Time for Andrew (6 page)

Mrs. Tyler followed him, but Hannah lingered. "I'll bring a tray up later," she promised. "I hope you're hungry. Mama fixed roast chicken especially for you." Giving me a quick lass, she left the room.

Hours later, I eased out of bed. The hall clock was chiming midnight. In the woods behind the house, frogs croaked and crickets chirped. Otherwise, there was no sound. Wrapped in blankets of silence, the house slept.

I tiptoed slowly up the attic steps. At the top, I peered into the darkness, hoping to see Andrew. There was no sign of him. I was alone.

"Andrew?" I whispered, "Andrew?"

No one answered. I waited a few seconds and called again, a little louder this time. An owl hooted. Mice rustled under the eaves. Buster barked. But Andrew didn't come.

Afraid of waking the Tylers, I crept back down the stairs. From their round frame, the three horses watched me crawl into bed. Pulling the quilt over my head, I cried myself to sleep.

Several days later, Dr. Fulton dropped by for another visit. He took my pulse and my temperature. He examined
my throat, my ears, my nose. He listened solemnly to my chest.

"Fresh air is what you need, my boy," he said.

I shook my head, but my protests did no good. In seconds, Mrs. Tyler had my nightshirt off. Sitting me up, she dressed me as if I were a floppy rag doll, too weak to do anything for myself.

Once my shoes were laced and tied, Mrs. Tyler put her hands on my shoulders to steady me. "Are you strong enough to walk?"

I gripped the bannister and started slowly down the steps. Mrs. Tyler hovered by my side, but Dr. Fulton assured her I was fit as a fiddle.

"Don't mollycoddle him, Mildred. You'll spoil him."

In the hall, I glimpsed a boy in the mirror. He wore a baggy white shirt and knee-length pants. For a moment, I wasn't sure whose reflection it was—mine or Andrew's.

Dr. Fulton opened the screen door and ushered me to the swing. "Take a seat right there, Andrew."

Without thinking, I said, "Everything looks so nice. You painted the porch and cut the grass. The ivy's gone, somebody trimmed the wisteria. But the highway, the cars—"

Mrs. Tyler and Dr. Fulton were staring at me, their faces puzzled. I shut my eyes. Just as I feared, I'd given myself away.

The swing creaked as Mrs. Tyler sank down beside me. Pulling me close, she whispered, "It's all right, dear. Things look different when you've been away from them even for a short time."

Dr. Fulton cleared his throat. "I don't know what you're up to, Andrew, but I won't have you teasing your mother. You've caused her enough worry as it is."

"I wasn't teasing." Scared to look at him, I stared at the stiff, shiny shoes on my feet. Andrew's, of course. I'd seen them in his photograph.

Dr. Fulton regarded me solemnly. "Rest," he said, "and get plenty of fresh air. Eat wholesome food, drink milk, take your tonic. And behave yourself."

After the doctor left, Mrs. Tyler went into the house. In a few moments, Hannah came outside carrying a tray.

"Milk and cookies for the convalescent," she said, "and the latest adventure of Frank Merriwell."

Hannah put the tray on a table and sat down in the swing beside me. Opening
Tip Top Weekly,
she began to read aloud. I'd already heard three stories about Frank. In each one, he was challenged to perform a courageous deed, but I always fell asleep before he accomplished it. As a hero, he was just a little too good to be interesting.

"
There was excitement at Yale,
" Hannah began. "
The sensation of the winter season had been the result of the glove fight between Bart Hodge and Buck Badger. No one had seemed to dream that Hodge could whip Badger, for the Kansan had shown that he was a great fighter, and Bart had been defeated by him in a bare fistfight the previous fall.
"

As Hannah warmed to the story, her voice rose and grew more animated. "7
owe it all to Merriwell,'
" she read, giving the speaker an appropriate southern accent. "
'He taught me, gentlemen, that a man can be a man without always carrying a chip on his shoulder. He taught me that a man can preserve his dignity without compelling every weaker man to bow to him in humbleness. But I know that he can fight when pushed to it'
"

Looking up from the page, Hannah sighed. "Isn't that
grand, Andrew? What a gentleman Frank is, what a lofty mind he has. Someday I hope to marry someone just like him. Trouble is, most boys around here just don't amount to shucks."

She was interrupted by a shout. Theo was running up the hill toward the house. With him was another boy, a head taller, long-legged as a greyhound.

