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except in the night lamp’s small circle, a far-reaching, overlapping jungle of shadows. But at least here in the hall the darkness was a bit warmer, and the smell, a musty mix of polished woodwork, dirty socks, and bedwetters’ mattresses, was comfortingly familiar. Gib moved forward eagerly. At cot number nine he was taking off his shoes when he heard an approaching rustle and then a quavering whisper. “Gib? That you? You all right?”
    “Hey, Jacob,” Gib whispered back. “You still awake?”
    A barefooted, nightshirted shadow moved against the deeper, more distant dark, and Jacob whispered indignantly, “’Course I am. I haven’t closed my eyes once.” As he moved cautiously forward, Jacob’s whisper became even more accusing. “Holy moley, Gib. What did they do to you? I been waiting and waiting. Must be almost midnight. Here.” He stuck out a hand, which, in the darkness, thumped into Gib’s chest.
    Gib staggered back, grinning. “Hey, I’m sorry. Take it easy,” he said. Then the fist came again and opened on the remains of a dried-out slice of bread. “Saved it for you,” Jacob was whispering, when Gib suddenly noticed that he and Jacob weren’t the only ones awake. All around them there were rustling sounds and tiny glints of light, the reflected shine of the night lamp in many wide-open eyes. And Gib and Jacob weren’t the only ones out of bed, either. By now there were five, maybe six, other boys moving toward bed number nine. Shuffling nervously on cold, bare feet, they surrounded Gib and shoved things into his hands. Bread, mostly, but also a partly eaten apple and even a small chunk of half-cooked potato.
    “Was it just terrible, Gib?” The shadow with the whimpery whisper was Bobby Whitestone, for sure. “Did she whip you real hard?”
    “Naw.” Trying to swallow a mouthful of dry bread and cold potato, Gib managed to say, “What makes you think I got whipped?”
    “Daniel said you do. When Daniel got sent to the Repentance Room he got whipped real hard.”
    “That right?” Gib was still mumbling—and chewing. “Maybe you only get whipped if you steal something.”
    There was a “yeah, maybe” and several nodding heads. According to Junior Hall gossip, Daniel, a senior who worked in the kitchen, had stolen some cheese from the staff’s pantry.
    “But what was it like, Gib?” Bobby’s voice was tense and urgent.
    So Gib told them how it was nothing but a big closet without any shelves, with an old rag rug on the floor. When he finished, there were shocked, disbelieving whispers.
    “But Daniel says it’s haunted,” someone hissed, “’cause somebody died there.”
    “Haunted?” Gib was asking when someone muttered, “Shhh. Listen. Somebody’s coming.”
    The hasty shuffle of feet and the creak of cots had barely died away when the door opened and Miss Mooney came in carrying a night lantern. For a moment she stood in the doorway before she moved softly down the aisle to stop at the foot of Gib’s bed. Gib made his breathing deep and steady, and after a moment Miss Mooney turned away and went back down the aisle to the hall door.
    A few minutes later most of the pretend deep breathing had settled into something steadier. But not Gib’s. Gib was still wide awake without knowing why—except part of it might have been that he wasn’t ready to risk having a Repentance Room nightmare.
    But there was more to it than that. The other part was about Jacob and the others who’d saved him something from their skimpy suppers and maybe a dozen more who’d stayed awake to see how he was. And then too, there was Elmer to think about.
    Suddenly Gib sat up and looked down the aisle past one, two, three deep-breathing, gray-blanketed cocoons, to the one that was Elmer Lewis. And then, right while Gib was staring, the Elmer cocoon stirred, flopped restlessly, and raised up on one elbow. For a part of a second they stared at each other, before Elmer flopped back down and jerked his