Dorinda's Secret

by Deborah Gregory

  “Okay,” I say, because I don’t want to hurt Tiffany’s feelings.

  “My parents wanted to pick me up from the park,” Tiffany says, grimacing. “They want to go with me everywhere.”

  I can tell something is wrong at home, but I don’t say anything. Maybe Tiffany is just spoiled or something.

  We finally get back to where Mrs. Tattle is sitting. She looks at Tiffany, then at me—so I smile to let her know everything is “hunky chunky.”

  “Well, I guess I’d better get you girls back home safely,” Mrs. Tattle volunteers.

  Tiffany turns to me. “Can I have your phone number?” she asks.

  I hear myself saying “Okay,” like I’ve been doing all afternoon. I scribble my phone number on a piece of paper and hand it to Tiffany.

  “Can I have a hug?” she asks me, pushing away a blond curl that has fallen in her face. She really does remind me of Chanel. Too bad I can’t introduce them… .

  “Sure,” I say, extending my arms and giving her a hug. I feel her hair on the side of my face—it’s really soft. She sorta feels like a little teddy bear. I can smell the soft scent of baby powder.

  “I’m so glad I met you,” Tiffany says, like she’s just taken a trip to Treasure Island.

  Suddenly, I feel myself fighting back tears again. I haven’t cried this much since my almost-adoption party!

  Chapter 7

  Seeing my crew on Monday morning in school is like being in the Twilight Zone. I can’t shake this whole thing about Tiffany, but I’m not talking about it with my crew—not yet. I know I’m kinda secretive, but that’s me.

  “Do’ Re Mi, what you thinking without blinking?” Bubbles coos at me after first period.

  “Nothing. I’ve just gotta roll into this biology class, and I haven’t quite gotten this DNA thing down yet,” I say, mustering up a pretty good half-true fib-eroni on the Q.T.—on the quick tip.

  “Well, don’t feel bad. I haven’t done my Spanish homework either—Yo no sé, okay?”

  That sends Chanel into the chuckles. “If you would ask me, I would help you, Bubbles.”

  “I’ll bet—then you’d be asking me to borrow duckets all the time, too. No way, José,” Bubbles says, half-joking—but I know she means it.

  Then she turns to me again. “So who did you meet yesterday, Do’ Re Mi?”

  “Oh, that didn’t even come through,” I lie, proud once again of my Q.T. handiwork. “Mrs. Tattle—my caseworker—just wanted to hang with me and some other kids, because she’s going on vacation.”

  “What were they like?” Chanel asks curiously.

  “Who?”

  “The other kids.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Chanel—I don’t want to talk about it,” I sigh, because I can’t tell one more fib-eroni. I guess I’ve filled my quota for one day, you know what I’m saying?

  “Any word yet from the ‘Battle of the Divettes’ peeps?” I ask, changing the subject.

  “Not yet,” Bubbles says, heaving a sigh. “But my mom knows she’d better let us know the Minute Rice second she hears—she swore she’d call me on my cell phone!”

  “See ya at lunch,” I say, hugging both of them.

  I feel relieved when I’m by myself again. I wish I never knew anything about foster care, or adoption, or any of this drama!

  Sliding into my seat in biology class, I am on gene alert. I can feel my ears perk up when Mr. Roundworm mentions DNA.

  “One of the most fascinating aspects of genetics is that an organism’s DNA is more than a program for telling its cell how to operate. It is also an archive of the individual’s evolutionary history.” Mr. Roundworm taps a piece of chalk on the blackboard, next to the diagram he has drawn of a strand of DNA. It looks like pieces of ribbons wrapped together. “If it were possible to align all the DNA strands of a baby in a single line, it would be long enough to make, on average, fifteen round-trips from the sun to Pluto, the farthest planet in the solar system.”

  A trip around the world. That’s it! I’d completely forgotten what my first foster mother, Mrs. Parkay, told me about my mom when I was little. She said my mother was on a trip around the world. Well, my mother must’ve had fifteen round-trips from the sun to Pluto, too, because she has never come back!

  When biology class is over, I can’t wait to run up to Mr. Roundworm; but somebody else has beaten me to it. As usual, Albert Casserola has a question about our biology homework. Mr. Roundworm could repeat it fifty times, and Albert still wouldn’t understand it.

