“The only thing I want you to consider is the door!” Pepto B. says, ushering Pucci to the front. “Pucci faces the glass door and waits for us while we pay at the receptionist counter. And don’t get any ideas about that glass—if I hear a shatter, they’ll be lots of chatter—that’s right, guess who, I’ll sue you!”
When we get outside, Bubbles grabs my arm. “Just in case you start falling off sidewalks again.”
“I can walk by myself,” I protest.
Bubbles ignores me, then coos, “Good move with the new do.”
I let out a big sigh. At least Bubbles thinks some of my ideas are good.
Dorinda grabs my other arm. “I think the peeps uptown are definitely going to be digging the dos!”
“Yeah, well, if they DON’T, then things are gonna get hairy once again in Harlem and I’m not talking about what’s on our heads,” Bubbles says, taking a deep sigh. I can tell she remembers our awful experience losing at the Apollo Amateur Hour.
“But this time we’ve got a lot more to worry about than the Sandman yanking us offstage,” Aqua says, her forehead etched with worry lines.
“That’s right, we’ve got to defend our precious rep,” Angie chimes in. “We didn’t come all the way up here to have someone tell us that singing in church choir isn’t worth anything!”
“Can I get an AMEN on that one?” shouts Bubbles. “Ayiight, see you cheetahs at rehearsal after school tomorrow.”
Chapter
7
It’s so hard for me to keep secrets from Bubbles because she is my best friend, but the way she has been acting lately makes it much easier, está bien. So even though I’m dying to tell her that I can’t wait until Mackerel sees me with my new straight hairdo today, I keep my boca grande closed. We’re standing together outside school and I take off my red mittens even though my hands are cold, because I want to smooth my hair when Mackerel comes. The first person we run into today, though, is Daisy Duarte, who coos, “I’m getting a puppy too! I’m going to call him Bandito.”
“What kind are you getting?” Dorinda asks, excited for Daisy.
“A Havanese terrier,” Daisy says.
“Oh, I never heard of a dog like that,” Dorinda responds.
I want to scream, I hope he’s ugly!
Daisy kills that thought with a BB gun because she coos, “Ooh, he is sooo cute,” then whips out a picture of an adorable brown-and-white puppy with a mushy face. “They’re bred in Havana, and Mamí knows one of the breeders, so we got a really good deal.”
Now I’m beginning to wonder, How come Daisy gets a puppy all of a sudden? Dorinda is still goo-gooing over the picture. “How come you named him Bandito?”
“Because he stole my heart from the moment I saw him,” Daisy says, giggling.
Oh, how corny! I want to blurt out, but I don’t say anything because I’m not too good at faking it all the time, está bien. Daisy must notice how upset I am, because all of a sudden she shuts up about the puppy and exclaims, “Wow, you look muy bonita, Chanel!” Then she looks at Bubbles and adds, “You too, mamacita.”
But Bubbles is too busy checking out Catalina Versace’s new outfit. See, every morning, peeps at Fashion Industries East are always eyeballing everybody’s outfits and today is no exception—especially since Catalina is a new transfer student from Pasadena Tech (that’s right, right near Hollywood where we performed). Everybody at school is saying that she is a granddaughter of the cousin of designer Gianni Versace, but we think it’s a hoax-arama. (I mean, my name is Chanel, but I’m not related to the late, great designer Coco Chanel, está bien?)
“I heard her father is a plumber and they live in Weehawken, New Jersey,” Bubbles says, shaking her head at the silly rumors.
“Yeah, but she always brings it,” Dorinda says, gazing at Catalina’s purple bell-bottom hip-huggers with a dangling gold charm belt and white T-shirt etched with rhinestone letters that says, “So Many Boys, So Little Time.”
“Yeah, well, tell her that the Seventies is that way,” Bubbles says, pointing in the other direction.
Eyeing the T-shirt again, Dorinda heckles, “Catalina’s busy schedule is going to clear real soon if she stays here at Fashion Industries.” I know what she means because most of the students at Fashion Industries East High School are girls and the few boy students are, um, kinda “gay and sway,” as Madrina would say. They even wear mascara to school. Es la verdad. It’s true!
“It’s not hard to see why Red Snapper and Mackerel moved here from Motor City,” Bubbles says, like she’s a reporter or something. “They get to be big fish in a very little pond.”
