Three Keys Read online

  I closed my eyes, breathing in her words and her lavender Pine-Sol smell.

  “Oh, Mom,” I said. “You’re ten times better than those ladies.”

  She shook her head sadly. “They’re probably never going to call me again.…” She sighed, glancing at the phone.

  I gave her a hug, then got up to get the sesame oil. I knew just the thing to make her feel better, even more than shopping.

  “How about a Mia Tang signature sesame oil shoulder rub?”

  Finally, a smile escaped from my mother’s lips.

  Lupe came over the next day to help me at the desk while Hank went to volunteer at the ACLU. She was in an extra good mood because she said that her mom had found a coyote and was going to be on her way back soon.

  “That’s great!” I exclaimed.

  I went out to the pool to do the weekly water pH test with the little strips my dad gave me, thinking about how we should throw a party for Lupe’s mom when she got back. I was so distracted, I almost didn’t notice the poster. It wasn’t until I was bent down beside the water that it caught my eye. There, taped up on the wall, was a big handwritten sign with the words Whites Only.

  I let out a piercing scream and dropped all the test strips. They flew everywhere, littering the blue water. I lunged for the poster and ripped it off the wall.

  Who wrote this? Was it one of the customers? I scrunched to the ground, hugging my legs, my body shaking. I gazed up at the big sign: Immigrants Welcome. Did some racist nut see our Immigrants Welcome sign, sneak in here, and put up their own sign? Did someone I checked in at the front desk do it?

  Lupe must have heard my scream, because in seconds she came running toward me, calling, “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  I opened up my hand to show her. Lupe’s face clouded over like a storm when she saw the words Whites Only. She took the poster from me and crumpled it up.

  “Don’t be scared,” she said, looking around the pool, eyes scanning for any other hateful posters. But it was just the one. “They want us to be scared,” she added loudly, as if whoever wrote the poster might be hiding right in the bushes. “But we won’t give them the satisfaction, will we, Mia?”

  I shook my head. Lupe reached out and helped me up. Together, we walked back to the motel office, where we sat for the rest of the day, eyes glued to the front window, watching who came in and out of the pool like two hawks. I felt safe, having my best friend next to me. Still, the question blazed inside me: Who wrote this trash and put it up in our motel?

  After the horrid poster at the pool, everyone’s spirits were in a slump. To take our mind off things, Hank and I embarked on a project—repainting the front office walls, which were peeling from years of neglect.

  We went to Home Depot, where I picked out a sunny light yellow color. We lined the front office floor with newspaper, took all the frames and keys down from the walls, rolled up our pants, and started painting. When we were done, the office looked ten times brighter than before.

  Still, our warm yellow walls did little to attract customers. It seemed like ever since the big Immigrants Welcome sign went up, cars drove right past us, turning into the Topaz Inn or the Lagoon Motel next door instead.

  “You think it’s the sign?” I asked Hank.

  He shook his head and said, “If it is, we don’t want their business anyway.”

  With less business, there was less money to go around. My mom sewed up holes in the sheets instead of ordering new linens, while my dad rummaged through the guests’ trash, trying to find aluminum cans we could sell. But none of this was good enough for our paper investors. They started calling up at the beginning of October, asking about the lukewarm sales.

  Mr. Cooper, one of our biggest paper investors, was particularly upset. “I don’t understand,” he barked over the phone one afternoon. “You guys had a great summer. Why’s business down all of a sudden?”

  It was a good question, one I’d been asking myself. We had a better location than the Topaz and the Lagoon. Why drive by us to go to them?

  One day, I came home to a room full of angry-looking investors gathered in the manager’s quarters. My parents poured tea while Hank and I tried to calm them down and assure them that business would pick up soon.

  “How can you say that when you have a twenty-foot sign out front that offends people?” Mr. Cooper asked. “Don’t you know we’re in the middle of an election?”

  Mr. Lewis held his hands up. “Listen, we got nothing against immigrants. But this is a business.”

  “Yes, and it has certain values,” I reminded them. “Values you believed in back when we all bought the Calivista. Which is how we got here.”

  Mr. Cooper made a face, as if to say, Values schmalues. Funny how people change, four big, fat profit checks later. Mrs. Miller pursed her lips.

  “Hank, you know what we’re saying, right?” she asked. I looked over at Hank and at my parents, who wiggled uncomfortably in their seats.

  I turned to the investors, crossed my arms, and said firmly, “Sorry, but we’re not taking down the sign.”

  “In that case, I’d like to sell my shares,” Mr. Cooper said. My dad’s face went as white as a milk-soaked bedsheet. “I’d like my fifty thousand dollars back. I don’t want to be one of the owners of the Calivista anymore.”

  “Now, just wait a minute,” Hank started to say.

  But Mr. Cooper reached for his briefcase and got up. “I’m sorry, but that’s my decision,” he said. He looked at me. “Mia, you know I like you, but this is business, not personal. I’m not going down with the Titanic.”

  The Titanic? What a thing to say! As I watched Mr. Cooper and the others leave, I put my head down on the front desk. I thought briefly of taking down the sign, but it was our motel. The investors weren’t supposed to tell us how to run it. They were just paper investors—that was the deal.

