Free The Way to Schenectady by Richard Scrimger Page A

I’ve been living on the street. I thought about calling my brother, about going home, but somehow I never found the way to Schenectady.”
    I couldn’t think of anything to say.
    “I’m scared, Jane. They’re rich and important and I’m just a freak. An old broken-down singer, who can’t hold a job.”
    “I didn’t know you were a singer,” I said.
    He sniffed back his tears. “Bars, nightclubs. Nowhere special.”
    “Hey! What are you doing?” a voice rang out.
    I turned. An old lady, with a cigarette in one hand and a suitcase in the other, was hurrying toward us. I closed my eyes, hoping I was seeing things, but when I opened them again she was still there. “Hi, Grandma,” I said.
    She ignored me. “What are you doing to my grand-daughter?” she said to Marty, who quivered and bent beneath her rage like a willow in a hailstorm. A weeping willow.
    “Grandma,” I said.
    “Get away with you!” she said, making shooing gestures, with both hands. “Go on, ham it! She has nothing for you!”
    Marty sniffed and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. He turned and would have slunk off if I hadn’t grabbed him by the shoulder.
    “Come back, Marty,” I said.
    “Go on,” said Grandma.
    “Back,” I said. Marty, the human pinball. I stepped between him and Grandma.
    “Let me explain,” I said. “Quickly, before Dad gets here. Marty isn’t doing anything to me. I’m doing something for him. He wants to get to Schenectady,” I said.
    “No, I don’t dare. They don’t want to see me …”
    I kept my eyes on Grandma. “There is a memorial service for his brother there this afternoon. Marty hasn’t seen his family in a long time. And I, um, promised him that we’d give him a lift.”
    “He doesn’t want to come, Jane. Why not leave him here, where you found him?”
    “I found him yesterday.”
    She stopped in the middle of a puff on her cigarette while she worked out the implications of what I’d told her, and then choked on the mouthful of smoke she probably didn’t know she had.
    “Do you mean,” she gasped, “that this … Marty, has been in the van since yesterday?”
    “Yesterday morning. I smuggled him aboard. Only now he’s afraid to go on. Poor man.”
    “I’m no good,” he muttered.
    “So I don’t know what to do,” I said.
    Very deliberately, Grandma dropped the cigarette and stepped on the burning butt. “You’d better tell me everything,” she said grimly.
    I took a deep breath, and the whole story came out in a rush. I was worried about telling it, but I felt relieved, too.
    Marty didn’t move, except to sway back and forth very slowly. His eyes closed. Grandma’s expression as she listened was hard to read. Was she … could she be … sympathetic? Did she think I was doing a good thing? Was she going to be … on my side?
    “Please help us, Grandma,” I said.
    “Stowaway!” she muttered. “Stowaway, indeed. Jane Peeler, if you were my daughter, I’d give you something to stow away and remember for a few days. Every time you sat down, you’d remember.”
    Oh, no.
This didn’t sound like sympathy.
    “What will your father say? He’ll have a fit!” she went on.
    “But he doesn’t know.”
    “No. No, he doesn’t.” Her mouth curved in a momentary smile. Then she went back to being upset with me. “What an incredibly rash and thoughtless thing to do!” she said. “You put yourself, and everyone else in the van, in danger.”
    “From Marty?” I mean,
really.
He weighed less than I did. “He wanted my help,” I said. “And I could help him.”
    “You deluded girl! He’s a wreck!” She shook her head. “You remind me so much of your mother. She was always one for bringing home stray animals.”
    Like a shaft of sunlight on a cloudy day, like the first sip of hot cocoa after a freezing skating party, like fire from heaven, a feeling of warmth went through me when I heard these words. Just like Mom. “Thank you, Grandma,” I said.
    “Eh? For