Three Keys E-Book

Kelly Yang

• Herausgeber: Knights Of
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Front Desk
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 330

Beschreibung

The story of Mia and her family and friends at the Calivista Motel continues in this powerful, hilarious, and resonant sequel to the award-winning novel Front Desk. Mia Tang thinks she's going to have the best year ever. She and her parents are the proud owners of the Calivista Motel, Mia gets to run the front desk with herbest friend, Lupe, and she's finally getting somewhere with her writing! But as it turns out, being twelve is no picnic... 1. Mia's new teacher doesn't think her writing is all that great. And her entire class finds out she lives and works in a motel! 2. The motel is struggling, and Mia has to answer to the Calivista's many, many worried investors. 3. A new immigration law is looming and if it passes, it will threaten everything -- and everyone -- in Mia's life. It's a roller coaster of challenges, and Mia needs all of her determination to hang on tight. But if anyone can find the key to getting through turbulent times, it's Mia Tang!

Leseprobe

THREE KEYS

Published by Knights Of

Knights Of ltd, Registered Offices: 119 Marylebone Road, London, NW1 5PU

www.knightsof.media

First published in the UK 2021

002

Written by Kelly Yang

Text and cover copyright © Kelly Yang, 2019

Cover art by © Maike Plenzke, 2019

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

Typeset by Laura Jones

Design by Marssaié Jordan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. If you are reading this, thank you for buying our book.

A CIP catalogue record for this book will be available from the British Library

ISBN: PB: 9781913311155

ISBN: ebook: 9781913311681

ISBN: ibook: 9781913311971

Three

keys

KELLY YANG

Also by Kelly Yang

Front Desk (Front Desk #1)

For older readers:

Parachutes

To all the dreamers

CHAPTER 1

A very wise person once told me that there are two rollercoasters in America — one for the poor and one for the rich. I’ve only been on one of those rollercoasters, and I thought I was never going to get off. But as I watched my best friend, Lupe, decorate the Calivista Motel pool with silver and gold lights, a smile stretched across my face. The lights were the kind you put up at your house at Christmas. Even though it was the middle of August and the summer sun beat down on us, it sure felt like Christmas. We were owners now. We had bought the motel from Mr. Yao, and we were finally going to run it our way!

“A little to the left!” Mrs. T, one of the weeklies, called, pointing to the BBQ at the Pool sign. She and the other weeklies — Hank, Mrs. Q, Fred, and Billy Bob — were also helping set up. They were our regular customers at the motel, but they were so much more — they were family. Hank smiled at the sign. The barbecue was his idea. It was part of his “friendlier and warmer” rebranding of the Calivista. And it was going to be delicious. We were having Hank’s tangy-sweet baby back ribs, Fred’s corn on the cob, and my mum’s fried rice.

Hank adjusted the sign and we all stood back to admire it. Lupe’s dad, José, gave a holler and a thumbs-up from the roof. I waved back at José. Ever since we took over the motel, he’d been working almost exclusively at the Calivista, which meant I’d gotten to hang out with Lupe all summer long.

My mum rushed out from the manager’s quarters with a large cooler full of ice, with my dad trailing after her.

“Don’t take that out so early,” my dad cautioned. “The ice is going to melt!”

My mum placed the cooler beside the table with the napkins and drinks. “Then I’ll just run out and get some more!” she said.

You’d think now that we were making more money, my parents would stop bickering. But every morning, my dad still pours the cooking oil he saved from the previous night’s dinner into the breakfast pan, saying “Don’t waste” in Chinese. And he still pulls a square from the toilet paper roll to wipe his nose, instead of using a Kleenex. It’s like he doesn’t believe any of this is real — that if he doesn’t save every penny, it’ll all disappear.

I walked over to the white plastic pool chairs where my dad sat and bent down next to him.

“We’re on the good rollercoaster now, Dad,” I told him. “Things are going to be different, you’ll see.”

He reached out and ruffled my hair.

