Bow-wow Wow!

by Deborah Gregory

  Ornella finally looks at me and smiles. “She certainly is excited, isn’t she?”

  I wanted to say, Yeah, all the time, but I just smile back at Ornella and say, “Yeah.”

  “Do you two perform together?” Ornella asks innocently.

  Even though I feel my cheeks sting, I try to act like the question doesn’t bother me. Bubbles didn’t tell her I was part of the Cheetah Girls. “Yeah,” I explain, “Bubbles and I started the group together.”

  “The two of you must look really cute on stage together,” Ornella says. I know she is trying to be nice, but I have to correct her.

  “Bubbles and I started singing together—like when we were six or something. But now we have a group—the Cheetah Girls. There are five of us.”

  The phone rings again and Ornella answers it. I sneak into my cheetah backpack and take out my bag of carrots and start chomping on them.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, but you can’t eat in here,” Ornella says nicely.

  Now I really feel like day-old nachos—not so fresh!

  Suddenly Bubbles comes from the back by herself and she is smiling like she just won the Miss America contest. “Wow, I can’t believe how your teeth look!” I say, surprised because she doesn’t really look like herself without her braces. Now I feel insecure. Maybe I should have gotten braces too?

  “Can you believe it, mamacita?” Bubbles says, grinning ear to ear. “Now we’re definitely ready for Freddy Come Saturday night, winner takes all!”

  Chapter

  5

  Even though it’s supa chilly, the Fashion Industries East peeps are crowding the sidewalk outside of our big ugly school. They never stop blowing cold air out of their mouths and tap dancing in their galoshes and fancy UGG boots to keep their feet toasty.

  “Wait up, yo,” Dorinda says, running to catch up with us. She takes a different subway than we do and we always meet outside. “Bow-wow-wow!” Bubbles snickers when she sees Dorinda’s new brown knit cap with a big white bichon frise appliqué stuck right in front.

  “I made it last night,” Dorinda giggles, touching the adorable doodad she made out of a piece of white felt, then sewed onto a plain knit cap. “Nobu tried to lick it!”

  “Hook me up, Do’,” Bubbles exclaims. “Make me one. I’ll give you my tan cap to put it on.”

  I want one too, but I keep my boca closed and just smile at Dorinda like, Oh, you are so cutie patootie.

  “Okay, I’ll make you one on one condition,” Dorinda starts in.

  “Wow, you’re beginning to sound more like my mother every day,” Bubbles says, raising her eyebrows.

  “Well, you have to tell me exactly what is a bichon frise—because Twinkie won’t let me sleep until I tell her every last detail,” Dorinda chuckles. Twinkie is also one of Dorinda’s foster sisters.

  “Okay, where do we begin? Um, nobody knows where the breed comes from exactly, but they were definitely a favorite among the royal families, starting from around the fifteenth century,” Bubbles says like a know-it-all. I didn’t even know she knew that much about anything other than writing songs. “They made the perfect lapdogs for kings of choice but don’t think the bumpin’ bichon isn’t always turning out a few surprises. Today in Norway they have found out that bichons can be trained to round up sheep. How do you like that, Little Bo Peep?”

  “Twinkie will be happy. I’ll tell Nobu too when he’s older,” Dorinda chuckles proudly.

  “Oh, and just tell Twinkie they are happy, snappy dogs who like sausages and lots of kisses!” adds Bubbles. She never wears lipstick to school, but today she put on her new tube of S.N.A.P.S. lipstick Getdown Brown, and her lips look really juicy. “Aren’t you going to say anything, Do’?”

  “My bad! Wow, your teeth look amazing!” Dorinda says, putting her arms around Bubbles as we walk into the middle of the block.

  True to his Red Snapper words, Derek is standing practically in the middle of the street to scope our arrival. He has on his usual supersize-me Starter jacket in that ugly khaki color. For design majors, Derek and Mackerel are kinda boring in the style department. They just dress like everybody else. Unlike us, the Cheetah Girls, who are always adobo down. Today, la gente—peeps—are really checking out our flavor. That’s probably because Derek makes a high-pitched noise like an animal on the prowl when he sees Bubbles.

