In the House with Mouse! Read online

  In the House with Mouse!

  The Cheetah Girls, Book 12

  Deborah Gregory

  For my old school girlene, Beverly Johnson—

  Pay homage to the one who paved the way

  for all the chocolate bronzinas today

  with her supa-dupa sashay

  on the runway to plenty payday.

  You worked it, Supermodel!

  Contents

  The Cheetah Girls Credo

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Do’ Re Mi on the Q.T.

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Cheetah Girls Credo

  To earn my spots and rightful place in the world, I solemnly swear to honor and uphold the Cheetah Girls oath:

  Cheetah Girls don’t litter, they glitter. I will help my family, friends, and other Cheetah Girls whenever they need my love, support, or a really big hug.

  All Cheetah Girls are created equal, but we are not alike. We come in different sizes, shapes, and colors, and hail from different cultures. I will not judge others by the color of their spots, but by their character.

  A true Cheetah Girl doesn’t spend more time doing her hair than her homework. Hair extensions may be career extensions, but talent and skills will pay my bills.

  True Cheetah Girls can achieve without a weave—or a wiggle, jiggle, or a giggle. I promise to rely (mostly) on my brains, heart, and courage to reach my cheetah-licious potential!

  A brave Cheetah Girl isn’t afraid to admit when she’s scared. I promise to get on my knees and summon the growl power of the Cheetah Girls who came before me—including my mom, grandmoms, and the Supremes—and ask them to help me be strong.

  All Cheetah Girls make mistakes. I promise to admit when I’m wrong and will work to make it right. I’ll also say I’m sorry, even when I don’t want to.

  Grown-ups are not always right, but they are bigger, older, and louder. I will treat my teachers, parents, and people of authority with respect—and expect them to do the same!

  True Cheetah Girls don’t run with wolves or hang with hyenas. True Cheetahs pick much better friends. I will not try to get other people’s approval by acting like a copycat.

  To become the Cheetah Girl that only I can be, I promise not to follow anyone else’s dreams but my own. No matter how much I quiver, shake, shiver, and quake!

  Cheetah Girls were born for adventure. I promise to learn a language other than my own and travel around the world to meet my fellow Cheetah Girls.

  Chapter

  1

  We cannot believe how big Madison Square Garden is—a whole lot bigger than the Astrodome back home. It feels like everybody in New York is sitting right here with us at the Mariah Carey concert!

  That’s right, the Cheetah Girls are waiting for the “Butterfly” diva to come onstage and sing up a storm—along with about 70,000 other people who are packed into the arena, screaming at the top of their lungs, “Mariah, Mariah, Mariah!”

  My twin sister, Angie, puts her hands over her ears because this is more noise than we’re used to, but I’m having too much fun to mind. See, we usually feel the same way about things, because we’re identical twins in every way. The only way you can tell us apart is that Angie has a beauty mark on her left cheek.

  The rest of the Cheetah Girls don’t mind the noise or big crowds, because they grew up in New York City and are used to its hectic, rowdy ways.

  The Cheetah Girls, of course, are: Galleria “Bubbles” Garibaldi, Chanel “Miss Cuchifrita” Simmons (she got her new nickname because of her latest ballet capers, which have landed her on crutches, thank you, ma’am!), Dorinda “Do’ Re Mi” Rogers, and, of course, your favorite singing twins from Houston—little ol’ me, Aquanette Walker, and my other half, Anginette. (Obviously, it’s no secret which one has the bigger mouth, and tends to hog all the attention. Angie is quieter than I am—and sneakier, too!)

  We still cannot believe how we got to be sitting in these too-small-for-our-butts seats tonight. It’s all because Dorinda got twenty-five free tickets. (Yes, ma’am, from our mouths to God’s ears!) Actually, Dorinda got to be in charge of the twenty-five tickets, because they were given to her foster mother, Mrs. Bosco.

