Gib and the Gray Ghost by Zilpha Keatley Snyder Read Free Book Online

his shinbone. Came near to scaring the wits out of him.
    He’d jumped sideways like a spooked horse, thinking rattlesnake, or maybe a bear trap, before he saw that what had hit him was nothing but a bootjack. A bootjack with Livy Thornton on the other end of it.
    Crouched down under the coatrack, halfway invisible among all the long winter overcoats, Livy was still holding the weapon she’d used to get Gib’s attention. But now she put it down and, with her finger to her lips, she grabbed Gib’s sleeve with her other hand and tugged him down the hall toward the parlor.
    “In there,” she mouthed as they passed the library. “Morrison and Hoop and my mother. I’ve been listening to them.”
    “Listening?” Gib asked, once they were safely inside the parlor.
    Livy nodded. “Yes, listening. The door wasn’t quite shut and I could hear almost everything they said.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yes.” Livy sounded pleased with herself. “Especially everything he said. He was the loudest.”
    “So, what did he say?”
    She shrugged. “Oh, well, what he actually talked about was the weather, and if there was anything he could do to help, and things like that. But that wasn’t really what he was thinking about. I could tell. I mean—” Livy grabbed the front of Gib’s shirt and shook it. “I mean I could tell what he was really thinking about was how he could get the rest of our land. And the house too. I think he really wants our house.”
    Gib was still wondering how Livy could tell what a person was thinking when he was talking about something else, when she suddenly pushed him back behind the door. “Shhh,” she said. “Here he comes. Stay there.”
    She disappeared then, leaving Gib behind the open door feeling like a sneak thief, or at least like somebody who was about to be in a whole lot of trouble.
    Someone was coming, all right. The library door creaked and voices and footsteps came down the hall. A man’s voice and then Miss Hooper’s. When the voices and footsteps passed without stopping, Gib relaxed enough to see the funny side of the fix he was in. He smiled ruefully. He’d sure enough let Livy set him up again. This time she’d stuck him behind the door in his stocking feet, listening in on things he probably had no business hearing, while she herself disappeared to God knew where.
    He could hear Miss Hooper’s voice clearly now. “Thanks again for stopping by, and for your kind offer,” she was saying. “But as you see, we’re doing quite well, at least for the present. On days like this Hy can get into town with the team, and we do have the telephone, at least when it chooses to work.”
    “Yes indeed,” the man’s voice answered. “But if there’s anything I can do, just let me know. Still no telephone line out our way, of course, but you could send the boy over and I’d be glad to—”
    “The boy? Oh, you’re referring to Gibson?”
    Gib felt himself quiver like a stretched rope. “Gibson, is it?” Morrison said. “Ah, yes. The Whittaker orphan.” A pause. “Was it Gibson who was exercising the black mare this morning?”
    “Yes. Yes, it was,” Miss Hooper said, and then, “He’s probably still out in the barn. Shall I ask him to bring your horse around?”
    For a frozen second Gib wondered what he’d do if Miss Hooper went looking for him, leaving Mr. Morrison right there outside the parlor door. But then, to his great relief, he heard the man say, “Never mind calling the boy. I’ll go out to the barn myself. Give me another chance to admire that good-looking Kentucky-bred of Mrs. Thornton’s.” They were almost out of earshot by then but when the front door opened and the cold air rushed in it carried Morrison’s voice as he was saying how beautiful something was. “Beautiful, absolutely beautiful,” his exact words were, and then something more. Something that made Gib catch his breath in dismay. A question about a sale. About whether Mrs. Thornton would