Finally Seen

Finn soon proves that much of his Chinese knowledge is based on food. He often gets her messages incorrect in front of the class, which is embarrassing. After school, Lina, Mom, and Millie try to call Lao Lao, but Lao Lao spends the call trying to maneuver into her sweater because her room is cold. Mom is emotional that they are so far from Lao Lao.

Mom discusses with Dad the need for Pete Burton to hurry with the green card; she wants to travel to see Lao Lao and must be able to legally return. Dad insists that Pete Burton and his lawyer are on it. Mom is briefly dejected, but Lina tells her to imagine emailing all Etsy customers to offer personalized bath bombs with messages and images. Their imaginations work up the idea, and Mom asks Lina to compose an email message they can send out.

Lina composes a creative message, and Millie helps to edit it. Mom praises the message, and Lina is happy when Millie gives Lina the credit. They start sending messages to their customers. Mrs. Ortiz meets with Lina on Friday, telling her how she came to the US from Guatemala and did not know English. She is encouraging and kind to Lina. She also encourages Lina to use Chinese as much as English so that she can own both languages.

Mrs. Ortiz takes Lina to see Mrs. Hollins in the library to check out Flea Shop by Catherine Wang for Lina. Lina listens to Mrs. Ortiz and Mrs. Hollins chat about the book fair author guest choice. They do not want Tony Walsh of the Royal Pets series. They talk about how difficult the reading slide has made it to get students to read since the pandemic.

Lina shares her good day with Mom after school; Mom is excited by an order for 50 personalized bath bombs. They must go to the store for paint and baking soda. Millie is morose because Hazel is having a sleepover but did not invite Millie. Mom and Lina cheer Millie up by pretending she is the girl on the cover of Flea Shop, then pretending she authored the novel and has “a million readers” (102).

Mom is in a time crunch to get the order for 50 bath bombs sent by Monday morning. With no time for air drying, Lina suggests freezing them. They use their freezer, neighbors’ freezers, and Rosa’s taco truck freezer. Rosa reminds them to apply for rent relief. Millie says they cannot without a green card, but Rosa says they can. Mom is too afraid that “this will come back to haunt [them]” (104). She tells them immigrants always choose the harder path. Millie checks the freezer and calls for help.

A combination of undermixing ingredients and freezing the bombs leads to their crumbling. They leave a mess of chunks and dust behind, so cleaning Rosa’s freezer takes a while. Lina feels terrible. She reads about the main character Cat’s troubles with bullying in Flea Shop to try to distract herself. Lina lets a bath bomb chunk fizz in her hand and enjoys the soothing sensation. She wishes they had a tub. Dad comes home and offers to go for a drive with Lina.

Dad and Lina drive to Centurion Peak for the view. Lina apologizes for the bombs. Dad tells her mistakes are necessary in forging a new path. He shares a story about a fellow scientist, Ti, who patiently worked for a professor while on a student visa. The professor would not let him graduate, even after 13 years. In frustration, Ti vandalized the lab; then he was blocked from university employment. The professor removed Dad from the job too; the professor assumed he and Ti committed the act together there since they were both Chinese. This injustice upsets Lina. Dad points out the direction of the ocean and high-fives Lina before they drive home.

Lina shows in words and sketches what parts of Flea Shop she likes best when Mrs. Ortiz asks. Lina explains how she misses Lao Lao; Mrs. Ortiz hugs her. She says she had to leave her grandmother behind in Guatemala. She encourages Lina to write a letter to Lao Lao. Lina tells Lao Lao how they love and miss her. She is about to write that she never would have left had she known how difficult the nursing home would be, but she stops, thinking of the wonderful drive with Dad.

Mrs. Carter’s class completes self-portraits. Jessica boasts about being voted the school’s Most Talented Artist in the yearbook and claims her work will be “Van Gogh-esque.” Lina completes a drawing of herself in a plane window. Finn asks how it felt to fly to the US, and Lina draws herself bungee jumping and with actual knots in her stomach. He praises her work and offers it up when Mrs. Carter asks for volunteers to share. Mrs. Carter gushes over Lina’s talent and hangs her drawing on the whiteboard with the label “Most Talented Emerging Artist” (118).

