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

by Kelly Yang

Lupe laughed so hard bits of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup came flying out of her mouth.

Got ‘em

“Who can tell me another place where a lot of things are manufactured, besides Asia?” Mrs. Douglas asked. A hand shot up. “Canada?” someone from the front row asked. “Mexico!” Mrs. Douglas announced, ending the guessing pretty quickly. I glanced over at Lupe, who looked like she wanted to crawl under her desk.

“So why don’t you pay them more?” I yelled. “Why do you always have to take from them? Take, take, take, take!” Every time I said “take,” I lunged forward in my seat. The other kids joined in and soon everyone was chanting, “Take! Take! Take! Take! Take!”

In China, people do not split the bill. It’s considered very rude to do so or to not pay for a friend. As a result, people routinely got into fistfights in restaurants as customers pushed and shoved one another for the bill.

“I gave it to my dog, Wealthy. It’s probably all chewed up by now.” He would give it to his dog. And he would have a dog named Wealthy.

We watched with wide eyes as Jason cried and cried. Sunlight flooded in through the tall glass windows, and Jason’s tears glistened in the warm peach glow. I couldn’t stop smiling the whole time. It was a beautiful, beautiful day.

She let out a sob so thunderous, I wondered if my cousins in China could hear her.

“Hey,” my mom said to my dad. “Thanks for taking me to the hospital.” My dad turned away from her. “What’s wrong?” my mom asked him. He shook his head. He had great big teardrops in his eyes. “What is it?” my mother asked softly. “I promised when I married you that I’d take care of you,” he said in a small voice. “And I’ve failed you.”

“Quit feeling so sorry for yourself,” my mom said to my dad. “I’ll decide when you’ve failed me. And you’re not even close.” In that moment, I realized how deep my parents’ love for each other was. It was deeper than anything Mr. Yao or America could throw at them.

I hope you’ll accept this letter and this picture of a tree that I drew for you. The tree is represents my mom and the leaves represent all the new hope you’ve given her that people in America are kind.

“What do they see when they see you?” I asked. He looked at his feet. “A criminal,” Hank said. “No,” I said firmly. “Don’t say that!”

I tried to play it cool, of course. I tried to walk normally, one foot in front of the other, but inside me, fireworks were going off.

Sometimes, when I wanted something really bad, I’d ask myself what I would be willing to give up for it.

“I couldn’t even say good-bye.” Uncle Zhang bit down on his lower lip. “I was afraid if I called her, she’d hear it in my voice how much I was struggling. So I refused. No matter how many times she asked for me in the end, I refused to get on the phone with her.”

As the hazy sky turned into night, my parents, Uncle Zhang, and I gazed out the window, thinking of all the things we wanted to say to our parents but couldn’t.

After Uncle Zhang left, we got a call from one of the other immigrants. He had been over to Mrs. Robinson’s house, and the stolen neon green Ford Thunderbird was not there!

“I came over from the Philippines seven years ago,” said Mr. Abayan. “I’d forgotten what it’s like to be judged. I’m ripping the list up right now.”

The Laundromat called up next. “I never used his silly list anyway. Clothes are clothes. Doesn’t matter to me who they’re on!” said Mr. Bhagawati.

If you don’t join us, I’m going to write a letter to the mayor’s office—” “Gosh darn it, kid,” he harrumphed, throwing his arms up. “You and your letters!”

It was the most incredible feeling ever, knowing that something I wrote actually changed someone’s life.

Panic seized me. The words were so open and exposed. My story looked like a belly button. I immediately wanted to cover it.

Now kids were openly raising their hands and saying, “Ms. Mousy, I mean, Ms. Morgan, I have a question,” then covering their mouths as they disintegrated into nonstop giggling. As we filed out one by one for lunch, Ms. Morgan crumbled into her chair.

“Do it or I’ll do it,” Mr. Yao commanded. He took a step toward me. Before he could dig his gross fingers into my jeans, I reached behind, squeezed my eyes shut and pulled out the label.

I didn’t know what it was about me and secrets. Once I had one, I just couldn’t let it go. I would feed it and snuggle it, and it would grow and grow inside me until it took on a life all its own!

Mr. Yao looked up from the ledger. He pointed at the blue baseball cap. “That used to be the old manager’s,” he said. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t feel like talking to Mr. Yao, and especially not about the hat.

I looked around the room, the corners of my eyes wet with gratitude. Love welled inside me as I smiled back at the weeklies. Here we were, strangers from all corners of the world, blown to the Calivista by the winds of life, only to find each other and reemerge as a new family.

“Hey, no, it’s okay. You win some and you lose some,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “But I always lose some.”

“So I don’t have to stay on the roller coaster all by myself,” she whispered.

I always thought I was the one who needed her, that I was the barnacle to her whale. But it wasn’t one way. We needed each other, me and Lupe.

It was a very long letter—five pages long, to be exact. It was extremely detailed, and Shen even separated it into sections—there was a section on school, a section on neighborhood, and a section on our family. Typical him—he was always super organized.

Eeeew!

Sometimes when my parents got like this, I really wanted to spray them with all-purpose cleaner.

I thought back to all the times Hank walked by the pool, how he always stopped and stared at it, his mind a million miles away.

As my aunt delivered her verdict, my mom sank onto the bed.

My mother was inconsolable that night. She couldn’t believe that her sister would rather buy a fancy penthouse in Beijing than help her own sibling. As she buried her head into her pillow, my father tried his best to comfort her.

I guess a lot had changed since we left—not just the neighborhood, but the people too. They were probably splitting the bill now.

As my father started going on about our fate again, I threw my head back down onto the pillow. I didn’t believe we were destined to be followers.

I thought about it and said, “I just want everyone to be happy. Every single customer.” Mr. Cooper smiled. “That’s the kind of vision I like to hear. I’d be honored to invest,” he said. Mr. Cooper took out his checkbook and wrote us a check for a jaw-dropping $50,000!

Awww

We cashed the checks at the bank and kept all the cash in a giant trash bag which my parents held in their arms at all times and slept with at night in case any robbers came.

I hugged the humongous trash bag of money and cried. I cried for all the motel essay contest applicants, who once again, failed to get a motel. I cried for young Hank, getting pushed around by all those mean kids, and old Hank, forty years later, still getting treated unfairly, and for Lupe’s dad, boiling away on the roof every single day under the blistering sun. I cried for Mr. Abayan, the convenience store guy from the Philippines, and Mr. Bhagawati, the laundry guy, with his raisiny fingers and hunched back washing bundle after bundle of clothes. I cried for Uncle Zhang, poor Uncle Zhang, who had no money but still insisted on contributing because it was so important to him to help us in our hour of need.

And now it was all going to fall apart over $50,000—$50,000 we couldn’t come up with it, even if you opened us up and sold us for parts.

“You know what I’m going to do?” Hank asked, his eyes twinkling. “What?” I asked. Hank ran toward the sparkling blue pool. He let out a yelp as he jumped in fully clothed. “Hey!” Mr. Yao called, but only with a fraction of his usual force. “You can’t jump into my pool with your clothes on!” “It’s not your pool anymore!” Hank called back. Mr. Yao opened his mouth to protest, then closed it.

My dad threw my mom in, and my mom shrieked with glee.

Mr. Yao scoffed. “You don’t want to go swimming with these losers, do you?” he asked his son. Jason shook his head. “No, Dad,” he said. “I’m going swimming with the winners.”

Often during tough times, the first instinct is to exclude. But this book is about what happens when you include, when, despite all your suffering and your heartache, you still wake up every morning and look out at the world with fresh, curious eyes.