Текст книги "The Cheerleaders of Doom"

Автор книги: Michael Buckley

Соавторы: Ethen Beavers
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

Gerdie carefully placed ten hot water bottles on her bed, then eased herself on top of them. She had never been so sore in her life and she knew why—the machine. She had been lugging it all over town for a week. Every time she turned it on, it sucked all the electricity out of the surrounding area, so she was constantly forced to find new locations to draw power. She guessed that the machine needed the energy to open the doorways to other worlds, but she couldn’t wrap her head around the math to fully understand. Once upon a time, her brain had been upgraded with nanobyte technology. Back then there was no mystery she couldn’t solve. Oh well. She was still smart enough to make herself beautiful.

“We’ve both been working hard, and it’s time for our reward,” she said to the machine, which was propped up next to her bed. “We’re both getting makeovers! I’m getting the works and you’re going to get smaller and lighter. I know that our real beauty is on the inside, but who can see it through all these layers of ugly?”

She gingerly sat up and scooped her phone off the nightstand. She tapped a few numbers into the keypad and waited for someone to answer.

“Hello, this is the medical office of Thompson and Chase, Plastic Surgeons. How can I help you?”

“I’d like to make an appointment,” Gerdie said.

“Very good,” the receptionist said. “And exactly what procedure are you interested in?”

Gerdie eyed herself in her mirror. “You name it.”

“OK,” the receptionist said. “And can you give me your insurance information?”

“No need,” Gerdie replied as she gazed around her room. It was filled with golden statues, great works of art, buckets of jewels, and exotic furs she had shoplifted during her trips to other worlds. “I’ll be paying in cash.”

Matilda’s eyes fluttered open.

“Gluestick! Is he alive? And what about the space station? Did I save it from the meteoroids?!”

“She’s gone crazy,” a voice said. “If we have to send her away, I get her room.”

Matilda looked around and found she was not in outer space but in her own bedroom, surrounded by her six older brothers: Marky, Max, Michael, Moses, Mickey, and Mobi.

“Who says?” Moses cried.

“I’m the biggest. I need the space,” Mickey shouted. “I should get the room.”

“I’m the oldest,” Marky declared. “I’ve suffered the longest.”

“No one is getting my room,” Matilda said, but they weren’t listening. As usual, the boys’ argument turned into a wrestling match, and six sets of legs and arms thumped around the room, carelessly jostling her prized possessions: her autographed photos of Muhammad Ali and Triple H, her authentic WWE World Heavyweight Championship Belt, a framed photograph of herself in the Ultimate Fighting octagon as her opponent tapped out. She leaped to her feet and stood over the boys with fists clenched. “If you losers break anything, I will deliver a world of hurt that you will never recover from.”

The boys stared at her for a moment, laughed, then went back to their battle royal. Enraged, she leaped into the crowd and joined the fight.

“ENOUGH!” a voice cried. Their mother had entered the room, and from her tone, she was angry. The fighting stopped and the seven Choi children lay on the floor, breathing hard and staring up at their mother like she was a four-star general.

Matilda’s mother’s real name was Mi-sun, but she went by Molly. She was small in stature, with long dark hair and murky brown eyes. When she smiled, she was like a flower opening for the first time, but when she was angry, she looked more like a dragon with smoke escaping from her nose.

“You’re lucky Mom showed up,” Mobi muttered.

“When I was finished with you guys, the tooth fairy would have had to file for bankruptcy!” Matilda whispered back.

“Boys, disappear,” Molly said. “I want to see how your sister is feeling and you are making her crazy.”

When her brothers were gone, Molly crossed the room and stopped at the window. Resting on the sill was a hareubang: a small stone creature shaped like a totem pole with a mushroom hat. It had bulging eyes and a kindly smile. Molly had given Matilda the statue for “protection.” It was supposed to ward off evil spirits. Unfortunately, it had no power over her brothers, unless, of course, she threw it at them.

“The lunch lady from school brought you home yesterday. You’ve been asleep ever since,” Molly said. “She is a very odd lady with a very deep voice. What were you doing at school? It’s summer vacation.”

Matilda gulped. What was she supposed to say? I live a double-life as a secret agent? I have superpowers? My school has a secret headquarters in the basement? The lunch lady isn’t really a lunch lady but a spy who flies a rocket hidden under the gym floor? And … he’s not really a lady?

“I’m taking summer classes,” Matilda lied. “If I want to get into a good college, I have to get ahead.”

“You are eleven!” Molly said. “College is a long way off.”

