Georgie nodded. “Weather like this, he sleds hay out to the stock. Four bales this time, he said. You got to harness the mule and load the hay on the sled and drive way out there and—and ... Georgie’s voice died away as he stared down at his bandaged hands. “It was so cold the hay hooks stuck to my skin. When I got back my hands was froze. Missus put water on them—it hurt real bad—and then she told Mister he had to take me to the doctor. He said naw, he wouldn’t neither. Said I was no good, and he didn’t care if I froze solid—but then, when Missus started out to get the buggy, he said, ‘All right, goddammit, I’ll do it.’
“‘You get on back in the house,’ he told Missus. ‘I’ll take him.’ But then, in the buggy, he told me he’d seen hands like mine afore and they’d have to cut them off. Both of them. So, soon as I got the chance, I ran.”
Georgie’s tears mingled with a yellowish liquid that oozed from the dark, swollen patches on his cheeks and nose. He held out his bandaged hands as if he were praying. “Don’t tell on me,” he begged. “Please don’t tell I’m here.”
Gib’s own eyes were hot and wet and he couldn’t find his voice, but Bobby was saying, “But you can’t stay here, Georgie. Someone always comes out to see if we did a good job. Buster comes mostly—but sometimes it’s Mr. Harding. He’ll see you.”
“Yeah.” Gib’s voice had suddenly returned. He looked around. “Come on, Bobby. We’ll make him a bed in the tack room while we finish up here and then—”
“And then what? And then what are you planning to do, Whittaker?” The voice was hard and sharp and only too familiar. It belonged to Mr. Harding.
Chapter 12
OF COURSE IT WAS Mr. Harding. Gib should have known it would be. It explained why the job of cleaning the barn and stable had been given to a crew of only two boys. Harding knew they wouldn’t be able to finish in time. It usually took a three-man crew even in good weather, and during a blizzard it should have been four or five. So the job would be skimped on and that meant that Harding would have another excuse to beat the tar out of somebody. That had been his plan, sure enough, and it might have worked that way except for Georgie Olson’s showing up and changing things some. The next thing Mr. Harding said was that they were all going to Miss Offenbacher’s office, immediately. He brushed Bobby aside and opened the stall door, but when he stood over Georgie and said, “All right, kid, on your feet. Get up immediately,” nothing much happened. Nothing except that Georgie tried for a long, painful minute, heaving himself up on his elbows and then collapsing again with a pitiful groan.
Mr. Harding didn’t offer to carry him. Right at first he made as if he was thinking about it, but when he bent close and got a good look at Georgie’s swollen, oozing face and maybe got a whiff of him, he changed his mind. “Get on each side of him and put his arms over your shoulders,” he told Gib and Bobby. So they did, but hanging from his arms must have hurt Georgie a lot because by the time they got to the back hallway his head had lolled over sideways and his feet were mostly just dragging. Unconscious, Gib thought, or maybe even dead.
On the way to the office Mr. Harding went ahead, opening doors and waiting for Gib and Bobby to struggle through with the dead weight of Georgie dangling between them. The back hall was empty, but as they made their way into the entryway Gib thought he heard gasps and whispers that seemed to be coming from above, and then the rapidly fading sound of retreating footsteps on the grand stairway.
The office was empty. “Put him there in the armchair,” Mr. Harding said as he left the room. “I’ll get Miss Offenbacher.”
As Gib and Bobby lowered Georgie into the chair his head flopped back helplessly and he slumped sideways over one of the arms.
“Here, you hold him up,” Gib whispered. “I’m going—”
“Going?” Bobby wailed. “Where? Don’t leave me alone, Gib. Don’t!”
At the door Gib looked back long enough to say, “Got to. Got to find Miss Mooney.”
“Don’t go. Come back,” Bobby howled. “What can she do?”
Gib didn’t know what Miss Mooney could do. Miss Offenbacher was headmistress, so she had the last say about everything, and both she and Mr. Harding were a whole lot bigger and stronger than Miss Mooney. But Gib felt sure that if Georgie had any chance at all, it would be because of Miss Mooney. Running full speed across the entry hall and up the grand staircase, he bolted down the second floor hallway, past the entrance to Junior Hall, to the door of Miss Mooney’s private room. But no one answered his first knock or even, a moment later, his frantic pounding. He was turning away in despair when he saw her coming down the hall.
“Gib, Gib,” she said, putting out both hands to keep him from crashing into her in his headlong rush. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Georgie, Miss Mooney,” Gib gasped. “Georgie Olson. He’s back. He’s in the office. I think he’s dying.”
Without waiting to ask any more questions, Miss Mooney turned and ran toward the stairs, Gib trailing behind her. At the office door she paused only long enough to knock once before she went right on in. Mr. Harding and Miss Offenbacher were standing near the desk, and Bobby, eyes bulging and chin quivering, was still propping up the sagging Georgie.
They all spoke at once.
Mr. Harding’s furious “Where have you been, Whittaker? Who gave you permission to ... overlapped Miss Offenbacher’s stern “You may leave, Miss Mooney. Mr. Harding and I can handle ...
Miss Mooney was speaking, too, but her soft, pleading “But—But Gibson says Georgie is very ill” wasn’t nearly enough. Not enough to make them listen to her, Gib thought, and not nearly enough to make them let her help Georgie. But then, just as Gib was despairing all over again, Bobby came to the rescue by letting out a dismal wail, turning loose of Georgie, and collapsing in a useless lump of misery. Georgie, no longer supported, sank down sideways and slithered limply onto the floor. A moment later Miss Mooney was kneeling beside him, lifting his eyelids, feeling the pulse in his neck, and then beginning to unwrap his bandaged hands. And telling everyone what to do in a strong, forceful, entirely unfamiliar voice.
“Mr. Harding. Bring me a blanket and a hot-water bottle. Miss Offenbacher, please telephone the doctor immediately. And tell him to hurry.”
To Gib’s amazement, both Mr. Harding and Miss Offenbacher did what they were told. A few minutes later, as the three grown-ups clustered around Georgie’s blanket-wrapped body, Gib grabbed the back of Bobby’s coat, lifted him to his feet, and quietly dragged him backward through the door and out into the hall. Once outside the office Bobby immediately came to life and almost beat Gib up the two flights to Senior Hall.
Back in the dormitory Gib and Bobby quickly found themselves surrounded. Four or five boys at first, and then more as the seniors straggled back in from their chore assignments. It seemed that someone had seen them on their way to the office, and rumors and guesses had spread like wildfire.
Gib, and Bobby too, tried to answer their questions, but except for the stark, terrible fact that Georgie had run away and had been hiding, nearly frozen to death, in Juno’s stall, the only news Gib and Bobby could give them was just what Georgie had told them before he passed out. That the man who had adopted him had punished him by sending him out without his mittens, and then had told Georgie the doctor was going to cut off his frozen hands.
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.”
Chapter 13
THAT 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 me
an, 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.”
Gib Rides Home Page 6
