Free The Way to Schenectady by Richard Scrimger

He made his mouth droop like a hound’s, and dropped to all fours. “Awooo!” he bayed.
    “Bill!”
    “Awooo! Good thing Marty’s so easy to sniff out.” That Bill. I had to laugh.
    “Go up and tell Dad I feel lousy. Say that the two of us are going to take a walk around the block together, to clear my head. Then come back down.” I knew we’d have to go together because Bill would be sure to get lost on his own. “I’ll wait for you.”
    “Awoo,” said Bill, and disappeared.
    I was staring up and down the street, wondering where in the wilderness of a strange town to start my search, when an idea bit me. Marty knew about cars. He might remember what our van looked like, even if he forgot where it was. Across the street from the hotel, under flapping plastic flags, was a used-car lot. To Marty it might look like a hotel parking lot, especially if there was a bright red van, a few years old, parked a few rows in from the road. Was there?
    It would take only a minute to find out. I ran across the street and found not one, but three, vans the same color and style as ours. And under the third of these, sound asleep, was Marty. He squawked like a startled pigeon when I pounded on the red fender.
    “Get up,” I said. I grabbed hold of his dirty shirt. “Get up!”
    “I know you,” he said, “you’re the egg girl.” He tried to roll over.
    I pulled him out from under the van. “Quick!” I said. “Follow me.”
    “Wha-at?” Marty’s pointed eyebrows climbed slowly up his forehead. He seemed dazed. He smelled different than yesterday. Not better, just different. I hauled himupright – he weighed more than Bill, but not much more, and I could still carry Bill around – and dragged him across the street. When we got to the van, I was sweating. He was gasping.
    “This is a V-6, isn’t it,” he said.
    “Here.” I thrust the cheese Danish at him.
    “I recognize the vehicle. Seen a few better years, it has.” He nodded. “You know, this parking lot looks different, somehow, in daylight. Where are the flags?”
    “Across the street,” I said. “Last night you slept across the street.”
    “No,” he said. “I was right here. Under this van.” He yawned.
    “Eat your breakfast,” I said.
    “Thank you. When you feed the body, you feed the soul.”
    Footsteps pounded on the concrete. Coming closer. I tensed. “Awoo! Awoo!” I relaxed. It was only Bill, the hound of the Peelers. “Awoo! Aw –” He stopped when he saw us. “You found Marty,” he said. He didn’t sound very enthusiastic, I noticed. “I brought Dad’s suitcase,” he said, “and ours, and the diaper bag.”
    “Thanks, Bill. Put them in the trunk now.” I unlocked it from the outside. “What about Grandma’s case?” I said. “Could you get it, too?”
    He frowned at me. “What am I? A slave, and you boss me around?”
    “Please, Bill.”
    “Yes, boss lady, I will go and try to find the othercase.” He shuffled off, taking little steps, as if his legs were chained together.
    “Better get in,” I said to Marty.
    He finished off the Danish and wiped his hands on his pants. “Why?” he said.
    “So you can go to Schenectady.” Now that I’d found him I wanted to get moving. The memorial service started at two o’clock. Should be plenty of time, but you never know. And the sooner we dropped off Marty, the sooner we would get to Auntie Vera’s. “Schenectady. Where your brother is. Remember?”
    He swayed a bit. He must have been so tired. “Poor Tobias,” he said. “My poor brother.” He started to cry.
    “There, there,” I said. “But, really, Marty, you have to hurry.”
    “I can’t go back. They don’t want me.”
    “They do so,” I said.
    “Tobias and I had a big fight years ago. I left home and never came back. Tobias made millions selling real estate. I had trouble finding work as a musician so I started to drink too much. I drove cabs, and worked in garages. I drifted around. Since last year