The old lady turned her mighty glare on Gabe. He flinched, retreated to the sandy playground, and put Andrés down.

The toddler immediately headed for a trio of girls building sand castles with shovels and buckets. He snatched away one of their shovels when he got there.

“Hey!” the shovel-owner shouted. She seemed old enough to have a sense of ownership, but too young to realize that Andrés didn’t. Gabe moved to intercept. Then several things happened very quickly.

Gabe picked up Andrés and plucked the plastic shovel from his hand.

Andrés let out an indignant squawk.

The older boys on the basketball court gave a warning shout.

Their ball flew away from the court in a high arc headed for the middle of the sand castles.

Before it could land and destroy all the sandy buildings in its path, Gabe kicked the ball like a soccer goalie. It sailed away from the kids, away from the castles, and back toward the basketball court. He did this while still holding the squawking Andrés. Then he took a breath and smiled, proud of his reflexes and also a little surprised.

One of the older boys cursed Gabe out for kicking their ball—one shouldn’t ever kick a basketball, apparently—and the other grinned and shouted thanks. Gabe waved to both of them as though they had said the same thing, and maybe they had.

He returned the plastic shovel to the castle-building girl, who took it as her rightful due and went back to work. Then Gabe put Andrés down and checked to make sure that Noemi was still under the slide.

She wasn’t. She was running away from the playground, downhill and toward the duck pond. She laughed the shrieking laugh of forbidden freedom.

“Your baby sister’s making a break for it,” Frankie said, helpfully pointing at Noemi but not moving otherwise.

Gabe hoisted Andrés back up again, dropped him into an infant swing to contain him, and sprinted after his sister.

He caught her at the very edge of the pond.

“Splashy!” she yelled while Gabe marched her back up the hill. “Splashy, splashy! Ducks! Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks! Meow!”

“Ducks say ‘quack,’ ” Gabe told her.

“Meeeeeoooooow!”

They got back to Andrés, who was trapped in his swing and crying. That set off Noemi, so Gabe pushed them both in the swings for a bit until they cheered up.

“That was smooth,” said Frankie, who hadn’t budged from his own swing the whole time. “That was ninja-like.”

“Thanks,” said Gabe. He wanted to point out that Frankie could have helped rather than just sitting there and watching, but he didn’t bother.

“I’d still rather be a pirate than a ninja,” said Frankie.