Soon, the pool started filling up with guests. Besides the customers, my mum had invited a few of the immigrant investors who had chipped in to help buy the motel. She’d also invited some of the paper investors, the people who invested money but rarely came around. Instead, every month, we mailed them a cheque and a report. I loved writing the reports. As I squeezed by them, I heard them chatting about what a great summer it had been and how investing in the Calivista was the best decision they’ve ever made, and it made me so proud.

At the drinks and napkins table, a few of our customers were talking about the governor’s race here in California.

“Have you seen the ads?” one of the guests, Mr. Dunkin (room 15), asked his neighbour, Mr. Miller (room 16). I looked over to see the reaction. Lately, you couldn’t miss Governor Wilson on television. He was running for reelection against a woman, Kathleen Brown. His campaign ads showed people running across the US­-Mexico border while a creepy, low voice bellowed, “THEY KEEP COMING.” I couldn’t stand the eerie music and the Darth Vader voice.

Mr. Miller put his baby back rib down and licked his gooey fingers. “I’ll tell you something, if those illegals keep coming, there’ll be nothin’ left for the rest of us,” he said.

I glared at them out of the side of my eyes. The term illegals was so mean, it always made me jerk backward whenever I heard it. I wanted to take his gooey baby back rib and stick it in his hair.

Instead, I looked around for my best friend, Lupe. She was up on the roof with her dad, watching the sunset. I waved and smiled at her, remembering the long, wonderful summer we’d had, all the late afternoon swims in the pool and game nights in Billy Bob’s room. It was just like I’d written about in my essay for the Vermont motel contest.

“Mia!” Hank called to me from the grill. He was still in his mall security guard uniform, having just gotten off work. The hours were long at his job, but he was hopeful that a big promotion was just around the corner, which would mean he’d have more free time. “Hand me those napkins, will ya?” Hank asked me with a smile.

I got Hank a thick stack of napkins. As he grilled the ribs, I told him what I’d heard Mr. Miller say. The hickory smoke of the ribs mixed with the frustration in my nose.

“It’s those awful ads,” Hank said, frowning. He brushed the ribs with his honey barbecue sauce. “They’re scapegoating the immigrants for California’s problems.”

“What-goating?” I asked. I pictured a billy goat in the middle of the pool, bleating and splashing toward us.

“Scapegoating’s when you blame someone else for things that go wrong, even if they had nothing to do with it,” Hank explained. He adjusted his hat to block the lazy summer sun from his eyes.

“There’s a word for that? I thought it was just called plain ol’ mean,” I said.

Hank chuckled.

As the ribs sizzled on the grill, I thought back to last year.

“Is it kind of like when we had to pay Mr. Yao for the broken washing machine?” I asked Hank, wincing a little at the memory. It had been a long, hard year, and sometimes I still got goosebumps when I thought about the many, many things Mr. Yao had docked our salary for.

“Exactly,” Hank said, tapping the meat with his barbecue fork. “Put it this way: Governor Wilson has a very large broken washing machine, called the California economy, and now he needs someone to blame.”

My mother waved at me from the other side of the pool. She and my dad were standing next to their friends, Uncle Zhang and Auntie Ling. I waved back and called, “Be right there!” Then I turned to Hank and asked, “But why immigrants?”

He put his barbecue prong down and thought for a minute. Finally, he said, “Because it’s easy to blame those in a weak spot.”

As Hank returned to his barbecue, I thought about Lupe’s two rollercoasters saying. It was bad enough to be stuck on the poor one without other people trying to make the ride even longer and more shaky. I stared into the blurry heat above the grill, my heart thumping.

...

After all the guests left later that night, I found Lupe sitting on the stairs in the back of the motel. I took a seat next to her.

“Can you believe it’s already the middle of August?” Lupe asked, leaning her head against my shoulder and smiling in the dreamy, sticky heat. We looked up at the bright full moon and listened to the fireworks going off at Disneyland, five miles away. We couldn’t see them, but we could hear them every night. “I wish the summer would never end.”

“Me too,” I said. Lupe offered me a watermelon wedge from her paper plate, and I bit into it, the sweetness of the watermelon lingering on my tongue.

