"Truly?" Andrew smiled. "That's one more reason to keep winning—my rear end could do with a nice, long rest."
I watched him aim his aggie at the lag line. As usual, he went first. One after another, he shot seven miggles out of the ring. Click, click, clickety click, they rolled across the floor.
Andrew stood up to leave. "My game again."
"Wait." I grabbed his sleeve to stop him. "Don't go. I have to ask you something." Stumbling over words, I described my encounter with Edward. "I have to meet him at the railroad trestle next week. I'm supposed to do something when I get there, but he didn't say what...." My voice trailed away. The expression on Andrew's face told me he knew exactly what I was talking about.
"Drat," he muttered. "That low-down skunk. I was hoping he'd forgotten."
Andrew hesitated. Without looking at me, he picked up a piece of chalk and started drawing a little train on the floor. Concentrating on his sketch, he said, "Before I got sick, Edward dared me to jump off the trestle."
My heart beat faster. "Is that what I'm supposed to do? Jump off?"
"Now, now, don't get all het up, Drew. It's not as bad as you think." Carefully, Andrew added a curlicue of smoke to his drawing. "You walk out on the trestle and jump in the river. Then you swim to shore. It's as simple as one two three." He tapped the chalk three times for emphasis.
My mouth was so dry I could hardly speak. Lying down between the rails or dynamiting the train might be better than this. "How high is the trestle?"
Instead of answering my question, Andrew said, "It's a test of manhood. Lots of boys have done it."
I wasn't interested in testing my manhood or hearing about other boys. I just wanted to know what was going to happen to me. Me—a boy who was scared to jump off a diving board into eight feet of crystal-clear chlorinated water.
"Is it five feet high?" I asked. "Ten feet? Twenty feet?"
Andrew shrugged. "More like fifteen, I guess, but the water's deep. As long as you don't hit a rock, you'll be fine." He looked at me and grinned. "Why, I could do it blindfolded, I could do it with one hand tied behind my back, I could—"
I flung myself at him. "Showoff! Braggart! No wonder Edward hates you."
Andrew dodged and danced away, laughing at my clumsy attempts to catch him. At the top of the attic steps, he paused for a second. "Just think, Drew—if you win a game between now and next week, I'll have to jump instead of you."
I lunged toward him, but he ran down the steps. Before he reached the bottom, he called, "Of course, I don't believe you'll beat me. Not tomorrow night nor the night after nor any other night. You'll never win, Drew, never."
"You just wait and see," I cried, but I was talking to empty air. Andrew had vanished, and I was alone.
Chapter 16
Hannah leaned toward me and touched my hand. "What's the matter? I've never seen such a long face."
To avoid meeting her eyes, I gathered the miggles we'd shot out of the ring. Half the week had passed, and I hadn't come close to beating Andrew. If I didn't win soon, I'd have to meet Edward on the trestle.
"I just can't beat him," I muttered.
"What has that dirty rat done now?"
Shocked, I stared at Hannah. Had she guessed? Did she know about Andrew and me? "He," I stammered, "he..."
"Drat Edward for plaguing you so." Hannah clenched her fists and scowled fiercely. "If I were a boy, I'd give him a walloping he wouldn't soon forget."
"That's more than Andrew will ever do." Theo stood on the edge of the grove. Nudging a marble with his bare toe, he watched it roll toward the ring. "So this is where you go every morning. I've been wondering and wondering."
"Don't tell," Hannah said. "Mama would take her hairbrush to my bottom if she knew I was playing marbles like a tomboy."
Theo squatted beside her. "I bet you wouldn't cry no matter how hard Mama spanked you. Even though you're a girl, you're tougher than some people in this family."
"Hush, Theo," Hannah said. "You know the fever left Andrew weak. For goodness sake, you're almost as bad as Edward."
"All Andrew has to do is stand up for himself. Edward would leave him alone fast enough then." Theo turned to me. "Don't you remember what happened the time you made his nose bleed?"
Instead of answering, I practiced shooting at the miggles left in the ring. Click. Pleased, I watched a cat's-eye hop across the dirt and roll into the weeds. I was getting better and better—but I still wasn't good enough.
