Shop in the Name of Love by Deborah Gregory

Chapter
1
    Princess Pamela does
la dopa
braids, thanks to me. When I was ten years old, I taught her how to do all the
coolio
styles—frozen Shirley Temple curls, supa dupa
flipas
that don’t flop, and even unbeweavable weaves. Of course, I was too young to go to beauty school, but sometimes,
tú sabes que tú sabes—
you know what you know—as my Abuela Florita says.
Abuela
means grandma in Spanish. And my
abuela
knows what she knows,
está bien?
    Doing hair and singing are what
I
—Chanel Coco Cristalle Duarte Rodriguez Domingo Simmons—know best. (You don’t have to worry about remembering all my names, because everyone just calls me Chanel, Chuchie, or Miss Cuchifrita—except for my Abuela Florita, who now calls me by my Confirmation name, Cristalle, because, she says, I’m a shining star—
una estrella.
)
    Now that I’m part of the Cheetah Girls—a girl group that is destined to become
muy famoso
—one day I will have lots of
dinero
to open my own hair salons. Miss Cuchifrita’s Curlz—yeah, there’ll be two of them, right next door to both of my dad’s restaurants, so that I get to see him more.
    “Chanel, you musta wear the braids bigger, like thiz, from now on. Don’t you think you look so boot-i-full?” Princess Pamela coos in her sugar-cane accent. I love the way she talks. She is from Transylvania, Romania, home of Count Dracula and a thousand vampire stories. Her native language is Romanian, which is one of the romance languages—like Spanish, my second language. Now me and Bubbles, my best friend since the goo-goo ga-ga days, say “boot-i-full,” exactly the way Princess Pamela does.
    My mom doesn’t know that Princess Pamela braids my hair. She thinks that Bubbles does it.
Qué broma
—what a joke! Bubbles (aka Galleria Garibaldi) does not have a “green thumb” for hair. She knows how to write songs, and how to make things happen faster than Minute Rice—but I would look like “Baldi-locks” if she did my hair,
comprende
?
    I think that once you find out who Princess Pamela is, though, you’ll understand why a smart
señorita
such as myself must resort to “fib-eronis” (as Bubbles calls them) just to keep
poco paz
—a little peace—in my house.
    “Oooh, they do look nice bigger like this,” I coo back at Princess Pamela, looking in the mirror at my longer, fatter braids and shaking them.
    I’m so glad I got my hair done today. I usually wait three months, or until I have collected “fuzz balls” on my braids—whichever comes first. But this time is different. We, the Cheetah Girls, have a very important
lonchando
meeting coming up, with Mr. Jackal Johnson of Johnson Management. He was at our first show: at the Kats and Kittys Halloween bash at the world-famous Cheetah-Rama nightclub. We turned the place upside down, if I do say so myself—and we even made four hundred dollars each after expenses,
muchas gracias
!
    Anyway, Mr. Johnson came backstage after, and said he wanted to be our manager—and take us to the top!
Está bien
with me, because the top is where I belong.
    Now back to the real-life Spanish soap opera that is my
vida loca
—my crazy life—and why I have to make up stories about who does my hair.
    Five long years ago, when I was nine years old, my dad left my mom for Princess Pamela. I still see him every once in a while, but I miss him a lot. So does Pucci, my younger brother.
    Back then, when my dad first met Princess Pamela, she had a “winky dink” tarot shop around the corner from our loft in Soho on Mercer Street. It was so small, if you blinked or winked, you missed it, get it? Back then, her name was Pasha Pavlovia, or something like that, but we just called her “the psychic lady.”
    My dad’s name is Dodo, but he is not a dodo. His nickname is short for Darius Diego Domingo Simmons. He was only four years old when he and his sister had to get out of their beds in Havana, Cuba, and escape when Fidel Castro took over. They were sent to