Narrator
The first-person narrator remains unnamed, but is a 12-year-old boy living midway between the Arizona city of Nogales three miles to the north and the Mexican border three miles to the south. Having recently started middle school, he and his best friend have discovered how to “solve junior high” by taking daily adventures over the arroyo located across the street. Everything change forever the day he and his friend discover heaven in a piece of green real estate unlike anything else he’s ever seen in Arizona.
Sergio
Sergio, also twelve, is the narrator’s best friend who had already been living on the outskirts of the city when his family moved from Nogales seven years earlier. The two are inseparable, sharing the wonder of being kids with their “old friend from way back” the arroyo. Like best friends do, the two rarely need to actively communicate with words. Whereas the narrator exhibits significant difficulty in conveying meaning of his experience to the reader, he and Sergio just seem to intuitively understand everything in the same way.
The Narrator's Mother
The narrator’s mother is portrayed through his eyes as active, caring, and motherly, but also alienated from their shared experience. He doesn’t even try to communicate to her what happened that was life-altering for him and Sergio. Her character is defined by her reaction to the “tons” of polished quartz he has brought home like a prize over the years: she thinks it’s just dirty rocks and he needs to “getridofit.” She’s a good mom, but she doesn’t get it.
The Golfers
The reality of the little green slice of “heaven” is not revealed until nearly the end of the story as being a golf course. Like the narrator’s mother, the first two golfers that the narrator and Sergio have ever seen in their lives are defined by a single action: yelling at them to get off the green.
