44 pages • 1 hour read
Mary Downing HahnTime for Andrew: A Ghost Story
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1994A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 13-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
Drew meets Andrew in the attic for their marble game. He confirms that he really did see Andrew earlier and expresses his fear about losing his identity. They set up the marble game. Andrew is very skilled and wins quickly. Drew hangs his head and cries. Andrew frets over whether Drew is ruining his reputation. Andrew complains that it’s hard to be Drew and understand all the advanced technology. Drew counters that it is just as hard to be Andrew and perform all the period-appropriate customs. Andrew reveals that Drew’s parents came to visit upon hearing of his hospitalization. Andrew was impressed by Drew’s father’s job and wants to also become an archaeologist one day. Drew feels jealous that his parents came home from this dig in France temporarily to check on him in the hospital and he wasn’t present.
Chapter 14 Summary
Mama catches Drew, Theo, and Hannah wrestling over the ladle and the water pump. She hits all three kids with the ladle and asks the boys to evacuate with Buster while she has her Women’s Club meeting. As they walk, Drew apologizes to Theo for getting him caught up with Mrs. Armiger. Theo wishes Drew would show some of his old spunk and get in trouble too. Drew and Theo walk to a local store to buy a soda. Before they can, Edward appears and grabs Theo’s five cents out of his hand. Theo lunges at Edward and they brawl in the street. Theo wants Drew to stick up for him and fight off Edward, but Drew doesn’t know what to do. Edward taunts Drew about the trestle, claiming he doesn’t have the guts to follow through on their long-standing agreement. He doesn’t specify what the agreement is. Theo jumps in, claiming his brother isn’t afraid of anything. Edward names a time: a week from today. Edward returns the five cents and saunters away. When Drew tries to give the money to Theo, Theo reacts angrily. He hates that Drew let Edward bully him and didn’t stand up for him or Theo. He tells Drew he isn’t his brother at all and the Andrew he knew would never behave like such a coward. Drew trudges home, worrying about what diabolical challenge he would face at the trestle in a week.
Chapter 15 Summary
Drew returns to a kerfuffle at home. Buster has stolen Mrs. Armiger’s floral hat. Theo laughs and jokes, but Mama and Mrs. Armiger run after the dog. As Buster bounds across the lawn, they beg Drew to stop the dog somehow, but Drew is unable to whistle or subdue the dog in any way. When Hannah comes out to help, Drew suddenly sees how funny the situation is and laughs hysterically. Mama punishes Drew and Theo by forcing them to sit on the steps until Papa comes home. Papa asks them to explain the bad things they did, at the store and at home. Papa takes off his belt to whip Drew. Drew is shocked and cries out that Papa isn’t even his real parent and he has no right to whip him. Theo takes his own whipping without reacting and berates Drew for crying.
That night, Drew confronts Andrew in the attic demanding to switch back, but Andrew is happy existing in a time when his father wouldn’t beat him. Drew asks about the trestle. Andrew explains that Edward challenged him to jump off the train trestle into the river and swim to shore. Drew angrily chases after Andrew but Andrew manages to dance back downstairs and disappear.
Chapter 16 Summary
Drew glumly plays marbles with Hannah, dreading the trestle. Hannah tries to cheer Drew up, asking what Frank Merriwell would do and challenging him to fight her. She takes several playful swings at Drew until John Larkin turns up. John laughs at her tomboyish behavior, but Hannah goes red with anger and embarrassment. She tells him she’s no lady and imagines he’ll start taking some other girl out for rides in his car. John is unfazed and offers to teach Drew some boxing tricks himself. John turns out to be a patient and helpful boxing coach. Drew notices again how Hannah behaves more ladylike around John. Theo complains that diphtheria turned Drew “into a perfect gentleman” and now John is turning Hannah into a “perfect lady” (107).
A few days later, John comes over to play croquet. Drew successfully hits John’s ball into poison ivy and celebrates. Hannah notes how Drew is beginning to behave more like his old self. Suddenly Drew sees an apparition of Andrew walking toward them. Andrew calls out to Hannah and Theo, but they don’t see him. That night, a thunderstorm rages overhead. Drew goes into the attic and finds Andrew crying by candlelight. He complains that he feels fearful all of a sudden. Drew notices the rockets on Andrew’s shirt but can’t remember the word for them. His memories about his own time begin to fade. Andrew asks who the old man in the chair is, but Drew can’t remember how they are related to him. Andrew wins at marbles again and sadly returns downstairs.
Chapter 17 Summary
Andrew continues to beat Drew at marbles but no longer takes pleasure in it. He is homesick for his own world, but he would rather be alive than dead. The night before Drew is supposed to meet Edward on the trestle, he catches fireflies with Theo. Theo asks Drew if he’s nervous to jump tomorrow. John Larkin pulls up to the house to meet Hannah. Theo and Drew figure that Hannah has an official beau now. Theo and Drew sneak after Hannah and John and spy on them kissing in the swing. Hannah catches them and shakes them both by the ear. Drew offers Hannah his jar of fireflies, telling her he caught them for her. She lets them go and they marvel at the beauty of the fireflies illuminating their faces.
