“What Aqua means, is—” Angie says, coming to my defense, “he used to love to cook, you know? Cajun crawfish—”
“—Steaks smothered in onions and gravy,” I chime in, so they understand that our Daddy used to like toeat. “Now he’s blending strange vegetables and fruits, and he sits there and drinks it, like it’s supposed to be deelicious.”
“And he expects us to drink those dees-gusting shakes too!” Angie cuts in.
“I mean, celery and turnip shakes—please, where’s Mikki D’s?” I say, rolling my eyes. My friends start laughing again, because they know we love to eat, too.
“Snow globes, a stupid blender, and now this,” I say, pointing to the kitchen, where Daddy is standing with his new girlfriend and those other strange ladies she brought with her.
“What’s her name again?” Chanel asks, pulling on one of her braids.
“High Priestess Abala Shaballa Bogo Hexagone,“I tell her. “She says she is a Hexagone High Priestess, and her ancestors reigned in Ancient Hexagonia.” I roll my eyes like I can’t believe it myself.
“Is a Hexagone High Priestess supposed to be like Nefertiti or someone like that?” Dorinda asks, narrowing her eyes again. She knows about all kinds of stuff, because she reads a whole lot of books.
“I don’t think so, ’cuz this ‘High Priestess’ has definitely got a broomstick parked around the corner! Right, Angie?”
“I think High Priestess is just a fancy name for witch!” Angie answers.
“Parate, Aqua,” Chanel says, bursting into giggles. “Help, you’re killing me—maybe she’s a good witch, mija?”
“Well, I don’t know, but I’m glad y’all are here, because the show is about to begin! Right before Galleria came, they went to the Piggly Wiggly Supermarket to buy ingredients—‘for the ritual!’ they said!”
Finally, Galleria and Chanel aren’t laughing anymore. Now they’re sitting on the edge of their seats, like they’re about to see a horror movie. And, believe me, I think we are!
Chapter
2
Suddenly, we hear a loud, grinding noise coming from the kitchen.
“You hear that?” I ask, my eyes popping open.
“Sí,” Chanel responds.
“That’s the blender going—see?” Angie says, her eyes getting wide.
“You know, you and Angie do the same things with your eyes,” Chanel says to me, bugging her eyes wide and imitating us.
“I’ll bet you they’re blending the witches’ brew for us to drink!” I whisper.
“That’s it—I’m outtie like Snouty,” Dorinda says, crossing her arms and looking at Chanel.
“What’s that you said, Dorinda?” I ask politely. Sometimes, when Galleria, Dorinda, and Chanel talk, Angie and I don’t understand them. I mean, everybody in New York talks so fast—but our friends just have their own way of talking.
Angie says we shouldn’t ask when we don’t understand what they say, because it makes us look stupid. But as Big Momma always says, “If you don’t ask, you gonna miss a whole lot of conversation!”
“It means, Aqua, that I’d rather go get a soda and some chips at the Piggy Wiggly Supermarket than sit here and wait to get hit over the head with a broomstick!” Dorinda grunts, then sits up straight on the couch and folds her arms across her little chest.
Oh, I get what she means. She’s talking about the snout on the plastic pig outside of Piggly Wiggly. That Dorinda is so cute. She sure can eat, for someone so little. She must have had three slices of our sweet potato pie at her surprise adoption party. (We made it from scratch, too. Not like those store-bought winky-dinky pies and cakes that people serve their families here. Shame on them!)
“Do’ Re Mi, why you trying to flounce, when we know you wuz ‘bout to bounce?” Galleria says in her singing voice. “That’s why I’m writing my new song about you. You’re always trying to bounce!”
Dorinda just sits with her arms folded, looking real sheepish, but Galleria lets her off the hook. See, Galleria wrote a new song about Dorinda, because she almost left the group when she got offered a job as a backup dancer for the Mo’ Money Monique tour. Do’ Re Mi turned the job down in the end, ’cuz she wanted to stay with all of us. But I guess Galleria and Chanel are still sore about it, since they were the ones who made Dorinda a Cheetah Girl in the first place.
“It’s time to ‘winter squash’ this situation, if you know what I’m saying,” Galleria says, laughing. “Let’s go in the kitchen and blend us a High Priestess Abala shake!” She jumps up, like she’s gonna march into the kitchen herself. We all start giggling.