  What happened was, the foster care agency contacted Mrs. Bosco to take in an abandoned toddler named Gaye who was left by her little self to wander around the Coney Island projects. The police department tried really hard to find Gaye’s family—they put up big posters all over the city and everything. Even the local TV news stations ran stories showing her picture, but nobody came forward with any information. (New York is sooo big, you cannot imagine all the people who live here and don’t even know each other’s business, like they do back home.) Anyway, even though Mrs. Bosco already had eleven mouths to feed, she took Gaye in all the same.

  I look over at Gaye, who has the cutest little dimples and the biggest, saddest brown eyes. She’s sitting very still in her seat, with her hands folded in her lap and her legs dangling back and forth.

  “I’ll bet she must be around four years old,” I whisper in Angie’s ear, even though she can’t hear me—but she figures it out when I flash four fingers under her nose. (Twins can read each other’s minds, too.)

  It’s still hard to believe that a mother would do something as evil as abandoning her child. But Big Momma, our grandmother back home in Houston, says, “Sometimes people lose their way, then lose their minds.” We put Gaye in our prayers now, and we’re never gonna take our parents for granted again—even if they are dee-vorced. And even though Daddy is acting stranger than ever—which I’ll tell you more about in a minute.

  But first, I know you must be wondering what any of this has to do with Mariah Carey. Well, when Mariah heard about Gaye on the news, she was so touched by the story that she had her record company contact the foster care agency, and provide free tickets to her concert for Mrs. Bosco and all her foster kids. There were more than enough tickets to go around—which is how the Cheetah Girls came to be here, too.

  It’s funny how things work out. For Thanksgiving, Angie and I pulled a few strings to get the rest of the Cheetah Girls to come down to Houston and spend Thanksgiving with our family—and to perform with us in the “Houston Helps Its Own” charity concert. (Yes, ma’am, the concert folks actually paid for the rest of the Cheetah Girls to fly down!) Now, Dorinda has pulled her strings to make sure we’re here with her and her family—taking up twenty-five seats in a row. One of the seats is just for our coats and Ms. Dorothea’s hat—how do you like that peach cobbler?

  Who’s Ms. Dorothea? Why she’s the manager of our group. She’s also Galleria’s mom, and the most original person we’ve ever met. With her is Galleria’s dad, Francobollo Garibaldi. He’s Eye-talian—from Italy!—and he just loves my holiday eggnog. Mr. Garibaldi speaks with this Italian accent that makes everything sound like a hoot. He is even funnier than our uncle Skeeter back in Houston, if you can believe that.

  Our daddy is here, too—even though he seems a little peaked lately. Maybe it’s because he wants to be with his girlfriend—High Priestess Abala Shaballa Bogo Hexagone. No, you’re not seeing things. That’s her name! And as strange as it is, she is even stranger. Angie and I don’t like her one bit. Ever since she came into our daddy’s life, he hasn’t been the same—and we wish she would get on her broomstick and ride right out of it again! Luckily, tonight she had to go to a special coven meeting with her kooky flock of followers, so she isn’t here at the concert.


  Most of Dorinda’s family is here with us—her foster mother, Mrs. Bosco, and her eleven foster brothers and sisters—including Gaye, who I told you about earlier. I can’t remember all their names—except for Shawn, Nestor, Twinkie, Kenya, Chantelle, Topwe, and the oldest of the Bosco bunch—Monie (if she pokes her mouth out any farther, it’s gonna drop on the floor like a platter!), who has brought along her boyfriend, Hector. Dorinda also invited her half sister, Tiffany (who wants to be in our group, but can’t sing a lick!). Last but not least, LaRonda, who goes to school at Fashion Industries East with Dorinda, Galleria, and Chanel, is also here. (Next year, we hope the rest of the Cheetah Girls will transfer to our school—LaGuardia Performing Arts Annex, which is the most competitive performing arts school in the city, and filled with Mariah wannabes.) LaRonda is here because we owed her a big favor, but that’s a whole ’nother story.

  The only person who isn’t here at the concert with us (and should be) is Chanel’s mom, Mrs. Juanita Simmons. Her boyfriend, Mr. Tycoon, is in town, and they went to an opera at Lincoln Center. Nonetheless, Chanel is obviously tickled pink about being out with us and having fun. Like I said earlier, she is walking on crutches, because she fell on her tailbone during a ballet school audition.

