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honey,” her mom says, kicking the front door shut with her toe. “Want to help unpack?”
    “Sure,” Ana says, fighting another sigh. She throws open the kitchen door.
    “Surprise!”
    Ana almost drops her bags and stumbles back out the door.
    Everyone is in the kitchen—Ye Ye, Grandpa and Grandma White, Ana's dad and Sammy. They've all changed out of their dress clothes and into T-shirts or polos, shorts and khakis, except for Grandma White, who is as coiffed and composed as ever. And all of them have goofy or smug smiles plastered across their faces.
    Ana gives them an untrusting look. “What's going on?”
    Ana's mom takes her bags from her.
    “Happy graduation, kiddo,” Ana's dad says. “Sit down, Madame Graduate. We've got some presents for you.”
    “Oh!” Ana relaxes. She scampers to the place of honor, one of the vinyl-cushioned chairs at their tatty old Formica kitchen table. Her parents bought it at the Pasadena Flea Market right after they got married. “It's a 1950s vintage dinette set,” her dad would say, proud despite the faded gold sparkles set into the pot-scorched white tabletop.
    Ana's dad pulls out her graduation cap and plunks it on her head.
    “Painstakingly dried with a hair dryer,” he explains. “So it's just like a birthday, but with a commemorative square hat.”
    “It's the birth of a smarter, more mature you,” Ana's mom says. It sounds goofy, but Ana finds herself grinning.
    “Our own little Ana Mei, strutting her stuff onstage!” Grandpa White exclaims. “You've got a whole future ahead of you, baby girl, full of opportunities your old grandparents never had.”
    Grandma White nods. “Head of her class.”
    “When we first came to the States, we could not even rent an apartment in this neighborhood,” Nai Nai says. “And now here you are, standing up in front of everyone. It is very impressive.” She shrugs. “Too bad about your speech.”
    Ana's grin fades. Her dad clears his throat. “It's gift time. The Samoan's the youngest, so he goes first.”
    On cue, Sammy pulls a small box wrapped in the Sunday comics page from under the table.
    “Thank you, Sammy.”
    Sammy giggles. “You're welcome.”
    Ana starts to unwrap the box. “Don't tear it,” Nai Nai says. “It's still good paper.”
    “It's newspaper, Ma,” Ana's dad says. Nai Nai doesn't care. Ana's too happy to roll her eyes. She carefully peels back the tape and lets Nai Nai fold the paper up again.
    Ana takes the lid off the box . . .
    “A sock? Socks?” She lays them out on the kitchen table. Nine socks, none of them a matching pair.
    “They're not socks, they're
puppets
,” Sammy explains. He pulls one onto his arm to demonstrate. Sure enough, the face unfolds, complete with eyes on the heel and a felt nose on the end of the toe.
    “Cute.” Ana slides one onto her own hand. “Hello, everybody,” she says in a dopey puppet voice.
    “He worked all week on those,” Ana's mom explains.
    “One for each of us,” Sammy adds. “That's Nai Nai and Ye Ye, me and Mom, Dad, you and Grandma and Grandpa.”
    Ana can't say there's much resemblance, but she nods. “So who's the ninth sock supposed to be?”
    Sammy shrugs. “It's just a sock. For your foot.”
    Ana laughs. “Thanks, Sammy.” She gives him a hug and puts the sock family back in the box.
    “Next,” Ana's dad says. Her parents look at each other and her mom nods.
    “Since you'll be starting high school in the fall and it's too far to walk, we got you—”
    Ana's eyes widen. Her heart skips a beat. “A car?”
    “No!” her mom says. “You're too young to drive.”
    “A scooter?” Ana asks.
    “No.” Her dad sighs and pulls a small envelope out of his pocket.
    “A bus card?” The disappointment is more than a little obvious and she knows it. “I mean, hey, a bus card.”
    “It's a monthly pass,” her dad adds lamely.
    “I knew that one was a dud,” Ana's mom says. “Your dad thought you wouldn't want us dropping you off