Who's 'Bout to Bounce? (8 page)

As I walk toward the lockers, I can see Chanel standing with her back turned, talking with Bubbles. Actually, I see Chanel’s cheetah backpack first, and suddenly I feel the butterflies fluttering in my stomach again. They are the dopest friends I’ve ever had. How can I leave them?

When Chanel turns around, I see she has red scratches on her nose. I wonder if she and her mother have been fighting or something. I know Ms. Simmons is still upset with Chanel for charging up her credit card.

“Where’d you get the scratches, Cheetah
Señorita?
” I ask Chanel, trying to act normal.

“Kahlua’s stupid dog Spawn did it,” Chanel sighs, then starts twirling one of her braids, like she does whenever she gets nervous.

Kahlua is one of Chanel’s neighbors. Chanel doesn’t like her, because she says she’s stuck-up, but since Kahlua has a dog and Chanel doesn’t, she visits her anyway. Chanel loves dogs.

I ask, “What happened? Spawn caught you drinking out of her bowl?”

“It’s a
he
, Do’ Re Mi,” Chanel smirks. “And where have you been?”

“Wh-what do you mean?” I stutter. Suddenly, I can feel my cheeks turning red for the second time today.

“I called you
twice
last night, and spoke to Mrs. Bosco for a long time,” Chanel says, looking at me like I was a sneaky Cheetah.

“Word. She didn’t tell me,” I say, getting
really
nervous. I wonder what they talked about. And why didn’t Mrs. Bosco tell me? Maybe she didn’t
forget
to tell me. Maybe she didn’t tell me for a reason!

“I talked to her, too,” Bubbles says nonchalantly.

“You called, too?” I ask, squinching up my nose like I do when I’m confused. Sometimes the dynamic duo act like they are detectives or something.

“No, silly willy, we just did a three-way conference call,” Bubbles says, flossing about her phone hookup.

Right now, I can feel something is happening on the sneaky-deaky tip, but I’m feeling too guilty to ask them what it is. These two are definitely up to
something
. If I’m lying, I’m frying!

“We have a surprise for you,” Chanel says, then Bubbles pokes her.

“You’re always blabbing your
boca grande
, Chuchie!”

“What kind of surprise?” I ask. I get the feeling I’m being played like one of the contestants on “It’s a Wacky World” who finds out they’ve won the wack booby prize.

“Well tell you after school,” Bubbles says, winking like a secret agent. Then she pulls out her furry Kitty Kat notebook, the one that she writes songs in, and scribbles something.

“Why don’t you tell me at lunch?” I ask, trying to peep the situation.

That’s when Bubbles and Chuchie give each other a look, and I
know
something is jumping off!

“Bubbles is gonna help me study for my Italian test. You know I’m not good at it, and I’m gonna fail if I don’t study! So we can’t meet you today at lunch, okay,
Señorita
?” Chuchie gives me a hug. “Don’t be upset. We’ll see you at three o’clock.”

“I’m not trying to hear that, Chanel,” I say—with an attitude, ’cuz now I am getting a little upset. “I know you two. You’re up to something.”

“You never answered our question,” Bubbles says, butting in. “Where
were
you last night? How come you got home so late?”

“I, um, went to the library to study and I couldn’t take the books out ’cuz I owe too many,” I say, trying to act on the easy-breezy tip.

“Yeah, right. What were you studying?” Chanel asks me, trying to act like Bobo Baboso again.

“Shoe design books and, um, I was reading this book about names and stuff,” I volunteer.

“Names?” Bubbles asks, curious.

“Yeah,” I say, exasperated, “
Boo-Boos to Babies Name Book
.”

Chuchie and Bubbles fall over each other giggling, then Bubbles stops laughing on a dime, and asks, all serious, “Do’ Re Mi, is there something
you’re
not telling us?”

All of a sudden, I feel like a frozen Popsicle got stuck to my tongue. They’re just playing with me, ’cuz they already
know
about the Mo’ Money Monique tour! Or even worse—they know I’m only twelve! Mrs. Bosco must have slipped and told them!

When Chuchie pats my tummy and bursts out laughing, I suddenly realize what they
really
mean. They
are
playing with me.

“I’m not picking out baby names, silly!” I blurt out. If they only knew that I’m twelve, and haven’t even gotten my stupid period yet like they have, maybe they would stop laughing at me!

“Okay, Do’ Re Mi, but a little fishy told me that you were playing ‘hooky’ with Red Snapper or Mackerel,” Bubbles says, cackling just like a jackal!