As I gazed up at the stars, I thought about how amazing this was. To be able to sit here and listen to the fireworks and not have to worry that Mr. Yao might drive over and yell at us to get back to work. Now instead of threats and harassment, we had a new credit card reader, a new vending machine, How to Navigate America classes for new immigrants on Wednesdays, hosted by Mrs. T and Mrs. Q, and Lucky Penny search nights on Tuesdays, organised by my dad.

My parents were no longer walking zombies, thanks to a sign up at the front office that Lupe and I made that said, Catching some z’s. Please come back in the morning! The front desk is open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.

The first night my parents put up that sign, they kept waking up at night, hearing customers in their heads. It was as though people were checking in between their right ear and their left ear. It took a week for them to accept that they were no longer nocturnal, but finally they started sleeping soundly all night long.

Lupe turned to me and asked, “We’re still going to do this when school starts, right? Check people in together?”

“Are you kidding?” I asked. “Of course!” I loved working at the front desk with my best friend. Best friend. I rolled the words around in my mouth. They were words I never got to say before, having moved to four different schools for six different grades. Now I got to say them whenever I wanted!

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Lupe said, pulling a piece of paper from her pocket and handing it to me. “My dad had to go home early, but he said to give you guys this.”

I opened the note. The words Channel 624 and Channel 249 were scribbled inside.

“They’re the Chinese news channels,” she said. “He finally managed to get them to work so your parents can watch the Chinese news!”

I grinned. “They’ll be so excited! Tell him thanks!”

Lupe took her watermelon rind, held it up to her mouth, and beamed a gigantic green smile at me.

One of the guest room doors opened, and the sound of the Channel 5 Evening News spilled into the night. The words illegal immigration thundered from the room. I jerked back again. I never used to hear that term before. Now I heard it five times a day.

“Have you seen the ads on TV?” I turned to Lupe and asked.

Lupe’s watermelon smile disappeared. She put her wedge down and asked, “What ads?” like she didn’t know what I was talking about. Which was impossible. You’d have to be a Martian not to have seen them all summer.

“Don’t worry, he’s not going to win,” I told her gently. I thought about telling her what Hank said about the goat named Scape.

Lupe wrapped her arms tightly around her knees and hunched into a ball. “So, you ready for school to start tomorrow?” she asked, changing the subject. “I hope we’re in the same class again this year.”

“Me too!”

“Hope we’re not in the same class as Jason Yao,” she added, making a face.

I laughed. “He’s not that bad.” Actually, I’d thought about Jason a few times this summer. I hadn’t heard from him. I bet he went on a long fancy holiday with his parents, staying at one of those hotels with the huge breakfast buffets. I wished we could have one at the Calivista. I wondered if he thought about us as he munched on his chocolate croissants. I’d kind of hoped he’d call me. Then I could tell him how well we were doing.

There were a couple of days that summer when we had rented out every single room. That had never happened before. We even got to light up the No Vacancy sign! My dad let me flick the switch. As I lit the sign, I fantasised about Mr. Yao driving past, his face fuming with regret.

“Jason is that bad,” Lupe insisted. Her face turned all red and I stared at her, half amused.

“He’s changed a lot,” I reminded her. “He was the one who helped us negotiate with Mr. Yao for the motel, remember?”

Still, Lupe shook her head. “People don’t change.”

I studied her, her hands squeezed tight into little fists around her knees, as Hank came running over.

“Mia! Lupe! Come quick! You guys gotta see this! We’re on TV!”

CHAPTER 2

We all gathered around the small TV in the manager’s quarters. Hank turned the volume all the way up while Lupe, the weeklies, my parents, and I sat cross-legged on the floor. Everyone leaned toward the screen.

There, on the evening news, was a man standing directly across the street from the Calivista, holding up a small dog. The dog had been found right here on Coast Boulevard, hiding under a parked car. As the owner tearfully explained how thrilled he was to have his dog back after three months of agonizing over where he was, we all stared at the giant Calivista Motel sign just to the left of his head.

“This is free advertising!” Fred shouted. We all jumped up and shook hands, congratulating one another on our amazing luck. My mum poured everyone cups of jasmine tea as my dad hopped on the phone and started calling his immigrant friends and the paper investors to tell them the good news.

