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

by Kelly Yang

If I could do it all over again, I would not photobomb my mom’s picture. And I’d give her more of my burger.

Native. I mouthed the word.

“The bottom line is, don’t let in any bad guys!” Mr. Yao warned. His pupils expanded as he said the word bad.

Principal Evans wore a blazer even though it was ninety degrees outside. She looked like what my mother calls a “powerful white lady.”

I didn’t know what the extra buttons did, and for a second I fantasized that if we pushed the wrong button, the motel would start flying.

I wondered which was better—to have had something for just a second and then have it taken away, or to have never had it at all.

“We were just … talking,” he said. I wanted to say to them, It’s okay. You argue sometimes. I get it.

At my old school in China, there was this kind elderly man who lived near the building. Every day, he’d give me a popsicle on my way home in exchange for telling him what I learned in school that day. That was it. No money. No credit cards. Just “Hey, how was school?”

“Yes, I need four pillows. Two for under my head. One for between my legs, and one to hug.” I smiled. “Done!”

There was no greater feeling in the world than reading those words. A smile stretched across my face as I got ready for school.

As I walked, I gave the butterflies in my stomach their usual pep talk—It’s going to be okay. I’ll make friends, and if I don’t, I’ll borrow books from the library.

“I collect things.” “What kind of things?” the other kids asked. “Rocks, key chains,” he said. My new classmates yawned. Not weird. “Bottle caps, postcards too.” Still not weird. “And fingernails!” Allen quickly added. “All my old clippings!” Whoops, too weird.

He handed me another saltine burger. As I chewed, I thought about how nice it was that Hank lumped us together with the weeklies rather than Mr. Yao.

How he managed to drive himself to the Calivista, I had no idea, because smoke was coming out from the hood of his car when he arrived, and the bumper was falling off.

“Can I be the hat?” I asked them, plopping down on Billy Bob’s bed. The hat in Monopoly looked nice. It looked like a rich man’s hat. The shoe, on the other hand, looked like a poor man’s shoe.

I looked at Hank. I had a feeling he was just trying to make me feel good, but I thought I saw a glimmer of hope in his eyes too.

“You can’t pay in coupons!” the garage manager wailed. “What am I going to do with free foot massages?” “We’ll take them!” his mechanics blurted out from the back of the garage.

“Remember, show, not tell! Write what you feel, kids,” Mrs. Douglas announced to the class. “If you’re mad, write mad. If you’re sad or you’re worried, write sad and worried.” I was all those things. I thought about Uncle Ming and his black eye and the way his voice rose and fell like a curtain when he said, What do I do, buddy? They’re going to kill me.… But when I put my pencil down onto the paper, do you know what marched onto the page? Puppies and houses.

“I wrote about how last weekend my parents and I waited in line at the movies for an hour, and when we finally got up to the ticket booth lady, they were sold out! Isn’t that sad?” “That is super sad,” I said, wishing, hoping, one day that would be my super sad.

my uncle was a doctor.

Today, we were so busy chatting we didn’t even notice when the softball landed right next to us. Lupe glanced at the ball and went right back to chatting. She didn’t even pick it up. She must really hate sports.

I know why—because he was too chicken to stand up to his dad. I shook my head at him. Coward.

I stood in the parking lot for a long, long time. The hot California sun blazed down on me, yet I felt no warmth.

“Poor people can do stuff too!” I shouted at him as I slammed the piano cover and walked away.

My parents were always going on about fate. Sometimes I wondered if this fate thing was just something adults made up to make themselves feel better, like the tooth fairy.

White on white on white? That’s not a sandwich—that’s an envelope!

“That’s the thing about moving kids from one country to another. They’re not good at either language.” Her words sat on my shoulders, heavy as rocks. I looked down at my feet and nearly jumped when my mother touched my hand. “But, she does all the math at the front desk, don’t you, honey?” she said, smiling at me.

“I know we can,” my dad had said, beaming. I looked at my father now, two years later. He had grays in his hair. The creases on his forehead had become ditches.

I used to think being successful meant having enough to eat, but now that I was getting free lunch at school, I wondered if I should set my standards higher.

“I think being successful in this country means having a living room without a bed in it,” she decided.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Douglas,” he said. “I’d just like to clarify I’m not Chinese; I’m Taiwanese.” “Ohhh … kay,” Mrs. Douglas said.

Then she became all nostalgic. “You know when I was your age, I used to eavesdrop on my brother’s math lessons.…” Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn’t have time for this.

“She had long, curly black hair, past her shoulders, not in braids like some other black women,” I said. Mr. Yao’s eyes bulged. “Wait a minute, she’s black?” he yelled. “I thought I told you not to rent to bad people!” My throat went dry. I could hear the sound of my breathing, hard and fast. “You said bad people, not black people.” “Any idiot knows—black people are dangerous,” Mr. Yao said.

“See? The police know I’m right,” Mr. Yao said, taking their interrogation of Hank as evidence that his theory about black people was valid. He was wrong. The only thing it proved was that the police were just like him.

I wanted to scream Stop! Stop honking. Stop laughing. How can it be business as usual when this was happening to people like Hank?

“Quick. Take a picture!” my mom said. I smiled and kneeled down before her and Aunt Ling. I pretend-clicked with my finger as my mother held her beautifully manicured hands out to the “camera.” “Eggplant!” I said.

I wasn’t exactly what you call artistic. My idea of a good portrait was a smiley face with sunglasses.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Miller, Thank you so much for the $8 tip alone along with the good kind note. It helped my day made my day, and I was have having a bad day. I got a bad grade at school. It was so bad that I was thought thinking about not doing giving up in on something. But then two things happen happened—my friend from school says said something nice to me and I get got your note and tip. I think that’s a sign, do you don’t you? My parents believe in are big on signs. I’m not, especially if they are bad. But I like the good ones. ☺ Thanks for give giving me a good sign. And thanks for staying in at the Calivista. I hope you’ll come again soon. Sincerely, Mia Tang Assistant Manager

Mr. Yao never gave Lupe’s dad a tip, not even on Christmas day last year when he had to go over to his house to repair the cable.

“Excuse me, will you take a picture of us?” the woman asked my mom. She grinned at her boyfriend. “This is our first vacation together.” “Your first vocation? That’s great!” my mom said in her broken English.

She was telling me about her grandmother in Mexico and how she was sick, so her mom was sending money home. That’s why money was tight for their family. I nodded as I listened, trying hard not to look down. Because despite everything she was saying, Lupe was still wearing jeans.

I think I’d rather never go on vacation then than be like you.

“It’s been a hard couple of weeks,” he said, stretching as he said the words.

“Guess it’s official,” he said, “I’m better than you at math!” I wanted to remind him that I was there when his dad screamed at him for being terrible at math, or had he forgotten? But that would have been too Jason of me.

I was always “your daughter” when she wasn’t happy with me and “my daughter” when she was.

“You know what you are in English? You’re a bicycle, and the other kids are cars.”

“You are not a bicycle,” he said.

You’re a fine story writer,” he said. I shook my head. “Not in English …” I said in a small voice. “In English too,” he insisted. “I’ve read your English.” I wanted to chuckle because how would he know? If my English was twelve-exclamation-marks bad, his had to be at least fifty!

He also added some comments next to the others’ stories, such as “Hang in there” and “I feel your pain, brother.” I smiled. I liked how my little notebook was becoming a message board for the immigrants.

Though I was still mad at my mom for calling me a bike, I thought it was very cool that she had called Lupe.