He pumps down the street, cutting across the heavy traffic on Murrieta, the shaft of the ball peen hammer stuffed in his back pocket banging against his lower back. He coasts for a moment so he can reach behind and shove the head of the hammer deeper into his pocket, making certain it doesn’t fall out. He doesn’t want to lose the hammer. If the Arroyos hurt his little brother he’s gonna use it to smash their teeth out.
Andy watches from the little league fields behind the elementary school as George rides past on the street. Paul already came by, taking his bike straight across the school’s blacktop playground. Hector will be riding the longest way around, all the way down Murrieta to Olivina before cutting toward the Arroyos’ neighborhood. They’ll have split up the routes to catch him before he can get himself into any trouble. And if it were a race, they would catch him, any one of them could run him down easy. But he’s not racing, he’s hiding, and no one can catch him when he’s hiding.
Out after curfew, when a cop car rolls up and they all break in different directions, Andy is the one who’s never caught. He’s not sure how he does it. The hiding places aren’t even that good sometimes, but he knows when the spot is the right one.
When George goes on a rampage in their house because he’s realized that Andy borrowed one of his favorite albums without asking and then put it back in the wrong jacket, he has a checklist of hiding places to look in. Cupboards, under the stairs, cracks behind large pieces of furniture, the roots of shrubs, high branches of trees even though he knows his brother fears all heights, in the hatchback of their mom’s yellow Fiesta.