Free Dangerous Angels by Francesca Lia Block Page A

Cherokeewould try to use the drums too. Then she had hidden them in the garden shed, soundproofed the walls with foam and shag carpeting, put on her favorite records and taught herself to play. No one had ever heard her except for the flowerpots, the cobwebs, the pictures of Raphael and, now, Raphael himself.
    “When I play drums I don’t need to bite or kick or break, steal Duck’s Fig Newtons or tear the hair off Cherokee’s Kachina Barbies,” Witch Baby whispered.
    “Teach me,” Raphael said.
    Witch Baby gnawed on the end of the drumstick.
    “Teach me to play drums.”
    She narrowed her eyes.
    “There is a girl I know,” Raphael said, looking at Witch Baby. “And she would be very happy if I learned.”
    Witch Baby couldn’t remember how to breathe. She wasn’t sure if you take air in through your nose and let it out through your mouth or the other way around. There was only one girl, she thought, who would be very happy if Raphael learned to play drums, so happy that her toes would uncurl and her heart would play music like a magic bongo drum.
    Witch Baby looked down at the floor of the shed so her long eyelashes, that had a purple tint from the reflection of her eyes, fanned out across the top of her cheeks. She held the drumsticks out to Raphael.
    From then on, Raphael came over all the time for his lessons. He wasn’t a very good drummer, but he lookedgood, biting his lip, raising his eyebrows and moving his neck back and forth so his dreadlocks danced. For Witch Baby, the best part of the lessons was when she got to play for him. He recorded her on tape and never took his eyes off her. It was as if she were being seen by someone for the first time. She imagined that the music turned into stars and birds and fish, like the ones Raphael painted, and spun, floated, swam in the air around them.
    One day Raphael asked Witch Baby if he could play a tape he had made of her drumming and follow along silently, gesturing as if he were really playing.
    “That way I’ll feel like I’m as good as you, and I’ll be more brave when I play,” he said.
    Witch Baby put on the tape and Raphael drummed along silently in the air.
    Then the door of the shed opened, and Cherokee came in, brushing cobwebs out of her way. She was wearing her white suede fringed minidress and her moccasins, and she had feathers and turquoise beads in her long pale hair. Standing in the dim shed, Cherokee glowed. Raphael looked up while he was drumming and his chocolate-Kiss eyes seemed to melt. Witch Baby glared at Cherokee through a snarl of hair and chewed her nails.
    Cherokee Brat Bath Mat Bat, she thought. Clutch pig! Go away and leave us alone. You do not belong here.
    But Cherokee was lost in the music and began to dance, stamping and whirling like a small blonde Indian. She left trails of light in the air, and Raphael watched asif he were trying to paint pictures of her in his mind.
    When the song was over, Cherokee went to Raphael and kissed him on the cheek.
    “You are a slink-chunk, slam-dunk drummer, Raphael. I didn’t really care about you learning to play drums. I just wanted to see what you’d do for me—how hard you’d try to be my best friend. But you’ve turned into a love-drum, drum-love!”
    “Cherokee,” he said softly.
    She took his hand and they left the shed.
    Witch Baby’s heart felt like a giant bee sting, like a bee had stung her inside where her heart was supposed to be. Every time she heard her own drumbeats echoing in her head, the sting swelled with poison. She threw herself against the drums, kicking and clawing until she was bruised and some of the drumskins were torn. Then she curled up on the floor of the shed, among the cobwebs that Cherokee had ruined, reminding herself that witch babies do not cry.
    After that day Raphael Chong Jah-Love and Cherokee Bat became inseparable. They hiked up canyon trails, collected pebbles, looked for deer, built fires, had powwows, made papooses out of puppies and