Three Keys Page 7

  The recess bell rang. We peered back toward the classroom, sorry that our time under the peaceful tree had to end.

  “This was nice,” Tomás said.

  “We should do this again tomorrow,” Jorge suggested.

  “Totally!” I smiled. “And my friend Lupe will be back tomorrow. She’ll love our new secret club!” I liked the sound of that, a secret club.

  “What do we call it?” Kareña asked.

  I put a finger to my chin and thought real hard, even though Mrs. Welch was blowing the whistle at us to come back.

  “How about Kids for Kids?” I suggested.

  The others liked the sound of that. We shook hands on it and agreed to meet again tomorrow, under the leafy tree.

  When I got home, a reporter from the Anaheim Times was waiting in the front office. Annie Collins explained that she had overheard Hank talking to the ad department when he came in the other day, and while she couldn’t sell him an ad, she’d love to do a piece on immigrants and weekly residents banding together to buy a motel.

  At the sound of the words feature story, Hank’s eyebrows shot up. He immediately jumped into action, showing the reporter around the motel and introducing her to the customers, my parents, and the other weeklies, while I speed-dialed Lupe. Where was she? She did not want to miss this.

  “Hey, it’s me! Why weren’t you at school today? Anyway, you won’t believe it, but a reporter from the paper is here and she’s interviewing all of us for a story,” I said breathlessly. “Come quick!”

  Lupe shrieked in equal excitement on the other end and put the phone down to go ask her parents. When she came back on, she said in a sad voice, “I’m sorry, I can’t. My parents don’t think it’s a good idea for us to be in the paper … given the circumstances.”

  She sounded truly bummed.

  “No, it’s okay.…” I tried to persuade her. “She’s not going to ask about that!”

  “I’m sorry,” Lupe said. “Plus, my grandma’s sick. It’s just not a good time right now. I have to go.”

  I sighed as she hung up the phone.

  There was a knock on the glass door. “You ready, Mia?” Annie asked.

  It was my turn to be interviewed. My palms started sweating; I hadn’t thought at all about what I was going to say!

  I followed Annie out to the pool area, where my parents and the weeklies were gathered. My mom was in her best pale blue linen dress, not as nice as the bright red satin one she had to return, but still lovely. She was sitting next to my dad, who had dug something out of his suitcase of clothes from China. He smelled of mothballs and mouthwash. Annie turned to me with her reporter notebook and pen.

  “So, Mia, how old are you?” she asked.

  “I’m eleven.”

  “What’s it like working at the front desk of a motel as an eleven-year-old?”

  I told Annie about my day-to-day duties and some of the difficulties I had at first, like trying to get the adults to take me seriously.

  “But I’m better at that now,” I said, glancing at my parents, who looked on proudly.

  “I bet you are,” Annie said as she scribbled. I noticed she was writing in shorthand, scribbles that only she could read. Like her own secret language. My eyes widened, fascinated. I’d never seen a real writer in action before!

  “What do you like the most about working at the Calivista?” Annie asked me. Her eyes twinkled. “What do you think makes it special?”

  I closed my eyes for a second, thinking about the question. There are so many things that make the Calivista special to me, but if I had to pick one …

  “Here we treat everyone like family,” I said. “No matter who you are and where you came from. That’s what makes it special to me.”

  Annie smiled. “That’s a beautiful answer!” she exclaimed. “And do you think we need more of that right now in California?”

  I nodded. “Oh, yes.” I thought about the lines from my essay on immigration, wanting to say them but hesitating because I didn’t want to get another C in real life. But then I remembered what Jason said when I went over to his house, how it didn’t matter what grade I got, if I liked something, that should be enough. So I cleared my throat and added, “America is a nation of immigrants. Our founders were immigrants. They worked hard to create a country that would welcome everyone. It says so on the Statue of Liberty.”

  Annie’s bright eyes sparkled in surprise. “Well said.”

  I looked over at my dad, who wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his old checkered shirt.

  Annie closed her notebook and announced she was all finished. As she was leaving, I asked her how she became a writer.