Red Snapper and Mackerel are these two bozos who go to school with us, and seem to like Cheetahs, if you know what I’m saying. Their names are Derek Hambone and Mackerel Johnson, and they are ga-ga for Bubbles and Chanel.

They don’t pay too much attention to me, which is good, ’cuz I’m not interested in them either. But that doesn’t stop Bubbles and Chanel from teasing me about it.

“Yeah, well those fish had better keep swimming upstream, if you know what I mean,” I say, playing back with Bubbles.

“Now
that’s
the flava that I savor,” Bubbles says, winking at me.

The three of us do the Cheetah Girls handshake. Then Bubbles and Chanel run off, screaming, “See ya at three, Do’ Re Mi!”

I wave after them, my secret still a secret. But for how much longer?

It’s “five after three” and I’m trying not to “see what I see.” My foster mother is standing right outside my school, right next to troublemaker Teqwila Johnson and her posse! What is Mrs. Bosco doing here, anyway? Something
must
be wrong.

I’m ’bout to bounce, but Mrs. Bosco sees me before I can make my move. “Hi, Mrs. Bosco,” I say with a smile, trying to act normal.

I always call her Mrs. Bosco, even when we’re in public, so kids don’t make fun of how she looks. The first time she came to my school, I was in the first grade, and kids teased me the whole year, saying, “That’s not
really
your mother! She’s ugly!”

“What you are doing here?” I ask my foster mother nicely. Mrs. Bosco doesn’t really like huggy, kissy stuff, especially in public, but I would really like to smooth the wrinkles down on her hot pink dress, which is shaped just like a tent.

“I just wanted to surprise you,” Mrs. Bosco says, grinning from ear to ear.

Suddenly I feel sick to my stomach. I remember the day when I was almost five years old, and Mrs. Parkay was
really
nice to me for the first time. That was the very day the caseworker, Mrs. Domino, came to take me away.

“You’re going to live with really nice people,” she had said, as she held my hand and we crossed the street together.
Is that what Mrs. Bosco is gonna tell me now
? That I’m going to live somewhere else, with “
really
nice people”?

Well, I’m going away on tour with Mo’ Money Monique, anyway, I remind myself. And I’ll be gone a whole year. So it doesn’t really matter whether she wants me or not. So there!

All of a sudden, I start to notice all the things about my foster mother that really bother me. Like her false teeth, which she takes out at night, and puts in a glass of water on her dressing room table. And her thick mustache! Why can’t she wax it off like most ladies do? And her really thick bifocal glasses!

And why didn’t she wear the dope brown dress I made for her, with the big, oversized patch pockets in the front? Why couldn’t she wear it to school if she really loves me?

I decide that I can’t let Bubbles and Chanel see her—not looking like this. “I’m not gonna wait for Galleria and Chanel today, so we can leave now,” I say to Mrs. Bosco, praying we can make it to the subway station before the dynamic duo come breaking out of school, which will happen any minute now.

“No, baby. I wanna see—I mean, meet your friends. You never bring them over to the house,” Mrs. Bosco says, still smiling.

“I heard that!” Teqwila Johnson says loudly, letting out a big laugh like the stupid hyena she is. She whispers something to her friend Sheila Grand, whose last name fits her, because she’s always acting like she’s large and in charge.

Both of them are in my Draping 101 class, and they never even talk to me. Now they must be making fun of me! I throw a cutting glance in their direction, but they pretend they’re not looking at me.

All the people from my school are standing on the sidewalk, trying to act like they’ve got it going on. Fashion Industries is like that. We style and floss a lot.

All of a sudden I feel sad, like a wave washing over me. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter that Mrs. Bosco isn’t nice-looking, or that she dresses all frumpy She’s
real
—she never styles or flosses about anything. I don’t wanna leave Mrs. Bosco, or Twinkie, or Arba.

And I don’t wanna leave my crew, either. They’re the dopest friends I’ve ever had in my whole life!

Just as I’m thinking all this, I hear, “Hi, Mrs. Bosco!” coming from my left side. It’s Chanel, hiking up the waist on her pink plaid baggy jeans.

Wait a minute! How did she know this was my foster mother?

“Hi, Chanel. How you doin’?” Mrs. Bosco asks Chanel, like they’ve known each other their whole lives or something.

“Good I just took a quiz in Italian class. I hope I pass it.” Chanel giggles.

“Is that right?” Mrs. Bosco asks, acting all interested.

“Galleria made me switch from Spanish to Italian—but it’s a lot harder,” Chanel tells her.