  Finally, Albert and his foggy glasses are out of my way “Mr. Roundworm, can I talk to you for a second?” I ask politely.

  “Yes, Dorinda,” Mr. Roundworm responds, then waits for me to talk.

  I look around to see who’s listening, and Mr. Roundworm gets my drift.

  “Let’s go outside. We can talk while I’m walking to my office,” he says, sticking a pen into the pocket of his lab coat.

  “Um, I was wondering about this whole gene thing,” I begin, struggling to find the right words. I mean, I still don’t know how to ask my question without sounding stupid. “If a lady has a child with one man, then has a child with another man, can the two children look like they aren’t related? I mean really not related?”

  “Absolutely,” Mr. Roundworm says, adjusting his thick-rimmed glasses.

  I still don’t feel satisfied with Mr. Roundworm’s response, so I cut to the chase. “What I mean is, Mr. Roundworm, my mother was white—so is it possible for me to have a white sister—with blue eyes and blond hair?”

  “Okay, I see what your question is. This lady—your mother—has a child with an African American, and that child is you.”

  “Right,” I respond.

  “Then she has a child with a Caucasian male. What you’re asking me is would this other child look Caucasian?”

  “Yes,” I say, feeling stupid now for real. I hate that term—“African American.” It makes me uncomfortable, and it sounds like I don’t really belong here or something.

  “Yes, she would—and I can tell you something even more interesting,” Mr. Roundworm says, smiling at me in an understanding way. “Since you have a white mother, you may have recessive genes for blond hair and blue eyes. That means if you had a child with a man who has blond hair and blue eyes, you could give birth to a child with blond hair and blue eyes.”

  “Word?” I say, ruminating on the situation.

  “Genes are amazing things—and they have a mind of their own,” Mr. Roundworm says, beaming at me.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I respond, trying to appear as enthusiastic as Mr. Roundworm. He is definitely a cool teacher—at least I never fall asleep in his class.

  “Good-bye, Dorinda. I hope I’ve helped you,” Mr. Roundworm says, looking concerned.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Roundworm.”

  After he leaves, I walk along the hallway in a daze. I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone again. I’m so lost in my own world, I walk right into someone.

  “Excuse me,” I say apologetically.

  The girl just smiles, nasty-like, and walks away. Sometimes I think I have a case of fleas, please, the way some peeps catch an attitude for no reason.

  I still can’t believe Tiffany is really my sister. If my mom was here, she could tell me. Feeling the tears well up in my eyes, I make myself snap out of it. I have to go to draping class now, and I don’t want to start thinking about my mother, or I’ll start crying all over the stupid muslin!

  Draping class winds up being the best therapy I could have had. I get busy working on ideas for Cheetah Girls costumes, and by the time class is over, I’ve forgotten all about Tiffany and my mother.

  I meet my crew for lunch, and that’s when Galleria pounces.

  “Yo, Do’ Re Mi, weeza in the house, pleeza, weeza!” she exclaims, hugging me and jumping up and down. I wait for Galleria to stop, so she can tell me why she’s so amped. Only this morning, she looked like she needed fifty cups of mochaccino (her favorite
Italian coffee) to get her flow going—you know what I’m saying?

  “We got into the competition!” she yells, and then starts taking deep breaths to calm down.

  “Word!” I say, bugging my eyes, ’cuz now I’m getting amped, too!

  Chanel comes outside to meet us, and Galleria puts on the same cheetah-certified show. “Hola, granola! Weeza in the house, weeza in the house!”

  Chuchie starts jumping up and down, screaming. She doesn’t even ask what Galleria is talking about. Sometimes the two of them communicate without saying a word, you know what I’m saying?

  Even though I’m happy, I feel that stabbing pain in my chest again—you know, kinda like my heart is cracked in pieces. Those two are bound till death, the dynamic duo, yo. They’re just letting me be part of their crew. They’re more like sisters than any sister I’ll ever have, I bet.

  All of a sudden, Chanel starts hugging me too. Whew. That makes me feel a little better, like I’m part of our crew after all. I take a deep breath, and wait for Galleria to give us the details about next Saturday.

