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Back Parachutes Save as PDF
Chapters (93)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Forty-Four
  47. Forty-Five
  48. Forty-Six
  49. Forty-Seven
  50. Forty-Eight
  51. Forty-Nine
  52. Fifty
  53. Fifty-One
  54. Fifty-Two
  55. Fifty-Three
  56. Fifty-Four
  57. Fifty-Five
  58. Fifty-Six
  59. Fifty-Seven
  60. Fifty-Eight
  61. Fifty-Nine
  62. Sixty
  63. Sixty-One
  64. Sixty-Two
  65. Sixty-Three
  66. Sixty-Four
  67. Sixty-Five
  68. Sixty-Six
  69. Sixty-Seven
  70. Sixty-Eight
  71. Sixty-Nine
  72. Seventy
  73. Seventy-One
  74. Seventy-Two
  75. Seventy-Three
  76. Seventy-Four
  77. Seventy-Five
  78. Seventy-Six
  79. Seventy-Seven
  80. Seventy-Eight
  81. Seventy-Nine
  82. Eighty
  83. Eighty-One
  84. Eighty-Two
  85. Eighty-Three
  86. Eighty-Four
  87. Eighty-Five
  88. Author’s Note
  89. Acknowledgments
  90. About the Author
  91. Books by Kelly Yang
  92. Back Ad
  93. About the Publisher

She hands me some tissues and tells me to wipe my face. But the tissue’s too coarse and it only makes me cry more. My mom gives up and goes back to her seat. For the rest of the flight, she buries her face in a magazine and pretends she doesn’t know me.

Eight

Dani

My mother paces the house, nervously chewing on her fingernail as she dusts.

“Everything must be perfect,” she says.

We’re in the spare bedroom, trying to move the mattress into my mom’s room. The smell of adobo wafts from the kitchen. We’re switching mattresses so Claire, our guest, can have the good one. I try not to wrinkle my nose as I move the bed. We had found it lying on the side of the street. It was the perfect size and in good shape. But it had been sitting next to a trash dumpster for so long, even now, if you put your nose up to it, it still reeks of banana peels and sour wine.

The stench brings me to earlier today, cleaning the carpet in Heather’s house. I can’t believe she’s buying her way to Snider. And the fact that a college debate coach would write her speeches for her, trading the most important thing a debater can have—his principles—for cash! It makes me sick, the privilege. If that’s what my teammates are doing, do I even stand a chance?

“Dani!” my mom yells, jolting me from my thoughts. Her nails are digging into the mattress. “C’mon, put a little muscle into it!”

“Sorry,” I say. I help her drag the mattress along the frayed brown carpet. “Are you sure about this?”

“Positive,” she says, “She’s our guest. She should get the nice bed.”

I can’t believe my mom’s giving up her Tempur-Pedic memory-foam mattress. It’s her most prized possession, the one decent thing my dad ever gave her before he left. They picked it out together. She told me the story a thousand times, how they both lay down on the bed, her with a swollen belly, him with his dirty shoes, which he took off before lying on the bed in the store. Less than a year later, when I was barely six months old, he split. But for that one moment, she said it was like lying on a cloud. And now she’s giving her cloud to some girl she’s never even met.

“I really think you’re overdoing it,” I say.

My mom stops moving the mattress for a second. “You’ve never been around rich people before,” she says. A long time ago, my mom worked for a wealthy family in Hong Kong as a “helper.” A helper is what the people in Hong Kong call a maid who lives with you.