Billy Bob pointed at the TV. “How much do you think a spot like that would have cost?”

Fred whistled. “Thousands of dollars, I’d say!” His belly shook as he laughed.

Mrs. T flipped to Channel 4 and everyone gasped. We were on Channel 4 too! Lupe and I jumped up and down and started doing our happy dance.

Hank held up his index finger. “I have an idea!” he exclaimed. He looked to my parents. “Where’s the ladder? I need to add some words to our sign!”

My parents took Hank to the back alley behind the pool, where they kept the ladder that José used to fix the cable up on the roof. Fred and Billy Bob helped Hank move it in front of the towering Calivista sign. As Hank grabbed the letters to the new words he wanted to put up, we all looked up at the sign.

“You’re not thinking of climbing all the way up there, are you?” Mrs. T asked Hank. The sign was easily twenty feet tall. “It’s much too high!”

“Don’t do it, Hank!” I seconded. What if he fell? We still didn’t have health insurance. We’d tried to buy some as a small business, but the only plan that was affordable had a minimum requirement of six full-time employees. The insurance company said investors didn’t count.

But Hank was already halfway up the ladder, the letters gripped in one hand. As he added the new words to the sign, we all held our breath. It wasn’t until he was safely back down that we read the message.

There, under the words CALIVISTA MOTEL, $20/NIGHT, and 5 MILES FROM DISNEYLAND, were four words that made my heart swell with pride: AS SEENONTV.

Leave it to Hank to think up the perfect way to take advantage of our fifteen minutes of fame!

...

I rubbed my eyes the next morning, awoken by the sound of honking horns on the boulevard. Peeking out the window, I could see customers already lined up at the front office, ready to check in.

“Mum! Dad! Wake up!” I yelled, jumping out of bed.

My parents and I changed out of our pyjamas and quickly got to work, checking people in and handling requests for wake-up calls and late checkouts. The new sign was bringing people in faster than you could say Calivista!

Hank stopped to say good morning as he was getting ready for his day, and when he saw how busy we were, he immediately stepped behind the front desk. Hank was a natural checker-iner. He loved talking to the customers, and they loved talking to him. Everyone wanted to know how we were on TV, and as soon as he told them the story of Cody the puppy being found just across the street, the customers all awwwed.

I glanced down hesitantly at my backpack lying beside the front desk, not quite ready to leave. It was all packed up for my first day of sixth grade.

“Go, Mia,” my dad said. “We’ve got it covered.”

“But —”

“We’ll be fine here. You’re going to be late for school,” Hank said, looking at the clock. It was nearly 8:00. My fingers lingered on the row of keys hanging next to the stack of registration forms. We were running low on the forms. Expertly, Hank tore open a box of fresh new ones and set them on the table.

I picked up my backpack. “Okay,” I said. My mum handed me a custard bun for breakfast. I stopped by the kitchen and when she wasn’t looking, swapped it for a granola bar. At the door, I stopped and turned back. “Wait, what about your job at the mall?” I asked Hank.

“Don’t worry about it.” He waved me off. “I’ll just take one of my holiday days. I still have a bunch!”

...

I ate my granola bar as I walked the familiar two blocks down Meadow Lane to my school. It was a Great Value bar, not like the Quaker Chewy ones the other kids ate at school. My dad said it didn’t matter, they were all the same inside. He didn’t eat any granola bars himself, preferring the Bin Bin rice crackers from the Chinese grocery store. But I liked the granola bars better.

As I tossed back the rest of my breakfast, a white Mercedes came roaring behind me, screeching to a stop. I turned around to see Jason and his mum pulling up to me, and I quickly scrunched up the wrapper and stuck it in my pocket. Mrs. Yao waved from behind the wheel, her enormous diamond ring catching in the light.

“Get in,” Jason said, jumping out of the car. “We’ll give you a ride.”

He looked different, taller and with stiffer hair. Had he gelled it? His eyes smiled back at me while he waited. I hesitated for a second — what would Lupe say if she saw me arriving at school in Jason’s car? But it was 36 degrees outside, and I could feel the car’s air conditioning beckoning me from the sidewalk. I climbed inside and sank into the soft leather seat.