"Oh, Jove," Hannah muttered. "Here comes Edward, the very antithesis of Frank Merriwell."

I opened my mouth to ask who Edward was, but Buster stopped me just in time. Racing ahead of Theo and Edward, the big black dog bounded eagerly up the steps. When he was close enough to smell me, he froze. Slowly, his hackles rose. Curling his lip to expose big, sharp teeth, he growled.

Sure he was going to bite me, I scooted to a corner of the swing and crouched there, taking care to keep my feet out of his reach. "Get him away from me," I yelled, "get him away!"

"Buster!" Hannah swatted him with
Tip Top Weekly.
"Bad dog!"

Theo grabbed Buster's collar. "What's wrong?" he cried. "I brought him to see you, Andrew, I thought you'd be glad."

"He doesn't look very glad." Edward leaned against the bannister grinning as if Buster's behavior amused him. "Neither does the dog for that matter."

Ignoring Edward Theo murmured in Buster's ear, petted him, coaxed him to be quiet, but the dog continued to growl and then to bark. Unlike everybody else, he wasn't fooled by appearances. He knew an imposter when he smelled one.

Exasperated, Hannah told Theo to take Buster away. "I
don't know what ails that stupid dog. You'd think he never saw Andrew before."

When Theo was out of sight, Hannah scowled at Edward. "To what do we owe the honor of your company?"

Her voice was cold enough to freeze Niagara Falls, but Edward simply shrugged. "Since when is it a crime to visit the sick?"

Turning to me, he said, "From the way people talked, I thought you'd be dead and buried by now. I should've known it was too good to be true."

Although Edward made the remark sound like a joke, it was obvious he didn't like me any more than my old enemy Martin did. It was disappointing to realize you weren't safe from bullies no matter where—or when—you were.

I glanced at Hannah, but she was twisting a tendril of wisteria around one finger, giving it all her attention. Behind her, the purple flowers buzzed with bees.

Edward leaned toward me, waiting for me to say something. Instead, I inched closer to Hannah. I was onstage, the curtain was up, the audience was watching, but I was speechless. Just as I'd feared, I'd have to bluff my way through the entire performance.

Theo came back then and broke the silence. Wedging himself into the swing between his sister and me, he said, "I hope Buster doesn't have distemper."

"Maybe he's caught whatever Andrew has." Edward stared at me from under lowered eyelids. "You seem a little strange too. Not quite yourself yet."

Hannah put her arm around me. "Andrew's fine. The fever left him a little weak, that's all."

"Weak in the head," Edward added. "Like poor old George Foster."

"If you're going to insult my brother, you can take yourself off that railing and out of my sight."

Edward ignored Hannah. "Maybe we should give Andrew a little test, just to make sure the fever didn't damage his brain."

"Don't be silly." Hannah tapped the rolled magazine on her knee as if she wanted to whack Edward even harder than she'd whacked Buster.

Looking at me, Edward went on with his game. "We'll start with easy questions. What year is it?"

Hannah protested, but I answered anyway. "1910."

Edward pressed on. "Who's the president?"

"For heaven's sake," Hannah said, "stop tormenting him, Edward."

1910—who was president in 1910?
Dates, names, and faces tumbled through my head. Ulysses'S. Grant? Woodrow Wilson? Chester Arthur? Arthur Chester? Teddy Roosevelt? I'd memorized the presidents for my fifth-grade teacher, but I couldn't remember them now.

"It's William Howard Taft," Theo shouted. "Everybody knows that."

"Andrew didn't," Edward said.

"Of course he did." Hannah patted my hand. "He's tired, that's all."

Refusing to give up, Edward folded his arms across his chest and grinned at me. "Let's see if you can answer this one. How many states are there?"

Without thinking, I said, "Fifty."

"Didn't I tell you he was touched in the head?" Edward laughed. "Even Geûrgie Foster knows there's only forty-six states."

Hannah hurled the magazine at him. "That's enough,
Edward! You know how sick Andrew's been. Lord, he was like to die."

Backing away, Edward laughed. "Don't get so riled up, Hannah. I was just teasing."

To prove it, he leapt off the railing and pulled me out of the swing. Slinging one arm around my shoulders, he squeezed so hard I was sure I heard my bones crack. "You can take a joke, can't you, Andrew?"

Before I could do more than gasp, Edward released me. Mrs. Tyler was standing in the doorway, frowning at him.

"Good afternoon, Aunt Mildred," Edward said with oily politeness. "I just stopped in to pay my respects to Andrew. I'd best be going now."