  The mailman knocked on the front door, and I buzzed him in. He handed me a bunch of letters, including a really thick one. It was from Visa, and it was addressed to my mom. I immediately sat up.

  Dear Ying Tang,

  We received your letter asking us to reevaluate our rejection of your credit card application, and on appeal, we’re pleased to inform you we have decided to approve your application. Enclosed please find your new Visa credit card with a $300 limit.

  Thank you for your patience and thank you for choosing Visa. We are honored you have decided to build your credit history with us.

  Yours,

  Visa Credit Card Customer Service

  “MOM!” I cried.

  Pasted below the letter was her shiny new credit card!

  My mom was overjoyed to get her new Visa card. And I went to school armed with a new word—appeal. Mrs. T said an appeal was like a do-over. In America, we didn’t have to accept the first decision. We could ask a “higher body”—someone with more power—to reconsider. In my heart of hearts, I’d always thought it would work like that, but it was great to know there was an official word for it. I couldn’t wait to tell all the other kids in our club!

  Under the tall oak tree, I walked them through how they too could appeal their parents’ rejections and denials. The other kids whooped with excitement, so loudly that one of the teachers on playground duty walked over to us.

  “What’s going on here?” Ms. Steincamp asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re supposed to be playing!”

  “We are playing,” I insisted. But Ms. Steincamp shook her head, unconvinced.

  “Fine, then, let’s see you play,” she said. She took off her sun hat, put her clipboard on the grass, and leaned against the tree, watching us. When it became clear she wasn’t planning on leaving, the other kids got up, one by one, and walked away, until it was just me, Lupe, and Jason left. We sat there, confused, until the bell rang to go back to class.

  When Lupe and I reached Mrs. Welch’s room, Bethany Brett was screaming her head off. A cockroach the size of a small Snickers b
ar was sitting on her desk.

  “Ahhhhh!!! Get it off!!!” Bethany pointed to the big bug, flailing her arms.

  At the mention of the word cockroach, all my classmates started freaking out, leaping on the chairs and tables. You’d think they’d never seen a bug before. A bunch of the boys shrieked, and some were even shivering. Mrs. Welch grabbed a newspaper, and I thought she was going to kill it—but instead, she just used the paper to cover the books on her desk.

  I rolled my eyes and made a mental note never to be stuck on a deserted island with any of them—except Lupe, who looked at me like, Are you going to do it or am I? I gave her a quick nod. With two swift moves, I took off my shoe and smacked that cockroach dead, as I had done a thousand times at the Calivista.

  Everyone stared at me, too stunned to speak. When I held up my shoe, triumphantly displaying the dead cockroach on it, the class erupted in thunderous applause.

  “That was awesome,” Stuart said, grinning.

  Bethany Brett, though, sneered at me. For someone who’d just had an enormous roach removed off her desk, you’d think she’d be a little more appreciative. But all she said was, “That’s because she lives in a roach motel.”

  I turned toward her and waved the cockroach-covered shoe in the air.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  The other kids cowered, shielding their eyes from the bloody pest.

  “Don’t ever call me Mia the maid again,” I warned Bethany.

  She swallowed hard and looked away. As I left to clean my shoe in the bathroom, I heard one of my other classmates whisper, “Did you see the way she whacked it?” I couldn’t help smiling.

  In the hall I bumped into Principal Evans. “Hey, Mia, what’s up with the bloody shoe?” she asked. I quickly explained.

  “Wow, and you got it off Bethany’s desk? That’s so brave of you. I’m sure Bethany is very appreciative,” she said, smiling.

  Yeah, right. I glanced over at my classroom, wondering whether I should bring it up with Principal Evans.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I took a deep breath. “Principal Evans,” I said, “I’m tired of the name-calling and the bullying around our school. And I’m not the only one. I know eighteen other kids who feel the same.”

  Principal Evans stared back at me. “Really?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, that is not acceptable,” she said. “We at Dale Elementary take bullying very seriously. I’m going to have a word with the teachers and see what we can do about this.”

  Hope surged inside me.

  “Is there something else?” she asked.

  I hesitated. But since I had her attention, I knew I had to ask. “A bunch of kids and I, we like to talk during recess. By the tree. Is that okay?”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with that,” Principal Evans said. With a wink, she nodded at my dripping shoe. “Now you better go get that cleaned up.”

  I practically skipped the rest of the way. Who knew a cockroach could make my day?

  The next morning at school I was watching Bethany Brett pour hand sanitizer all over the spot on her desk where the cockroach was, as though it had been permanently soiled, when the intercom crackled to life.

  “Good morning, students of Dale Elementary School,” Principal Evans’s cheery voice said. “I have an exciting announcement to make. Next Friday, we’re going to be holding a very special event. An event intended to bring us together as a community, while promoting the school values of kindness, care, and consideration.”

  I looked over at Lupe, who smiled back at me, wiggling in her seat.

  “Are you guys ready?” Principal Evans asked. “We’re going to have a … COOKOUT!”