“Y’all are matching,” I say, pointing to Chanel’s pants and Mrs. Bosco’s dress.

“I know,” Chanel says, smiling at Mrs. Bosco, then she even gives her a hug!

I can’t believe it when Bubbles walks up and does the exact same thing to Mrs. Bosco! What’s up with this situation?

Now
everybody
is looking at us. See, where there is Chanel and Bubbles, there is
mad
attention. Everybody is kinda jealous of them, because they’re so pretty, and have the dopest style. Everybody knows we’re in a group together, too, but I don’t think anybody is jealous of me.

So what if they are, anyway? I don’t care about that. All I wanna know is, what is this big surprise Chanel and Bubbles were flossin’ about earlier? And how do they know Mrs. Bosco?

Picking up on my confusion, Chanel pipes right in. “Do’ Re Mi,
mamacita
, you are not gonna believe what we hooked up for you.”

“That’s the truth, Ruth,” I say, squinting my eyes. This better be a good one.

“Princess Pamela has given the Cheetah Girls an all-day Pampering Pass at her Pampering Palace! Facials, pedicures, manicures, seaweed body wraps—the works,
mamacita
! We’ll be so hooked up for the show at the Apollo, we’ll win just because we look and feel so good,
está bien
?”

“Word!” I say in total surprise. So
this
is the big surprise the dynamic duo have been concocting! Mrs. Bosco was probably in on it, too—that’s probably how she got hooked up with Bubbles and Chuchie. Now I feel stupid for being so worried.

“Can my mom come, too?” I ask my crew, calling her “mom” in front of everybody. I mean, Mrs. Bosco is always being nice to me, and here I’ve been acting like a spoiled brat, thinking about everything that’s wrong with her.
She
deserves to go to Princess Pamela’s—not me.

But my foster mom is not having it. “No, baby, I got too much to do around the house to be sitting up in some beauty parlor, like you girls. The only show I got to get ready for is the one I watch on TV,” she says, chuckling. Then she suddenly starts coughing again. She doubles over, one hand over her mouth, the other on her chest.

It sounds like she’s getting sick again. Please, I ask God, don’t let her have to go back to the hospital! If she got sick again before I left on tour, I wouldn’t go. I’d stay here and take care of her, I say, still praying.

And I guess my prayer is answered, ’cuz Mrs. Bosco stops coughing as fast as she started. She takes a deep breath. “Whoo,” she says. “That’s over. I feel better now. Uh, what were you tellin’ me again?”

“Mrs. Bosco, I wuz sayin’ that it’s Princess Pamela’s Pampering Palace—not just any beauty parlor,
está bien
?” Chanel says, giggling.

“Who is this Princess Pamela? She some kind of royalty?” Mrs. Bosco asks, amused.

“She’s a gypsy,” Bubbles chimes in.

“She’s a psychic,” Chanel continues.

“Well, she’s a gypsy psychic gettin’ paid,” Bubbles adds. “I mean, she’s got businesses all over the Big Apple. Princess Pamela’s got growl power, and she doesn’t even know it!”

“
And
, to top it all off, she’s my father’s girlfriend,” Chanel flosses. She really loves Princess Pamela.

“What is growl power?” Mrs. Bosco asks, ’cuz now she is really finding my friends funny.

“That’s when you really got it goin’ on, and you got the brains, courage, heart—and businesses—to prove it,” Bubbles says. She loves to explain our whole vibe to anybody who asks—and everybody who doesn’t.

“We’ll get you to Princess Pamela’s one day, Mrs. Bosco, you wait and see,” Chanel says, laughing. “ ’Cuz you haven’t lived until you’ve had a Fango Dango Mud Mask,
está bien
?”

“The passes are for a full day treatment, plus a free touch-up the week after. So if we go with the flow this Saturday right after Drinka’s, we can get our touch-ups next Saturday afternoon, right before our show at the Apollo. We’ll be lookin’ so phat, we’re bound to make people sit up and take notice,” Bubbles finishes, flossing for Mrs. Bosco’s sake.

That makes me a little uncomfortable. I mean, getting to perform one song in the Apollo Amateur Hour isn’t exactly a show, if you know what I’m saying—not like, doin’ a whole world tour with Mo’ Money Monique.

I give Mrs. Bosco a quick look. Did I warn her not to say anything about the tour to my friends? I can’t remember! I’ve got to get her out of here, quick, before she starts blabbing about it. I know I’m going to have to tell my crew eventually, but not yet—not now! I’m not ready to face their reaction. No way!