Front Desk (Front Desk #1) (Scholastic Gold)

by Kelly Yang

I stood so still, if a breeze swept through the classroom, I would have fallen.

Ever since I could remember, my mom had been asking my dad to take her out to eat, but of course, we could never afford it. And now we could finally go. We didn’t even need to carry a fake shopping bag!

My mother looked at me and said, “I’m so proud of you.” “Not bad for a bicycle, right?” I asked with a grin. I couldn’t resist. My mom put the pizza down and turned to me. “You’re not a bicycle,” she said. “The truth is, I’m the bicycle.” “Mom, you’re not—” “Yes, I am. You see how my English is. My English is terrible.”

I finally understood why my mother had been saying all these things. She didn’t want to hurt me. She wanted to help me. And she couldn’t with English. That’s why she was constantly pushing me to do math. I wanted to say to her, Mom, have faith in me. I can do it on my own. I figured the front desk out on my own, didn’t I? “Don’t worry, Mom,” I said to her. “You don’t have to always help me. I can do it.”

If Shen knew that today I’d gone to Pizza Hut—and for free too!—he’d be so proud of me. I smiled at the thought.

Was it true—was Shen rich now? The wild thought bounced around in my head as I tossed and turned. My lips formed around the word. Rich … rich … It was like a passcode to a different galaxy. And now Shen was part of the galaxy and I wasn’t. Could it be that while our life had gotten so hard, his life had gotten so much easier? The thought was so painful to bear, I couldn’t stand it.

Later, when I could finally breathe again, guilt cut into me like the harsh fluorescent front office lights. How could I feel this way about my own cousin? He was family. If he was doing well, I should be happy for him. I should be proud of him, because after all, if his family was rich now, didn’t that mean …

I wasn’t thinking about those lucky pennies. I was thinking about this one, the humongous penny staring us in the face. It was called family and my parents refused to pick it up!

“You know, it’s a funny thing, pride,” Hank said to my parents. “It’s stopped me many times in my life.”

“I quit. Just walked on out and never came back,” he said. “Good for you,” my mom said. “You’re better off without them!” “See, that’s what I used to think, but now you know what I think? I think if it were Mia, she wouldn’t have quit. She wouldn’t have let those punks take away her dream. She would have worked hard and gotten better. So what if you lose the first race, you get back in there and keep swimming. And you know something? She would have been right.”

“The point I’m trying to make is you can’t let a useless thing like pride get in the way of your dreams,” Hank said. “That’s what I realized this year.” Hank pointed at me. “Now, you’ve got a very special little girl here. You owe it to her to swallow your pride,” he said. “I’ve been around long enough to know there aren’t many chances in life for our lot to change our luck. And this is it. You’re staring at it. Yao’s dying to sell the motel.” “But it’s not that simple. I’ve been lying to my sisters about how great our life here is,” my mom confessed. “So tell them the truth! No skin off your back,” Hank said.

“Not everyone can lead, Ying,” my dad said. “Some people are just destined to be followers.”

I didn’t believe we were destined to be followers. I didn’t believe we were just supposed to stay on the roller coaster forever.

if only there was a way we could join together and break free. Wait a minute. What if we didn’t need one rich relative? What if what we needed instead was a lot of poor people? My mom said it herself—everybody could each put in a little.

“Are you kidding? This is our chance to own a piece of land in America!” they said. They were tired of sending all their money back to their relatives month after month. For once, they were going to spend on themselves.

My parents were in awe. They could not get over the fact that so many people—total strangers!—could believe in them like that, could look at them and decide, Hey, I don’t know you, but I believe in you. I believe in your dream. And put crisp green bills into their tired, blistered hands. One stranger after another, flesh and bones that looked into their eyes and said yes, when time and time again, they looked at themselves and said no.

I dropped my head into my hands. Everything was slipping away, all my hard work. It felt like losing the essay contest all over again, except it hurt so much more because this time I was letting everyone down.

I stared at Jason. His brown eyes blazed with courage. But it was his kindness that blew me away.

As he held his hand up and clicked, I looked around at my new family and smiled. It was a picture I’d been waiting a long, long time for.