"Time for Andrew" by Mary Downing Hahn, Chapters 1–5

Whenever I dropped a ball, fumbled, or struck out, Martin was there, sneering and jeering.

Shifting to first gear, Dad steered around ruts and potholes, missing some, hitting others.

While he muttered about the car’s suspension system, Mom and I bounced around like Mexican jumping beans.

Paint peeled, loose shutters banged in the wind, slates from the roof littered the overgrown lawn.

Flinging the front door open, she came bounding down the steps.

“Oh, Ward, he’s more cantankerous than ever.”

“I hope he realizes how lucky he is to have you. Not many daughters would come back home to take care of an old codger like him.’’

Raindrops as cold and hard as marbles pelted my head and back, soaking my shirt in seconds.

“That’s why we nicknamed you Drew,” Mom added. “We wanted to call you Andrew, but we shortened it to mollify your great-grandfather.”

“We never saw him after your christening. He came back here in a snit. Never even sent you a birthday card.”

While the others reminisced about Great-grandfather’s legendary temper, I studied the A. Catching Aunt Blythe’s eye, I asked her if she knew which Andrew had carved it.

Tears shone in her eyes as she pulled away from me, but she didn’t relent.

Great-grandfather made an inarticulate noise and shook his head.

As soon as the door closed behind us, he said, “What on earth prompted you to bother Grandfather?”

I tried to keep my voice from shaking but it quavered anyway. Great-grandfather had frightened me half to death.

Contrite, I leaned against her side. “I’m sorry I upset him.”

On the walls, ivy rustled as if the house were telling itself secrets.

A tall, carved headboard leaned ominously over the bed I was supposed to sleep in.

Bureau, rocking chair, desk, bookcase—everything in the room had been owned by other people.

Bushes tapped on the windows, an icy draft eddied around my ankles, the house continued to murmur and groan.

By the time my aunt returned, her spaghetti sauce had congealed in a cold puddle.

Almost finished, the quilt spread across her lap and fell to the floor in a heap of bright calico.

While I spoke, I looked around the room, finding faded photographs on the mantel, a pair of china dolls sharing a child-sized rocking chair, shelves of old books.

Don’t listen to me, Drew. I’m just being fanciful. I’ve never seen a ghost in this house.

While I hesitated, a draft fluttered the curtains at the window on the landing.

They moved as silently as ghosts, I thought, pale and filmy, almost transparent.

Even in the daytime the attic was spooky. I didn’t like its musty smell or the sound of the wind and rain on the roof.

A glimpse of my reflection in a huge gilt mirror startled me.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear she’s still alive and just as feisty as ever.”

Shuffling the pictures, Aunt Blythe found another one of Hannah sitting in a porch swing beside a younger boy. A man and woman stood behind them. All four looked solemn.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Great-grandfather didn’t like them either.”
“What a perceptive boy you are.”

While Aunt Blythe was talking, I noticed a photograph lying on the floor. I bent to pick it up and found I was staring at a faded likeness of my own face—my eyes, my nose, my mouth, my hair, even my glum expression. Only the boy’s clothes were different.

In the silence, rain pattered against the windows and dripped through holes in the roof.

The wind crept in through cracks and stirred the folds of a long white dress hanging from the rafters.

The ink was faded, the handwriting old-fashioned and full of curlicues, but the message was clear:
WARNING
These marbles belong to

ANDREW JOSEPH TYLER

If you take them you will be sorry.
7 June 1910

Without looking at my aunt, I picked at a fleck of peeling paint on the bannister.

The door was opening, pushing the rocking chair ahead of it.
On the threshold, a boy appeared.

I don’t know who your aunt is or where she got such a fantastical notion. I’m not dead, as you can plainly see.

Ghosts were transparent, insubstantial, they didn’t cast shadows, they didn’t have beating hearts.

My thoughts were muddled too, but I knew one thing for sure.