  I could almost hear Jason cheering from the next trailer. Principal Evans explained that it was going to be potluck style, with every family bringing a dish. All around me, my classmates started shouting out what they were going to bring—paella, chicken parm, hummus, fajitas, curry!

  It all sounded delicious, but I had a feeling that the dish that was sure to knock everyone’s socks off was whatever Jason was going to be cooking up.

  “YESSSSSSS!!!” Jason yelled the second I saw him at recess. I laughed. We walked together to the big oak tree, Jason talking a mile a minute about all the things he wanted to make—braised pork belly with caramelized chili, shredded chicken salad with coconut, miso butterscotch ice cream for dessert. It made everyone’s mouths water just hearing about it!

  He got on his knees in front of the oak and thanked the school gods for the opportunity to show off his culinary prowess in front of his classmates. “You know how long I’ve been waiting for this?” he asked.

  I giggled, then asked, “Is your mom going to come?” I thought back to the other day, when she jerked him away from me like I was a virus. Still, I knew she’d be proud of Jason.

  But he shook his head. “She’ll be away at this art thing in Las Vegas. She’s trying to sell some of our paintings.”

  Sell their paintings? I raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Lupe just looked relieved that she wouldn’t have to see Mrs. Yao. I had to admit I was too.

  “But my dad might come!” Jason declared.

  And … the relief disappeared. I couldn’t believe I was going to have to have dinner with Mr. Yao again.

  When I got home, I found Hank and my parents in the front office, celebrating their own good news.

  “Guess what, Mia?” Hank asked. “The line of credit finally came through! We did it!”

  I flung my backpack to the floor and joined hands with them, jumping up and down.

  “That’s great!” I exclaimed. “So now we can buy Mr. Cooper’s shares from him?”

  Hank chuckled. “Not quite,” he said. “But it means we can take out a loan if things don’t pick up, or if they get worse.”

  I glanced over at the big sign. I sure hoped business would pick up soon. Walking out of the manager’s quarters, I noticed little pieces of blue paper peeking out from under the doors of the rooms. Puzzled, I reached down and picked one up. It was a flyer, and when I saw what was printed on it, the blood drained from my head.

  The flyer had a picture of a machine gun blasting bullets into a dark-skinned man with the words USA NOT USI: United States of America NOT United States of Immigrants written across the top.

  Shock and anger pulsed through my veins. I ran all the way back to the office and showed my parents and Hank. After the Whites Only sign, we’d all been upset. But this time, we called the police.

  It took the police an hour and a half to finally get over to the motel, and by that time we had already grabbed all the flyers. They were underneath every guest room door, which the police said meant they couldn’t have been made by a customer.

  “How do you figure?” Hank asked. I could tell he was trying very hard to keep calm underneath his perfectly ironed white shirt. Cops made him nervous, and understandably so. Last year they’d wrongly accused him of stealing a guest’s car.

  The taller cop, Officer Ryan, said, “If it’s a customer, he wouldn’t put the flyer under his own door. But you guys said it was underneath everyone’s door.”

  Hank and I exhaled in relief. It was good to know that our customers weren’t behind something so hateful.

  Officer Ryan looked up at our big Immigrants Welcome sign. “You thought about taking that down?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “We’re not going to take it down,” I said to him firmly.

  The other police officer shook his head. “Suit yourself. But you’re just asking for trouble. The state is in a crisis. There are all sorts of angry people out there, and they’re looking for targets to blame.” He looked down at his notepad. “We had thirty-two complaints of hate speech this month alone. And it’s not even close to Halloween.”

  I looked the officer right in the eyes and said, “We’re not asking for trouble. We’re asking for kindness.”

  I didn’t get much sleep that night. I was too
upset after talking to the police, who, after all that talk, said they couldn’t do anything to help us because the flyers were protected by free speech.

  I was also worried about our customers. What if the next time a hateful sign or an awful flyer showed up, they saw it before we did?

  The very next morning I found a handwritten note tucked under the front office door. I braced myself for more venom. But when I picked it up, the nicest words greeted me.

  I just wanted to say, I noticed your sign. My grandparents came over to this country from Poland some 80 years ago. Thank you for making immigrants feel welcome.

  —Mrs. Johnson (Janowicz originally, but got shortened to Johnson at Ellis Island), room 19

  The words filled my heart with hope and I framed the note and put it up on our freshly painted yellow wall.

  On Saturday, Uncle Zhang came over as my dad and I were about to leave for the library. Eagerly, I showed him Mrs. Johnson’s note. Uncle Zhang beamed and said he was proud of me, then turned to my dad and shared his own frame-worthy news.

  “Guess what? I passed my electrical technician certification exam!”

  “You’re on the main road now, buddy!” my dad said, patting Uncle Zhang on the back. The “main road” was this thing my parents and their friends were always talking about. I didn’t know where it was exactly, if it was even a real road, but I knew it was something good and preferable to the side streets, which we were on.

  “I didn’t think it would ever happen!” Uncle Zhang shook his head, still grinning.

  My dad handed Uncle Zhang his envelope for that week, apologizing that it was a little smaller because business had been down. But unlike the paper investors, Uncle Zhang didn’t freak out.