  “I wrote a lot as a kid and eventually got published,” she said.

  “Published?” That seemed like the moon to me. “Like a book?”

  “Like writing letters to the editor and submitting them to newspapers.”

  When she said that, I almost jumped into the air.

  “I love letters!” I squealed.

  I felt my heart fill with possibility. It was the most validating day ever! Listening to Annie talk about being a professional writer, fireworks exploded inside me even louder than the fireworks at Disneyland! The only thing that could have made the day better was if Lupe had been there.

  The next day at school, I told Lupe all about Annie, the reporter. I could tell she was super disappointed to have missed out on the opportunity, so I hoped the excitement of our new club would cheer her up. At recess, when I led her over to the tree, there weren’t three kids there. There were six! Kareña, Tomás, and Jorge had each told a friend. Our club was growing!

  Lupe grinned and got out her sketchbook to draw our new club logo while I welcomed the new members, Rajiv, Hector, and Sophia, under the tree. Once we were all introduced, we decided on the club rules:

  Be gentle, be kind.

  Say what’s on your mind.

  Cone of silence!!

  As far as number two went, I wasn’t sure how much Lupe wanted to tell the group. When it was her turn to share, she talked about how her grandmother was sick in Mexico, but she couldn’t visit her.

  “Why can’t you visit her?” Sophia asked.

  Lupe gazed at the leaves that had fallen onto the ground.

  I immediately jumped in. “Uh, because their car’s in the shop, right, Lupe?”

  Lupe quickly nodded. “Yeah, and also my parents work all the time,” she said.

  About halfway through recess, Jason strolled over to our group.

  “Can I join?” he asked.

  I looked to the others, who politely scooted over. Lupe scooted the slowest, moving like a sloth. I knew she wasn’t crazy about him being there, but there were no hard and fast rules about who could join Kids for Kids. It was a club for everyone. That was the whole point.

  “What are you guys doing?” Jason asked. “Having some sort of meeting?”

  I nodded. “Yup, this is our new club.”

  Jason looked amused. “And what do you do in this new club?” he asked.

  “We talk about what bothers us,” Tomás told him.

  Jason’s eyebrows jumped. “That’s it?”

  We nodded.

  “Seriously?”

  Lupe crossed her arms. “If you’re going to mock it—”

  Jason held up his hands. “No, I’m not, I promise,” he said.

  We looked at him, and I could tell we were all trying to decide if he meant it.

  As if to prove that he did, Jason said, “All right. You want to know what bothers me?” We nodded. “Mia here walked out on dinner at my house the other day.”

  “That was so not my fault!” I protested.

  “It still hurt!” he shot back.

  Lupe jumped in. “She didn’t feel like staying. Why’s it so important to you anyway?”

  Everything got quiet, and I cringed. Please, don’t say you like me again! I peeked at Jason.

  Sweat beads lined up on his forehead. Finally, he blurte
d, “Because I’m having a hard time at school, okay? I kinda needed, you know, a friend.”

  My head jolted up in surprise. He never mentioned anything about having a hard time at school.

  “Everyone in my class makes fun of me.” He wrapped his arms around his middle to try to hide his body. “They call me a Chinese dough boy,” Jason muttered. “Or a dumbling. Get it? Like dumpling but dumb.”

  When Jason said that, I felt my skin boil, as if they’d said that to me. Anger shot through my body—painful, stiff anger that I could feel all the way to my hot fingertips. I instantly felt bad for walking out on him at dinner.

  We took turns telling Jason how sorry we were and how he shouldn’t listen to those kids for even a second. When the recess bell rang, I lingered at the tree until everyone else left, so I could talk to him alone.

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m sorry I left your dinner the other day.” Jason nodded, but didn’t say anything, so I went on, “Maybe we can do it another time? Do you want to come over to the motel?”

  He gazed up at the sun spots peeking through the leaves. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t have to check anyone in,” I promised. “Maybe you can show me how to cook!”

  Jason’s face brightened. “I’d like that! But shouldn’t we do that at my house?”

  I smiled, slightly amused. “We have pots and pans at the motel too, you know.”

