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blanket up over his head.
    Gib couldn’t help chuckling out loud. Loud enough for Elmer to hear, probably, but the chuckle wasn’t just to be ornery. Part of it was something about the way old Elmer ducked for cover like a cottontail who’d spotted a coyote. As he lay back down Gib was imagining sneaking over and doing a coyote howl right next to old Elmer’s ear, and he might have really done it if he hadn’t been so tired. The next thing he knew it was morning.

Chapter 8
    T HAT YEAR, THE YEAR Gib Whittaker turned nine years old, was a time of many changes, and not only for him. The first and biggest change was the new headmistress. There had been rumors for some time that Mrs. Hansen was very sick, so the formal announcement of her death—of her passing over to Glory, as Mr. Garrison put it—didn’t come as a complete surprise. The announcement was made by Mr. T. Everett Garrison during a special assembly on a Sunday afternoon in September. Mr. Garrison, who had introduced himself as the president of the Lovell House board, gave a long talk about what a wonderful headmistress Mrs. Hansen had been, and then he made another announcement—that the board had already chosen a new headmistress. Before the boys were dismissed to go back to their quarters, the president of the board asked everyone to pray for Mrs. Hansen’s soul, and also for Miss Offenbacher’s success in her role as the new headmistress of Lovell House.
    All during Mr. Garrison’s long speech Gib kept wondering how some grown-ups could talk for so long about something important without telling you anything you really needed to know. There were a lot of questions Gib was dying to ask, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t get a chance to. Mr. Garrison, a slope-shouldered gentleman with a busy, thin-lipped mouth, didn’t look like the type to answer questions. Finally Gib gave up on getting any answers and fell back on admiring the way Mr. Garrison never slowed down when he ran out of anything to say, and just carried on by using some of his fanciest phrases over and over again. Answers could wait, Gib decided, until they were back in Junior Hall with Miss Mooney.
    As it turned out, Gib wasn’t the only one who had some questions for Miss Mooney. But for once, even Miss Mooney wasn’t great about answering. At least not right at first, when, once they were back in the hall, some thirty boys clustered around her, frantically waving their hands to be called on.
    Instead of calling on anybody, the first thing Miss Mooney did was to tell them to bow their heads and ask God’s blessing on Mrs. Hansen’s soul. And after they’d all done that she went on asking for more prayers and blessings. Blessings on everybody at Lovell House and pretty much all over the world. So they all prayed together, repeating the words after Miss Mooney as hard and fast as they could, each one hurrying to get to the “amen” so he could be the first one to raise his hand again.
    Finally Miss Mooney sighed, wiped her eyes with her handkerchief, and started calling on the most desperately waving hands, and of course one of the first was Bobby Whitestone’s. Bobby’s question was a desperate one all right. What he wanted to know was what had killed Mrs. Hansen, and if it was catching, because if it was, he was sure to get it next. It wasn’t until Miss Mooney promised Bobby that Mrs. Hansen didn’t die of anything catching that he began to calm down a little.
    Next she called on one of the youngest juniors, a little five-year-old named Jonah, who’d been crying quietly all during the prayers. Jonah didn’t exactly have a question, though. What Jonah wanted was for Miss Mooney to promise that she wasn’t going to die, too.
    Miss Mooney seemed to have a hard time answering most of the questions. Particularly when she had to talk about Mrs. Hansen.
    Mrs. Hansen, she said, died mostly of old age, and she was going to be terribly, terribly missed by everyone at Lovell House.