Hannah put her hand on mine. "Forget the marbles for now, Andrew. Theo's absolutely right. I told you before—you mustn't let Edward scare you. He's a bully and a coward. What would Frank Merriwell do if he were you?"
Frank Merriwell—I was thoroughly sick of hearing that name. "I don't care what some dumb guy in a story would do. I'm not going to fight Edward."
"Fight me then." Hannah raised her fists and danced around on her bare feet, bouncing, ducking, and swinging at the air around my head. "Pretend I'm Edward!"
I ducked a punch, and she swung again. "Put up your dukes," she ordered, "defend yourself, sir."
This time Hannah clipped my chin hard enough to knock me down. Her shirtwaist was completely untucked, her face was smudged, her hair was tumbling down her back and hanging in her eyes.
"On your feet, sir," she shouted. "Let's see your fighting spirit!"
Hannah was making so much noise she didn't hear John Larkin push aside the branches and enter the grove. When he saw her take another swing at me, he started laughing.
Hannah whirled around, her face scarlet, and stared at John. "What do you mean by sneaking up on us like a common Peeping Tom?"
"With the noise you've been making, you wouldn't have noticed a herd of rampaging elephants." John was still laughing, but Hannah was furious.
Putting her fists on her hips, she scowled at him. "Well, now you know the truth about me. I'm no lady and I never claimed to be one. I suppose you'll start taking Amelia Carter for rides in your precious tin lizzie and treating her to sodas at your father's drugstore. I'm sure she'd never brawl with her brothers."
Theo and I looked at each other. We were both hoping Hannah would make John leave. Before he came along and ruined everything, we'd been having fun.
To my disappointment, John didn't seem to realize he was unwanted. Leaning against a tree, he watched Hannah run her hands through her hair. "I don't know what you're so fired up about," he said. "Why should I want to take Amelia anywhere? I've never met a more boring girl. As for her brothers—a little brawling wouldn't hurt them. Or Amelia either."
Hannah turned away, her face flushed, and John winked at me. "Your sister's first rate," he said, "but I wager I know a sight more about boxing than she does. Why not let me show you a thing or two?"
Happy again, Hannah smiled at John. "What a grand idea! But go slow, Andrew's still weak."
When John took off his jacket, I edged closer to Hannah. "I like your lessons," I said to her, scowling at John. He was rolling up his sleeves, probably to show off his muscles. Next to him, I was nothing but a skinny little baby. He'd knock me flat and everyone would laugh at me.
"Don't be silly, Andrew." Hannah gave me a little push toward John who had now assumed a boxing stance.
"Raise your fists like this," he said, "protect yourself."
I closed my eyes and swung at John, but he blocked my fist with his palm. "No, no, no," he said. "Slow down, take it easy, think about what you're doing."
For an hour or more, John did his best to show me the basics of self-defense. He was a lot more patient than I thought he'd be, but I was glad when he wiped the sweat from his face and said we'd had enough for one day.
"You'll never be the heavyweight champion of the world," he said, "but you should be able to duck anything Edward throws at you."
Theo wanted his turn, but John said it was too hot for more lessons. He looked up into the tree where Hannah sat swinging her feet, and smiled. "Maybe your sister will come down from her perch
and offer us a nice cold glass of lemonade."
Hannah gave her hand to John and allowed him to help her. "Not that I need your assistance," she said. "I'm merely practicing my manners."
We watched John and Hannah walk away, still holding hands. "He's as bad as diphtheria," Theo muttered.
"What do you mean?"
"Diphtheria made you into a perfect gentleman," Theo said, "and John makes Hannah into a perfect lady. I'm sure I don't know which is worse—being sick or falling in love."
Without waiting to hear my opinion, Theo ran through the burial ground, leapfrogging tombstones, daring me to catch him.
A couple of days later, John came calling again, just after supper this time. We'd set up the wickets to play croquet, and Hannah invited him to join us. He chose the red-striped mallet and ball, my favorites, and I was left with yellow, a boring color.
Brandishing a green mallet, Hannah grinned at John. "We'll take sides. You and me against Andrew and Theo."
