Gib and the Gray Ghost (21 page)

Authors: Zilpha Keatley Snyder

BOOK: Gib and the Gray Ghost

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Gib was embarrassed, but at the same time he couldn’t help liking most of the things that were being said. Things Missus Julia and Miss Hooper said, and particularly what Hy had to say about what it meant if horses “jist natural took to a feller. Horses know about them things,” Hy said, shaking his gnarly old finger in the air. “If them four-legged mind readers takes a real likin’ to a feller, like they do to Gib here, you can pretty much count on that feller bein’ an all-around square shooter.”

For a while that evening, sitting there at the kitchen table listening to Hy and eating Mrs. Perry’s famous peach pie, Gib had an unfamiliar feeling. An easy, warm feeling that seemed to be connected to being happy to be where he was right at that minute.
Where
he was and maybe
who
he was too.

For a while he just sat there feeling good, but when he started putting his mind to the reason for it, it all started slipping away. What his mind started saying was that here he finally was, really liking how things were going for him—just as everything was about to change.

It was right about then, as if someone had been reading his mind, that the talk around the table switched over to those very changes. It was Miss Hooper who started it, talking about a trip she was planning to take in June, to look for a good place for her and Missus Julia and Livy to live in California. That was all it took to finish off Gib’s good feeling. Right about then his thoughts started into a downward spiral like a bunch of dead leaves falling off a tree. Even the last few bites of peach pie weren’t enough to keep him from brooding on how the “family” would be leaving soon and he, Gib, would be left behind at the Rocking M. Gibson Whittaker would be staying on at the Rocking M Ranch, but not because he belonged to the ranching Merrill family, or even to the banking Thornton family, but only because ...

Belonging, Gib thought. That was what it all amounted to. It was belonging that made you who you were—and who you weren’t. His thoughts were still drifting downward when the phone rang and Livy ran to answer it. When she came back a few minutes later she was giggling.

“That was Alicia,” she said. “She said she was calling because Paul wants to talk to Gib.”

“To me?” Gib couldn’t believe it. Paul, Alicia’s little brother, was in one of the lower-grade classrooms at Longford School. Gib knew who he was but he’d never talked to him much. Not as far as he could remember. But when he said, “Hello,” into the mouthpiece, the high-pitched, wobbly voice that answered did sound a little bit familiar.

“Hello,” the little kid’s breathy, jittery voice said. “I got some of my friends here, and we just wanted to tell you thank you for saving us from that crazy horse today.”

Gib said he didn’t think he’d really saved anybody and that the horse wasn’t crazy, only scared real bad. While he was talking the little kid kept saying, “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” and not much else. But when Gib said, “Well, thanks for calling,” the little kid said, “Good-bye, and thank you, cowboy.” Then there were some thumping noises and another high-pitched voice said, “Thank you, cowboy.” And then another voice said the same thing. And finally one more.

Back in the kitchen Gib had to tell Livy and the rest of them what Paul wanted to talk about. They all laughed, and when Gib told about all the little kids saying, “Good-bye, cowboy,” Livy said, “That’s what everybody’s calling him now.” She giggled. “Not Gibson anymore, or ... She paused, and Gib figured she was thinking “not orphan, or farm-out” but she didn’t say it. “Not anything else,” she said. “Just cowboy.”

Later, while Gib was having seconds on the peach pie, he decided that maybe he knew who he was after all. And as for belonging ... Well, there were all kinds of belonging. The kind you were born with and couldn’t do anything about. And the kind you worked out for yourself.

He looked around the table and thought about how you would always belong to the people you’d learned to care about. And to yourself too. Belonging to yourself, and to who you were, was pretty important too.

And one more thing he knew about belonging was that he, Gib Whittaker, would always belong with horses.

A Biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Zilpha Keatley Snyder (b. 1927) is the three-time Newbery Honor–winning author of classic children’s novels such as
The Egypt Game
,
The Headless Cupid
, and
The Witches of Worm
. Her adventure and fantasy stories are beloved by many generations.

Snyder was born in Lemoore, California, in 1927. Her father, William Keatley, worked for Shell Oil, but as a would-be rancher he and his family always lived on a small farm. Snyder’s parents were both storytellers, and their tales often kept their children entertained during quiet evenings at home.

Snyder began reading and telling stories of her own at an early age. By the time she was four years old she was able to read novels and newspapers intended for adults. When she wasn’t reading, she was making up and embellishing stories. When she was eight, Snyder decided that she would be a writer—a profession in which embellishment and imagination were accepted and rewarded.

Snyder’s adolescent years were made more difficult by her studious country upbringing and by the fact that she had been advanced a grade when she started school. As other girls were going to dances and discovering boys, Snyder retreated into books. The stories transported her from her small room to a larger, remarkable universe.

At Whittier College, Zilpha Keatley Snyder met her future husband, Larry Snyder. After graduation, she began teaching upper-level elementary classes. Snyder taught for nine years, including three years as a master teacher for the University of California, Berkeley. The classroom experience gave Snyder a fresh appreciation of the interests and capabilities of preteens.

As she continued her teaching career, Snyder gained more free time. She began writing at night, after teaching during the day; her husband helped by typing out her manuscripts. After finishing her first novel, she sent it to a publisher. It was accepted on her first try. That book,
Season of Ponies
, was published in 1964.

In 1967, her fourth novel,
The Egypt Game
, won the Newbery Honor for excellence in children’s literature. Snyder went on to win that honor two more times, for her novels
The Headless Cupid
and
The Witches of Worm. The Headless Cupid
introduced the Stanley family, a clan she revisited three more times over her career.

Snyder’s
The Changeling
(1970), in which two young girls invent a fantasy world dominated by trees, became the inspiration for her 1974 fantasy series, the Green Sky Trilogy. Snyder completed that series by writing a computer game sequel called Below the Root. The game went on to earn cult classic status.

Over the almost fifty years of her career, Snyder has written about topics as diverse as time-traveling ghosts, serenading gargoyles, and adoption at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, she lives with her husband in Mill Valley, California. When not writing, Snyder enjoys reading and traveling.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

978-1-4532-7190-2

This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com