  I thought about our new club on the way home. I’d had no idea that Jason was suffering so much in school. Why didn’t he tell me about it that day when I came over? It was amazing what people kept all locked up inside … and what they let out under a breezy tree.

  When I got back to the motel, I found a piece of mail waiting for me at the front desk.

  It was a letter from my cousin Shen!

  Dear Mia,

  How are you? I haven’t heard from you for a long time. I hope you are well. My mom told me you guys bought a motel—that’s so cool! We bought an apartment. We’re now living in the second ring, closer to the town center. Do you still remember all the Beijing rings?

  I bet when you come back, you won’t even recognize Beijing. We have buildings now that shoot straight up to the sky! And malls with movie theaters and ice rinks in them! I’ll have to take you to some when you come back. You WILL come back to visit, won’t you? I miss you. Some of the other kids at my new school aren’t so nice. They make fun of me for being from the fourth ring.

  I’m sure when they meet my cousin from America, they’ll shut up about their rings! Ha!

  Yours,

  Shen

  I stared at the letter from Shen, feeling a little guilty for not writing to him in such a long time. I had no idea he missed me so much. I reread the letter, smiling a little at the memory of Beijing’s geography.

  There were eight rings in total, dividing the city in circular loops like the trunk of a tree. They went outward from the first ring, in the city center, where the emperor once lived, all the way out to the eighth, where folks who couldn’t afford the city center lived. Beijing inner-ringers were notoriously snobby toward those from the outer rings, which seemed suddenly absurd from halfway across the world. I shook my head. Even when people are all from the same city, we find ways to divide ourselves. I wondered, if two people were from the same road, would they find ways to put each other down? “Well, you’re from the left side of the street.”

  The telephone rang, jolting me from my thoughts. I answered it with my best customer service voice. “Calivista Motel, how may I direct your call?”

  “Mia, it’s me!” Lupe said. I could hear her sniffling. “My grandmother passed away.”

  “Oh, Lupe, I’m so sorry!”

  “My mom’s going back to bury her,” she cried. “And I’m just worried …”

  I knew what she meant—that she didn’t know how her mom was going to get back home after the visit. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll figure it out. Maybe we can persuade her not to go.…”

  “It’s too late,” Lupe said. “She already left for San Diego.”

  After I got off the phone with Lupe, I sat at the desk, wishing there was something I could do. Something that would make Lupe feel better. My fingers fiddled with Shen’s letter as I brainstormed, folding it and refolding it. I closed my eyes and tried to think back to my own great-grandmother’s funeral in Beijing.

  I ran out the back to go find my dad. I found him in room 7, setting up for his Lucky Penny search. As he laid the coins down, one by one and faceup, I told him about Lupe’s grandmother.

  “That’s terrible,” he said, the pennies momentarily forgotten.

  “Do you still remember Tai Nai Nai’s funeral?” I asked Dad gently. Tai nai nai was the Chinese term for great-grandmother on your dad’s side.

  My dad sat on the bed. “Yes, of course.”

  “What did we do at her funeral?” I asked. “Did we burn something?” My memory of Chinese rituals was fading, like the imprint of a customer’s hand on the bathroom mirror. Still, I distinctly remembered the smell of burnt paper.

  “Yes!” my dad declared, his face beaming. He looked so surprised. “You remembered!”

  My dad told me that according to Chinese custom, people burn fake money at funerals, believing that the burning smoke will accompany the deceased into heaven. At Tai Nai Nai’s funeral, we burned lots of fake money, making sure she had more than enough to live like a queen in the afterlife.

  I knew what I wanted to do for Lupe’s grandmother. That night, as my dad and the weeklies searched for the elusive 1943 copper alloy penny, I sat next to them drawing lots and lots of fake 1943 copper alloy pennies on pieces of paper. Each and every one of them was worth $40,000. I couldn’t wait to give them to Lupe tomorrow. I just hoped there was a place in heaven where Lupe’s grandmother could cash them.