“Dorinda’s ‘bout to bounce!” Chanel sings, and we all sing a call-and-response verse:
“Who’s trying to flounce?”
“Dorinda! Dorinda!”
When we finish singing, I ask, kinda nervous, “Do you all understand why we’re waiting for Abala and her friends?” I’m not quite sure how to get through to them.
“No, why?” Chanel asks, sipping her lemonade. One of her braids accidentally dips in the glass, and she starts to giggle nervously. “Oops, Lo siento. I didn’t see the glass coming!”
“Y’all better listen to what I’m sayin’, Chanel,” I continue, “and all the rest of you, too! The High Priestess Abala Shaballa says she wants to put a ‘Vampire Spell’ on us—so we’ll captivate the audience at the Apollo Theatre tomorrow night.”
The living room gets real quiet. It’s so quiet, if you listen real close, you can probably hear the fake confetti snowflakes swirling around in Daddy’s snow globes in the showcase.
“A ‘Vampire Spell’?” Dorinda repeats, narrowing her eyes like a cheetah cub ready to pounce on its prey. “How do you spell, ‘I’m outtie like Snouty’?”
She jumps up, but Galleria pushes her down. “Aqua, how could you have us come over here? This is not just some guy jumping out of his coffin and chasing us with his fake rubber arm, like at the haunted house in Madison ‘Scare’ Garden. This is for real!”
“Dag on!” I say. “I told you all during the Cheetah Girl council meeting this was serious.” Looking at my hands in my lap, I try to figure out what to say to get the Cheetah Girls to help me and Angie. God, give me the words.
“What do you expect us to do? Stay here by ourselves, and let these people turn us into frogs instead of Cheetah Girls?”
“Aqua is right,” Angie says, speaking up for me. “Then what are y’all gonna do without us? Aqua and I can’t exactly go on stage hopping around and croaking, can we?” Angie folds her arms, like that’s supposed to really make them help us, but all they do is start laughing.
I’m thinking this whole thing is a lost cause, but when they finish their latest round of giggles, Galleria quips, “Okay, we’ll stay. But after this, you owe us, so don’t snow us, Aqua.” She turns, and looks at Chanel and Dorinda for backup.
“Dag on, all right, we owe y’all, Galleria,” I say, giving in. “We’re crew now, like you said, right?”
“Yeah,” Galleria says, looking at me like, what’s your point?
“Well then, we have to help each other out no matter what, right?” I continue.
“Yeah, but like I said before, after this you owe us, so don’t snow us.” When Galleria gets that tone in her voice, we know that’s the final word—like she’s Reverend Butter at church!
Angie cuts us a quick look, to tell us that Daddy is coming this way. We just sit real tight and wait for the fright show to begin.
“Hello, ladies,” Daddy greets my friends. Right behind him are High Priestess Abala Shaballa and her coven of witches pretending to be normal ladies.
Abala is real dark—darker than us—and it makes her teeth look real white. She is real pretty, though, and she wears African fabric draped around her body and head.
Her friends, on the other hand, are real strange-looking. They trail into the living room, with their long gowns sweeping the floor, and their arms full of all kinds of what look to be witchcraft things. One
of them is this dwarf lady, carrying the little folding table Daddy uses when he eats in front of the television.
“Good evening, ladies,” High Priestess Abala Shaballa Bogo Hexagone says in a booming voice. “All blessings to Great Hexagone, and the bounty she has prepared for us this evening.” Abala Shaballa stretches out her arms to us.
I give Daddy a look, like, I hope you know what you’re doing. But what I’m really thinking is, How could you do this to us?
“The Piggly Wiggly Supermarket here is divine,” says the dwarf lady, in a squeaky voice that sounds like the Tin Man in a rainstorm! “Ah, I see your friends have arrived. I’m Rasputina Twia.”
“I’m Hecate Sukoji,” says a woman with long black hair and no eyebrows. I wonder, did she shave off her eyebrows, or was she born that way?
“I’m Bast Bojo,” says the third lady. She has a bald head, and is looking at us with beady eyes that are so dark and slanty, she looks like a spooky black cat!
“Let us begin,” High Priestess Abala Shaballa says.
