He said this calmly, and Pablo knew he probably hadn’t even felt scared when he fell. There was something tough about Gaspar: they were the same age, but Pablo felt like his friend was much older. Maybe it was because he didn’t have a mom, because his father was sick, because he didn’t have family nearby, because he was so alone. He didn’t laugh much, and he listened attentively. Pablo’s mom said he was a traumatized child; Vicky’s mom said he was a sad child. Then there was Adela, who rounded out their group of inseparable friends, and Adela’s mom, who said: Juan is a widower and he’s sick, it’s not easy to raise a child alone, Gaspar is just fine.

When the downpour lessened to a drizzle, Pablo zipped up his jacket and said: “Let’s go.” The park was very close, just two hundred meters away. Thanks to the bad weather that afternoon it would be empty; when it was sunny, there was almost no room to play soccer or to sit down to drink a soda, because the whole neighborhood spent the afternoon on the neglected grass, under the centenary trees lining the pathways of red earth. They were about to cross the street when they saw Vicky and Adela running toward them. Vicky, her dark hair loose and shining, had tears streaming down her face. Adela, who was holding her hand, was wearing a giant yellow raincoat that looked like a tent and completely covered the stump of her left arm.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” asked Gaspar, and he went over to Vicky. She flung her arms around his neck and cried that Diana was lost; they hadn’t seen her since the morning. Diana was one of Vicky’s two dogs, the one she loved the most, an eight-year-old German shepherd who’d been with her for practically her entire life.

“My jerk dad let her get away,” said Vicky. And amid her tears and complaints she told them how her father had left the back door open with Diana off her leash, and how the dog had run out to the sidewalk. He’d yelled at her, but she hadn’t obeyed. They expected her to come back, but Victoria and her mother had insisted on going out in the car to look for her. Nothing. That had been at nine that morning.

“So now we’re looking for her ourselves. Now that there aren’t so many cars, maybe she’s calmed down,” said Adela, brushing a lock of damp hair from her face with her only hand.

“She could be in the park,” said Gaspar.

“That’s where we’re going now.”

“Us too. I’ll drop my bike off at the shop and go with you.”