About the Author
Kelly Yang is the New York Times bestselling author of Front Desk (winner of the 2019 Asian Pacific American Award for Children’s Literature), Parachutes, Three Keys, Room to Dream, New from Here, Finally Seen, and Finally Heard. Front Desk also won the Parents’ Choice Gold Medal, was the 2019 Global Read Aloud, and has earned numerous other honors including being named a best book of the year byThe Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and NPR. Learn more at KellyYang.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1 Chapter 1
Mom!” Millie, my sister, protests, banging on the door. “Lina’s locked the door again!”
I search through my closet, frantically. How can T-shirts that fit me perfectly a week ago, now suddenly not fit?
“I didn’t lock anything,” I insist, glancing at the doorknob. Definitely locked. “It’s probably just stuck again.…” I tell my sister to jiggle it harder, to buy myself some time.
I sneak a look back at the mirror. I’ve gone through growth spurts before, but this one feels different.
I seem to be growing in all kinds of places, places I’m not ready for!
“Lina, c’mon! Your sister has to change too,” Mom says in Chinese, walking over and knocking on the door. “Can you guys change together?”
Definitely not. I grab a blanket and cover myself with it. For a second, I seriously consider cutting a hole in the blanket and wearing that to school. At least then I wouldn’t feel like microwave popcorn, exploding out of the kernel.
“Seriously, Lina, spring break is over. We’re going to be late for school!” Mom says in her I mean business tone.
I know I have exactly five seconds before they both come flying in here. I stare at the mirror one more time, closing my eyes, hoping, praying for everything to just go back to the old days.
Days when I could walk into school with a thin white shirt, and not even think twice if anyone stared. When I didn’t tower over the boys. When I could play hangman, without freaking out. Last night, when Millie and I were playing, and Millie wrote _ O O _ S, I got so upset, I almost threw a slipper at her. When actually her word was books.
I felt like a real dope when she added the K. Like now, after I opened my eyes. Still the same. Nothing’s changed.
I make a final attempt to appeal to Mom.
“Do I have to go to school?” I ask through the door.
“Of course you have to go to school today,” Mom responds. “Is it the photo? Are you still worried about that?”
I glance at the picture my mom’s talking about, taped up on my desk, next to all my doodles. Right before spring break, Catherine Wang, my favorite author in the whole world, came to speak at my school. As her #1 all-time biggest fan, I was the first in her signing line. But as Mrs. Hollins, my librarian, snapped the picture of me and her (I was so worried and self-conscious about my… er… books), I panicked and put my hands up in front of my chest at the last second.
The result? Catherine looking amazing, and me looking like I’m trying to block a basketball.
“A lot of people have photo anxiety,” Mom says through the door. “It’s not a big deal.”
I wish it were photo anxiety. Cringing, I walk over to the photo. I fold it in half. There. Now at least I don’t have to look at myself.
But then I think of my immigrant mom, tidying up my room later and seeing the folded picture. She works so hard for me and my sister. Every day she wakes up at 5 a.m. to make bath bombs, which she sells online to support our family, so we can live here and go to a great school. And it really is a great school! I’m finally doing well in my classes. I’ve learned English, thanks to my teachers and my wonderful librarian. And I’ve made great friends, like Carla and Finn.
I unfold the picture, because I don’t want Mom to be sad. I’ll just… keep looking at my basketball pose.
One day, I tell myself, I won’t be an awkward mess. I’ll stand tall and proud, with my chest out and my arms down and a smile on my face. It’ll happen. Just not… today.
“LINA! I’m coming in!” Millie exclaims.
I lunge for the closet and grab a sweatshirt, even though it’s ninety degrees in LA and my socks are already sticky. Still, it’s better to be baking than to be sorry.
“You look like Lao Lao, with her gazillion layers!” Millie giggles in the car as she moves her arms. My sister is always dancing, even when she’s sitting. I frown, envying her cutoff jean shorts and orange tank top. Our grandma loves wearing two puffy vests, even when she’s inside her warm and toasty room in her retirement home in Beijing.
“Yeah, are you sure you’re not too hot, sweetie?” Mom asks as she drives.
I yank at the neck of my sweatshirt, wishing we had air-conditioning in the car. “Nope, I’m good. Let’s call Lao Lao!”
My grandma and I spent five whole years together in China, while my parents and Millie came to America first to get things settled. It makes me sad that she lives all the way on the other side of the world now, but she’s recently made some good buddies in her retirement home. And we’re able to “see” her all the time, since she finally caved and got a smartphone!
“In a bit. I’m expecting that call from Bella Winters any minute, remember?” Mom asks.
“Explain, again, why we have to pay some influencer to make videos about our bath bombs?” I ask. “And how much are we paying her?”
“Hopefully it’s not something outrageous. Her manager said she liked our vibe. We absolutely need her. We’re getting crushed. All everyone wants to do is buy from the popular brands they follow online. You’ve seen our sales lately.” Mom sighs, holding up her phone to show us.
My sister and I stare at the sad, tiny number. Only three orders yesterday.
It’s hard to imagine that just a few months ago, Mom was getting interest from real, physical stores that wanted to carry her bath bombs. Then, overnight, twenty more bath bomb stores opened up on Etsy—all with slick social media accounts. And our numbers fell through the floor.
