“I’m sorry, mijo,” said Mami as she pulled into traffic. “Is it bad? We’ll bandage it when we get you home.”

“I’ll be okay,” he said, and then fell silent. It was barely two, and his day felt destroyed. Nothing had gone like he wanted it to. The walk down to the boba shop wasn’t too bad, but when they got there, they found out that it had closed down a couple months ago. He hadn’t let this discourage him; there were nine more places on his list.

Getting to them was a hassle, though. One of the routes his phone told him to take didn’t have a crosswalk, and Héctor was too scared to cross the busy street—everyone drove so fast here. So they didn’t end up checking out the bookstore or the record shop. At the antiques store, Héctor was hoping to find some cool thrifted pieces to use in an outfit, but almost everything there was camping or military gear. There wasn’t anything kid-sized except for a Dora the Explorer T-shirt with some very suspicious stains.

His fish tacos at the place that claimed to make “authentic” Mexican food? Oh, they were not fish tacos. More like “soggy fish-like substance over a soggy tortilla-like substance.” And there were raw carrots in them! Who put raw carrots in a taco?

His stomach was hurting by the time they made their way to a local park that was supposed to have some cool installation art. They didn’t make it to their destination due to a gnarly tree root that had warped the sidewalk, causing him to fall.

Orangevale had not treated him all that kindly.

“We’ll drive to places next time, mijo,” said Papi. “Just so we don’t waste time.”

“Sure,” he said, but he wasn’t into it. He loved being able to walk everywhere, like he used to do . . .

Back home? Could he even say that anymore? This was his home now, wasn’t it?

He shook the feeling away. “Mami, can we write the mayor today?” he said. “I’d like to tell him he’s got a feral sidewalk issue on his hands.”

She chuckled. “Of course we can.”

“We can’t just let these concrete monsters keep claiming lives.”

“Not at all.”

“I’m starting a petition, too.”

Now Papi was laughing. “We support you.”

They rode the rest of the way back in silence. As Héctor hobbled his way into his sky-blue house, he vowed to find some other way to make Orangevale his home.

Chapter Eight

As Héctor limped down the hallway, his black Chucks squeaking repeatedly on the tile floor, he realized he’d gotten pretty good at this.