Hannah went first. Theo and I watched her knock her ball through the first two wickets and aim for the third. She missed and stepped back to let Theo take his turn.
I leaned on my mallet and waited. It had taken me a while to understand the game, but once I learned the rules, I'd become a pretty good strategist. As soon as I had the opportunity, I planned to knock John's ball clear off the court, maybe all the way into the poison ivy at the bottom of the hill.
In a few minutes, I saw my chance. My ball rolled through a wicket and hit his. To keep mine steady, I put my foot on it and whacked my ball hard enough to drive John's into the poison ivy.
"It's dead," I crowed. "I got you!"
Hannah gave me one of her vexed looks. Turning to John, she said, "I swear he's getting more like his old self every day."
At the same moment, Buster went tearing into the poison ivy and emerged with the ball in his mouth. Wagging his tail proudly, he ran off with it. He'd lost Mrs. Armiger's hat, but he wasn't going to give up the ball. Ignoring our commands to drop it, he dashed under the rose trellis and disappeared behind the hedge.
"Drat," Hannah said. "That stupid dog must have buried a dozen croquet balls by now."
I glanced at John, hoping he'd be a bad sport. Maybe he'd say I cheated. Maybe he'd say it wasn't fair. Maybe he'd disgrace himself by refusing to play. Instead, he slapped my back and said, "Well, it looks like you'll win this game, Andrew."
Hannah glowed with admiration. Frank Merriwell himself couldn't have been a finer gentleman.
I turned away and kicked at a clump of grass. Suddenly, the air quivered and Andrew took shape beside me. In the dusky evening light, he stepped toward his sister and brother. "Hannah," he called. "Theo, it's me!"
Neither one looked up. It was obvious they didn't see or hear him. Theo went right on aiming his ball at Hannah's, and she continued to threaten him with death and perdition if he hit it.
Andrew stared at me, his eyes shining with tears, and vanished. It had happened so quickly I wasn't sure I'd really seen him.
Hannah called to me. "Stop lallygagging and take your turn. A storm's coming."
I drove my ball through the last wicket, winning the game just in time. With thunder rumbling overhead, we raced for the house, anxious to get inside before the rain started.
When I went to the attic that night, thunder muffled my footsteps, giving me a chance to see Andrew before he saw me. Lit by the candle's glow, he crouched on the floor. His face was hidden, but his shoulders shook as if he were crying.
I stared at him. "What's wrong?"
Startled by my sudden appearance, Andrew leapt to his feet, sending his shadow dancing across the rafters toward me. A flash of lightning lit his face, whitening it against the darkness behind him. For a moment, he seemed to hang in the air, as insubstantial as a ghost.
I touched his sleeve hesitantly. "You're real, aren't you? I'm not imagining you?"
For proof Andrew pinched my arm just hard enough to hurt. "You gave me a fright sneaking up here in that white nightshirt."
We gazed into each others eyes. Overhead, wind rumbled across the roof. Rain pelted the slates.
"Tarnation," Andrew said suddenly. "I never used to be afraid of anything. Now I'm getting as bad as you, jumping at shadows, scared of the dark. I swear I don't know what's come over me."
Scarcely listening, I studied the design on his pajamas. There was something familiar about the little shapes. They had a name, but I couldn't recall it. "Those things on your pajamas—what are they?"
Andrew frowned. "Are you daft? They're rockets."
"Rockets." I repeated the word slowly, searching my memory for more information. Slowly images emerged—shuttles, space probes, moon flights, astronauts, Cape Kennedy.
Andrew picked up the bull's-eye aggie and rolled it between his palms. Without looking at me, he said, "To tell you the truth, I'm beginning to forget things too. The more I learn about you, the less I recollect about me. It's as if your memories are crowding mine out, there's no room for them in my head."
I nodded, agreeing with him. "Every day I get more like you, less like me."
"Lord A'mighty," Andrew said solemnly. "I hope that doesn't mean I'll become a total pantywaist."
The thought of such a dreadful fate seemed to revive him. Giving me a cold-eyed stare, he said, "We'd better play marbles while we still remember who we are and what we're doing."
As usual, Andrew went first. Confident of winning, he knuckled down and shot. Click, click, click—one after another he sent seven miggles spinning out of the ring.
