After that unpleasant confrontation with Geraldine, I had no choice but to sneak out to Jade's luncheon the next day. I turned down the narrow sidewalk and ran to the end of the street, but I was getting tired and sweaty, so I had to stop and catch my breath. I'm kind of out of shape sometimes.

I waited nervously for the black limousine to pull up. People drove by and gave me disapproving looks because I was standing in Wild Fanny's spot. (Geraldine claimed that Wild Fanny was a nightwalker and I shouldn't talk to her.) I didn't know what a nightwalker was, but I figured that since it was still daytime, I should be okay.

The limousine finally came, with Misty hanging out the back window, panting into the wind like a dog. "Get your fat ass in here, Cherry!" She called, and barked. I laughed and climbed in the limousine beside my new friend.

"Onward Ho!" Misty yelled, sticking her head back out the window. Some bugs flew into her mouth. I saw the back of her shirt read. "For a good time, call 555-4545." She was a petite girl, but she complained that her figure was too boyish. She was always moaning about what a pain it was to wax the hair off her chest and how much she hated getting five o'clock shadow, at noon.

"We're going to pick up Star next. Can you believe that we're finally together?" Misty asked excitedly.

I smiled and watched the scenery go by. Slowly the houses began to look more and more decrepit. We drove past a log cabin and then there was a succession of tin huts decorated with colorful graffitti. Thriving marijuana plants had been planted outside. Some starving children in loincloths ran by, barefoot. A lady walking down the sidewalk was gunned down by an old lady leaning out the chimney of her tin hut. A starving dog stepped out of the shadows and sniffed her remains. Some naked children began going through her pockets.

Misty and I exchanged glances. Now we understood. "It's not so bad," I said, trying to see a rainbow after any sorrowful storm.

Then the tin huts were gone as well and cardboard boxes had taken their place.

We passed by a crack-whore pleading with a little kid. "Please! I don't have any more money!" She sobbed, holding her stick thin arms out to the unflinching child. "And I need this crack!"

"You never stop whining, mom," the kid said coldly. Without hesitating, he shot her in the face.

With the grace of a natural predator, the child strolled to the next cardboard box. "Pay up or get out!" He yelled.

A family of fifteen crawled out of the cardboard box. "Please," the mother begged. "We have no place to go. Please give us more time."

"No can do, Aunt Lou. You and your breeding farm leaves right now, or dies!" The kid started to put his gun away, but then seemed to change his mind and shot her in the head.

Then finally, we saw Star's familiar face. She was standing on the curb impatiently. She wrenched the door open and plopped into the backseat.

"Him and his plot devices," Star cried with an insane gleam in her eyes. "Doesn't he know that not all black people are ignorant, and not all of them come from the ghetto?"

"Oh no!" I cried. "There's a man chasing us and he has a gun!"

Misty hurriedly pulled her head back in the window.

A man wearing baggy pants and a thousand chains was running to keep up with the car, a can of spray paint in his hands. Every once in awhile we would get hit with a stream of painful magenta. Another man was closing in on us from the other side and he had a blue can of spray paint!

"Don't worry!" Star told the limo driver, narrowing her eyes, her upper lip curling. "I got your back!" She pulled a small pistol from under her shirt. She climbed halfway out the window and began taking aim.

"We might get raped," I sobbed.

"Turn back around, Mr. Limo driver, I haven't gotten any in awhile," Misty quipped.

"He's gaining," I sniveled hysterically. "He might have gotten some pink in my hair!"

"Don't worry," Star replied. "I got this under control." A grenade materialized in her hands.

"Faster!" she screamed at the limo driver. She threw the grenade and , when the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of Graffitti Pimp number two but a magenta cloud.

"This is all his fault, he must die," Star muttered and we knew she was talking about "Ghostwriter" again. Who was that guy? What was her dark secret?

All of us breathed a sigh of relief as we cleared the last tin house.