“How was your summer?” Jason asked me as his mother drove. I had been practicing what to say when I saw him again, a casual but impressive story complete with sales figures: We managed to double our occupancy rates, the number of repeat customers went up by 50 percent, and we helped twenty-five immigrants, providing them free rooms and meals to help them get on their feet.

But in my excitement and haste, all that came out was, “Good.” I quickly added, “How about you? Did you go anywhere?”

I waited for the itinerary of no fewer than three continents, but Jason shook his head and said, “Nah.”

I lifted my eyes from the automatic window controls, surprised. “You didn’t go anywhere?”

“Yeah, I just stayed home,” he said.

His mum called from the front, “We travelled way too much last summer, didn’t we, sweetie?”

Jason gazed out the window and didn’t say anything. As we pulled up at school, I spotted Lupe in her mum’s car and waved to Mrs. Garcia. Mrs. Garcia had on a bright red headband and smiled at me as she waved back. A few times this summer, she’d come along with her husband to the motel. She always brought over great big bowls of freshly made guacamole and chips, and we’d all dive in. A few times, she even pitched in and helped my parents clean the rooms when it was a full house. Lupe’s eyes darted from me to Mrs. Yao to Jason, and she raised her drawing pad to her face like a shield.

I thanked Mrs. Yao for the ride and got out of the car, running over to Lupe to tell her about all the new customers this morning.

“That’s amazing!” she squealed, peeking over at Mrs. Yao. “The sign must have worked!”

“What sign?” Jason asked, walking over to us.

Quickly, I told Jason about being on TV.

“Really?” he asked. “What channel? I can’t believe I missed it.” Then with a groan, he added, “All I did was watch TV this summer.”

Lupe’s face turned red. The bell rang, and she grabbed my hand and pulled me away from Jason, toward the classrooms.

The walls of Dale Elementary School were adorned with hand-drawn blue-and-gold WELCOME BACK posters. Unlike last year, the walls were not freshly painted, but they still looked warm and inviting. As we walked down the halls, the younger kids scattered out of our way, gazing at us in awe. I smiled, remembering what it was like to be a fourth grader, looking up at a sixth grader. They seemed as powerful as the sun, like if you stared at one too long, you might go blind. I couldn’t believe I was now a sun.

Lupe and I walked arm in arm to the front office, where we learned that we were in the same class again — Mrs. Welch’s class! Jason was so bummed he wasn’t in Mrs. Welch’s class too, he threw his backpack down on the floor in a fit of frustration, and as if that wasn’t enough, he stomped on it.

Lupe started tugging my arm away from Jason and out of the office, but I resisted her pull. I wasn’t ready to go to class just yet.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” I said gently to Jason.

Jason turned to the receptionist. “Can I switch classes? Please? I want to be in Mrs. Welch’s class too!”

The receptionist shook her head. “Sorry, I’m afraid not. All the classroom assignments are final.”

Jason stuck out his lower lip.

Lupe tapped my arm again, holding the door open with her foot. “He’ll be fine,” she insisted.

I glanced at Jason, who looked far from fine. He was staring at the receptionist the way some of our customers did whenever we told them we were all out of double beds.

Slowly, I walked over and put a hand on his back. “Hey, we’ll still see each other at break time,” I offered. Jason hung his head, nodding slightly.

CHAPTER 3

Ten minutes later, Lupe and I found our new classroom way in the back of the school, except it wasn’t a classroom, it was an air-conditioned trailer! Hesitantly, Lupe and I opened the door to the trailer, thinking there must be some kind of mistake. But a thin white woman gestured for us to come in, so we did.

“I’m Mrs. Welch,” the woman said. “Please take a seat.” She pointed to the desks, where rows of similarly confused-looking students sat. I recognised Bethany Brett, the girl who had made fun of my maths last year. Bethany rolled her eyes at me. Clearly, she was thrilled to see me too. I walked over to the two empty desks way on the other side of the room, far, far away from Bethany. As Lupe and I set our things down, Mrs. Welch made an uh-uh sound.

