A Duet For Home

To earn community service credits, students from the affluent Manhattan school, Cressida School for Girls, come to Huey House to celebrate the September birthdays at the shelter. They sing a generic happy birthday song and distribute birthday cake and presents before retreating to their phones. Ms. Iris Hunter, the pink-haired head librarian at Cressida, arrives late with a bag filled with “priceless” and “dangerous” surprises.

Tyrell Chee and Jeremiah Jones watch the proceedings with amused detachment. They have lived at Huey House for three years, so they know what to expect. They moved in at about the same time and also attend the same school. They’re best friends, but Jeremiah is big and has cornrows, while Tyrelle is skinnier and has straight hair. Jeremiah has a crush on Lulu Vega—a 16-year-old girl who lives at the shelter with her mother and Abuela (grandmother). Lulu often helps the staff, and Tyrelle has a crush on her too. He likes her hair. Once, he tried to touch it, and Lulu threatened to kill him.

When June signs in, the time is 4:40 pm, prompting her to think about her parents’ superstitions about the number four. June’s parents are from China and speak Cantonese. In Cantonese, the word for “four,” sei, sounds similar to the word for “death.” June’s parents have given their daughters names with eight letters (Juniperi and Maybelle) because Cantonese speakers pronounce the word for “eight” as baat, which sounds like faat, the Cantonese word for “fortune.” However, when June began preschool, a teacher shortened Juniperi to June.

Maybelle adores dogs, and she shows Marcus a photo of their dog, Nana, who is staying at an animal shelter. Marcus says that Ms. MacMillan forbids dogs; he says Ms. MacMillan’s name as if she were Cruella de Vil.

Ms. Gonzalez, the family service director, appears and wonders if Ms. Hunter is scaring the children. Tyrell likes Ms. Gonzalez and calls her Ms. G. The other children like her too. One child with a runny nose hugs her.

Ms. Hunter’s surprise involves gifts of picture books about dragons, pigeons, monsters, and Egypt, so Tyrell doesn’t want them. Next time, Ms. Hunter promises to bring books that Tyrell and Jeremiah will like.

Ms. MacMillan, the director of Huey House, introduces herself to the Yangs, explaining that it is her job to ensure that the residents obey the rules: Curfew lasts from 9:00 pm to 5:30 am. If an adult has a job that requires them to work beyond the curfew, that adult must get permission from HQ. June doesn’t know what “HQ” stands for but soon learns that it means “headquarters” and refers to the company that operates the shelter. Ms. MacMillan also stresses that drugs, pets, instruments, and alcohol are prohibited. Meals are provided in the basement cafeteria, and food isn’t allowed in the rooms.

On Ms. MacMillan’s desk, June notices a confidential document about Housing Stability Plus (HSP). She reads the first paragraph and learns that the program will begin with an official announcement in October. The policy encourages shelters to move families into homes subsidized by HSP as quickly as possible.

Tyrell enjoys a green Pixie Stix as he watches Lulu and Jeremiah clean up the conference room after the birthday celebration. Lulu chastises Tyrell for not helping, and she notes that the Albert family is moving out tomorrow. Lulu believes that her family will move soon, but Tyrell thinks that he and his mother are “permanent residents.” He and Jeremiah plan to stay at Huey House until they’re 18 and then get an apartment together.

However, Jeremiah wouldn’t mind moving sooner. He wants a kitchen, but if Tyrell’s mother had a kitchen, she might start a fire. Jeremiah wants to start his homework—a reading response to the middle grade novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1976), but Tyrell thinks that they should go through with their plan to get revenge on a condescending girl named Maria Castro.

June officially realizes that her family is staying at a shelter for unhoused people and is appalled to learn that her family’s room is on the fourth floor. The room contains “yellowed” sheets, brown blankets, and dirty mattresses. June checks for bedbugs before helping Maybelle unpack her dog books and dog stuffed animals. June has packed cookware for her mother, but her mother remains unresponsive, and June wants to throw the wok at her. Just as June is wishing that her father were still alive, Ms. Gonzalez, the head of family services, knocks on the door.