Lina plans to tell Lao Lao about the Emerging Artist label. At lunch, Lina goes to the girls’ room to wash ketchup out of her shirt. Jessica exits a stall with a purple marker and leaves. Using the same stall, Lina sees messages in purple marker about her: It says that her English is “trash” and being named the Emerging Artist was a “pity award” (120). Lina regrets thinking her peers were beginning to accept her.

Lina seeks refuge in the library, where Mrs. Hollins welcomes her help making posters. Lina glues printed images of graphic novels to a poster encouraging readers to try them. Mrs. Hollins recommends Sunny Side Up, about a girl who lives with her grandparents for the summer. Mrs. Hollins tells Lina she is always welcome in the library.

Mom takes Lina and Millie to the farm to ask Pete for an advance on Dad’s salary so they can buy materials for bath bombs. Pete yells at Mrs. Muñoz because she took roots from the soil. He screams about how they all must work to save the soil before it becomes dust, leading to the planet being farmed with cancer-causing chemicals. He rudely turns down Mom’s request, claiming that Lina’s parents never should have moved off the farm and complaining he cannot sell vegetables without the organic label since his farm is too small for certification. Mom says she will try selling his vegetables to Asian supermarkets if he will give the advance; Pete agrees. Lina is shocked to hear her parents and Millie lived in the tiny house where Carla lives.

Lina, Millie, and Carla discuss bath bombs and send images to potential clients on Etsy in the farm’s main house. Lina shows Carla how to draw a puppy. Carla mentions that she and her mother used to do art together and she misses it; her mother now works all the time on the farm. Carla bitterly says Pete does not have to say they will all turn to dust someday, considering her father has passed away. Lina tells Carla about the bathroom comments. Carla insists Lina is a wonderful artist.

Mom, Lina, and Millie talk about dog-friendly bath bombs and imagine having a house big enough to take a bath and have a dog. Lina asks Mom about living at Pete’s. Mom says they did not want to worry her or Lao Lao, so they made up the two-story blue house. Lina says Carla and her mother have a free home, but Mom says there is no such thing as free.

Mrs. Carter groups Finn, Jessica, and Lina together for a fractions exercise. Lina tries to show Jessica that three-fourths is bigger than two-thirds by sketching a pizza, and soon the girls are competing with drawings of toppings. Jessica tells Mrs. Carter the pizza sketches are all Lina’s.

Mrs. Ortiz and Lina discuss the challenge of peers. Mrs. Ortiz encourages Lina to start speaking up. She shows Lina a report card from her first year after moving from Guatemala, which specifies that her language began improving at the year’s end so she should not be retained. Lina feels better.

Lina helps place book covers on the library’s Read This Next! poster including Pie in the Sky and The First Rule of Punk. When she hears that Pie in the Sky has a character with a deceased father, she borrows it for Carla. Going to collect it, she finds Finn reading. They discover they both like graphic novels. He shares New Kid with her. He also tells her not to worry about Jessica. He explains that his father is a sports fan and that his parents are separated. He communicates this by drawing two houses labeled Mom and Dad with himself in between frowning. Lina gives him Flea Shop to read. Lina helps Mrs. Hollins clean up the book order unpacking; Mrs. Hollins tells her to throw away the packing peanuts and thanks her for her help. Lina makes a book recommendation on a poster, proudly signing her name before she leaves.

Lina dances on the way to Pete’s with Millie, happy to be friends with Finn and Carla. She wants to read with Carla all afternoon, but Pete makes Millie and Lina clean the farmhouse. Cleaning the porch, Lina hears Pete raging about how small regenerative farms will be needed near cities when climate concerns worsen. He gives instructions for using compost to Mrs. Muñoz and Dad. Lina wants to write down his instructions to send to a friend at Bei Gao Li Village. Going for her backpack, she passes through a dark hall and sees a framed photo of Pete and a woman. They wear wedding rings.

Carla tells Lina and Millie that Pete used to be married to Virginia Burton, a writer of farming books. Carla knows her mother has one. They find it and see a loving dedication to Pete. Lina gives Pie in the Sky to Carla; Carla talks about her father’s croissants he used to make. Millie and Carla explain how the gravity shower works. Carla says the water is always cold. The three dance across the fields making up moves with Pete hollering from the porch.