It's Raining Benjamins

by Deborah Gregory

  “Chuchie … maybe you should stick with what you do best—”

  “What happened? How do you know what I do best?” I ask, getting flustered.

  “Chuchie, the bell’s gonna ring for homeroom. And then we have to walk to first period before I can take off these wet shoes.” Bubbles is showing me how exasperated she is. But I know it’s just a way for her to blow me off. She doesn’t want to talk about letting me write songs with her.

  “One thing you did really well—taking doggy poo off my shoe,” Bubbles snaps, putting me in my place. “Now I’m walking around like Flipper!” Bubbles starts walking to her desk, waddling like she’s got fins on her feet. Some peeps look up like she’s a little cuckoo, but I’m used to that. It’s not like we’re walking around unnoticed with all the cheetah-licious outfits we wear.

  “So what? It’s not my fault the faucets in the bathroom are older than the Dominican Day Parade!” I call after her.

  “Can we stop talking about it now, please?” she says, sitting down and opening up her cheetah backpack. “By the time we sell these chokers, it’ll be time for a markdown sale or something!” she mumbles, not looking at me.

  “Está bien,” I say, giving in. I never win fights with Bubbles. She always has the last word. Why am I even worrying about writing songs, anyway? We don’t even have a record deal! We’ll be lucky if we don’t end up headlining karaoke clubs and singing “Wanna-be Stars in the Jiggy Jungle” for the rest of our lives!

  Chapter

  4

  Bubbles and I are sitting in homeroom class, turning our heads really slow, so everyone can check out our chokers—especially Keisha Jackson.

  I’ll never forget what Keisha did on the first day of the semester: our homeroom teacher, Mr. Drezform, asked the class if any of us spoke another language besides English. A few students raised their hands—including me and Bubbles, of course.

  Keisha cut her eyes at us, like we were telling fib-eronis or something. Then, after class, she had the nerve to come up to Bubbles and ask her if she really spoke Italian. So now I’m not feeling Miss Keisha, está bien?

  Luckily, a few students smile at me as I crane my neck at them. I smile back, showing off the choker. Then I turn to my right and say hi to Daisy Duarte, who is supa-chili—and also Dominican, like me.

  “Ay, qué bonita! Your choker is so cute!” she exclaims, checking out the “product.”

  “My crew and I make them,” I say proudly. “Support a Cheetah Girl—come on, buy one, Daisy!” I egg her on, because we’re really cool like that with each other.

  “How much?” Daisy asks, amused to the max.

  For a second I hesitate. Then I realize, Bubbles has already gotten busted once for pricehiking—by Derek Hambone, no less. So I figure we’d better chill, and I blurt out, “Ten dollars. Está poco, okay?”

  “Está bien,” Daisy says, her eyes lighting up.

  I motion to Bubbles, who whips out a Cheetah Girls choker from her backpack and hands it to me. Since it’s my sale, I pass the choker to Daisy.

  Daisy looks as happy as my mom does at a garage sale. Her eyes are glistening, like she knows she’s gotten a really good bargain, está bien? Daisy forks over ten dollars with pleasure, then snaps the choker onto her neck like it’s a trophy.

  “How does it look?” she asks me, pushing her long, wavy hair behind her shoulders to show off the choker.

  “La dopa—and fresh as a Daisy!” I respond proudly, then hurriedly fold the crisp ten-dollar bill into my cheetah wallet. I stuff the wallet into my backpack before Mr. Drezform takes attendance.

  “Talk to you later!” I whisper, pinching Bubbles under the chair. I feel so much better already!

  I guess it was kinda hard, adjusting to being back in school after our dream trip to La La Land. We got to lie in a pool, perform for the bigwigs—and I even met this publicity executive from Def Duck Records at the showcase. He said that I reminded him of Kahlua Alexander, their biggest artist!

  I am lost in my own Telemundo channel, when I hear Mr. Drezform call my name loudly. Bubbles pokes me really hard.

  “Here!” I yell, then sit back in my chair and take out the pygmy hedgehog book. I wonder if the little hoglets only make tiny poopoos in the kitty litter box. Otherwise, you can forget it—olvídate, está bien? Mom is even worse about odors than I am—unless they’re coming out of very expensive perfume bottles!