We watched him lope across the grass and vanish into the trees at the bottom of the hill.

"Good riddance," Mrs. Tyler muttered to no one in particular. To me, she said, "Come inside and rest. From the looks of you, Edward wore you out."

To Theo's amazement, I was allowed to lie down on the parlor sofa. "Today is special," Mrs. Tyler said. "Andrew's out of bed and on the mend. There's no sense in making him climb all the way upstairs just to have a nap."

Herding Theo ahead of her and beckoning to Hannah, Mrs. Tyler left me alone to rest. The shutters were closed, the room was dim. Things I'd once seen in the attic peered at me from the shadows—a stuffed pheasant under a clear dome, a pair of landscape paintings, a small organ, a glass-fronted bookcase.

The hall clock ticked steadily, insects hummed and buzzed, a mourning dove cooed sadly. Drowsy sounds, soothing, quiet, soft, but I couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Edward's face. He'd called Mrs. Tyler
Aunt Mildred. That meant he was Andrew's cousin—but who was he to me?

The heat and the monotonous ticking of the clock dulled my mind, made it hard to remember what Aunt Blythe had told me. My thoughts strayed. I found myself searching for faces in the flowered wallpaper—a young girl in a rose, an old man in a bunch of leaves. Like optical illusions, they shifted and changed, appeared and disappeared. The young girl became an old woman, the old man became a boy.

Closing my eyes, I sank into a deep sleep.

That evening, I had my first dinner with the rest of the family. I was trying to do everything properly, which meant I had to watch the others and copy what they did. Bow my head for grace, use the right utensil for the right thing, pass food promptly, keep my left hand in my lap, chew with my mouth shut.

While we were eating, Mrs. Tyler told her husband about Edward's visit.

Mr. Tyler frowned. "No doubt my esteemed brother sent him to make certain the house is still standing. I hope you sent the rascal packing." He paused to take a sip of water. No one said a word. We watched him swallow and waited for him to continue. "If Ned wants to check on the property, he can come here himself and face me. I won't have that son of his pestering us."

Mystified by the anger in his voice, I glanced at Mrs. Tyler. She was leaning toward him as if she wanted to touch his hand, but the table was a good deal longer than her arm. She tapped the white cloth instead and gave him an imploring look. "Henry, please don't be so uncharitable. Think of the example you're setting."

Mr. Tyler gazed at the ceiling for a moment and sighed loudly. Without looking at any of us, he said, "Quite right, Mildred. I stand corrected." Raising his fork, he smiled at his wife. "What brought my dear brother's son to our house today?"

Ignoring the irony, Mrs. Tyler said, "He came to see Andrew, but it seemed to me he was teasing him, wearing him out with silly questions and such. When he saw me, he took off fast enough."

Mr. Tyler glanced at me. "I am all too aware that you can take up for yourself, Andrew, but if Edward troubles you, please do not solve it in the usual fashion. You know how I feel about brawling in the streets. I simply will not tolerate it."

"You needn't worry, Papa," Hannah said sweetly. "Andrew bore Edward's insults without even raising a fist. He was a perfect gentleman."

Both Mr. and Mrs. Tyler looked pleased, but Theo gave me a sharp lack under the table. "If you ask me," he whispered, "you let that bully get away with murder."

Mr. Tyler frowned at us. "Eat your peas, Theodore. And drink your milk. You too, Andrew. Good food builds strong bodies and strong minds."

Turning back to his wife, Mr. Tyler began talking about his day in court. For the rest of the meal he described his successful prosecution of a man accused of embezzling large sums of money from a bank.

No one else spoke. We ate quietly and listened to Mr. Tyler.

After dinner, Theo, Hannah, and I sat on the porch steps talking. In the darkness, I felt safe and happy. It was nice
to be part of a family, to have a sister and a brother, even if they weren't mine for keeps.

Tipping my head back, I gazed at the sky. "Just look at all those stars," I said. "They're so thick and bright—millions and billions and trillions of them. In Chicago, you can't even see the Milky Way anymore. The air—"

Theo interrupted me. "What do you know about Chicago?"

Hannah's laughter saved me. "Andrew's joshing you, Theo. He's never been out of Missouri in his whole entire life."

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. Like a dope, I'd almost given myself away. Scared to say another word, I sat between Hannah and Theo, a stranger again, an imposter, a boy without a family. Not Andrew, but Drew.