Drew continues to feel jealous of John, bitter that Hannah offers John lemonade but doesn’t pay much attention to Drew. Mama sends Drew to bed with a swat on the behind. That night, Drew takes the lead in the marble game but eventually loses. He challenges Andrew to switch back for 24 hours and jump off the trestle to prove he isn’t scared. Andrew refuses. He worries that he is destined to die in 1910 and thinks that he will drown.
Chapter 18 Summary
Drew glumly swings on the swing set, dreading the trestle. He tries to tell Hannah the truth, that he is a different boy than the brother she knew, but he can’t get the words out. Theo fetches him—it is time. Buster nuzzles his hand as he leaves. Drew wonders if he is really turning into Andrew. The scene briefly flickers and he sees Andrew on the porch, wishing him luck. Theo notices that Drew looks different.
Edward waits smugly atop the trestle. Drew is terrified as he walks over the train tracks with no railing to keep him from falling into the river below. Edward points out where another boy died after jumping and hitting a rock. Drew tries to access Andrew’s memories to recall where another boy had told him to jump, but he has no idea. He begins to believe that fate demands a death, and it’ll either be him or Andrew. Edward ridicules Drew for being afraid. Drew insists that he isn’t Andrew and never agreed to jump. Theo goads Edward and Edward lunges for him, losing his balance and falling off the trestle. Edward isn’t a good swimmer and dips under the surface. Drew realizes that Edward will die if he doesn’t jump in to save him—Andrew would’ve done it and Frank Merriwell would’ve done it. Drew gathers his courage and jumps in.
Chapters 13-18 Analysis
This section shows more development in Drew’s character as he grows more self-assured, deepens his relationship with Hannah, and tries to separate his identity from that of Andrew. Drew faces more direct challenges, fighting with Edward, incurring punishment from Papa, and ultimately stepping up to take a dangerous challenge. Mary Downing Hahn builds a narrative set piece around the trestle designed to test Drew’s character and dramatize how he much has grown.
Chapter 15 includes a scene demonstrating the starkest difference in societal attitudes between the two times, thematically addressing both Defining Masculinity and Parenting Styles Across Generations. After Edward bullies Theo and Drew at the store, Drew faces disappointment from two sources. Theo is disappointed that Drew won’t fight Edward and stick up for himself and his little brother. In direct opposition to that, Papa is disappointed that the boys got into a fight at all and punishes them with lashes from a belt. These attitudes complicate the reader’s understanding of what constitutes masculinity in this time. Theo expects a more aggressive and confrontational form of masculinity. Papa expects a kind of stoicism and non-confrontation, though he communicates a more violent message when he beats Drew and Theo to punish them. Drew is so shocked to receive the lashes that he speaks out against his new family for the first time in the book, claiming Papa has no right to hit him. This act of resistance constitutes another step in Drew’s journey to become more self-assured.
Furthermore, Drew is able to think back to something healthy about his relationship with his own father to bolster his self-assurance. Later, when he complains to Andrew of the injustice of corporal punishment, he describes how he and his father would talk through any conflict between them. His contemporary social value treats children and adults more like equals with mutual respect for bodily autonomy. Andrew’s time period considers the father more of an authority figure who has control over the bodily autonomy of his children. Drew has grown confident enough to believe in his own societal attitude and speak up against a perceived injustice. Drew, receiving differing messages from all sides about what it means to be masculine, feels self-assured enough to disregard others’ behaviors and stand up for what he believes is correct, regardless of societal norms or others’ beliefs.
Drew also acquires a new set of skills when Hannah and John teach him the basics of boxing. Initially resistant to any kind of physical fighting, Hannah inspires Drew to at least learn to dodge and defend himself. Hannah’s confidence and belief in him helps him feel more inspired to pick up these new skills and resist Edward’s bullying, suggesting additional Personal Growth and Confidence in his character. Drew has reached a much deeper level of intimacy with Hannah by this point and he allows her to genuinely influence and change him.
Drew’s growth continues as he faces the challenge of the trestle. Hahn introduces the trestle challenge several chapters before it happens, building suspense. Hahn precedes the trestle with an intimate domestic scene as Drew catches fireflies with Theo and Hannah and spies on Hannah kissing John. The happiness and intimacy of this scene contrasts the drama and danger that follows.
The trestle is overtly described as a rite of passage for boys to become men, a dangerous activity meant to demonstrate a young man’s bravery and physical strength. Drew shows his growing self-assuredness when he confronts Andrew in the attic and demands to change places. Unlike the earlier scene where he let Andrew talk him into a gentleman’s deal, Drew is more emphatic and forceful. Drew even tries to use a rhetorical tactic Andrew might have used—taunting Andrew to do the trestle challenge just to prove he isn’t scared. Andrew, however, has absorbed some of Drew’s personality and expresses his fear that he could die. Both boys have progressed in their emotional arc by absorbing qualities of the other.
The novel reaches its climax when Drew faces Edward on the trestle. All of the conflicting elements of Drew’s character, both old and new merge in this scene. He remains true to his older self, the empathetic and sensitive self who recognizes that Edward needs help and could drown. He also represents the new, more self-assured element of himself when he bravely jumps into the water. This section highlights the major growth and change in Drew’s character as he learns about his own identity and the social nuances of the world around him.
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