Free Gib and the Gray Ghost by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Page B

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,