“Sorry, but you can’t sit with your friends,” Mrs. Welch said, shaking her head. She pointed at Lupe and motioned for her to take the seat next to Bethany’s instead. “Sit here.”

As Lupe reluctantly moved her stuff over to the other side of the room, I sat at my desk, my jaw clenching in frustration.

“Good morning, class.” Mrs. Welch had a tight brown bun on her head, like her hair had been pulled back with a vacuum cleaner. Her cheekbones were razor sharp, and she forced her paper-thin lips into a stiff smile as she scanned the room.

“Good morning, Mrs. Welch,” we replied.

“You’re probably wondering why we’re in a trailer,” she said. I looked around the room. Several kids were nodding. One was asleep. And another kid was scratching his head and smelling his fingers.

“Well, the classroom we were supposed to be in had a little water damage,” Mrs. Welch explained. “We were hoping to fix it over the summer, but unfortunately, due to budget cuts . . .” Her voice trailed off.

There was another phrase we’d heard a lot this summer: due to budget cuts. There was a collective groan in the classroom, which Mrs. Welch cut short with a clap of her hands. “Right, then. We’re not going to dwell on that. Get out your pencils. We’re going to start the school year off by writing a little reflection.”

I sat up very straight. YES! I was dying to get back to writing. The reports for the paper investors were fun, but I longed for the freedom and challenge of fiction.

“I’m sure you’ve all heard about the gubernatorial race,” she said.

“Gubana-what?” Stuart, in the back, asked.

A few kids laughed.

“Gubernatorial!” Mrs. Welch repeated.

We all just giggled harder. Except Lupe — her head was down, and she was drawing in her sketch pad.

Mrs. Welch wrote GUBERNATORIAL on the board, but still we couldn’t pronounce it. She finally had to ditch it and go with the word governor instead.

“Governor Wilson is running for reelection,” she said. “One of the things he’s running on is immigration. Do you guys know what immigration means?”

I raised my hand. “It’s when someone comes to this country from another country.”

Mrs. Welch frowned. “Yes, but please wait until you are called on before speaking next time,” she scolded me. “This is the sixth grade. You need to follow the rules.”

I felt my cheeks turn hot.

Bethany Brett raised her hand and blurted out, “I heard it cost the state of California 1.5 billion dollars just to take care of immigrants.”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Welch said. She nodded at Bethany, pleased. “Someone’s been paying attention to the news.”

I couldn’t believe it. Mrs. Welch had just snapped at me for not waiting to be called on before speaking, but when Bethany did it, she was all jazz hands and dancing fingers. I shook my head and stared at the glued-on “wooden” walls of our trailer classroom.

Sixth grade was off to some start.

...

At break time, Jason walked up to me and Lupe. We were talking about Mrs. Welch.

“Can you believe that woman?” I asked Lupe. “She yelled at me in the first five minutes of class!”

“And she made us write about immigration,” Lupe added. She mimicked Mrs. Welch’s voice. “ ‘Write your true feelings. There are no right or wrong answers.’ YEAH RIGHT.”

“Writing already? On the first day?” Jason shuddered. “We just sat around and introduced ourselves.”

“For the entire morning?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. You’d be amazed how long you can stretch that out for.” Jason grinned. “At least a morning, sometimes even an entire day!”

I chuckled. It sounded like he was feeling better about his class.

Then he turned to me and asked, “Hey, so you want to come over to my house after school next Friday and hang out?”

I glanced over at Lupe, who was jiggling her head from side to side like a Chinese rattle drum. But I remembered the disappointment on Jason’s face that morning, when he found out we weren’t in the same class. “Sure . . .” I said slowly. “We’re free next Friday, right, Lupe?”

She shot me a look. “I think I have to help my dad out with something,” she muttered.

“How about you, Mia?” Jason asked, eagerly.

“I, uh . . .”

“Oh, c’mon, it’s going to be so awesome. Wait till you see my house.”

“I’ve been to your house,” I reminded him. Last year, when we first met his dad. And his dad tricked us into working at the motel for practically free.

“Yeah, but not as . . . you know . . .” His voice trailed off.

I shook my head. “As what?”