  “Get ready for a cheetah takeover!” Derek cackles like a jackal. I can’t believe that Bubbles breaks out in a big grin instead of acting mad like she usually does when Derek is macking her. Ay, Dios mío. Now that Bubbles has her braces off, she is going to get all the attention. I snap out of my celoso thoughts when I notice that Kadeesha and Backstabba are rolling their eyes in our direction. Even Keisha Jackson’s eyes are turning green with Gucci envy. Keisha is another pest in our homeroom class, and right from the start she never really liked Bubbles.

  I start feeling Red Hots in my tummy again, but luckily, LaRonda Evans gives Bubbles a shout-out that everybody can hear, “Hey, Galleria. You look cheetah-licious!” LaRonda is in Dorinda’s homeroom class. (Dorinda even invited LaRonda to the Mariah Carey concert, so she is supa cool with us now.)

  “Feeling cheetah-licious,” Bubbles riffs back, breaking into another big smile.

  “Hi, LaRonda,” I say, but she ignores me because she is too busy gagging at Bubbles without her braces. “Wow, did it hurt?”

  “A little—but nothing I couldn’t handle. After five years of heavy metal, there is nothing like the taste of freedom!”

  I can’t believe Bubbles. I remember when she first got her braces, she was crying like a baby until Madrina took us to Mr. Sniddles Ice Cream Parlor and let Bubbles eat two double-scoop Mallomars ice cream cones! (I only had one. Te juro.)

  Dorinda looks at me and shrugs her tiny little shoulders like, “Datz Bubbles for ya.” Dorinda does look so cute with Nobu on her head, but nobody says anything about her new cap because they are too busy goospitating about Bubbles’s new teeth.

  Derek wheedles his way next to Bubbles and I can tell he really is goospitating. Mackerel looks at me, then digs his hands into his pockets. Maybe I should be nice to him. Nobody else pays attention to me. “Are you coming Saturday to see us perform?” I ask him nervously. I start pulling at my hair in front, trying to straighten it, but I can’t feel the strands through my pink woolly mitten. Mackerel looks at me like he’s startled that I’m speaking to him.

  “Um, yeah, we are definitely going,” he replies, shuffling his feet. “You gonna be singing some new songs?”

  I wonder if he means, did Bubbles write a new song. All of a sudden, I hear myself saying, “Well, we’re working on a new song now that I’m writing too.”

  “Oh, word?”

  I can tell by the way Mackerel responds that he is impressed.

  “Um, yeah—Bow-wow-Wow,” I add quickly, then look over nervously at Bubbles to make sure she didn’t hear. But she is too busy eating up all the attention from peeps at school to hear what I’m saying. Shuffling my feet to keep them warm, I start wondering, What is wrong with una pequeña mentira. A little fib-eroni, huh?

  “Yeah, I do write some of the songs too. We co-wrote the song ‘It’s Raining Benjamins’ together,” I say boldly. That part is true, even though Bubbles doesn’t want to give me credit for writing the song because she says that I didn’t contribute enough. (I don’t understand why she’s getting so technical about the percentage; it’s not like we’re collecting publishing royalties or something.)

  “Oh, yeah, that’s the song y’all performed in Hollywood?” Mackerel says.

  Wow, now I’m impressed. I didn’t know he paid so much attention to the Cheetah Girls’ every smooth move. I try not to stare at Mackerel, but he is kinda cute. He is Bubbles’s complexion and has cute freckles. If he would just fix the big gap in his front teeth he would be so much cuter. My mind starts working again. Maybe I should suggest that he goes to Bubbles’s dentist?

  “Sí, that’s the song!” I say quic
kly, so I can shake away thoughts of insulting Mackerel. Bubbles is looking over at us now, so I’m careful about what I say. Mackerel just stands there staring at me, anyway. “Is Mackerel your real name?” I blurt out.

  “Yup. My father used to go fishing for Spanish mackerel down in Florida,” Mackerel explains. “My mom says even my yellow freckles look like their spots.”

  “I have an aunt who lives in Miami,” I say excitedly.

  “Word? You ever heard of Plantation Island?”

  “No,” I reply, embarrassed because I haven’t. Now that makes two places in two days I never heard of—Plantation Island, Florida, and Gabon, West Africa.

  “Well, we lived near there. Lots of water. I do love to swim—maybe I am like the king mack, you know.”

  I just stare blankly at Mackerel because I thought he said he was named after the Spanish mackerel. But maybe it’s like having relatives; you’re all part of the same family even though some of the names are different.

