Papi held up his water flask. “Check.”

“Sunscreen.”

He tapped the tote bag. “In here.”

“Cell phone?”

His papi ran his hands over his pockets. “Oh. Good lookin’ out, mijo.”

As he went off to go find it, Mami sidled up to him. “Sorry I can’t come with you today,” she said. “My to-do list only grows with each passing day.”

“It’s okay,” he said, smiling. “Once things calm down, we can have our own day trip. Like a spa day.”

She laughed at that. “Do you even like spas, Héctor?”

“I don’t know! I might. Guess we’ll just have to find out.”

His papi returned, holding his cell phone high. “¿Listos?” he asked.

“Whenever you are,” Héctor shot back. He bounded out the front door as his parents kissed goodbye, and he ran down to the end of the driveway.

There were more one-story houses like their own in either direction on their street. None of them were in the bright, random colors he was used to, but they weren’t exactly ugly. Lots of trees lined the street, and he did like that; he wondered what it was going to look like later in the fall. But there was so much missing: all the brightly lit storefronts. The smell of fresh tortillas from the women on the corner of 23rd and Valencia. Carson, the homeless man Héctor said hello to every day on his walk to school.

His papi caught up and grabbed Héctor’s hand. “All right, mijo,” he said. “You’re navigating. Where to first?”

Héctor took a deep breath. He’d done research after dinner last night and had assembled a list of ten places to visit that were all in walking distance. Even though he was full from breakfast, he couldn’t resist the notion of having boba on such a hot day.

“This way,” he said, and he pulled Papi onto the sidewalk and toward their destination.

Four hours later, Mami rolled up in her blue sedan. They weren’t exactly far from home, and Héctor wasn’t even all that tired. But as he limped over to the car, he was glad he wouldn’t have to try to tough it out.

“Ay, mijo, ¿que pasó?” Mami said as he laid himself across the back seat, panting.

“I was attacked,” said Héctor. “I will never recover.”

“Attacked?!” Her voice was alarmed. “By who?”

“The sidewalk,” said Papi, sitting in the front passenger seat. “The sidewalk attacked him.”

“It was terrible,” Héctor continued, sitting up and putting on his seat belt. “It’s like it opened up and ate half my leg.”

“What nuestro hijo is trying to say is that . . . well, he tripped and scraped his knee.”

“Who lets the sidewalks look like that? And there were so many places where there wasn’t a sidewalk at all.”