  When attendance is over, I jump up because I have to go to the bathroom before first period. I smile at Daisy and say good-bye, then tell Bubbles I’ll meet her in math class.

  As soon as the bell rings, I get up to make a mad dash out the classroom door. But all of a sudden, I hear Keisha Jackson yelling at Bubbles.

  “Yo, Galleria, I think you dropped something,” Keisha says with a smirk, handing her—gasp—the silver letter “L” from Bubbles’s Cheetah Girl choker!

  Ay, Dios mío! I think I’m going to faint! Quickly, I put my hand around my neck. Gracias gooseness—thank goodness—I still have all my letters.

  Bubbles snatches the silver letter from Keisha’s hand and puts it in her pocket, like it’s no biggie—but I know she is goospitating.

  “Galleria, you know what? It doesn’t look too bad without the ‘L’—‘Grow Power!’ I like it!” Keisha says, heckling. Then she says, in a real loud voice, “I heard you and Chanel tell Daisy that you made the chokers?”

  I am so humiliated, I wish I could do an abracadabra on the spot and disappear! “Yes, we made them,” Bubbles whimpers. Her face has turned five shades of my favorite color—red.

  “Maybe you’d better tell Daisy, before hers falls apart next period,” Keisha says. Sucking her teeth, she walks off, like she’s a designer herself or something. Come on—she majors in fashion merchandising, just like we do. Qué bobada. Phony baloney!

  I stand next to Bubbles, shifting back and forth on my feet because I have to go to the bathroom really bad. But I’m not moving until Bubbles does. “I guess that Wacky Glue went wacky, Chuchie,” Bubbles says, sucking her teeth.

  “What happened?” I stammer. “Don’t blame it on me!” We stand there frozen, contemplating whether we should say anything to Daisy. I can tell we are both thinking the same thing—Run for the hills with the bills!

  A few of the students look at us while they’re pushing their way out of class, but we don’t move.

  “Should I tell Daisy?” I finally ask.

  “Nah. Hers is probably fine,” Bubbles says. “But we’d better check with Do’ Re Mi before she gives LaRonda her choker!” Dorinda’s homeroom is just down the hall.

  When we get outside into the hallway, I suddenly feel dizzy. I lean against the corridor wall because I feel like I’m going to faint. “Bubbles,” I mumble, “what are we gonna do?”

  When I hear Daisy’s shrill voice calling my name, I realize the curtain is about to come down on our little charada. One look at Daisy’s face, and I definitely know our off-Broadway production is closed for renovations until further notice!

  “Um, Chanel, I think there is a problem with my choker,” Daisy says apologetically, handing it to me. “The snaps popped off—I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find them—I don’t know where they fell. This thing just came off my neck. I didn’t pull on it or anything!”

  “Está bien, Daisy, no te preocupas,” I say in Spanish, because I don’t want everybody to hear about our catastrophe! “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Can you give me my ten dollars back, please?” Daisy asks me nicely.

  “Oh, sure,” I say, wincing. I scrounge around in my cheetah backpack for my cheetah wallet. I’m so nervous that my keys, my books, and all my other junk fall out of my backpack! The crowds going both ways through the hall start kicking my stuff all over the place!

  “It’s right there,” Daisy says, trying to be helpful and pointing to my wallet, which is under the only notebook that hasn’t fallen out of my backpack.

  “Ooh, you’re right,” I say, giggling
nervously. “Here. I’m sorry. I’ll make you another one.”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” she says. She gives me a smile and shrugs. “Sorry. They’re cute, though. See you later.” And she turns and leaves, in a big hurry to get out of that embarrassing situation.

  Daisy will probably never buy anything from me as long as I live. I swear, Te juro. It’s only right, after all. And she’ll probably tell everybody from here to the barrio that the Cheetah Girls are not ready for prime time—just broken-down cubs trying to get some grub!

  I look pleadingly at Bubbles, but she gives me a look like she’s gonna wring my neck. After Daisy leaves, she hisses, “You were the one who said the Wacky Glue would be strong enough to hold the letters. Obviously it isn’t.”

  Stammering, I point out, “Yeah, but that’s not why the snap closures came undone in the back, está bien? It’s not all my fault.”

  “Yeah, well, obviously, we didn’t know how to work the snap machine either,” Galleria admits, softening.