  Lupe was so surprised the next day when I gave her all the fake stuff I drew for her grandmother, plus one hundred real dollars from my dad and a plateful of steamed sponge cake from my mom.

  “What’s all this?” she asked, looking down at my drawings of fake pennies, fake credit cards, a fake dog, a fake computer, a fake house, even a fake health insurance card—I might have gone a little overboard. But I wanted to make sure Lupe’s grandmother was all set.

  When I explained to her what the drawings were for, Lupe’s voice hitched. “You drew all this for my abuelita?”

  I nodded.

  She held the drawings up to her chest. “Thank you. This means so much to me.” Lupe leaned over for a hug as Mrs. Welch walked into the classroom.

  “Look, students! Mia is in the paper!” she exclaimed, holding up that day’s local newspaper. The headline read “Immigrants and Citizens Band Together to Buy Local Motel: The Calivista Under New Ownership.”

  “Let’s see!” my classmates shouted, clamoring to get a closer look.

  Lupe and I stretched our own necks out—we hadn’t seen it yet either! There on the front page of the Metro section was a group picture of us out by the pool. I grinned at Lupe, whose face beamed with pride too.

  “So you’re a maid,” Bethany said.

  The room went silent. I could feel prickly heat spreading from my head all the way down to my legs.

  “Uhhh … I manage the front desk of a motel,” I said to the class. Blank faces stared back at me.

  “So your parents are maids,” Bethany clarified for the class. I glared at her. Ever since last year, when she was in my group for math and I lost us the challenge, she’s had it out for me. “Well, aren’t they?”

  I turned away from Bethany, embarrassed and angry at myself for being embarrassed when I should have been proud. I looked over at Lupe, but since she wasn’t in the photo or in the article, she was off the hook.

  “I did not know this about you!” Mrs. Welch said, peering at me as though she had just discovered a shiny mint chocolate among her collection of stale candy corns. “Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

  For precisely this
reason!

  “It says here you bought the motel with a bunch of immigrants,” Scotty said. “What kind of immigrants?”

  That did it. I exploded to the class, “The kind that works harder than all of you!” Turning to Bethany, I added, “All you do is sit there and braid your hair!”

  Bethany dropped her jaw at me and pretended to look all hurt.

  “Mia!” Mrs. Welch called. “That’s quite enough! You’re staying after school, and you’re going to help me clean up the classroom!”

  I slid in my chair, groaning. I couldn’t believe it. Bethany practically called me a vacuum cleaner, but I was the one in trouble?

  As soon as the classroom emptied that afternoon, Mrs. Welch put me to work: tidying up the bookshelf, wiping down the desks, reorganizing all our color pencils and markers, and picking up all the little pieces of paper off the floor.

  There sure were a lot of little pieces of paper on the floor, like it hadn’t been vacuumed in weeks. I wondered what happened to the school janitor.

  “As you know, due to budget cuts, we’ve had to make a few staff changes,” Mrs. Welch explained, reading my mind. She picked off the old Blu Tack still stuck on the board, which had hardened and turned into small rocks.

  I wondered if that was what happened to the school librarian. I’d gone into the library several times looking for Mrs. Matthews since school started. She’d been so nice to me last year, helping me with my research, and I missed her, especially now that I was in Mrs. Welch’s class. But every time I went to the library, there was just a parent volunteer sitting at her desk.

  As we cleaned, Mrs. Welch asked me about my job at the motel. I tried to give her as few details as possible, worried she might be trying to turn my parents in for child labor. You never knew with Mrs. Welch.

  “You shouldn’t give your classmates such a hard time. They’re just curious,” she said.

  They were so not “just curious,” I wanted to say, but instead I crawled under Mrs. Welch’s desk. I picked up a bunch of receipts by the side of her trash can for coloring pencils, dry erase markers, and other supplies—Mrs. Welch sure bought a lot of stuff for us. As I was picking them up, I noticed a frame hanging on the wall. It was sort of hidden behind her chair, low to the ground, so I’d never seen it from my seat. I leaned in to get a closer look and read the words University of South Carolina and underneath, Mrs. Welch’s name and the words Doctor of Philosophy.