The Neighborhood That Kicked Out the Valedictorian

Mom stood before the mirror in her faded floral shirt, beaming from ear to ear.

"What do you think, Cathy? Do you think this suits me? The reporters are coming tomorrow. I don't want to look drab, or I'll end up embarrassing you."

I leaned against the doorframe and grinned as I gave her two thumbs-up.

"You look gorgeous, Mom. You look good in anything."

Suddenly, we received a call from Karen Myers, the vice president of the neighborhood HOA. She didn't even bother concealing the disgust and disdain in her voice.

"There's going to be a huge celebration tomorrow here in Emerald Green. The mayor of the city and the chairman of Bloomberg Finance are coming to visit us and congratulate the top scorer!

"But you're only a tenant and not a homeowner, so don't you dare show up tomorrow in that ragged apron of yours at the roadside in your run-down stall."

Mom gripped her phone tightly and pleaded in a soft voice, "But Ms. Myers, I've already received a few pre-orders from the students nearby for their breakfasts.

"If I don't show up, then the kids are going to have to go to school hungry—"

Karen sniggered. "They're not going to die just from skipping breakfast tomorrow.

"But your stall is stinky and greasy as hell. You're only going to bring down the upscale image of our neighborhood!"

Then, she hung up on us. Mom slowly hid her calloused hands behind her back.

"Cathy… I guess I won't be setting up stall tomorrow after all. I'll just go to your Aunt Tasha's for the day.

"After all, there'll be tons of reporters interviewing you tomorrow, and I'm only going to embarrass you if I show up dull and drab like this."

I saw how cautious Mom was behaving and felt my temper rising. I also felt sorry for her.

I then tapped into the neighborhood group chat, where everyone else was still discussing happily and excitedly about tomorrow.

"That old hag had better not be showing up tomorrow with her burrito stall!"

"Yeah! And she's just a tenant, not a homeowner. If the mayor sees her like that, he's going to think that we're some poor village in the mountains!"

My hands were shaking as I read their messages. I tapped into my gallery, thinking of sending them a photo of my SAT scores to prove ourselves.

Suddenly, I realized that I couldn't send anything into the group anymore. An error message popped out with a notification saying that I'd just been kicked from the group chat.

I gripped Mom's hand tightly, suddenly remembering that she and I were only able to move into this rented house with Mr. Jonathan Bloomberg's help.

One day three years ago, Mom had been selling her burritos by the roadside when a well-dressed old man suffered a sudden heart attack and collapsed by the flowerbed nearby. Passers-by walked past him without helping him up.

Mom was the only one who threw her stall aside and rushed over to the old man, calling the ambulance and performing CPR on him while waiting for the paramedics. And just like that, she'd managed to save Mr. Bloomberg's life.

After Mr. Bloomberg recovered, he saw that I'd managed to get into a prestigious high school known for producing top scorers in the city and decided to help us out by renting his place out to us, which was just a stone's throw away from the high school.

Yet, he insisted on "renting" it to us completely free of charge, just so that I could focus on studying hard.

I looked at Mom, who was still blaming herself for the situation, and hugged her shoulders. Then, I said casually, "Mom, I'll come with you to the stall tomorrow! This is a once-in-a-lifetime free advertisement opportunity!

"When the reporters point their cameras at me tomorrow, I'll just tell them that the secret to my scoring full marks in the SATs was eating your breakfast burritos every day without fail!

"And then, we can charge them premium prices for the burritos. Maybe 50 bucks each!"

Mom laughed at my greedy expression. She poked me in the forehead and lightly chided, "You're just talking nonsense, Catrina Marshall. How can we possibly charge 50 bucks for a single burrito? It would just be a rip-off."

I finally relaxed when I saw her smiling again.

Just then, my phone buzzed on the bed. It was a text message from Mr. Bloomberg.

"Hey, Cathy. I'm bringing the people from my board of directors with me to visit you tomorrow to try your mom's burritos!

"By the way, can you please tell your mom that I'd love some extra hot sauce and sour cream in mine?"

I couldn't help chuckling out loud when I saw the words in his text message.

"Mom, you're going to have to prepare more tortilla dough for tomorrow."

I waved my phone in the air as a wide smile spread across my face.

"We've got a super important client visiting us."