Three Keys Read online

  That night, as we lay in bed, I thought about Mr. Delaney. What was so different about him that he got to make $300 an hour and my parents made less than $100 a day? It wasn’t like he had an extra hand or a second brain—why was his time worth so much more than ours? Just because he could write and speak better English? I thought of Mrs. Welch’s offer again. I flipped to my side and told Lupe about it.

  “Maybe you should take her up on it,” Lupe said. “My math got a lot better once your mom started working with me.”

  “But this is Mrs. Welch we’re talking about. And what about the club?” I asked. “Besides, she doesn’t even like my writing. She’s not like Mrs. Douglas.”

  Lupe yawned in the dark. “You know, I won an essay contest too, once.”

  I propped myself up with my pillow. “Really?”

  “Yeah. The topic was What do you want to be when you grow up? I wrote about wanting to be an artist and drawing trees so majestic, they looked like castles.”

  I smiled. “Why are you always drawing trees?” I asked.

  “My mom says people—our family—we’re like the trees. If we set our roots deep enough, we can’t be moved.”

  It was such a beautiful image that I reached out in the dark for her hand.

  We were going to put her family back together. In the morning we’d call up more lawyers and start passing out the flyers. Maybe I could even call up Annie the reporter and ask her if she had any ideas. Whatever it took, we weren’t going to give up until we got them back together again.

  As we held hands in the moonlight, I asked Lupe, “So what happened with the essay contest?”

  She exhaled heavily, staring up at the cobwebs on the ceiling. Even though my parents were professional cleaners, our own rooms were always full of cobwebs. I guess they were too busy cleaning … to clean.

  “I worked hard on it, putting in similes like we’d learned about in class,” Lupe said to the cobwebs.

  I nodded. Mrs. Welch was big on similes too.

  “Two weeks later, we got a phone call from the district. Out of all the third grade stories, they picked mine. They were going to send it to the state contest.”

  I sat up in bed. “That’s amazing!”

  Something about Lupe’s long pause, though, told me this was not the kind of story with a happy ending. She let go of my hand, and I lay back down, biting the soft corner of my blanket as she continued.

  “The next week, the state essay people called. They wanted more information, like my birthday, my social security number. They said the contest came with a cash prize.”

  “That’s great!”

  Lupe shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. They wanted to know our bank account information … and that’s when my parents hung up.”

  “Oh, Lupe,” I gasped in the dark.

  She told me that at the end-of-year assembly, another girl got called up to the front. They gave her Lupe’s certificate.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

  I thought about Lupe’s words for a long time, thinking of how different and similar the two of us were. We were both girls with big hopes and dreams. But because of one piece of paper, we were on two different sides of the law. I didn’t really understand before what that paper meant. But now, I was starting to realize, it meant the difference between living in freedom and living in fear.

  On Monday morning, I left a message for Annie at the newspaper, asking about coyotes and how to track a person who might be missing.

  “Mia, Lupe, hurry, you’re going to be late for school,” my mom called as I hung up.

  I swung my backpack on and handed my mom the two dozen flyers Lupe and I had made.

  “Be sure to hand them out to every customer who walks in,” I said.

  Mom nodded and handed me two boxes of Pocky sticks in return. Hank was taking me and Lupe to San Diego after school to visit José. I’d finally convinced my parents to let me go. It was going to be about an hour and a half in the car each way and the Pocky was in case we got hungry.

  At school, Jason walked up to me on the field. With his hands in his pockets, he said, “Thanks for the article.”

  I nodded. I didn’t need him to thank me. I needed him to see that the world was bigger than the one his dad saw.

  “You’re right. I should just talk to my parents,” Jason went on. Then he sighed. “But I already know what they’re gonna say. They’re just gonna say no.…”

  I shook my head at him. “If you think that way—”

  “You don’t understand, Mia. I’m not like you!” he exploded. “You have nothing to lose. My parents want me to be a lawyer or a doctor! They have high hopes for me!”

