It's Raining Benjamins (5 page)

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:

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

B
y 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.

But since this is the second time they are going to the Toto in New York factory, they are willing to take a chance. We're hoping they won't get on the wrong train and end up back in Houston (their hometown, which has the best Cajun crawfish that side of Texas, if you let them tell it)!

The first thing
we
do when we get to the factory is “eat humble pie.” After all, our mission, if we choose to accept it, is to find out what went ka-flooey with our chokers!

As usual, my
madrino
is so understanding about the whole
catástrofe
that he makes us laugh.

“Rome wasn't built in a day, my sweet
cara
.” He chuckles as he greets us.

“Hi, Mr. Garibaldi,” Dorinda says, smiling. You can tell she likes
Madrino
a lot, too—but then, who doesn't?