The Time Fetch Read Free Page A

was making, he didn’t notice the light turn to green and then back to red again. Suddenly he felt something pulling on his jacket. Startled, he looked down and saw a little runny-nosed kid in a stroller who seemed to be trying to pick his pocket.
    “Hey,” Edward said indignantly. The light changed and the woman in charge of the stroller pushed forward. For a moment, the kid held tight to Edward’s pocket, but then his hand was yanked away. The kid let out a loud scream of protest, but the woman, either deaf or very used to this sort of thing, just kept on going. Edward examined his jacket for damage, but it looked all right. He crossed the street.
    The pigeons appeared to be following him. Ridiculous idea. They swooped down low, then settled overhead on a ledge and stared hungrily. Could they smell the pfeffernusse? Did pigeons have noses? A great gust of wind blew up the street. It knocked the pigeons off the ledge and they fluttered about like scraps of gray and white paper.
    Edward felt a little tap, tap, tapping on his back.
    “Excuse me.”
    He spun around. Standing in front of him was a man with very pale skin. Edward had never seen anybody with such white skin. It was practically the color of Ivory soap. Maybe he had some kind of disease. Edward stepped back. The man’s eyes were a feverish, glittering, grassy green that stood out in contrast to the pale skin. In one hand the man was carrying a laundry bag, which clanked and clattered as if it were full of empty cans.
    In the other hand, the man was holding up a beat-up spiral notebook. “I beg your pardon for this intrusion. Is it possible that you dropped this?”
    Edward looked more closely and saw that the man was holding his math notebook. It must have fallen out of his backpack. He reached out to take it, saying, “Oh, gee, thanks.”
    The man did not take his burning green eyes off of Edward and he did not release the notebook. “This is of value to you.” It wasn’t a question.
    Edward stared. Homeless and, from the looks of it, crazy, too. “Well, it’s my math notebook. My math teacher will probably make me suffer if I lose it.”
    “We will make a fair exchange then. You will give me what is in your pocket and I will give you this valuable book.”
    Now Edward noticed two things. The first was that the man’s fingernails appeared to have algae or maybe moss growing on them.
    The other was that one of those curious little whirlwinds that sometimes blow up along the streets on days like this was spinning along the sidewalk in their direction. Filled as it was with dust and leaves, you could easily make out its shape—narrow near the bottom and wide near the top. A couple of stray plastic bags caught up inside it took on different forms as they filled and deflated and filled again.
    The man turned sharply to stare at this little tornado. He flapped the math notebook at it, as if he could shoo it away.
    In Edward’s experience these little twisters usually lasted no longer than a few moments, taking off into the sky as soon as they had managed to pull off somebody’s hat or turn an umbrella inside out. Now, indeed, this whirlwind came spinning right up to him and grabbed his hat from from his head. Edward reached out for it, but the wind tossed it higher and higher into the air.
    “Hey,” Edward said angrily. The gray sky seemed to press down upon the earth.
    The little twister was growing bigger. Edward could feel it buffeting and tearing at his clothes. It threw a stinging cloud of black soot into his face. A high-pitched screaming rose from its center. Edward could no longer see his hat. With a stab of panic, he tried to back away, but the funnel came toward him, widening as if it had great batlike wings. It reached out and closed him inside its churning.
    The Brooklyn street disappeared.
    All around was a stinging, blinding wall of gray. Edward tried desperately to find something to hold on to, but there was nothing there. He took a step