  His words burned. “And mine don’t?” I snapped.

  Jason’s face flushed. Neither of us said anything for a long time.

  Then I decided to let him in on a secret.

  “I was exactly like you once, you know.”

  “Like me how?” Jason asked.

  I gazed at the other kids lining up for class across the field, debating whether I should tell him. “I didn’t think I could be a writer because of something my mom said.…” I muttered. “She said because English is not my first language, I was a bike and the other kids were cars.”

  I didn’t know why I was telling him this, why I was letting Jason in on the most vulnerable part of me, but as I said the words and looked into his eyes, I felt a gigantic wall come down between us.

  “Oh my God,” Jason said, shaking his head furiously. “That is so not true!”

  My eyes flashed with surprise at his strong response. “Thanks. But at the time, I almost believed her.”

  “And now?” Jason asked.

  I drew a deep breath. I wished I could tell him now I knew for sure that I could be a writer, but the truth was, I still didn’t. There weren’t exactly any Asian American writers being profiled in the papers. But just because I couldn’t see it, didn’t mean I couldn’t be it, right?

  I stood up as tall as I could and told Jason, “Now I don’t care what my mom or anyone says. It’s my dream and nobody can take it away.”

  I said the words with all my courage and all my heart, and Jason peered back at me, the morning sun smiling in his eyes.

  As I sat in class, I thought about my own words. If I expected Jason to get serious about his dream, I needed to put my pride aside and get serious about my own. I knew what I had to do. At recess, while everyone else went out to play, I lingered behind and walked up to Mrs. Welch.

  “I’d like to take you up on your offer,” I told her. “But on one condition.”

  Mrs. Welch raised an eyebrow.

  “My friends and I, we have a club. It’s called Kids for Kids. And we’d really like it if we could have a room to meet in during lunch,” I said.

  Mrs. Welch put a finger to her chin, thinking. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. She then walked over to the board and picked up the marker. “Now then, let’s start with the basics. Mia, have you ever formally learned English grammar?”

  I shook my head again. Not formally, no. I’d mostly picked up grammar from hearing the way the customers talked and from watching old reruns of I Love Lucy. Every time Lucy corrected Ricky’s grammar, which was a lot, I took note.

  Mrs. Welch jotted down the words noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, and conjunction on the board.

  I opened my notebook and copied down the words. As Mrs. Welch explained what they all meant and the role they each played in a sentence, I tried to keep the rules straight in my head. It was a lot harder than watching I Love Lucy, and after about twenty minutes, my head started throbbing. I closed the notebook and rubbed my temples.

  “Look, I know it’s hard,” she said. “Stay with me.”

  “Can we just write something?” I asked Mrs. Welch, turning to a blank page. “A story? An essay? Why do I have to learn grammar rules?”

  “Because if you don’t know the actual rules, you’ll always be guessing,”
she said matter-of-factly. “You won’t ever be sure.”

  I blew at my messy bangs. Mrs. Welch put her marker down and walked over to me. Once again, she squished herself into the small chair next to mine. “Hey. Don’t you want to learn this stuff?”

  I nodded, a slow and sad little nod, the kind that my mom usually gives my dad when he asks her if she wants to help him clean another couple of rooms after dinner. How about it, whaddaya say?

  Mrs. Welch took a breath. “You know what writing is?” she asked. “Writing is half emotion and half technique. Right now, you have the first half, but you don’t have the second half. And that’s a shame because your first half is so good.”

  I was so shocked by the compliment, I looked around the room to make sure she was referring to me.

  “The good news is, you can learn the second half,” she said. “But it’s very hard to learn the first half.” She dropped her voice then and confessed, “It’s something I never had as a writer.”

  I peered at her. “You never had any emotion, Mrs. Welch?”

  She blushed. “I mean I have it, but not the way you have it,” she said. “Like in your essay about the pizza deliveryman who skidded on the road, racing because he had to support his dying mother-in-law in Mexico. There’s so much feeling there,” Mrs. Welch said. “Did this actually happen to someone you know?”