“Is that a Prada skirt Catalina is wearing? She’s sleeping on her brand,” Dorinda adds, chuckling. I know she is making fun of me because my motto is “Prada or Nada.” (Even though Mamí has made sure I’m stuck with the nada part for a long, long time until I pay off every penny I charged on her credit card.)
“Well, I wouldn’t know, Dorinda, because I am not down with O.P.P.” I say, smirking.
“O.P.P?”
“Other People’s Prada!” I say, trying to keep my feet warm by tap dancing in my red suede boots with the fringes up the side.
“Yeah, well, we’d better get down with D.W.D. right about now because they’re on the move,” Bubbles says sarcastically. I don’t understand what Bubbles means but I turn and see Mackerel and Derek walking in our direction. Suddenly, my heart starts skipping to its own salsa beat. Ay, Dios, please don’t let Mackerel be mad at me for leaving him alone with all those juicy hot dogs. (I’m trying to make jokes because I’m nervous, está bien.) I take my frozen left hand and try to smooth down my hair in the front so it falls over my right eye, but my hand is so cold I almost poke myself in the eye! I can feel his big brown eyes staring at me.
“Wazzup, Cheetah Girl? Okay, I’m digging the look, snook. Yeah, I like you with a little less fur on your head,” Derek says, nodding in approval at Bubbles’s hair.
Mackerel moves closer to me and huffs, “I was holding down Papaya King waiting for you. A brother can’t get any respect—what?”
Oh, no, I realize. Mackerel is caliente mad at me.
“Hold up the bait on that right hook, all right, Mackerel,” Bubbles cuts in. Now I’m getting more embarrassed. Why is Bubbles always acting like she is my mother and wrote a note for me for school or something? “We had a major appointment to pounce on yesterday, so we had to bounce. You understand.”
“Yeah, what appointment?” Mackerel asks, like he isn’t satisfied with Bubbles’s corny explanation.
I start to talk, but Bubbles interrupts me. “The Cheetah Girls were in the hot chair, that’s all I’m saying, okay?”
“More like hot rollers, if you ask me,” Derek chimes in. “Stevie Wonder could see the Cheetah Girls changed their spots. Oh, hold up,” Derek says, holding his hand like a phone. “Excuse me, Miss Galleria—it’s National Geographic magazine calling for an exclusive on the Cheetah Girls change-up.”
“Yeah, well we exclusively belong to ourselves, so tell them they’ll have to catch us in action uptown on Saturday night,” Bubbles retorts, “like everybody else.”
“You know if you were feeling that way about the situation, you coulda told me,” Mackerel says. “But if you want to make it up to me, we can hook up later.”
“Um, we have rehearsal,” I say, my heart pounding.
“I got ’chu. Working on your song?” Mackerel asks me in a loud voice.
Oh, no! Now my head freezes like a piña colada FrozeFruit Bar. Bubbles looks puzzled, but I quickly blurt out, “I can see you Saturday at the thing—at the competition,” I say, my eyes pleading.
“Nah, I got plans to—I’ll probably be going fishing or something—you know in the pond in Central Park,” Mackerel says sarcastically. “Catch you later.”
“Yeah, well, if you’re slow you miss ‘The Show,’ if you catch my drift, Mackerel,” Bubbles chimes in, then turns to Derek. “I hope you won’t let your fish
ing buddy drag you to an icy pond on Saturday.”
“Nah, nah, I’ll be there—no doubt,” Derek says, smiling goofily at Bubbles.
I don’t understand. Why is it everybody always ends up liking Bubbles!
“Come on, Chuchie. I can’t take the heat from Mr. Drezform again,” Bubbles says, dragging my arm. Bubbles is right. We can’t be late for homeroom class. I fight back the tears again. Derek and Hambone are right behind us. As we run inside, LaRonda shouts out, “Your hair looks dope!”
Walking to homeroom class, I realize Mackerel didn’t even say anything about my hair. “Bubbles, what did you mean by D.W.D.?” I ask sheepishly.
“Dealing With Dunces,” she riffs back. “But you shouldn’t be sweating it, Chuchie. We’ve got bigger fish to fry—like rehearsing it to the max so we can win that competition on Saturday. Hey, what did Mackerel mean by you working on a song?”
“Nada. He is confused,” I say, squirming. “He forgot that you write the songs.”