Maria often taunts Tyrell by making the sign of the cross whenever he comes near her, and Tyrell and Jeremiah previously struck back by putting hair dye in her shampoo and turning her hair purple. Recently, Maria told Ms. MacMillan (whom Tyrell calls MacVillain) that Tyrell wrote “Huey House Sucks” on the front desk, even though he was not the culprit. Now, to get revenge on her for making this false accusation, Jeremiah rearranges the cranberry juice dispenser so that it will spray Maria when she uses it.

Abuela, Lulu’s grandmother, spots Jeremiah and Tyrell in the cafeteria. She tells Tyrell about the Yangs and wants him to be nice to them. She also tells Tyrell about a former resident who recently moved with her mother. Ms. MacMillan and HQ pushed them to use HSP, and they wound up in a house with a broken pipe, a broken faucet, and mold.

June is unsure whether to open the door for Ms. Gonzalez, and Maybelle thinks that Ms. Gonzalez might be a bad person, so June agrees to speak to Ms. Gonzalez in the hallway. She tells June that the bus leaves at 5:30 am. June’s school in Chinatown starts at eight, but the bus must drop off all the students at Huey House, so it leaves early. June feels faint and teary, so Ms. Gonzalez comforts her with a hug and Girl Scout cookies.

Mamo is the head cook at Huey House, and Tyrell and Jeremiah respect her watchful eye. She keeps them sharp. They think of her as preparing them for their dream jobs—detectives for the New York Police Department. After dinner, Tyrell wants to watch the new season of FBI 10-0, but Jeremiah thinks that they should do their homework first. Jeremiah is a positive influence on Tyrell. When they entered Huey House, they transferred to the closest school, and thanks to Jeremiah, Tyrell is now a decent student.

Now, Jeremiah puts the finishing touches on the dispenser, and they wait for Maria to get her cranberry juice, knowing that she is always the “only person” who drinks it. Jeremiah’s mother plays with another person’s baby, but Tyrell’s mother isn’t as warm. Tyrell describes his mother as being selfish and combative.

In the cafeteria, Maria scolds Mamo for only serving meatloaf surprise and cream corn. Mamo serves June heaps of meat. Maybelle is a vegetarian, but because she is distracted by her new surroundings, she doesn’t notice the cuisine. June asks Maybelle if she wants milk, water, or cranberry juice.

During dinner, Lulu highlights a large textbook. She sits next to her mother, Ms. Vega, who is training to be a hairstylist and practices her skills on the house residents. She is the one who buzzed Tyrell’s hair on the sides, leaving it spiky on top. Tyrell says hi to Lulu, but she ignores him. Jeremiah suddenly declares, “Abort mission.” Tyrell sees that the Yang sisters are about to use the cranberry juice dispenser. He screams “Stop!” but the girls pull the spout, and the cranberry juice splatters their white shirts.

June isn’t an “optimistic” person anymore, so she’s not fazed by their room at Huey House or the cranberry juice on their shirts. She already understands that circumstances can always get worse. In their room, she listens to Maybelle cry and plead to see Nana at the Mott Street Animal Shelter in Chinatown. If June had her viola, she could play Maybelle a lullaby and help her fall asleep easily.

June reflects on the recent events that have diminished her rosy outlook. Six months ago, the police knocked on her door to tell her that her father had died. While delivering food, he skidded on the ice and fatally collided with a truck. Devastated, her mother stopped going to work at the dim sum restaurant called the Flying Dragon Banquet Hall. Two days ago, the marshal arrived and evicted June and her family.

Tyrell and Jeremiah try to find out June’s room number so that they can apologize to her and Maybelle, but Stephanie, the woman at the front desk, won’t tell them what it is. They surmise that she might be angry at them for changing her “Be Back in Five Minutes” sign to “I’m Checking Facebook—I’ll Be Back Never” (82). The boys miss FBI 10-0. Before going to the chapel to do homework, they go to the alcove at the end of the fourth-floor hallway and listen to a person named Domenika play the violin on the first floor of her brownstone next door.