Three Keys Read online

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Author’s Note

  Teaser to Front Desk

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Kelly Yang

  Copyright

  A very wise person once told me that there are two roller coasters in America—one for the poor and one for the rich. I’ve only been on one of those roller coasters, 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 mom’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 mom 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 mom 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 roller coaster 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 mom 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 check 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 neighbor, 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 goose bumps when I thought about the many, many things Mr. Yao 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, Uncl
e 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 roller coasters 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, organized 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 vacation 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 fantasized 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!”

  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 mom 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 SEEN ON TV.

  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.

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

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p; My parents and I changed out of our pajamas 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 mom 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 vacation 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 mom 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.”