Free Riding Invisible by Sandra Alonzo

you?”
    â€œOh, my friend back home. An old guy named Frank.”
    About then Shy stopped and raised his head, fixating on something in the distance. Good eyes, ol’ boy. Check it out!
    This galloping white horse, a beautiful mover with a rocking-horse gait practically floating across the slopes, melting into the trail. I couldn’t see much of the rider, just long black hair, but I could tell she was riding bareback. Plus I was pretty sure, even so far away, that the hair matched that nice ass I spotted yesterday. And then she disappeared.

    Tonight, about an hour ago, Tavo and I went out to blanket the horses in the barn.
    â€œMaybe I talk to your parents,” Tavo told me, and then he fastened a buckle under a mare’s belly, and God, she pinned her ears and raised a hind leg before I could react. “Look out!” Tavo shouted, and I was already leaping away when her shod hoof missed my shin by an inch. “You gotta pay attention around the horses,” Tavo said with a slow shake of his head, and by then I’d forgotten the comment he’d made about my parents until he said it again.
    I started thinking, SHIT. WHY DO WE HAVE TO GO THERE? But instead I said, “If you contact them, Tavo, they’ll make me go home.”
    â€œListen, son, maybe this not so bad a thing for you to go home. You need the school, no? Maybe your brother, maybe he get better by now.”
    And that made me laugh. “No way, man! Not him. Other kids with the same disorder, maybe they get better, but not Will.”
    Tavo stared at me hard. “Okay, for now, you stay. I gonna give you a break. ¡PERO NO ES PARA SIEMPRE! You need to think about things, Yancy. Think about your parents. They love you MUCHO . They miss you MUCHO . And they love the other son, TU HERMANO, ¿NO?”
    I didn’t answer. I just latched the stall door so we could move to the next horse. Tavo pulled a red blanket off a metal bar. “Your papa, he no use the belt?”
    â€œHa! You mean like give Will an old-fashioned whippin’? I wish he’d use the belt, but the method they learned discourages parents acting in anger. I’m not kidding. Like my dad is an angry guy sometimes, but he’s really not over the edge. Not ever. I mean, he used to smack Will once in a while before they taught him all these Anger Control Techniques. But now my dad has to keep himself calm around my brother. He’s supposed to give him time-outs, which did help for a short amount of time when Will was younger, but if you ask me, Will behaved better when Dad paddled him now and then.”
    â€œAnd your MAMÁ? She is good with your brother?”
    â€œWell, my mom is way calm and quiet and she wants Will to do good, but she’s not much of a disciplinarian. He sorta gets away with a lot when she’s in charge. Listen, Tavo, my brother’s smart and he’s sneaky like a…like a…”
    And then Tavo laughed. “ COMO UN ZORRO . In English? Like a fox!” He paused, then hooked the buckles on the red blanket underneath the horse’s belly. “You think you got a bad life, Yancy, but your mama and papa, they have a more bad life, no? This boy is their son just like you. They want the best for him even though he is so sneaky like a old fox.”
    WILL’S NO CUTE LITTLE FOX , I started to say. HE’S A KOMODO DRAGON . But before I could get the words out, Tavo started singing a hearty ballad in Spanish. With no one to talk to, I got involved in a weird mental conversation. My Self spoke to My Other Self.
    YANCY 1: Tavo’s gonna send me home one day. If he does, Will might stuff me in a meat grinder or something.
    YANCY 2: God, I hope not. I mean, shit! Those parents of yours don’t pay you any attention. You’re invisible, dude.
    YANCY 1: Exactly. And now this guy Tavo here, he seems to think my parents have a “more bad life.” Worse than me, even. Crazy,