Rasputina puts down the folding table. On top of it, High Priestess Abala and her three friends put a goose, some tomatoes, beets, Tabasco sauce—
Now, wait a minute! I know Daddy is not gonna let us use that. He always says hot sauce is bad for our vocal cords! But he’s just smiling proudly, looking on.
I know—she probably already put a spell on Daddy! And now we’re next!
Bast pulls some strange-looking fruits out of her pockets. “These are kumquats,” she says, as if reading our minds. Then she pulls out a head of lettuce and a teddy bear from the basket she’s carrying. Well, at least our pet guinea pigs Porgy and Bess will have something to eat for later—the lettuce, that is.
“You got that at Piggly Wiggly?” I ask in disbelief, looking at the raggedy teddy bear.What on earth are they gonna do with a teddy bear, anyway?
“Yes. Apparently it was left over from last Christmas,” Rasputina says, all proud of herself.
High Priestess Abala kisses the garlic necklace around her neck. Then she pours some Tabasco sauce into the witches’ brew in the blender, shakes it a little, and pours it out into five big glasses!
“Now, let us stand in a circle and drink up, Cheetah Girls, so that tomorrow night, when you’re out for blood on the stage, you’ll be able to hold your ground!” The High Priestess gives us a big, scary smile.
“What’s in this, um, brew?” Dorinda asks, kinda nervous. Good for her. At least she has the nerve to speak up! Daddy must be in a trance or something!
“Raw steak, beets, tomatoes … I added pimientos, Tabasco, and, um … other things, to prepare you for battle!” High Priestess Abala smiles again, revealing her big, white teeth.
Sniffing at my glass, I think, I’ll bet she put blood in it, too!
“Drink up,” Abala commands, watching me closely. I drink the dag on thing—which to my surprise, actually tastes kinda good.
“Excellent! And now the rest of you! Come, drink up, girls!” Abala commands.
After we all drink the brew, we hold hands. “We must finish the ritual by paying homage to the sylphs of the east, the salamanders of the south, the bats of the west, and the gnomes of the north,” Abala says, her voice sounding stranger and stranger.
At the end of the ritual, Abala gives each of us a shoe box. “You must not open these,” she tells us. “Just put them in your closets, and close the door.”
“What’s in here?” Galleria asks, trying to hide a smirk.
“Parts from stuffed animals—teddy bear eyes and noses, poodle tails, rabbit whiskers …”
The High Priestess looks Galleria right in the eye, and Bubbles seems to shrink. “After midnight, the teddy bear, poodle, and rabbit will merge with you, and give you the strength of a true Cheetah Girl!”
“Oh,” says Galleria, still smirking. “Well, I guess I’d better let my dog Toto know we’ll be having company later—I wouldn’t want ‘Mr. Teddy Poodly’ to get his nose bitten off when he comes out to play.”
We all start laughing. High Priestess Abala just looks at us, amused. I wonder what’s going through her mind. I don’t like all this one bit, I’ll tell you that!
Angie and I are gonna do some real praying tonight—and I’m gonna Scotch-tape our shoe boxes so tight, even the Mummy himself wouldn’t be able to get out of them!
That High Priestess may have Daddy under a spell, but she doesn’t fool me. Tonight, I’m gonna ask God to please help us win the Apollo Theatre Amateur Hour Contest—and not to let High Priestess Abala Shaballa turn Daddy into a salamander!
Chapter
3
Mr. Garibaldi wanted to drive us Cheetah Girls to the Apollo Theatre tonight, but Daddy insisted that he drive us. It made us feel real important to have everybody fussing over us, like we’re a big singing group already, with cheetah-licious ways.
Daddy has two cars—a white Cadillac with a convertible top, and a white Bronco—and, can you believe this? He has to pay to keep them in a garage near our house!
He’s always fussin’ about that. Back home we had three cars—including the blue Katmobile, which is now Ma’s—and our own four-car garage in the back of the house. And we didn’t have to pay a dime extra for all that parking space! I’ll tell you, New York City sure is strange—and expensive. I’m surprised they don’t charge for breathing air here!
Anyway, Daddy insisted that Mr. Garibaldi and Ms. Dorothea drive with us to the Apollo. (Chanel’s mom is out on a big date with her boyfriend, Mr. Tycoon, so she can’t come see us tonight. She’s tryin’ to get Mr. Tycoon to marry her, but he’s playin’ hard to get, so she’s taking belly dancing lessons to “get” him!)