  Fighting the tears welling up inside, I take a deep breath, then hightail it with Bubbles to find Do’ Re Mi before she goes to her next class and gives LaRonda the soon-to-be-broken-down choker.

  When I see Do’ Re Mi walking toward us, with a look on her face like she got hit with something, I know it’s too late.

  “I don’t know what happened,” she says, shaking her head, embarrassed. “The letters came off LaRonda’s choker! I had to give her back the ten dollars.” Do’ Re Mi hands Bubbles the choker, like it’s a squashed mouse. “We couldn’t find all the letters that came off, either.”

  “I know,” I say, feeling my breath leave my body like I’m in a seance.

  “How did you know?” Do’ Re Mi asks, puzzled.

  “Look at this one,” I huff. I pull the choker I sold to Daisy out of my jacket pocket. “The snaps came off this one, and the letters came off Bubbles’s choker!”

  “Word? What are we gonna do, Galleria?” Do’ Re Mi whines, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. I know exactly what she’s thinking before she even says it. “If Derek’s choker starts to fall apart, we are burnt toast!”

  “I know—but let’s just go with the flow,” Bubbles says, trying to act coolio. “Obviously, the Wacky Glue had a wack attack.”

  “Don’t blame it on Chanel, Galleria. It’s our fault, too,” Do’ Re Mi says, hanging on to the straps of her backpack.

  I stand there, stunned. This is the first time Dorinda has ever stuck up for me. One day, me and Bubbles had a big fight, right on the sidewalk outside of my house. Bubbles stormed off, and Dorinda went running after her and left me standing there on the sidewalk.

  “Oh, squash it, Do’, I know!” Bubbles snaps, then rolls her eyes at me.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” I hiss.

  “That’s cool, we’ll just go with the flow—like I said,” Bubbles retorts.

  We stand there, silent, trying to plan our next move, but I should’ve known we weren’t getting off the hambone hook that easy. All of a sudden, we hear Derek rolling down the hallway, calling us out.

  As soon as he has us in his sights, he moans, “Yo, Cheetah Girls, your product is fowl like a nearsighted owl!”

  “Tell me this isn’t happening!” Bubbles moans. “I wish I could use Wacky Glue on Derek’s trap!”

  Bubbles tries to squash the situation. “Derek, hold up—”

  But Derek isn’t having it. “Cheetah Girl, what you trying to do to me? You got jokes or something?” Derek asks, handing Bubbles the choker we sold him earlier.

  “W-what do you mean?” Bubbles asks him, stuttering. We all stand there, pretending we don’t know a tropical storm like Furious Flo is blowing our way—again.

  “You know what I mean,” Derek says, sucking on his lollipop, and posturing like he’s ready to pounce—on us. “I’m on my way to English class, where I’m supposed to be dropping knowledge, and instead I’m dropping letters from the alphabet—like I’m Daffy Duck, or Elmo on Sesame Street!” Derek resumes sucking on his lollipop. He’s waiting for Bubbles to explain.

  Cheez whiz, I’m thinking, someone musta told Derek that we call him Daffy Duck, too! Dorinda is the one who thought of that one.

  Galleria hasn’t opened her mouth, so Derek starts in again. “All I wanna say is, if this is the best joke you got, I got jokes for you, too—but you’re gonna have to pay me just to hear them. In the meantime, you can gimme back my ten dollars!”

  “Derek, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sell you a wack choker. It just happened,” Bubbles whimpers. She reaches into her cheetah wallet to give him back his ten dollars.

  “Word, Derek, we didn’t know what we were doing,” Do’ Re Mi offers, trying to be super-simpático.

  “Mack, did you hear an echo or something?” Derek says, looking at Mackerel, then looking around like he can’t figure out who’s talking. Finally, he looks down at Do’ Re Mi. “Oh, shortie! Was that you? You got something to say to me?”

  “Derek, don’t go there—” Bubbles tries to counter, but he cuts her off.

  “No. Shame on you, Cheetah Girl, ’cuz I’m not the ‘shay-mo’ you think I am. As a matter of fact, you are. And you’d better go back to Finger Painting 101 before you start acting like you ‘all that’—ayiight?” He throws the metal letters that fell off his choker on the ground in front of us. “’Cuz you definitely got an F on your report card for social studies.”

