Read an Excerpt

An Excerpt from Gib Rides Home

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 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 upthere 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.


From the Trade Paperback edition.