Three Keys Read online

  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 102 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 mom called from the front, “We traveled 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 mom’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 recess,” I offered. Jason hung his head, nodding slightly.

  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 recognized Bethany Brett, the girl who had made fun of my math 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 recess, 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 mom set down a plate of tomato and egg, my favorite, 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 mom 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?

  The next day at recess, 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 mom 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 mom taught their children math in another room. It was her favorite 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 getting 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 mom 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, Mom,” 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 mom’s arm.

  “That feels sooo good!” Mom 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?”

&
nbsp; 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 Americanized—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 mom piped up from the bed. “Now put some more of that stuff on me.”

  As my mom wiped the sesame oil off her sore arms and neck and got ready for her math 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 mom came over to collect their kids. The boys and girls, ages five, seven, and ten, sniffed the air—my mom 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 math 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 mom’s.