When Mrs. Douglas returns the class essays, Mia is crushed to receive a C-minus. She confides to Lupe that she’ll never be able to enter the Vermont essay contest if her writing is this bad. Lupe tells her she needs to try anyway, but Mia protests: “‘But it costs three hundred dollars to play!’ […] Lupe shrugged. ‘My dad says in America you gotta pay to play’” (123). As she leaves the motel, Lupe whispers that she’ll miss Mia when she moves to Vermont.

One day, a customer leaves Mia an eight-dollar tip. She’s very grateful and wants to write a thank you note. Mrs. T, one of the weeklies, lends her a dictionary and thesaurus to help her along. The tip gives Mia an idea about how to raise money for the contest fee. She puts a tip jar on the front desk whenever she’s on duty but hides it the rest of the time so that her parents and Yao won’t see it.

Jason returns to school for the first time since Mia rejected him. He decides to get even by making fun of her floral pajama pants. Mia is mortified that her parents can’t afford to buy her jeans like the