  Yes ma’am, we should have seen that, one coming. When we were in Houston for Thanksgiving, Chanel was practicing ballet at our mother’s, and fell on her butt, spraining her ankle a little. Then, at the audition, she sprained it much worse, ’cuz there was no carpet on the floor to protect her. She fell on her butt, like I said—right in front of the people who were auditioning her. As bad as she hurt herself, I think the embarrassment hurt worst of all. Ever since then, we’ve been trying to help her get better. We even had to postpone putting on a showcase for Def Duck Records until Chanel’s ankle heals.

  “When is Mariah coming on? It seems like we’ve been waiting forever!” whines Nestor, Dorinda’s eight-year-old foster brother. Finally, the lights go down, but we see that it’s not Mariah Carey at all, but the opening act assembling onstage. Now I want to whine like Nestor, because I feel so disappointed. It seems like we’ve been waiting forever for the “Rainbow Diva” to come onstage. (Rainbow is the name of one of her albums.)

  The opening act is none other than that very “last year” group, The LoveBabiez, whose first single off their debut album—Sweet Lullaby—makes me wanna boohoo for Mariah. I just don’t like this song at all—the lyrics are not original, and the harmony is too loud. All of us clap along to the LoveBabiez music anyway, because we are here to have a good time.

  “Didn’t that song go lead?” I scream into Galleria’s ear.

  “Actually, it went gold,” Galleria screams back, correcting my mistake. “But we’ll see if they still have the Midas touch next year, or if they end up somewhere sucking on their pacifiers.”

  Galleria is right. It seems like it’s real hard to keep a music career going in this business, and that makes all of us real scared. We could get left out in the cold, like a bunch of wannabe cheetah cubs searching for our next meal!

  See, you have to understand the music business—every day there is a new singing group with a new batch of songs, climbing up the charts because they had a really good producer working with them. Then, just as soon as the song leaves the charts, people forget all about the group. That is, unless you have pipes like Mariah, or Christina Aguilera, or really know how to make an impression because you’re so original—which is what I hope happens to the Cheetah Girls.

  I mean, I think we sing real well, but the other thing we have on our side is that Galleria and her mom, Ms. Dorothea, know how to stick out in a crowd, so our whole image is real original. But well see what happens—it’s still too early to tell.

  “Those shorts they’re wearing look like Pampers,” Galleria shrieks in my ear. I chuckle along, but I don’t want Galleria to strain her voice yelling like that. Our vocal coach, Drinka Champagne, is always on us about “carrying on,” as she calls it, “for no reason.”

  After twenty minutes, the LoveBabiez finish their set and hop into their oversized strollers, which are pushed off the stage by nannies in short skirts.

  “Well, they sure had a lot of gimmicks for their show is all I can say,” I humph to my sister.

  Angie throws me a look, like, “When is Mariah Carey coming on?”

  The lights go down again, and everybody in the audience screams. This time, I hope the “Rainbow Diva” herself will appear, so that the amateurs can go home. We are so excited we can hardly stay in our seats. Galleria jumps up, clapping, and the rowdy boys in back of us scream, “Sit down, Tony the Tiger!”

  I see the look on Galleria’s face, and I know she is mad. We hate when people make fun of our cheetah outfits—especially Galleria, because she isn’t having it. I grab her hand and motion for her to sit down, because I don’t want her getting upset or causing a scene. I mean, Galleria is very outspoken. She would do something like stick her tongue out at the rowdy boys and snarl like a wildcat, even though I don’t think she would embarrass us in front of Mrs. Bosco and our Daddy Luckily, the “Rainbow Diva” finally floats onto the stage.

  “Oooh, look at her gown,” I moan out loud, because I’m so caught by surprise. Mariah is wearing a white, sparkly, sequin gown to the floor—the spotlight follows her onstage, and it makes her look just like a beautiful angel. Her hair is so long and pretty—like Galleria’s, except she straightens it more than Galleria does.