Matilda could see the doubt in her mother’s face. Molly’s suspicions were growing daily. Her mom knew nothing about Matilda’s secret life—only her explanations about “after-school sports” and “detentions”—but she wasn’t dumb. Too many times Matilda’s two worlds had collided, and it was just a matter of time before her second life as a secret agent would be revealed.

She watched her mom pick up the stone idol. “What do you think, old grandfather? Old grandfather sees everything, Matilda. He looks after you and grants wishes. Your grandmother gave him to me before I moved to America with your father. We wished for a baby. Clearly, it works. In fact, I may have to send old grandfather away. No more babies, old grandfather.

“Someday, he will help you when it is your time to lead this family.”

“Mother!”

Molly laughed. Her ancestors were from a small island at the southern tip of South Korea called Jeju-do. Molly had told Matilda the island had three things in abundance: rocks, wind, and women. Women, like Matilda’s grandmother, Tammora, were the heads of households. They managed the families and the finances and made most of the decisions in the local government. Molly had been raised to do the same. It seemed to work in their family, as Matilda’s father was a scatterbrained artist who couldn’t balance his checkbook.

“Your brothers tease you, but eventually they will look to you for guidance. They will need it, too. A few of them are knuckleheads—sweet, lovable, but knuckleheads. But I worry about you, little M. You live a life of mystery, and your words are thick with secrets. Sometimes you tell me things that are not true.”

Matilda looked out the window rather than meet her mother’s gaze.

“I should punish you … but I believe there is an important reason behind your lies. Perhaps you fight evil like old grandfather? He chases off devils, dark creatures, monsters, and invaders from other worlds.”

“More Old Grandfather, Molly?” a voice said from the doorway. Matilda turned to see her father, Ben Choi. Though his ancestors were from Korea, he had grown up in San Francisco. Ben met Molly when he visited her island. He saw her in the street and asked to take her picture. It was love at first snapshot. But lately things had been tense. Matilda’s parents had been arguing for months. “How are you, pea pod?”

“I’m fine, really!” Matilda said. “Maybe old grandfather can tell me how to get my parents to stop arguing?”

Molly set the stone guardian back in its place on the windowsill and turned to Ben. “Have you had breakfast?”

He shook his head.

“Good, then you can cook,” Molly said.

Ben laughed.

Matilda’s heart filled with hope. They were the first smiles she had seen on her parents’ faces in a long time. Just then she let loose a sneeze so strong it ruffled her blankets. Matilda frowned. She didn’t have a cold. Her sneeze was caused by the comlink implant in her nose. It wasn’t long before she could hear Agent Brand’s voice in her ear.

“Wheezer, we have an emergency mission. Can you get to the roof?”

“The roof? Right now?” Matilda grumbled.

Her mother cocked an eyebrow then turned to her father. “The child is so odd. She speaks to herself. I blame you. You have crazies on your side of the family.”

Her dad frowned. “You’re the one talking to statues.”

Matilda led them both to her door. “I’m really not feeling well enough for breakfast. I’ll just go back to bed, but you two go have some fun.”

“We gave up fun about seven kids ago,” Ben said.

Matilda ushered them into the hall then closed the door. She quickly changed into a black shirt and a pair of neon purple pants, then pulled on her favorite pair of combat boots. She took a quick peek in the mirror. Her hair was a little too neat, so she messed it up until she looked like she had been mugged. Perfect!

She opened her bedroom window and climbed out on to the trellis that led to the roof. There she found a rope ladder hanging down from above. She looked up and saw a big yellow jet plane hovering silently over her home. She climbed the rope rung by rung and found the school bus at the top. Agent Brand pulled her into the ship.

“I hope you know I’m skipping a very important breakfast with my parents for this,” she said.

“Sorry if saving the world got in the way of your Rice Krispies,” he replied.

Matilda sighed. No one knew her troubles at home. For so long she had hoped her parents’ fighting would go away. Now it seemed to be getting worse. Her only real break from it came from her work as a spy.

She strapped herself into her seat just as the ship aimed its nose toward the heavens. With an ear-popping blast, its engines shot them all into the stratosphere. She looked over and noticed Duncan sitting beside her. She gave him a smile and got one back.

“Thanks for saving my life,” he said.

“You’re welcome. Who saved mine?”

“That would be me,” Jackson said from his seat behind them. “I used my braces to cling to the ship and found you floating around like a rubber ducky in a bathtub. Thank-yous can be sent as cash gifts.”

Matilda laughed. “What’s the big, important mission now?”