  “It’s a good thing we just performed in the New Talent Showcase,” Galleria says excitedly, “‘cuz we are definitely ready to battle with Freddy—”

  “Or any divette with a microphone—’cuz when we ’rock it to the beat, it’s rocked to the doggy bone,’” Chanel joins in, singing the lyrics from Galleria’s song “Woof, There It Is.” I join in for a chorus, as we walk to Mo’ Betta Burger on Eighth Avenue to get our grub on.

  When we get there, Galleria fills us in on the “Divette” scoop. “We have a microphone check at three o’clock Saturday and the doors open at seven P.M.”

  “Are the divettes representing from other places?” I ask, curious. See, when we performed in Def Duck Records’ New Talent Showcase in Los Angeles, they had groups from all over the country.

  “No doubt about the East Coast clout,” Galleria says, nodding her head. “This is a regional contest, but the competition finals are gonna be held in the Big Apple, too, you know what I’m saying? Because they’re not playing—they know the winner is probably gonna come from the East Coast.”

  Galleria bops along with a satisfied smirk. She is so sure that we are gonna blow up our spots. “We have to be there at six sharp for the performance.”

  “We’ll be there or be T-square,” I say, bopping along, too.

  “What are we gonna sing?” Chuchie asks.

  Oh, no, I think. Here we go again, with the drama over who gets to write our songs.

  “Why, Chuchie?” Bubbles asks. “Have you written one we should memorize overnight and perform on Saturday, so we can lose the competition!” Like I said, these two are like sisters, Galleria can tell when Chanel has a few hedgehog tricks up her sleeve.

  “What happened?” Chanel exclaims, like she always does when she gets flustered. “No, I haven’t written any songs, babosa, but I thought maybe we could sing the one we wrote together—‘It’s Raining Benjamins.’”

  Actually, Galleria told me that Chanel only wrote one line in the whole song, but I can’t blame Chanel for trying. She just wants to feel like she has “Big Willy” skills too.

  “Chuchie, we are going to perform ‘It’s Raining Benjamins’—but not on Saturday. We need more time to practice it and work out a routine or something.” Galleria crosses her arms in front of her, like that’s the end of the conversation.

  The big bulb from above goes off in my head again. “Yo, check it, remember what Aqua said? Maybe we should throw money on the stage for ‘It’s Raining Benjamins’—like the Cash Money Girls did at the New Talent Showcase,” I suggest. “We could come up with some dope choreography and everything, right?”

  “Do’ Re Mi has a point. That sounds like the joint,” Galleria says, looking at Chanel like, “Give it up, mamacita.”

  “Está bien,” Chanel says, twirling her hair, then breaking out in a mischievous grin. “You’re right. We should wait.”

  That grin reminds me of Tiffany. It’s the same exact look! I’m about to burst out laughing. But then, the chill comes back, and I force myself to get my mind on the game plan at hand.

  Galleria hugs Chanel, and I can see they have squashed their beef jerky for now. Then Galleria lets out a rally like she’s in Cali: “We’re not having a ‘Nightmare on 125th Street’ again—this time, we’re bringing the noise, ’cuz we’re poised!”

  Chapter 8

  When I get home, Mrs. Bosco tells me that Tiffany phoned and asked for me. “Dorinda, what’s the matter, baby? You didn’t like her?” Mrs. Bosco asks, because she sees the troubled look on my face.

  “No, she was nice,” I reply. I don’t want to bad-mouth Tiffany for no reason. She is nice, and I feel sorry for her, ’cuz she needs a big sister or something. I could tell that she was kinda lonely. “I just feel strange about the whole situation.”

  What I don’t want to tell Mrs. Bosco is the truth—that I’m mad at her. I know it’s not all her fault—she can’t read or write, so she probably doesn’t know what’s in my records—but I feel like it’s her fault anyway.

  “Mrs. Tattle says my mother is white,” I blurt out.

  “I guess so,” Mrs. Bosco says. I try to figure out if that means she didn’t know, or that she can’t believe it—like me.

  Mrs. Bosco starts coughing—badly. I get scared that she’s getting sick again. She was hospitalized for acute bronchitis last summer, and she hasn’t really recovered from it. I don’t want to get her upset now or anything.