Jason blushed.

“As a friend.”

Awwww. I looked over at Lupe, who had Excuse me while I go throw up written on her face. But was it really so bad to be friends with him? Sure, Jason was a world-class buffoon last year, but you can’t hold something against someone forever, can you?

“Okay,” I said.

...

“How was school?” my parents asked when I walked into the motel that afternoon. My mum set down a plate of tomato and egg, my favourite, while my dad scooped a generous helping of rice for me. I smiled. Now that my parents could take breaks whenever they wanted, they could sit down with me while I had my snack. Which was more like a meal. Though I got free lunch at school, it usually wasn’t enough, and my belly was rumbling by the time I got home.

“Good,” I said, picking up my chopsticks. The chopsticks kept falling apart in my hands, so I ditched them for a fork. As I ate, I told my parents about my new teacher and how we’d gotten off to a rocky start — but that it would be okay, since I was going to win her over with my writing.

“That’s the spirit,” my mum said. She looked over to my dad, but he was too busy staring at my hand.

“You’re eating rice with a fork?” he asked.

I blushed and quickly switched to a spoon. Was that a better utensil? Dad smiled a little. I ate the rest of my food quietly. As I cleared the plates and tossed my unused chopsticks in the sink, I wondered why it mattered so much to Dad what I used to eat with, so long as I got the food in my mouth?

CHAPTER 4

The next day at break time, Lupe brought up going over to Jason’s house. “Are you sure it’s a good idea?” she asked, pushing open the door to the bathroom.

I followed her inside and went into one of the stalls. “I mean, I’m not, like, looking forward to it, but I’m not dreading it either,” I answered truthfully. I was a tiny bit worried about bumping into Mr. Yao. But he’d probably be at work.

“So why are you going?” Lupe asked from the stall next to me. She skipped a beat and then asked, “Do you like Jason?”

Before I had a chance to reply — No way! I don’t like him — a group of girls came into the bathroom talking loudly.

“My mum says she’s pretty sure there are illegals in our class,” said one of the girls. I peeked through the crack in the stall. It was Gloria, a girl who thankfully was not in our class.

Over in her stall, Lupe was as quiet as a church mouse.

“How can you tell them apart?” asked Gloria’s friend.

“That’s easy. If they speak English with an accent.”

The two girls giggled.

Very quietly, I lifted my feet so that the girls couldn’t see them if they looked under the stall. I shrank so small, I nearly fell into the toilet. Despite my best efforts, I still spoke English with a slight accent.

Lupe and I waited until the girls left before reemerging from our stalls. When we came out, Lupe turned to me, obviously as shaken by what she heard as I was.

“Just ignore them,” she said.

I kept my head down as I washed my hands. Easy for her to say. She had no accent at all.

...

After school on Wednesday, we hurried along Meadow Lane, eager to get back to the motel and help set up for the How to Navigate America class that Mrs. T and Mrs. Q taught every week in Mrs. T’s room. Lupe and I helped translate, and sometimes I would write letters for any immigrants who needed help with various situations.

Thanks to Lupe’s Spanish, we were now able to serve not only Chinese immigrants but Latino uncles and aunties too, and their kids. They learned things like how to open a bank account and how to get around on public transportation. My mum taught their children maths in another room. It was her favourite night of the week.

Hank was in the front office when we got back. “You won’t believe it! Ever since that TV spot, your dad says we’ve been get­ ting twice the business,” he announced, gesturing for us to come look at the cash register. Lupe and I put our backpacks down and ducked below the front desk divider. Our eyes widened at the heaps of cash.

“That’s the power of advertising!” Hank beamed and hopped off the stool. “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to go down to the paper during my lunch hour next week to see how much it costs to run a real ad.”

My dad came running in from the kitchen, just behind the front office, looking alarmed. “How much is that going to cost?”

“Relax, buddy.” Hank put a hand on my dad’s shoulder as he grabbed his room key. “Print ads aren’t as expensive as TV ads.”

“But why do we have to do any ads?” Dad asked.