I can feel Mackerel is still right behind me as we move into class, and suddenly he blurts out to me sarcastically, “Good luck with your songwriting.”
“Songwriting?” Bubbles asks, like she’s ready to pounce on me.
I can’t tell Bubbles about my fib-eroni or she will fry me like plátanos.
“I, um, told Mackerel I was gonna help you write Bow-wow-Wow, maybe,” I blurt out.
“What?” Bubbles says, her eyes getting so big, they look like they’re going to explode like a piñata any minute!
“We’ll talk about that later,” Bubbles hisses, then plops down in her seat in homeroom. I push my hair behind my ear so I can see. It’s only eight thirty in the morning and already I can’t wait till school is over today!
Bubbles acts weird to me all day at school, but I’m so glad she doesn’t ask me anything else about the song. I don’t care about “Bow-wow Wow!,” puppies, poodles, or noodles. I just want to get out of school so I don’t have to keep avoiding Mackerel. We’re all meeting at my house at four o’clock to rehearse and do a run-through for the competition. We always rehearse at my house since Mamí had an exercise studio built into the loft. It is completely surrounded by mirrors and has a really good sound system, so it makes it perfect for rehearsing. Bubbles said she had to go home first, and I didn’t even ask her why.
Dorinda comes with me to my house. Aqua and Angie will be coming here directly from school. “I’m so glad Pucci will be at Little League practice until later,” I say, walking toward the red Formica counter island directly outside the kitchen. “Mamí is going to pick him up. Honestly, I wish he would spend the night at Papi’s and not come home.”
“Word. I know it gets hectic. It’s like that in my house too,” Dorinda says, moving Pucci’s scooter out of the way so she can sit in one of the swivel red chairs at the counter.
Now I feel stupid for complaining. I only have to deal with one poot-butt brother but Dorinda has to deal with eleven brothers and sisters. I open the refrigerator to see what I can give Dorinda. As usual there is a case of Burpy soda, which Mamí lets Pucci order from an Internet store. I’ll fix his poot-butt. “Want a Burpy, mamacita?”
“Um, yeah,” Dorinda says, shrugging her shoulders.
“Purple Durple, Sloppy Boppy, or Pinky Winky?” I ask her. The Burpy soda flavors have stupid names, which is probably why Pucci likes them.
“You can never go wrong with ‘thinking pink’—or winking it, I guess,” Dorinda says, chuckling. I know she is making fun of Danitra, who is in our vocal classes at Drinka Champagne’s and has a group that changes its name from thinking or stinking pink depending on the week. As a matter of fact, now I think Danitra is going to try flying solo. That makes me wonder about the peeps at Drinka’s. “I wonder if anybody else from Drinka’s is competing on Saturday?”
“Probably,” Dorinda says, slurping up her soda while I chomp on my carrot stash. “I’m sorry that you didn’t get a puppy. I really am,” Dorinda tells me quietly.
“I know you are,” I say, chomping even harder on my carrots. I wish Dorinda would stop talking about the stupid puppies, already. Ay, Dios mio.
“Chanel, I didn’t want to say anything, but how come you’re always eating carrots now?” Dorinda asks sheepishly.
“What happened?” I stammer. “It’s just from my diet.”
“Um, what diet, Chanel?” Dorinda asks, squinching up her nose and squirming on her stool.
“You promise not to tell Bubbles?” I ask before I spill the retried beans to Dorinda. But I know I can trust Dorinda. It’s not her fault that Bubbles gave her a puppy and not me. “I’m trying to lose five pounds by Saturday. You know, my tummy is too big from not exercising while my ankle was broken!”
“Um, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Dorinda says quietly.
I look at Dorinda like, What do you know. You’re skinny! You don’t even have a tummy! “Just don’t say anything to Bubbles, okay?”
Dorinda doesn’t say anything. Suddenly I get scared because I realize she is not going to keep the promise.
“You promised!” I blurt out.
“No, I didn’t, Chanel,” Dorinda stammers. “I, um, didn’t say anything.”
I try to stare at Dorinda the way Bubbles stares at me when she is caliente mad, but I can’t do it. Not to Dorinda.
The doorbell rings, but I don’t move to press the buzzer. I just keep staring at Dorinda. The doorbell rings again. I run to answer the door. It’s Aqua and Angie. While we wait for them to come up in the elevator, I start babbling to Dorinda. “You can’t tell Bubbles. She is mad at me for telling Mackerel I wrote the Bow-wow song.”