No wonder Dad had to get a second job, parking cars for the restaurant valet after he’s done at the lab. Now he looks like a raccoon when he finally gets home in the middle of the night.
“It’s a whole other skill, social media, and I just don’t have it. Those videos take hours to put together—” Mom’s phone rings as she’s explaining. Mom screams and shushes me and my sister. “It’s her! She’s FaceTiming us! Everyone be quiet!”
Mom clicks accept. Bella comes on the screen, smiling and fluttering her extremely long lashes, like a burst of sunshine.
“Hi! Bella!” Mom says, switching to English, pulling over the car. “We’re sooo excited you’re interested in working together—”
“About that,” Bella says, holding up her Pomeranian, whose rainbow coat matches her eyelashes. “So I talked it over with my manager, and he says I can’t go lower than five thousand dollars a video.”
Millie and I lunge forward, our heads almost falling off. No, Mom! We gesture wildly in the rearview mirror. Forget the video. For that price, we can buy an entire bath bomb car.
“Five… Wow, that’s a lot,” Mom takes a second to find the words. “We don’t have that kind of money. We just a small business, just me and my daughters. Only five sales a day—”
“And without social media, that’s where you’ll stay,” Bella says. “Five sales a day, dead in six months.”
Dead? I frown. She doesn’t know that! I poke Mom not to listen to her; I don’t care how colorful her eyelashes are.
“Look, I’m offering you a pretty good deal, considering…”
“Considering?” I chime in, crossing my arms.
“Considering you don’t have any social media presence. I’d literally be making a video about a company NO ONE’S ever heard of—”
“I’ve heard of it!” I remind her.
Bella repeats, to my great annoyance, “NO ONE’S ever heard of, and asking my followers to believe me that it’s legit—not some gross, moldy ball of baking soda that’s going to crumble in your hands like vacuum dust.”
My sister’s and my jaws drop.
“Well, it’s definitely not that,” Mom responds sharply.
“?’Course. I believe you. But the internet? It’s a harsh place. And who knows what they’ll believe, unless you have someone like me vouching for you. But it’ll cost some dough,” Bella says sweetly. Before we can say another word, she waves her long manicured fingers and says, “Text me your answer. Ciao!”
The call ends.
“So much for liking our vibe,” Mom mutters, switching back to Chinese.
“Mom, you cannot pay five thousand dollars for a video!” I blurt out. “You could buy a whole bath bomb factory with that!”
“We could buy a new air conditioner!” Millie says, fiddling with the vents in our car.
“We could buy eighty thousand new shirts for me!” I add. That actually fit.
“First of all, no one’s getting any new shirts in these circumstances,” Mom says, starting the car again. My hopes sag along with my thick sweatshirt. “And there is no way I’m giving her five thousand dollars. If I had that kind of money, then I wouldn’t need her help. Business would actually be good!”
I shake my head. It’s so unfair. How can Bella charge so much for one video, when my parents grind away for just pennies?
“What if we did it ourselves?” Millie asks. “I could dance to your bath bombs!”
“That’s actually not a bad idea!” I add. We can totally do this ourselves. “Millie, remember when you used to make dance videos? How many followers did you have?”
“Fifteen…” Millie says.
“Fifteen!” I beam at Mom.
“And I can juggle the bombs to show they don’t crumble!” Millie says.
“And I could…” I pause, trying to think of something I can do that wouldn’t involve showing my awkward… er… books. “Stack them on my head?”
Mom gives me a funny look as the phone rings. It’s Lao Lao calling.
“Lao Lao!” Millie exclaims. “Tell Mom to let us make videos for her for social media! C’mon, it’ll be so good!”
“The girls, on social media?” Lao Lao asks, putting her comb down. She stares into the camera at Mom. “Oh no, they’re way too young. All my friends here who have grandkids, they never let their grandkids on WeChat,” Lao Lao says, referring to China’s largest social media platform. “I thought you were hiring someone.”
“We were, but she wanted to charge five thousand dollars,” Mom tells her.
“Oh, that’s ridiculous! For five thousand, you guys can fly over and see me. I’m so lonesome in my room, all by myself.…”
I lean in, concerned. I thought things were going better for Lao Lao there. My grandmother had been telling me her arthritis was improving.
“Is everything okay?” I say in a soft voice. “Is it your friends? Are they not being nice?”
“Oh no, it’s not that. They’re fine,” Lao Lao says. “I just get a little sad, that’s all. The ambulance comes at least once a day. Put it this way, we’re all painfully aware that this is the end of the road.”
“It’s not the end of the road. Hang in there,” Mom says to Lao Lao emphatically. “We’ll be back to see you soon, I promise. I’ll… figure something out.”
“I hope so,” Lao Lao says as Mom pulls up to our school.
My sister waves to Lao Lao and jumps out of the car, shooting off across the yard. I wave at Lao Lao too, but linger for a second, staring out at all my classmates. How come their buttons don’t look like they’re about to pop off? Their pants don’t look like they were chopped at the ankles by a woodpecker?
The questions multiply in my head, until five whole minutes have gone by.
Mom turns to me and pulls her sunglasses down. “Don’t worry… we’ll find a solution, sweetie.”
I know she’s not talking about my shirt situation at all, but I imagine she is, and it helps.
I put on my bravest smile, as I get out, so Mom knows I’ll be all right.
And I will be. I think.