Ms. Dorothea doesn’t like us to call her Mrs. Garibaldi, because she isn’t a “prim and proper” kind of person. If you met her, you would understand where Galleria gets all her personality. I mean, Galleria is tame compared to her mother—Ms. Dorothea even eats Godiva chocolates for breakfast, and hits people over the head with her Cheetah pocketbook when they’re acting up. We just love her! By putting up the two extra seats in the back of Daddy’s Bronco, we’re all able to fit. Since Dorinda and Chanel are the smallest, they sit on the two little seats way in the back. Galleria sits next to her mom and dad.
We’re so glad High Priestess Abala Shaballa couldn’t come with us tonight to the Apollo Theatre, even though she says she is “with us in the spirit.” Well, I keep looking out the car window to make sure I don’t see her in the flesh, flying by on her broomstick with her flock of kooky friends! (So far, the coast is clear.) I’m sorry, but Angie and I decided last night that we don’t trust “High Priestess Hocus Pocus,” as Galleria calls her.
“Angie, would you look at all these people?” I say, as we drive across 125th Street. It seems like there are millions of people in New York, and they are all walking around up here in Harlem. I mean, the sidewalks are so crowded, it looks like they’re having a fair or something!
“Mira, look at their outfits. Some of them look like they’re dressed for church!” Chanel exclaims.
“What church is she going to in a yellow satin cape?” Dorinda chides Chanel, pointing to a lady whose earrings are so big, they look like plates hanging from her ears. Girls in New York just love their jewelry.
“Well, you never know—this is the Big Apple,” Angie chimes in.
“I know. I’ve never seen so many neon signs before in my life!” I say.
Dorinda points to a hair-supply place with a giant neon sign that says RAPUNZEL. “Word, that’s the hair place Abiola at the YMCA told me about!”
Dorinda has a real after-school job—through the youth entrepreneurship program at the YMCA—even though it doesn’t pay that much. “That’s where we should buy hair, so we don’t look like wefties!” she adds, chuckling. Wefties are girls with weaves that are so tick-tacky the tracks are showing, as Galleria says.
“Mamacitas, they’ve got some hefty wefties up here,” Chanel says, looking at more girls wal
king by in their fancy outfits. “They must be going to some kinda club around here.”
“Yeah—a club for vampires!” exclaims Galleria, as we pass the Black Magic movie-theater complex. “Ooo, look, Aqua and Angie, they’re having a Fang-oria Festival there!”
From what I can see, the Black Magic looks big enough to fit all the people in New York and Houston. “Let’s go see Freddy before we get ready!” I say excitedly.
“Hmmph—then Freddy will have to deal with me, because no ghoul is gonna stop this show!” Ms. Dorothea quips, then yawns into her leopard-gloved hand.
“Gee, Momsy poo, I think the Sandman has already sprinkled you with some poppy dust or something,” Galleria giggles.
“I’m fading pronto, too,” says Mr. Garibaldi, who is also yawning. “I get up every day at five o’clock, you know.”
“Before the rooster can say cock-a-doodle-do!” Galleria chides her father.
Ms. Dorothea is getting up early too these days. She’s working real hard now that she is our manager, and she still runs her fancy boutique—Toto in New York … Fun in Diva Sizes—which is the most beautiful store I’ve ever seen.
“Ooh, they got Blacula there! We’ve never seen that one!” Angie says to me, getting real excited. We just love horror movies—especially the old ones, because they show more gory stuff up close, like eyeballs hanging out of the eye sockets, or brains popping out of the skull.
The only thing I love more than singing is looking at dead bodies, and figuring out how they died, and wondering if they’ll tell any secrets. I guess that’s because our Granddaddy Walker is a mortician and owns Rest in Peace, the biggest funeral parlor in Houston.
Over the last forty years, Granddaddy Walker has buried half of the dead people in Houston. That’s what Big Momma says.
When our singing career is over, I’m going to become a forensic scientist, like that guy on the old TV show—you know, the one who solves crimes by examining the victims. Angie wants to be a neurosurgeon, so she can operate on people’s brains and stuff.
Hey, Ho, Hollywood! Page 2