  As if reading my mind, Mackerel quickly adds, “That’s, like, another species. I guess if I had a choice I would have named myself after the king mackerel. But I didn’t,” he adds, chuckling. “Personally, I think the king mack is flyer looking. It has this purplish blue color that shimmers under water. Um, you can see them real up close because they always swim right under the surface. I’d go fishing with my father sometimes. Um, yeah, there’s a lot of other mackerel species too.”

  Now I know Mackerel is nervous because he is babbling and that isn’t his style at all. Wow, I didn’t know that Mackerel was so smart. Twirling my hair through my mittens, I can’t help thinking, Maybe he won’t like me when he finds out I’m not as smart as he is!

  “Maybe we should hang out sometimes,” Mackerel says. “Um, what are you doing after school today? Um, I can—I wanna roll over to China Fun before practice.”

  After school, Mackerel and Derek play basketball a lot at the YMCA on 63rd Street, which is near Aqua and Angie’s school. I ponder his proposition, but I know I can’t go to China Fun, because I will be tempted by all those crispy egg rolls, pork fried rice, and juicy dumplings.

  Quickly I ponder a solution. “We could go to Papaya King?” I offer, “but I have to be at, um—somewhere at five o’clock.” I don’t want to tell Mackerel that I am going to the beauty parlor to get my hair straightened.

  “Yeah, that’s cool. I’ll hook up with you then,” Mackerel says, satisfied with our game plan.

  Finally, Bubbles is finished gabbing with everybody so we can get to homeroom on time, but she is still interested in my conversation with Mackerel. “I saw you macking with the Mackerel. You must be hooked!”

  “No, I’m not,” I protest. I’m not going to tell Bubbles what we talked about because it may sound stupid. I have to tell her that I’m meeting him, so I blurt out, “We’re gonna go to Papaya King after school.”

  Bubbles threw me that look like I’m a bobo head. “You can’t meet him. You know Pepto B. gets queasy if we’re late for our blow-dryer date!”

  “But we don’t have to be there till five o’clock.” I protest. “You and Derek can come with us. Then we can go to—”

  “What are you now, my social planner?” Bubbles says, putting on her smirk face. “The only place I’d ever go with Mr. Duh is to the dentist for a gold-digging outing!”

  “Okay, so I’ll go by myself,” I stammer. I’ll show Bubbles she isn’t the only one who can get someone to like her. I bet if Eddie Lizard called right now and said he wanted to meet her after school, she would drop me like a soggy egg roll—and just tell me to wait for her at Pepto B.’s like a puppy dog!

  “Okay, you can meet him, but you’re not going by yourself. I’m coming with you,” Bubbles says, like she is my mother! I hate when Bubbles does that. “I’ll sit at a table with Derek—but you owe me double big-time, mamacita!

  “What happened?” I ask, puzzled. “Double big time?”

  “Oh, you don’t think I’m helping you with your Italian homework at lunchtime because I have nothing better to do? Do you, Chuchie?” Bubbles asks adamantly. “I’d rather be doing something useful like painting my toenails in my favorite Pow! shade nail polish in a grungy school restroom stall than helping you with a subject I already know. Know what I’m saying?”

  “Está bien. Okay, Bubbles,” I stammer. I wish I didn’t need Bubbles’s help with my Italian homework, but I do because I hate it. My Italian teacher, Mr. Lepidotteri, doesn’t cut me any slack. Boy, if my homework weren’t due today at last period, I would tell Bubbles to stuff mozzarella up her nose, but I can’t. Yo no puedo.

  “See you lunchtime,” I say cheerfully as we walk down the hallway.

  Leave it to Mamí to ruin my first date with Mackerel. Right when I’m leaving school, she calls me on Miss Wiggy to tell me that I have to pick Pucci up from his karate lessons after school. “Parate, Chanel! Stop it and just do what I tell you to do,” Mamí screams into the phone receiver.

  I slam my Miss Wiggy cell phone closed and fight back the tears.

  “What did she say?” Bubbles asks, concerned.

  “The meeting with her book editor got pushed up so we have to go to the Tae Kwon do Center on 100th Street and pick up Pucci,” I answer, pouting. I know Mamí is trying to get a deal for a new book about the rise and fall of oil tycoons and their girlfriends, called It’s Raining Tycoons. “I hate her!”

  “How do you spell relief?” Bubbles says, letting out a sigh. “I sure didn’t want to get that up close and personal with Derek’s ‘gold rush’ anyway. Guess we’re back to you owing me big-time—just once.”

