Run by Eric Walters

Author:Eric Walters [Walters, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PRH Canada Young Readers
Published: 2020-08-18T00:00:00+00:00

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I FINISHED OFF the last of my sandwich, took the garbage and tossed it into the can beside the picnic table. Doug and Terry had finished a while ago. Terry had gone into the back of the van to sleep and Doug was sitting in the passenger seat, going over some papers. He was trying to sort out the rest of the day and the plans and schedule for the days coming up. This involved where they would sleep, how far they would travel, interviews, speeches and town meetings. He did a lot more than just drive the van. I wondered if Doug was ever able to catch any sleep during the day. He obviously wasn’t doing the running, but he had to be up as early as Terry every morning and probably didn’t get to bed any earlier.

My father had been pacing up and down the highway. He was having trouble staying in one place and he reminded me of a caged animal. Now he wandered back to the picnic table, tossed down the butt of his cigarette and ground it into the dirt with the heel of his shoe.

“Not the most exciting way to spend a day,” he said as he settled onto the bench across from me.

“Not the most.”

“I didn’t think this through. If I had, I would have arranged for somebody to pick us up midday. Riding in that stinky van is not my idea of fun.”

“Probably a lot easier than running behind it,” I said.

“But the air would certainly be fresher.” He paused and gestured toward the van. “He’s a pretty interesting guy.”

“I guess anybody planning on running across the country would have to be pretty interesting,” I commented.

“I didn’t mean Terry. I was talking about Doug. What do you think of him?”

I suddenly felt like I’d been caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to do, because I had been trying to figure him out myself. “I don’t know,” I mumbled.

“Come on, you must have an opinion,” he said, prodding me to answer.

“Well…he seems nice.”

“Nice? That’s all you can come up with to describe him?”

I shrugged.

“You have to look at people more fully, analyze them, if you want to be a reporter,” he said.

“I never said I wanted to be a reporter.”

“You could do a lot worse than following in your old man’s footsteps.”

Yeah, right, footsteps that took him away from his wife and kid…make that his wives and kids. From what I knew he hadn’t been any better in his first marriage than he’d been with us.

“Do you want to hear what I think?” he asked.

I knew that whether I wanted to hear or not he was going to tell me. Actually I kind of did want to hear what he had to say.

“First off, he’s an introvert. It’s his nature to be shy,” he said.

That was no big news. Thanks for sharing your words of wisdom and telling me the obvious.

“Ever hear the saying ‘Still waters run deep’?” my father asked.

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