Pufferfish shrugged. “All I know is we’re going to Akron, Ohio.”

“Akron, Ohio? What could possibly happen there?”

“If the reports are true, it’s something very unsettling,” Agent Brand said. “I’ll let the chief of police explain.”

Ten minutes later the ship was rocketing back through the atmosphere. Ms. Holiday opened the hatch, then handed the children their parachutes. Matilda was the first to leap out into the sky, and she studied Akron from above. It seemed utterly ordinary—not the kind of place that needed the assistance of a team of superspies.

She landed a block from a police station. Her teammates followed, and together they gathered their gear before anyone noticed them. At the station, Wheezer spotted a handwritten sign taped to the front door. It explained that the station was currently without electricity.

Pufferfish showed the desk sergeant her badge. Not many people had ever seen a National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society I.D., and the police officer laughed. “This is a joke, right? Hey, everybody, the federal agents they sent are here. Do we have any juice boxes?”

The officer nearly fell over laughing.

“You’re kids?” a portly man said as he entered the room. “Oh, well, it’s not the craziest thing I’ve seen today. I’m Chief Chris Churchill. I’ll show you the … um, problem.”

He escorted the team into the basement lockup using only a flashlight.

“So you kids are spies, huh?”

“Sorry, you don’t have security clearance high enough to know that,” Wheezer said.

Chief Churchill shrugged. “Listen, I’m going to warn you. What we have down here is a bit on the weird side. I’ve got a couple officers who have had to take the day off to get over it.”

“It’s a monster, isn’t it?” Flinch said, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction.

“You’ll have to judge that for yourself,” Churchill said as he led them into a small office where three dogs—a golden retriever, a poodle, and a Chihuahua—were held in a cage.

“This is what has gotten you so worked up, Chief?” Matilda asked. “Are you afraid of fleas?”

“Listen, kids, we found them wandering the streets and thought they were a bunch of strays until …”

Suddenly, Matilda got the shock of her life.

“Let me out of here. I have my rights!” the golden retriever cried.

“No way!” shouted Braceface.

“Incredible!” Gluestick said.

“Better than monsters!” Flinch laughed.

“You can’t keep us,” the Chihuahua barked. “I’m a lawyer. I’ll sue you for every penny you have.”

“I demand a phone call!” the poodle cried.

Pufferfish bent down to get a closer look at the dogs. “Um, how did you get so smart?”

The retriever snarled. “What kind of a stupid question is that?”

“Dogs don’t talk,” she said.

“Yeah, on what planet?” the poodle barked.

“This one,” Matilda replied. The whole conversation was making her feel nauseated. “Are you part of some secret experiment?”

The poodle stepped forward. “Kid, I’m an accountant. I got a boyfriend, and he’s probably worried about me.”

“Are you saying you came from some place where all dogs can talk? How did you get here?”

The Chihuahua whined. “There was this light, then this tearing sound, and then all of a sudden you people are staring at us like we’re freaks in a carnival.”

“Are they saying you came from another world?” Pufferfish asked.

“I’m not saying anything,” the retriever responded. “You’re saying that. We’re from Earth, a place where all dogs talk—cats, too! And a few squirrels and fish. What’s this place called?”

Matilda turned back to face her team. They all had the same stunned expression. “Chief, if you’ve had any other weird events in this town lately, we’d like to hear about them.”

Officer: When was the last time you saw Gerdie?

Linda: Easy. She came down to the backyard yesterday to ruin our lives!

Officer: Pardon?

Luanne: We were in the backyard practicing for the NCA Junior All-Star tryouts when—

Officer: NCA?

Luanne: Cheerleading! Geez, don’t you know anything? The National Cheerleading Association. The tryouts for one of the national squads are in a few days!

Officer: OK. How did she ruin your lives?

Linda: She came out in her crazy costume right in the middle of our pyramid.

Officer: Huh?

Wendy: A pyramid is a cheerleading stunt where the girls stack on top of one another. It’s shaped liked a—

Officer: I know what a pyramid is! What was the costume?

Luanne: She came down in one of our cheerleading outfits and her freak mask.

Wendy: It’s not a freak mask, girls.

Luanne: That’s what you’ve been calling it behind her back.

Wendy: Luanne, that … um … that’s not true.

Linda: Yes it is. You said it five seconds before the cops showed up.

Officer: Freak mask?

Wendy: Gerdie recently had some cosmetic surgery, and her face has been wrapped in bandages for the last four weeks.

Linda: So she should be easy to find. Just look for a girl who looks like a mummy wearing a cheerleading outfit.

