A Blind Spot for Boys by Justina Chen Page A

be seen in this,” I retorted.
    But as Mom pointed out sharply over our snickers, “Who are we going to know on the Inca Trail anyway?”
    My parents decided that it was only fair to take my brothers on trips, too. So the plan was for me to fly home on my own from Peru while they met Ash in Belize for some scuba diving. Then, Max would pick up the third leg of the trip, intercepting our parents in Guatemala to climb a couple of Mayan pyramids. My lucky brothers, their adventures didn’t involve military-grade outerwear.
    So five thousand miles and seventeen hours after our travel day started in Seattle, Mom, Dad, and I set foot onto the Southern Hemisphere, backpacks stuffed with trekking pants, flip-flops for sketchy showers, and our questionable rain gear. After a five-hour overnighter in Lima, Peru, we’d catch a dawn flight to Cusco, the ancient capital of the Incas and gateway to the Inca Trail.
    As exhausted as we were when we stumbled into the airport hotel in Lima, Dad still insisted that we check our room for bedbugs.
    “Dad,” I groaned, “for real? Do we have to do this tonight?”
    “Well,” said Dad, as he paused while inserting the key card into the hotel room door, “did I ever show you the pictures of that lady whose face ballooned with a hundred bites, not to mention her torso—”
    “Fine.” With a resigned sigh, I took my assigned role in the drama that repeats itself in every single hotel, motel, andfriends’ home where we rest our heads for a night. I flung our backpacks one after another into the bathtub. (For the record, bedbugs cannot climb porcelain.)
    When I came out of the bathroom, Dad was approaching the side-by-side queen beds as though he were a medical examiner, sleeves rolled up and headlamp on his forehead. He wrested one of the headboards off the wall, leaned into the space between, then took a deep whiff.
    “You know, some people might think we’re a little strange,” I said.
    “Don’t smell blood here,” Dad said, and rehooked the headboard onto the wall.
    “That’s reassuring, Mr. Cullen,” Mom said. “I’ll be sure to let the Volturi know.”
    She yanked the sheets off the corner of one mattress and motioned me to do the same on the opposite end. I was about to protest—I’m the official lampshade inspector, since bedbugs adore snuggling into those seams—until I realized that Dad probably couldn’t make out the telltale sign of bedbug droppings: tiny speckles that could double as black pepper.
    “I wish Auggie was here,” I said before I tucked the sheets back under the mattress.
    “That makes two of us,” Dad said, sighing.
    Bless Margie, my aunt who worked as Dad’s office manager. Dad is famously picky about dog care for Auggie, barely trusting anyone with her. So Aunt Margie had come prepared yesterday with freshly roasted chicken. One bite of that succulent bird and Auggie had practically leaped into Aunt Margie’s car.
    Morning came much too soon for another bleary-eyed flight, and I was grateful that Reb’s grandma Stesha was awaiting us in Cusco.
    “
Hola!
” Stesha cried and threw her arms first around me, then my parents. I had met Stesha once before but had forgotten how much she and Reb looked alike: the same pixie body build, the same joyful smile, the same mischievous glint in their eyes. It was a little odd to see what Reb might look like in fifty years.
    With one dramatic wave that jangled the bright bracelets on her wrist, Stesha ushered us toward a waiting van. Her walk was a girlish bounce barely touched by the gravitational pull of adulthood. Who cared that we were in a boring airport parking lot? I trained my camera on Stesha.
    Afterward, I tried to relieve Stesha of her massive tote bag, but she brushed me off with a “You need both hands free to photograph.” Clearly, “helping” Stesha was going to be a challenge; I didn’t need Reb to warn me of that. In my initial call with Stesha, she had told me, “Everyone signs up