  Now Galleria is happy again. She flashes her braces and puts her hands in the air, pushing her palms to the sky to the beat of the intro music. I look down the row at Daddy and smile, just to make sure he’s all right—and he smiles back. I’m so glad he came with us. I know he usually just likes to relax with his pipe after work, sitting in his reclining chair, listening to jazz music—that is, when he isn’t spending time with his High Priestess, the most original “pecan nut” we’ve ever met!

  When Mariah starts to sing, Angie grabs my hand. Mariah’s voice just sends chills down my spine, because she can really work her range to upper registers that we don’t even have! Sure, we have sung in church choirs since we were seven, but we don’t have voices like hers. Actually, no pop singer in the whole world has a voice like Mariah’s—except maybe old-school singers like Minnie Riperton, Sista Fudge, and Whitney Houston.

  Galleria grabs my right hand and squeezes it. Now we all sing along to Mariah’s opening song—“Heartbreaker”—which is from her Rainbow album. Of course, we know each and every word to all her songs, because we listen to the radio all the time—which drives Daddy crazy. We try to explain to Daddy that we’re not listening just for fun. Now that we’re in a singing group, we have to stay on top of the game, and keep up with the latest songs. Daddy just shakes his head—if it isn’t jazz or gospel, he thinks it sounds like “a whole lotta noise.”

  I look over at Mr. Garibaldi, and he is just beaming and clapping along. We wish Daddy could have a good time like that, but he doesn’t—especially not since he and our mother have been dee-vorced. You’d think he would be happy that we came up here to live with him—and maybe he is, but Daddy has a strange way of showing his feelings.

  An hour or more goes by, but it seems like five minutes. Mariah belts out song after beautiful song, and I’m in heaven just to be here.

  “I wish our seats were closer to the stage,” Angie mumbles in my ear. I throw her a look. Of course, I’m thinking the same thing, but I’m just grateful to be here—even if we are sitting way up in the third tier of seats.

  “Yeah, I wish we could see her up close,” I yell back, checking out all the musicians in her band—thirteen of them—and the beautiful, glittering balls suspended on the stage. “Maybe one day, well get to sit in the front row of a concert, but you’ve gotta admit, this beats the Karma’s Children concert in Houston any old day!”

  “Go, Mariah!” I scream for good measure, as she announces the last song she is going to sing. It’s one of my fa
vorites—“When You Believe”—the duet she did with Whitney Houston for the Prince of Egypt movie. All of a sudden, I realize that my voice is getting hoarse from yelling all night.

  “I’m gonna have to drink hot tea with lemon as soon as we get home,” I mumble to Angie, thinking about our vocal practice in the morning. Every Saturday, the Cheetah Girls take vocal and dance lessons at Drinka Champagne’s Conservatory. And believe me, Drinka doesn’t play, either—she can tell if we’re not singing up to speed, or just being plain lazy—and shell call us out in front of everybody!

  After clapping a thousand times (my hands are sore, too), the lights go up, and we all stand up and start putting on our coats. I beam at Galleria, and I know we’re thinking the same thing—and we’re not even twins!

  “I wonder how we’re gonna get backstage?” Galleria ponders out loud. “I guess it can’t go any worse than our Karma’s Children dismiss.” After that concert, the security guards gave us the bum’s rush, not even letting us near Karma’s Children’s dressing room—even though we were one of the opening acts!

  “I know that’s right,” I say, shrugging my shoulders.

  “Well, I don’t care. I swear this time we’re gonna ‘bum rush’ the situation into a celebration,” Galleria says, beaming her big smile.

  “That’s fine with me, too,” I reply, wondering how I’m gonna explain this to Daddy.

  “That’s fine with me three,” Dorinda adds, now that she’s in on our conversation.

  “Was that off the hook, snook, or what?” Galleria says, beaming again.

  “You can say that again,” Angie says, putting her arm through mine.

  “I hope we get to perform here one day—the Cheetah Girls at Madison Square Garden.” Galleria has that starry-eyed look that makes her, well, someone special. “And wait till you see the security guards who’ll be guarding us—they’re gonna make those Mighty Men in Houston look like lunch meat!”