Free Who's 'Bout to Bounce? by Deborah Gregory

me?” I ask nervously. I don’t want Mrs. Bosco to have to stop getting her foster care checks, just to adopt me. I know she loves me anyway. I wouldn’t want to cost her that money.
    “Don’t worry about that,” Mrs. Bosco says. Then she puts her arm around my shoulder and leans in toward me. She always used to do this when I was little, and I know exactly what she is going to say.
    “I know when you grow up, we gonna go live in a big ole fancy house together, with a whole lot of bedrooms—’cuz you always had the smartest head on your shoulders.”
    Now I
do
smooth down the crease that’s riding up in the front of dress, and she lets me, too. “Yeah,” I say.
    “Yeah, what,” Mrs. Bosco asks.
    “Yes! Yes, I want to be adopted!”
    “Awright, baby,” she says with a sweet smile. “I’ll see what I can do, but I can’t promise you anything—’cuz you know how trifling those people can be.”
    “Those people” are what my foster mother calls everyone who works at the Department of Child Welfare, Division of Foster Care Services, which is a big, dingy office in downtown Manhattan. I go once a year for psychological testing, and to visit my social worker, Mrs. Carter. She is in charge of all the caseworkers who make visits in the field.
    “Do you really want me to go on tour with Mo’ Money Monique?” I ask my foster mother.
    “If that’s what you want to do, that’s fine with me, Dorinda. You always was dancing around the house, even when you wuz little. I know you got your new friends, and you don’t wanna leave them—but you got to do what’s right for you. You know I always say, ain’t nuthin’ wrong with Mo’ Money!”
    Mrs. Bosco puts her arm through mine, and leads me onto the subway platform. “But if you’re not ready to go off around the world and be a working girl, don’t worry ’bout that, either,” she says. “After all, we got plenty of time to go live in that big ole mansion somewhere.”
    Suddenly, I feel like crying. It’s almost too good to be true. Me—adopted after all these years, with Mr. and Mrs. Bosco as my real parents. And going on tour with Mo’ Money Monique!
    I guess Monie the meanie will have to finally help out for a change. And I guess the Cheetah Girls will have to carry on without me.
    I wonder if I’ll still be around for the Apollo Amateur Night. I mean, the tour probably won’t leave town that soon, right? Maybe I can get away with not telling my crew about the tour until after we perform at the Apollo. That way, I can still be a Cheetah Girl for just a little longer.
    I like this new plan of mine. Sure, it means I have to keep my secret for a whole ’nother week. But it’s worth the stress. I mean, what if I go to rehearsal tomorrow, and it turns out there was a big mistake, and I didn’t really get the job after all? You know what I’m sayin’? Or what if I mess up so bad at the rehearsal that they fire me? I’d be so embarrassed if I’d already told my crew about my big new job!
    Besides, I figure, the longer I don’t tell them, the better. ’Cuz once I do, the Cheetah Girls are really gonna pounce. They’ll probably never even speak to me again!

Chapter
9
    When you’re standing on the corner of 210th Street and Broadway, you’d think that Princess Pamela owns the whole block or something. Both of her businesses—Princess Pamela’s Pampering Palace, and Princess Pamela’s Poundcake Palace—take up several doorways on each side.
    The Pampering Palace is really the bomb. It’s got a glittery ruby red sign outside, with stars, balls, and moon shapes hanging in the window.
    “The stars, moon, and planets are supposed to symbolize another galaxy—’cuz that’s where you are when you step inside the Palace,” Chanel explains to us proudly.
    When you walk in the Palace, you feel like you’re taking a magic carpet ride, because everything is covered in red velvet, and the floor is covered with red carpet! When I look up at the