Front Desk

One day, a customer leaves Mia an eight-dollar tip. She’s very grateful and wants to write a thank you note. Mrs. T, one of the weeklies, lends her a dictionary and thesaurus to help her along. The tip gives Mia an idea about how to raise money for the contest fee. She puts a tip jar on the front desk whenever she’s on duty but hides it the rest of the time so that her parents and Yao won’t see it.

Jason returns to school for the first time since Mia rejected him. He decides to get even by making fun of her floral pajama pants. Mia is mortified that her parents can’t afford to buy her jeans like the other kids wear. Lupe tries to distract Mia from the harassment by talking about her sick grandmother in Mexico. Mia thinks, “I nodded as I listened, trying hard not to look down. Because despite everything she was saying, Lupe was still wearing jeans” (132).

When Mia gets home, Yao is there, trying to evict Hank from the motel. Hank says because he’s been a resident for six months, he has tenant’s rights, and Yao can’t evict him on the spot. Yao grows angry and tells Mia’s parents that he’s going to deduct Hank’s rent from their weekly paycheck until they can find a way to get rid of him.

At school, Jason and his friends continue to mock the way Mia dresses. Now, the popular girls have started making fun of her too. Mia composes a note to the mean girls expressing her feelings but then doesn’t send it. At home, another migrant named Uncle Zhu shows up. He lost his job as a janitor at a hospice. When Mia learns he’s bound for San Diego, she asks him to look up the address of one of the guests associated with the stolen car. Because the police won’t investigate these suspects, Mia asks each migrant to check up on them for her. A week later, Mia’s parents receive a paycheck minus $140 for Hank’s rent. They don’t know what to do about the situation. They barely make enough money to survive. Mia is tempted to tell them about her tip jar, in which she’s now collected $30. 

In school the next day, Mia’s teacher announces a math challenge. The mean girls want Mia on their team because they think an Asian will help them win the competition. The math problem involves a hotel bill, and Mia calculates the solution based on her real-world experience. Her answer is incorrect according to the teacher’s theoretical math model, and her teammates now hate her. When Jason’s team wins instead, Mia is embarrassed and thinks, “If I looked more like the other kids in my class—if I had blond hair and blue eyes—then would it be okay that I sucked at math?” (142).

After school, Mia tells her mother that she made a math mistake at school. This news makes Mrs. Tang extremely upset. Although Mia’s father says it’s OK, her mother refuses to accept the mistake and remarks that math is the only skill Mia has going for her. Mia declares that she doesn’t even like math and wants to be a writer instead. Her mother explodes and says, “You know what you are in English? You’re a bicycle, and the other kids are cars” (145).

That evening, Mia mopes on the stairwell, thinking how upset she is with her mother. Mrs. Q, another of the weeklies, asks her what’s wrong. Mia explains the problem and starts crying. Mrs. Q consoles her, pointing out that the Mia’s mother might be upset because somebody once criticized her own English. Mia secretly wonders how she can win the essay contest if her English is so poor. That weekend, Mia’s father takes her to the mall and buys her an expensive pencil with green sparkles on it. He wants her to keep writing and insists she isn’t a bicycle, no matter what her mother says. 

Back at home, another immigrant named Uncle Fung has arrived. He was fired from his last job because he scratched his nose with his middle finger and greeted a lady customer by saying, “Hey, baby.” Mia writes out a helpful pamphlet for their befuddled guest explaining his mistakes in American etiquette. After Fung leaves the next morning, Mia remembers that this is Halloween. She’s never gone trick-or-treating, but the weeklies insist. Lupe, Mia, and the weeklies all dress as mummies and accumulate quite an assortment of candy. Afterward, Mia expresses her gratitude to her new friends: “‘You know what you guys are?’ I asked the weeklies and Lupe. ‘What?’ ‘Top Tier friends,’ I said. Hand in hand, we walked back to the motel” (155). 

The following Sunday, Mia and her mom go window shopping at the mall. They carry empty shopping bags stuffed with toilet paper because the salespeople will be nicer if they think the Tangs are paying customers. At Macy’s, the two run into Jason and his mom. After the encounter, Mia’s mother is terrified that her employer’s wife will think the Tangs have money to spend, and Yao will reduce their wages even more. She tears up the fake shopping bags. Mia thinks guiltily of the $100 in tips that she’s accumulated but says nothing.

In class the next day, the teacher announces a game called “Hot Seat.” One student will have several minutes to prepare a presentation as a sweatshop owner in Mexico. Then all the other students can ask him questions. When Jason takes the Hot Seat, Mia badgers him about the way he exploits his poor workers. After the presentation, Mrs. Douglas compliments Mia on her impassioned defense of sweatshop workers, not realizing the girl is one herself.

In revenge for the way Mia humiliated him in front of the class, Jason steals her fancy green pencil. When she accuses him of the theft, he claims that the pencil is his. Mrs. Douglas intervenes and proposes breaking the pencil in half and giving Jason and Mia each a portion. When Jason offers to let Mia have the entire pencil, the teacher concludes that he’s the real owner. Mia is stung by the unfairness of the decision. 

Back at home, Mia writes Jason a long letter enumerating all the reasons why he should give her pencil back, but she is interrupted by a call from Yao. He and his family will be away in Las Vegas for the weekend. Mia asks Lupe to help her go to the Yao house and steal her pencil back, but Lupe refuses. When Mia presses her for a reason, Lupe says her father can’t afford to make Yao angry. Mia will go off to her new life in Vermont, leaving Lupe holding the bag. She tells Mia, “‘My dad still needs Mr. Yao.’ Lupe squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Unlike you, we don’t have another plan’” (170).

Mia is upset with herself for not noticing Lupe’s feelings of abandonment sooner. She writes a letter of apology and sneaks into school early to place it on her friend’s desk. Mia also has a surprise planned for Jason. Even though she can’t get her beloved pencil back, she’s determined to get even with Jason for taking it. Mia coats all the pencils on his desk with a minty salve, which will cause his eyes to burn if he rubs them after touching the pencils. Sure enough, Jason rubs his eyes and bursts into tears, drawing the ridicule of the entire class. Mia gloats, “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” (173).