  I nodded slowly. Yeah … and now he’s in jail.

  “See, I don’t usually get to see that colorful side to life,” she admitted. “My life’s so … you know … normal.”

  Wow. It was the first time I heard anyone use normal like it was a bad thing.

  “You should come to the Calivista sometime,” I offered. I put my fingers to my lips as soon as I said the words. Did I just say what I think I did? But it was too late to take it back.

  Mrs. Welch’s pupils flashed. Now she looked around the room, as if I might be inviting someone else.

  “Wednesdays are good,” I added, and she smiled.

  On the way down to San Diego, Lupe muttered nervously, “I hope my dad’s okay.” She turned to me and added, “There are all kinds of real criminals in there with him!”

  I squeezed Lupe’s hand tight as Hank drove. When we arrived at the jail, I looked out to see a dark building with barbed wire around it. It looked … like a cage. My breath caught in my throat.

  Hank led the way to the visitors’ entrance and introduced himself to the attendant. He showed her his ID. He told her we were his daughters, and the attendant looked at him kind of funny, like, Really? You have a Mexican and a Chinese daughter?

  “I like to keep it real,” Hank said, by way of explanation.

  The attendant shrugged and buzzed us in. Lupe and I pulled the hoodies of our sweatshirts up to hide our faces, as my parents had instructed us, so the surveillance cameras couldn’t make us out on tape. As we walked through the double titanium doors, I peeked inside at the cells.

  I saw prisoners lined up wearing orange jumpsuits. One guy saw us and started walking toward us. He was bald like Mr. Yao, but his skull was not smooth. Instead, it was all wrinkled and uneven, like he was wearing his brain on the outside of his head. Another guy had tattoos all up and down his arms and torso, even on his neck! I grimaced, thinking how much that must have hurt when he got them. These were tough street guys, nothing like our sweet, kind José. He was so gentle, if there was a squirrel up on the roof, he’d wait until it came down before going up to fix the cable.

  The guard put us inside one of the visitation rooms, if it could even be called a room. It looked more like a library cubicle with a big glass wall and a phone.

  As we waited, I traced my hand along the messages on the wall. They were just like Lupe described—heartbreaking, written by kids whose parents had been taken.

  My dad’s still #1.

  Don’t be sad.

  And:

  Mama come home.

  Then there was a loud buzz, and the door on the other side of the glass swung open. José walked in, except he didn’t look like José. He looked like a shell of José. He was so pale and skinny, like he hadn’t eaten in days. His cheeks were sunken, and he had great big bags under his eyes.

  “Papi!” Lupe called out to him.

  She put her hand on the partition, and José put his on the other side, so their two hands met on the glass in the middle.

  Lupe picked up the phone and started talking to her dad in a mixture of Spanish and English. She smiled through her tears at the sound of her dad’s voice. As he talked, though, her face started falling.

  “He said some of the other Latinos have been in here for months,” Lupe told us. “That’s months without seeing daylight. Some of them say they hear voices.”

  I touched Hank’s arm.

  “He’s asking again if he should just sign the voluntary departure form.” Lupe looked into Hank’s eyes.

  Hank took the phone from her. “Do not sign those papers, my friend,” he instructed José. “We are working on getting you a lawyer.”

  José shook his head. “How much is that going to cost?”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Hank said firmly. But José kept shaking his head, like he was very worried about it.

  I took the phone from Hank. “Hey, José, remember what you said to me? About not giving up?” I asked. “How everyone would say to you, No can do, but you didn’t listen to them and you kept going?”

  He mustered a small smile, but I could tell his spirit was fading. The time in jail was breaking him down.

  “Papi, please!” Lupe begged him. “Have faith. Just hang on a little longer.”

  The warden came into the room and announced, “Time’s up.” José looked longingly at us as the warden pulled him out by the arm, and Lupe called out to her dad one last time.