“I know,” Dorinda says, looking down at her feet. “She is really mad.”
Uh-oh. Now I know for sure that Bubbles is going to go off on me. She didn’t believe my fiberoni after all. “What did she say?” I ask, drilling Dorinda.
“I’m not saying nada, okay,” Dorinda says defensively, obviously imitating me. “You two can squash that beef jerky on your own.”
I can’t fight with Dorinda too. Aqua and Angie are ringing the elevator bell now. I run to open the elevator door and they step into the loft.
“Dag on, I don’t know how you’re dealing with all that noise outside,” Aqua says, wiping imaginary dust from the shoulder of her coat. The twins are very fussy about dirt, just like I am, and there is plenty of it outside with all the construction.
“I know. I can’t wait until they build the building already!” I moan.
“Well, from the looks of it, we’ll be getting a record deal before they put up that dag on building!” Angie chimes in.
“It looks so scary, all gutted out like that—like a haunted house or something,” Aqua goes on.
Then Angie changes the subject. “We should have known that JuJuBeans Quinnonez is going to be in all her glory on Saturday.” Aqua rolls her eyes in disgust. Juju is an annoying wannabe divette who goes to Performing Arts Annex with Aqua and Angie.
“She thinks she is going to be the next Mariah Carey, but she can’t even ‘carry’ a tune!” says Angie.
The two of them look at each other, then Angie says, “She’s the one who was spreading the rumor about us being corny since we lost the Apollo Amateur Hour.”
“Now she says she’s going to beat us on Saturday,” Aqua adds.
“Well, tell them to bring it on,” Dorinda says, greeting the twins with a hug.
“How is Nobu?” Angie asks.
“Yesterday he took a roll of toilet paper and pulled it around the whole apartment,” Dorinda says, laughing like she does when she starts her puppy tales from the projects. “Mrs. Bosco says she is going to have to start charging him money for incidentals.” All of a sudden, Dorinda starts blushing, then she explains, “Um, see, when Mrs. Bosco fills out the expense report for the agency, she has to write down all the extra stuff she bought so they can reimburse her. That’s what she means by incidentals.”
“Oh, I underst
and,” Aqua says, nodding. “Where is Miss Galleria? I can’t wait to see her without those braces!”
“Oh, everybody at school is sweating her now,” Dorinda tells them without a trace of Gucci envy like I have. Now I feel bad. How come Dorinda isn’t jealous of Bubbles the way I am?
The doorbell rings again and this time it’s Bubbles.
“Oooh, look who’s here!” Angie coos, running over to Toto. He is wearing his leopard coat and hat. I wonder why Bubbles brought him to our rehearsal.
“Where’s Ragu?” Angie asks, laughing.
“Oh, well, he won’t be having any more outings right now,” Bubbles explains. “My mom had a coronary that I took him out of the house before he got his shots, like he’s going to catch some voodoo vampire disease or something.”
Aqua laughs at Bubbles’s joke too. I’m glad to see at least the two of them are so chummy again. I think they both still have a crush—un coco—on Eddie Lizard even though they’re pretending they don’t. (He played a corpse in the movie Vampire Voodoo Voyage—one of the twins’ favorite horror movies. Cuatro yuks.)
“What is Toto doing here?” I finally ask Bubbles.
“I told you, Chuchie, he is going to be in the show on Saturday with us,” Bubbles says matter-of-factly. “We can use all the help we can get.”
“What happened?” I stammer, wondering what Bubbles means by us needing help.
“Wait till you see the dance I taught him,” Bubbles coos to Aqua and Angie.
Toto runs up to me and starts licking my leg, but I ignore him.
“Okay, cheetahs, let’s stop gabbing and get to rehearsal, so we have it down like cold turkey,” Bubbles explains. “That means you too, Toto!’
“You’re right. Let’s get this rodeo on the road,”
Aqua says, stretching her arms over her head.
“Okay, I figure we should open the same way we did for the Kats and Kittys Klub Halloween Bash because that number was supa dupa crispy,” Bubbles explains. “Then—”
“You mean we get to perform more than one song?” Aqua asks, interrupting Bubbles’s rundown.
Bow-wow Wow! Page 7
