Growl Power! by Deborah Gregory Read Free Book Online Page A

thirty minutes by car from where we live. Ma puts the top down on her Katmobile, and Angie and I start singing “It’s Raining Benjamins.”
    “
For the first time in hex-story
    there’s a weather forecast
    that looks like the mighty cash
.
    So tie up your shoes and
    put away your blues
    ’
cuz we’re going around the bend
    at half past ten
    to the only place in town
    where everything is coming up green
    you know what I mean:
    It’s raining Benjamins
    for a change and some coins
    It’s raining Benjamins
    I heard that
    It’s raining … again
!!!!”
    Ma is bopping along with us. “Y’all sound g-o-o-d!” she shouts over the noise of the wind.
    “That’s what we’re gonna sing for our audition,” I say triumphantly.
    “We are?” Angie seems surprised, even though that’s the song we were rehearsing just before we left. “I guess I’m just used to us singing ‘Wanna-be Stars in the Jiggy Jungle.”’
    I can tell Angie is a little nervous, but that’s too bad—
I’ve
made up
our
mind.
    “We’re only going to be doing two-part harmonies instead of five—it’s a better song for that, Angie,” I say, just wishing she would go along, just this once, without questioning things.
    “Okay,” she says, shrugging her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. We’ll be lucky if we even get
into
this dag-on audition.”
    “If nothing else, we got out of the house!” Ma says chirpily. I can definitely see she is feeling much better. “Y’all sing so different than you used to in church.”
    “We’re not in church, Ma!” I exclaim. “We can’t sing the same way.”
    “I know, I know. Don’t worry, I like it,” Ma says nicely, then asks, “Who thought up that song?”
    “Well—it’s a long story,” I say, looking over at Angie. “See, Chanel’s mom—”
    “Who’s Chanel?” Ma asks, smiling, like she knows I’m gonna brain her if she doesn’t get all these names right.
    “Chanel and Galleria are best—well, I mean, oldest—friends, because their mothers were friends—”
    “And big models,” Angie blurts out.
    “Okay, so Chanel’s mom, Mrs. Simmons, she’s got this boyfriend we call Mr. Tycoon—he’s a sheik or something—”
    “
Real
rich!” Angie chuckles, but I poke her. She knows Ma is feeling lonely, so why does she have to rub it in?
    “Anyway, Mrs. Simmons is writing this book, called
It’s Raining Sheiks
, about women who have sheiks for boyfriends or something.”
    “But not all of them are happy,” Angie adds, like she knows what she’s talking about.
    “Stop interrupting me,” I hiss.
    “Okay, I’m sorry, I’m just trying—”
    “I know.” I cut her off. “So, Chanel—that’s our friend from the Cheetah Girls—”
    “I
know
who Chanel is now,” Ma says, switching on her blinker because she is about to change lanes on the freeway.
    “So Chanel had this dream about money falling from the sky, and she told Galleria. But see, Chanel doesn’t like it that
Galleria
writes all our songs, so she goes ahead and writes two lines for the new song—”
    “Uh-uh,” Angie says, holding up her hand. “She only wrote
one
line.”
    “Yes, you’re right—bless her heart—she wrote one little line in her notebook, Galleria said. Galleria went over to Chanel’s house, and
she
wrote the rest of the song—but it’s cute, right?”
    “Yeah, it’s cute,” Ma says as we approach the exit for Kemah Boardwalk, which is right on the water.
    I hum some more of the song. I wish Ma could meet the Cheetah Girls, and Ms. Dorothea, and even Mr. Garibaldi. They sure know how to have fun. Ma would love them.
    I know I’ve been running my mouth, but I’ve got to tell Ma the story of how Mr. and Mrs. Garibaldi met each other. I remember when we first heard the story, Angie and I thought we had just met the kookiest people in New York. Who knew they would turn out to be the happiest people we’ve met there so far?
    “Ma—you know how Galleria’s mom and dad