  “Hang on,” she shouted through the glass. “For me, Papi. Please.”

  The image of José’s hand on the glass divider and Lupe’s hand on the other side stayed with me the rest of the day. I kept imagining that it was my own dad in there and I might never see him again. No more Lucky Penny search nights. No more long drives out to Monterey Park. It made me wish I had eaten all the red bean shaved ice and always used chopsticks, even when I was eating cereal.

  Lupe was quiet on the ride back. I guessed she was thinking about how we were going to get her dad out, and about her mom. She couldn’t still be out in the desert. Had she been captured and put in one of these jails too?

  When we got back to the motel, even before Hank turned the motor off, I jumped out of the car and ran to my parents to give them a great big hug. I clung to them for a long, long time, before finally letting go.

  “How was he?” my dad asked.

  Lupe shook her head. My mom pulled Lupe into her arms.

  “Not great,” Hank said. “He’s losing his mind in there. We’ve got to get him out.”

  Lupe nodded, dabbing her eyes with her shirt sleeve, and headed back into the front office to make more calls. As she dialed attorneys’ offices, I called Annie again to see if she had any leads on Lupe’s mom.

  “I’ll definitely let you know if I hear anything through the newswire,” Annie said. “Do you know the coyote she was with? We’ve heard some cases of bad coyotes.”

  “Bad coyotes?” I gasped. I pictured conniving wolves with twitchy ears tying up Lupe’s mom and going through her purse.

  Annie added quickly, “I’m not saying that’s what happened here.”

  But the fear had burrowed into me. “We’ve got to find her! Her husband is in jail. Her daughter needs her!”

  I explained the situation with José. Annie asked if we’d started a petition.

  “Would that help?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes, it can be very helpful at the hearing, if you have something you can present to the judge. It shows that there’s community support for José’s staying.”

  I scribbled the words START A PETITION on my notepad. “On it!” I told Annie.

  On We
dnesday afternoon, as Lupe and I were working on the petition after school, someone walked into the front office. Someone we never thought in a million years we’d ever see at the Calivista.

  “Mrs. Welch! What are you doing here?” I asked.

  Mrs. Welch took off her light red jacket and hung it over her arm as she glanced around the front office. “You said to come by on a Wednesday,” she said, clutching her purse tightly. She looked nervous.

  “Right,” I said. I got down from my stool and lifted the divider of the front desk. “Let me show you around.”

  I reached for the master key and took her out back to where all the rooms were. I grabbed two cream sodas from the vending machine as we passed by. I handed one to Mrs. Welch. As Mrs. Welch took a sip, she pointed at the congregation of immigrants outside Mrs. T’s room.

  “What’s happening over there?” she asked.

  “Oh! Those are the immigrants, they’re here for Mrs. T’s class,” I said. I explained about the How to Navigate America lessons and walked her over, introducing her to everyone. There were five students that day, and they each smiled as Mrs. Welch shook hands with them, asking them what they did.

  “I used to be a surgeon back in Bangladesh,” one told her. “Here, I drive a taxi.”

  A woman from Mexico, Mrs. Morales, said, “I used to be a nurse. Here, I work at a massage parlor, giving foot massages.”

  “Really?” Mrs. Welch asked, surprised. “You were a nurse back in Mexico?”

  “Sí,” Mrs. Morales said.

  “So why do you do this?” Mrs. Welch asked her, curiously. “Why come here to give foot massages?”

  Mrs. Morales pointed to a five-year-old girl sitting in my mom’s math class. “So my daughter can have a brighter future.”

  I stood with Mrs. Welch in the doorway, watching Mrs. T and Mrs. Q’s class, as their students diligently copied down every word. I’d never seen my teacher so riveted, not even the time when she let us watch TV in class and Wilson announced he was cutting welfare.

  Before she left, Mrs. Welch popped in on my mom’s math class. Mom was so surprised to see my teacher standing there, she nearly dropped her new graphing calculator.