Time for Andrew Read Online Free PDF

what he wanted.
    Binky knew too. He looked at the attic door and whimpered. Before I could stop him, he leapt off the bed and ran. I wanted to go after him, I wanted to call Aunt Blythe, but it was too late. The door was opening, pushing the rocking chair ahead of it.
    On the threshold, a boy appeared. Except for the white nightshirt he wore, it might have been me. For a moment, he leaned against the door frame, struggling to catch his breath. When he stepped away from the wall, he tottered and almost fell. I heard him mutter something that sounded like
drat.
    A few feet from the bed, Andrew stopped and stared at me, his eyes wide with surprise. "Who are you?" he whispered hoarsely. "What are you doing here?"

    I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Clutching the quilt, I shook my head.
Let me be dreaming,
I prayed,
oh, please let me still be dreaming. Make him go away.
    Andrew came closer instead. I heard his bare feet patter across the floor. Without looking, I knew he was leaning over me, breathing hard. "Why, you're no bigger than I am," he muttered. "How dare you sneak into my house, steal my things, and then try to hide yourself in my bed?"
    Before I knew what he was doing, Andrew grabbed my shoulders and tried to pull me out of bed. The effort made him cough. Letting me go, he leaned against the wall and gasped for breath. When he finally spoke, his voice was weak but still threatening. "If you don't give me my marbles at once, I shall call Papa. He's a lawyer, he'll have you locked up in jail so fast your head will spin."
    I was crying now, I couldn't help it. "I'll give them to you tomorrow," I sobbed. "I promise, Andrew, I promise."
    He held out his hand. It shook a little. "I want my marbles now!"
    "My aunt has them—she said you had no use for marbles, she said you were dead."
    Andrew drew in his breath. "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. Give me my marbles, you thief, and get out of my bed at once."
    "Please go away," I begged. "This is my bed. You don't live here anymore. You, you—" For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to tell him again that he was dead, especially when he was so sure he wasn't. "I'm sorry about the marbles,
honest I am. I told my aunt not to take them, but she..."

    Stumbling over words, repeating things I'd already said, I went on talking till I realized Andrew wasn't listening. He was prowling around the room, bumping into furniture like a blind man lost in a strange place. For the first time, he seemed to sense something was wrong.
    "Where is my sister?" he asked. "When I went to the attic, she was fast asleep in that chair. Surely you saw her."
    We both looked at the empty rocker. "Hannah doesn't live here either," I whispered. "She's very old now, almost a hundred—Aunt Blythe said so."
    Andrew leaned over the bed and stared down at me. His face was deathly pale, but the skin below his eyes was dark.
    "The fever," he whispered, "it's driven me out of my head. I'm standing here looking at my own self lying in bed. You aren't real, I'm dreaming, walking in my sleep."
    Seizing the quilt, Andrew tried to jerk it out of my hands, but I held tight. Once more the effort exhausted him. "There's no sense fetching Papa," he muttered. "Hannah will know what to do, she always does."
    I watched him go to the door and peer into the hall. "Hannah," he called. "Where are you?"
    The house was silent. No one stirred. No one replied.
    When Andrew turned to me, I realized he was even more frightened than I was. "Surely Hannah wouldn't leave. She promised Mama she'd stay with me all night. I heard them crying outside my door."
    My scalp prickled. The sobbing women in the hall—had they been Andrew's mother and sister? No, no, this couldn't be happening. I closed my eyes.
Let him be gone when I open them, please, please, let him be gone.
    But no matter how badly I wanted him to disappear,
Andrew stayed where he was,