Biking home from the Los Arboles Sunday Market, a sun flower yellow teapot snug in her backpack, lonely college student Carolyn Bauer sees a young teenager huddling under a eucalyptus tree. Carolyn shares her food and water with Antonia as they struggle to communicate in a mix of languages. Realizing Antonia lives on the streets, Carolyn invites her home. They share a summer of friendship until the day the yellow teapot shatters and Antonia mysteriously disappears. Fifteen years later, only Antonia recognizes her old friend when she and Carolyn meet again in an ESL classroom, but she conceals her secret. Carolyn arranges a class project for Antonia—to job-shadow her friend and housemate, Gemi Kemmal. Gemi learns Antonia's dangerous circumstances when Antonia arrives for work with bruises barely concealed by thick makeup and offers her sanctuary just as Carolyn had years earlier. Together the three women confront Antonia's abuser and build a family of enduring friendship. Biking Uphill, the second book in the Alki Trilogy, invites the reader into a world of undocumented immigration, where parents are deported, and a young girl is abandoned to face life on her own.