moments of hopeful anticipation.

Gib kept trying to tell himself that in spite of everything, there really was some reason to hope. While Mr. Thornton didn’t seem particularly warm and friendly, he didn’t look to be cruel or violent, either. A quiet man, certainly, sitting there without a word for mile after long prairie mile, but perhaps a man who would answer a question or two if they were politely asked.

Lifting his eyes from the team, Gib stole a glance at the man seated beside him, a glance that told him that Mr. Thornton’s suit was much more clean and sharp-looking than the bulky overcoat Mr. Bean had worn, or even than the suit Mr. Harding wore every day in his classroom. And while he didn’t really believe that cleanliness was next to godliness, like Miss Mooney said, that snappy suit did seem encouraging. It was encouraging to think that a clean, neat, well-dressed man would not be at all like Mr. Bean, or even Mr. Harding. Gib was still checking out the gold cuff links and watch chain and the shiny leather of high-topped black shoes when Mr. Thornton turned and stared at him for a long time without smiling or saying a word.