I remembered something else Lupe had told me about America: Sometimes you gotta pay to play. I grinned — we were in the big leagues now. This was us playing. I reached for my dad’s hand and led him outside, pointing up at the AS SEEN ON TV sign. “Have faith, Dad.”

After Hank left, my mum came into the manager’s quarters. She was hunched over with one hand on her back and the other hand on her knee. “I’m so sore from cleaning,” she said, cringing as she sank onto her bed in the living room. I sighed, wishing we had enough money for her to see a chiropractor for her back. Cleaning was starting to take a toll on her.

“Here, Mum,” I said, walking over to her and putting my hand to her shoulder. “Let me massage your muscles.”

My mother lay down on her bed and cooed, “Oh, you sweet thing,” as I massaged her.

“Hold on,” I said. I’d seen this thing on TV where if you massaged someone with coconut oil, it felt good. We didn’t have any coconut oil — that was way too pricey — but we had sesame oil. I got it from the kitchen and slathered it on my mum’s arm.

“That feels sooo good!” Mum said. “My muscles are like rubber bands that have hardened and become sticks!”

“Well, if you’re a stick, I’m a tree trunk,” my dad chuckled, sitting down beside her. He held out his hand. “Put some of that here, will ya?”

I squeezed a few drops of sesame oil on his hand and my dad rubbed his neck with it.

“That smells great,” he said, closing his eyes and inhaling the nutty aroma. “Now all you need is to crack an egg, throw some spring onions on me, and you’ll have yourself a delicious jianbing.” He cackled.

I furrowed my eyebrows. “What’s jianbing?”

“Jianbing? You don’t remember jianbingguozi?” He stopped massaging his neck and looked at me, shocked. “It’s a Chinese breakfast. We used to buy it on the streets in Beijing. How can you not remember?”

I shook my head, trying for the life of me to remember, but I just couldn’t.

My dad sighed. I could tell he was disappointed I had forgotten yet another remnant of the old country. “I hope you’re not becoming a banana,” he joked. A banana was what Chinese people called a kid who has gotten too Americanised — yellow on the outside and white on the inside. If it came from anyone else, I’d be super offended, but I knew my parents were just kidding. Still, it hurt a little, like a tiny mosquito bite.

“Oh, stop, she’s not a banana,” my mum piped up from the bed. “Now put some more of that stuff on me.”

...

As my mum wiped the sesame oil off her sore arms and neck and got ready for her maths class, Lupe and I went over to Mrs. T’s room. Today, there were five Latino and three Chinese uncles and aunties there. They beamed and quickly gestured for me to come over and help them write letters to various people and departments — the phone company, the bank, etc. I took a seat at my special desk Mrs. T set up for me, feeling very official.

As Lupe chatted with the Latino uncles and aunties, my mum came over to collect their kids. The boys and girls, ages five, seven, and ten, sniffed the air — my mum smelled of sesame oil and Lysol, which must have been a very peculiar smell to them. To me, it smelled like home.

“C’mon, kids,” she said. As they moved to the room next door I heard her ask, “Who’s ready to learn some maths today?”

In our room, Mrs. Q passed out papers and pens. Lupe was talking animatedly with one of the aunties in Spanish.

“They said they’re from Jalisco. They’ve just crossed over,” Lupe translated, then paused. “They tried crossing over from San Diego, but there were too many Border Patrol officers. So they had to go through Arizona.”

My mouth formed an O. Though we’d been talking about it at school and I’d heard about illegal immigration all summer on TV, this was the first time I’d seen it up close. I knew some of my parents’ friends knew Chinese immigrants who had overstayed their visas, but I hadn’t yet met them. The uncles and aunties from Jalisco looked nothing like the grainy figures in the TV ads. One of them took an orange from his pocket and kindly offered it to me and Lupe. His hands were dry and cracked, even drier than my mum’s.

“They want to know if you can write a letter to the Border Patrol. An anonymous letter,” Lupe translated. “Asking them to look for their friend. They walked for days in the scorching Sonoran desert. And it got so hot that unfortunately, their friend . . .” She stopped translating and wiped a tear from her cheek.

“Their friend what?” I asked, the ink from my pen pooling on my forefinger and thumb.