  “Awwriight,” seconds Mackerel, handing the choker he bought back to Bubbles, too—and taking another ten dollars from her.

  “You gotta have skills to pay the bills, Cheetah Girls—not jokes!” Derek yells all the way down the hallway, heckling with Mackerel. The two of them sound like hyenas, heading back to the hills to pounce on more innocent prey.

  “Let’s bounce,” Bubbles mumbles, leading us toward the exit. “We’re gonna have to be late for next period. We need to get outside and bounce from this situation.”

  * * *

  “We’re definitely gonna have to regroup,” Do’ Re Mi says, sighing, as we sit on the steps in front of the school.

  “Regroup?” Bubbles retorts. “I’m never going back to school, ever again!”

  The three of us sit in complete silence for what seems like hours. Then I turn to Bubbles and say, “Remember that time Madrina told us about the first cat suits she made?”

  “No,” Bubbles says quietly. “What’d she say?”

  “She said she made them so small they didn’t even fit an alley cat,” I say, repeating what Madrina had told me. “She said she had a lot of problems when she started her business. She even had trouble fitting the customers, because she didn’t really know what she was doing.

  “I remember my mom thought it was all a big joke,” I continue, “’cuz she didn’t believe that Madrina was ever gonna be a real designer. I still remember the big fight they had about it when Bubbles and I were little,” I tell Dorinda.

  “I guess we’re gonna have to figure out how to make the chokers so they don’t fall apart,” she says, trying to be helpful.

  “I really do feel bad, like it’s my fault,” I tell my crew.

  “Chuchie, just chill,” Bubbles says. “We were moving too fast on the eager-beaver tip—trying to floss and make everybody proud of us—especially our moms. Right?”

  “Right!” Dorinda and I agree.

  “Well, I guess we don’t have anything better to do than keep trying—at least until we hear if we got a record deal, huh?” Bubbles says. She puts her hands to her temples, like the weight of the world is on her head. “Okay, let’s regroup. But I’ll tell you one thing—I wish I never had to look at Derek Hambone and his gold tooth again as long as I live.”

  “Or Mackerel,” I say with a smirk, then take a deep breath. “But I guess we have a lot to learn.”

  “And we might as well face the factos—we are definitely in the dog pound for now,” Bubbles says.

  Suddenly, I blurt out, “Woof, there it is!” Next thing you know, I�
��m laughing so hard, I am doubled over in pain, holding my stomach.

  Dorinda and Bubbles join me in a giggle-filled chorus of “Woof, there it is! Woof, there it is!” We just keep saying it, over and over again, because we don’t know any of the other words to the song.

  But Bubbles soon takes care of that. Right there on the front steps of Fashion Industries East High, for all the sidewalk passersby to hear, she leads us by singing the rest of the song, and we repeat the words after her:

  “It takes five

  To make the Cheetah Girls be

  Ah, yeah, can’t you see

  That they’re rocking on a thing

  Called the M.I.C.

  The M.I.C., well that’s a microphone

  And when they rock it to the heat

  It’s rocked to the doggy bone.

  Woof, there it is!

  Woof, there it is!

  Woof, there it is!”

  By now, a small crowd of people on the street has joined us, and they’re singing along! This is what I love. This is what we all love. The beat. The beat is what brings us to our feet. The beat is why we’re together—forever!

  After we finish and settle down, I say, “We’ve gotta get that record deal.”

  Bubbles just sighs. “Yeah—a record deal, or at least a square meal. Come on, y’all—we’re missing class. I guess singing is our thing, but when it comes to making chokers, we’re just a bunch of jokers.”

  Chapter

  5

  By the end of the school day, Bubbles has finally calmed down. Dorinda and I spent the whole lunch period talking some sense into her. When school lets out, we hit the subway, heading for the Toto in New York factory in Brooklyn—again.

  “Don’t be a joker, G, let’s go make some chokers,” Dorinda chuckles. That’s right—we’ve talked Galleria into trying again!

  Aqua and Angie have agreed to meet us there. We paged them during lunch period, and set it all up.

  The twins are getting very brave these days. Usually, we have to meet them at a subway station, and go together as a group to places—because they don’t know New York very well, and are afraid of traveling by themselves.