"Well," he said smugly, "at least I haven't lost all my skills."
"Don't you ever quit bragging?"
"You're a poor loser, Drew. A true gent congratulates the victor."
"You were so busy congratulating yourself I didn't want to interrupt."
Ignoring my sarcasm, Andrew swung his bag of marbles back and forth, back and forth, watching the shadow it cast on the floor. His mood had changed again. "There's something I've been meaning to ask you, Drew," he said slowly. "That old man in the wheelchair—who is he?"
For a moment, I didn't know what Andrew was talking about. Old man, old man, what old man? Closing my eyes, I thought hard till I conjured up a picture—a bent figure in a dark room, face like a skull, bony hands, threatening me, scaring me.
"He's Aunt Blythe's father," I said, "my great-grandfather."
"He knows me," Andrew said. "Not you, Drew—me." To make his meaning clear, he struck his chest with his fist. "He knows who I am."
I remembered a few other things about Great-grandfather. "He gets confused," I said, struggling to recollect more but drawing blanks. "He can't keep people straight, he mixes up the past and the present."
"How is he related to me?"
I shook my head. Everything Aunt Blythe had told me was a jumble, a blur of relatives—great-aunts, uncles, cousins both first and second, grandparents multiplying with every generation. Untangling the branches of the family tree was too hard for me.
Andrew stared into the candle flame as if he expected to find the answer there. "Well, whoever he is, he hates me. The first time he saw me, he said, 'Go back where you belong. Rest in peace and leave me be.' "
Goose bumps raced up and down my arms. Like Andrew, I folded my arms tightly across my chest and shivered. "Stay away from him," I whispered. "He's crazy."
For several minutes neither of us spoke. We sat side by side, shoulders almost touching, and listened to the rain patter on the roof. At last Andrew stood up.
"It's almost morning," he said. "I'd better go."
I watched him run down the stairs. At the bottom, he gazed up at me, his face a pale, featureless oval in the dim light. "This evening, when I saw you on the lawn..."
I waited for him to go on, but he seemed to have trouble finding words for his thoughts. "Hannah and Theo." He spoke their names hesitantly, as if they sounded strange to him. "They didn't see me, did they?"
I shook my hea
d.
Andrew's sigh blended with the wind and rain. Giving me one long, sad look, he disappeared.
Chapter 17
The next night and the night after that, Andrew beat me at marbles as usual, but he seemed to take less pleasure in his victories. Instead of boasting and bragging and carrying on like a conceited jackanapes, he began asking questions about his family—the color of Hannah's eyes, the smell of Papa's pipe smoke, the words to "Yip-I-Addy-I-Ay," his dog's name.
Although I knew those things, including every silly word of "Yip-I-Addy-I-Ay," I was beginning to forget other stuff. Chicago was a blur of noisy streets, jammed improbably with Model T's and Oldsmobiles. My apartment on Oak Street was a blank box, nothing but floors, walls, windows. When I struggled to picture my parents' faces, I saw Mama and Papa instead.
I was tempted to ask Andrew to let me win before we forgot everything, but the one time I had the nerve to hint at it, he shook his head sadly and said, "Homesick as I am, I'd rather be alive in your world than dead in mine."
The night before I was supposed to meet Edward on the trestle, Mama let Theo and me catch fireflies in the backyard. The bushes and tall grass glittered with them, more than I'd ever seen. We captured them two or three at a time. Holding them carefully in our fists, we felt their little feet tickle our hands. Green light glowed between our fingers and lit our faces.
When we'd each filled ajar, Theo and I lay down on the lawn and watched our prisoners crawl over the blades of grass we'd provided for them. Above our heads, Orion chased the Pleiades across the sky, Cassiopeia sat musing in her chair, and the Big Dipper poured stars that changed to fireflies as they fell.
Suddenly, Theo poked my side with his sharp little elbow. "You aren't worried about tomorrow, are you?"
"What do you think?"
He propped himself up on his elbows and studied my face. "You told me last spring it was the easiest thing in the whole wide world. You could hardly wait to jump. Why, even when you got sick you worried you'd die without having a chance to do it."