  She sits down on the couch in the living room, keeping the tissue held up to her mouth. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to spend some time with that child,” she says, talking through the tissue.

  “Okay,” I say. “But I can’t this week. I have rehearsals every day for the competition on Saturday.”

  “You got another show?” she asks, her eyes getting brighter.

  “Yes,” I say, smiling because I’m so excited about it. At least the Cheetah Girls are still in the running, in more ways than one, you know what I’m saying? “It’s called ‘Battle of the Divettes’ competition,” I explain.

  That makes Mrs. Bosco chuckle, and that makes her start coughing again. I decide to shut up, but she keeps egging me on. “Where’s it gonna be?” she asks.

  “It’s at the Apollo Theatre,” I say, and then wait for her response. Mrs. Bosco felt so bad for me when the Cheetah Girls lost the Amateur Hour contest.

  “Never mind what happened last time,” she says, reading my mind again. “Remember what I told you then—one monkey don’t stop no show.”

  I smile, because I know how she loves me. I just hope she doesn’t get sick. If I ever lost Mrs. Bosco, I don’t know what I would do—not to mention all the other foster kids in our house.

  “They ain’t gonna have that Sandman fool onstage again,” Mrs. Bosco says, her eyes twinkling. The Sandman is the one who pulls groups offstage when the Amateur Hour crowd boos them.

  “No, I don’t think so,” I tell her. “But they are gonna have a lot of judges.”

  “Lord, I don’t know which is worse,” Mrs. Bosco says, wanting to laugh but not daring to ’cuz she might start coughing again.

  “The winner of the competition gets to compete in the finals, then that winner gets to appear on the television show The Grade,” I say, talking slowly so she can follow what I’m saying.

  Mrs. Bosco nods her head. “They sure make you dance around like a monkey with a tin cup full of pennies before they give you anything, huh?”

  Now it’s my turn to laugh. “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “I left that child’s number on a piece of paper in the kitchen,” Mrs. Bosco says, looking at me like she wants me to call Tiffany.

  “Okay. Um, I’ll get it later,” I say, to avoid talking about it anymore. “I have to go down to Chanel’s house now for rehearsal.” I get out of that room before she starts in on me to call Tiffany.

  I’m in my bedroom, getting everything I need to go d
owntown with, and I’m thinking things over. I wonder why Tiffany called me. Maybe she wants to be like real sisters, calling each other all the time, getting all involved with each other’s lives.

  Well, that may be fine for her, but I don’t know if I’m really ready to let a new sister into my life. I’ve already got all these kids in the house with me who I love, and take care of. And I’ve got my crew—which brings me to the other thing. How are they gonna react when they hear I have a white sister? Would they accept her if she started hanging around with us?

  See, Galleria’s an only child, Aqua and Angie don’t have any other brothers and sisters, and Chanel’s only got her little brother Pucci, who just turned nine. It would be way different if Tiffany were there at our rehearsals—she’s almost my age!

  Which is another thing—Tiffany knows how old I really am! What if she told my crew? Would they still even want to be friends with me, let alone let me stay in The Cheetah Girls?

  And what if Tiffany decides she wants to be part of the group? I don’t think my crew is gonna be down with taking on any new members, let alone Tiffany!

  So I’m standing there, fretting about all this stuff, when Twinkie runs over and hands me a cookie. “Thank you,” I say, giving her a big hug.

  “Can I come with you?” she pleads.

  “It’s just a boring old rehearsal,” I say, so she won’t feel bad. “Guess what—when I come home later, we are gonna do our own Cheetah Girls rehearsal! Would you like that?”

  “Yeah!”

  I hug Twinkie again. One day, I want her and all my brothers and sisters to come to a big stadium, sit in the front row, and watch the Cheetah Girls perform. But not yet—not while we’re still divettes!

  When I walk into Chanel’s house, her little brother, Pucci, practically grabs my arm out of its socket. “You gotta see Mr. Cuckoo!” he exclaims.

  Pucci is so cute—he’s got that big gap in between his two front teeth, and the Cupid’s bow on his upper lip—and that same jumping-bean energy like Chanel. You can’t help smiling at him all the time.