  It’s just like Bubbles to always think of herself. What about me?

  “Are you gonna come with us?” Bubbles asks Dorinda as we walk to the subway.

  “I don’t have any come-with money. And I gotta get home to help with the kids—and Nobu,” Dorinda says.

  “Oh, come on, Do’, remember how much fun we had that time we went to Churl, It’s You! We could become like a beauty parlor quartet!” Bubbles says, trying to get her way. The last time we went to Churl, It’s You! we sang a song for Kahlua Alexander. She was in town to star in the movie Platinum Pussycats, and she only trusts Pep to B. to put in her extensions.

  “Quartet is four?” Dorinda asks, puzzled, squinching up her tiny nose.

  “I know that, Do’, but I’m just riffing off barber shop quartet,” Bubbles explains. “Come on, please. Aqua and Angie are gonna meet us there. We’ll be better than any Sixties act could be—the Cheetah Girls in all their spots?”

  “All right, I guess it’s cool. I can just hang,” Dorinda says, giving in but looking a little worried. Bubbles hands the Missy Wiggy cell phone to Dorinda so she can call her foster mother, Mrs. Bosco.

  I wish I had the money to pay for Dorinda to get her hair done too. For true. Es la verdad. (When I charged all the stuff on Mamí’s credit card, I bought Dorinda a tan coolio outfit for our meeting with Jackal Johnson, a big Willie record manager who turned out to be crooked.)

  “Wait a segundo,” Bubbles says, looking puzzled. “That means, we won’t have time to take Pucci down to your house, so we have to take him with us to Pepto’s?”

  We give each other a look like, Oh, no, not again. See, they hate Pucci at Churl, It’s You! The last time he was there, he was showing off the stupid scooter Mamí brought him from Paris and crashed into the popcorn machine. The hairstylists were picking up kernels for days afterward. “Well, at least he won’t have Flammerstein & Schwimmer with him, so what could possibly go wrong?” Bubbles says, shoving her hands in her cheetah mittens.

  “What am I supposed to do about meeting Mackerel?” I ask, biting my lower lip.

  “He’ll get over it,” Bubbles says, waving her hand like she just don’t care. Then she starts looking at me funny. “Chuchie, are you using Auntie Juanita’s makeup again?”

  “Why?” I stammer.

  “You look kinda orange,” Bubbles says, unsure of what is wrong wit
h my complexion. “Doesn’t she, Do’?”

  I can tell Dorinda doesn’t want to say anything wrong because she gets real quiet, then blurts out, “Um, your face does look a little different, Chanel.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I say, brushing them off.

  I get lost in my thoughts as we walk toward the subway station. What am I going to tell Mackerel? Maybe he’s going think I didn’t want to go out with him?

  Bubbles grabs my arm so we can walk faster, but I look around quickly to see if I spot Mackerel and Derek, but I don’t. How bozo. When I want to see him he’s not anywhere. Stopping at the corner of 25th Street, I start thinking more cuckoo thoughts. Maybe he didn’t really want to go out with me? He was just being nice. Nobody wants to go out with me. They only like Bubbles! All of a sudden, I lose my balance and fall off the curb, right in front of a fast-moving yellow taxi.

  “Chuchie!” Galleria screams, yanking me out of the street and back on the sidewalk. “That taxi almost took you straight to ER. And I don’t mean the show, hello?”

  “Lo siento. I’m sorry,” I mumble, flustered.

  Bubbles looks at me like I’m a puppy in need of a hug. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Tell yourself, Miss Cuchifrita. What is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. Nada!” I protest and this time I’m not telling un pequeño fib-eroni. Everthing is wrong. Todo está whacko!

  “Are you okay, Chanel?” Dorinda asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay, miss?” asks a big man with big Mr. Magoo glasses.

  “Yes,” I say, fighting back the tears. I don’t want to start crying right on the sidewalk. I tell the man, “Thank you for helping,” and smile at the other people watching us. I’m sooo embarrassed.

  “Come on, Miss Cuchifrito,” Bubbles says, holding my arm, then looking at the people who are still staring at us. “She’s all right.”

  Walking me carefully down into the subway, Bubbles riffs, “Man, that is the one thing I love about the Big Apple. There is always somebody there to pick you up when you fall down like a rag doll on the sidewalk!”