Luanne: And the big machine strapped to her back. That should be easy to spot.

Officer: Big machine?

Linda: Yes, it had these big tubes and all these lights. It looked like it weighed a ton.

Officer: What kind of game are you playing?

Wendy: Excuse me?

Officer: You know there’s a lot of crime out there in this city. We’ve had these crazy blackouts that are causing all kinds of problems. You can’t call the police with some silly story—

Wendy: We’re not making this up! She’s wearing a cheerleading outfit. Her face is wrapped in bandages. She’s got something as big as a trash can tied to her back.

Luanne: You have to take this seriously. She ruined our lives. I want you to find her, arrest her, and make her break rocks in jail.

Officer: OK, let’s just assume what you’re telling me isn’t the result of a gas leak in your home. How did this disfigured cheerleader ruin your lives?

Linda: She scared the pyramid. Everyone fell. My sister broke her collarbone. I have a sprained ankle. Everyone on the squad was injured. We’ll never make one of the national squads now. We might even lose our spots on the local team!

Luanne: Plus, she stood over us and said the harshest things. She said we were a lousy family. She said we were jerks and she was going to the NCA tryouts herself to take our spots. Then she said we weren’t pretty enough to be cheerleaders!

Linda: That’s just mean!

Officer: OK, I think I’ve heard enough.

Wendy: So you have enough information to find my daughter?

Officer: No, but I have enough information to have the three of you arrested. You have the right to remain silent and I suggest you embrace that right. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—

Linda: Hey, we’re telling the truth.

Officer: Calm down—

Wendy: Get off me!

Luanne: Get your hands off my mom.

Officer: I’m warning you, lady—

Luanne: Hit him with a lawn chair!

At this point, the officer fired his Taser three times, incapacitating the Bakers. They were arrested for assault and filing a false crime report. All three were being held in the Summit County Jail.

If Gerdie Baker actually exists, her whereabouts are unknown.

SEE ATTACHED COMPOSITE DRAWING OF “GERDIE BAKER.”

Matilda and the NERDS returned to the Playground to make their report. With talking dogs, radiation spots, blackouts, and psychotic cheerleaders, Matilda could barely make sense of the evidence, so she was stunned when Ruby said she knew who had caused it all.

“Her code name was Mathlete,” Ruby said. “She was one of us.”

“Back up,” Matilda said. “How do you know it was a member of NERDS responsible for all this weird stuff?”

“The Mathlete’s real name was Gerdie Baker,” Ruby said.

“The missing girl with the plastic surgery!” Matilda said.

“Gerdie? She can’t be responsible for this,” Ms. Holiday said. “She was always so sweet.”

Ruby shook her head. “I’m afraid the evidence says otherwise. While you were talking to dogs, Benjamin and I dug up everything we could on Gerdie—history, case files, recent actions … Benjamin?”

The little blue orb hovered over the hole in the glass desk. Clicking and spinning, it projected a moving hologram of a very awkward young girl. She was fighting off a team of ninja assassins with gleaming swords in their hands. They rushed at her, but the girl matched their assault fist for fist. Without warning, her attackers flew backward and hit the wall, where they crumbled like children’s toys.

“I like her style!” Matilda said.

Benjamin chirped. “Team, this is Gertrude Baker, formerly code-named Mathlete. Her talent was with equations, and her upgrades allowed her brain to process complex problems at lightning speed.”

“What kind of a lousy upgrade is that?” Matilda asked.

“Lame!” Jackson agreed.

Ruby shook her head. “With her supercalculator head she could predict the actions of her opponents and exploit their weaknesses. She could also calculate the correct balance and leverage needed to move impossibly heavy things.”

An image appeared of the girl leaping onto a beam jammed underneath a car. The car popped up and flipped several times.

“OK, that was cool,” Flinch said.

“Math made her into a superhero,” Duncan said. “So why’d she leave?”

“Her mother moved the family to Ohio when she divorced Gertrude’s father,” Ms. Holiday said. “Like many members of the team, her parents were unaware of her secret life. Parents in the dark sometimes make decisions for their children that take them away from us. Gerdie’s nano improvements were removed, and Matilda was brought in to be her replacement.”

“I was her replacement?” Matilda asked.

“Indeed. Though it appears she has continued to use her superior math skills,” Benjamin said.

“And they’ve led her to a life of crime,” Agent Brand said, joining the meeting with a stack of files under his arm. “We’re certain she’s behind the chaos in Ohio.”

Ms. Holiday gasped. “Alexander, I only met her once, but I can’t believe she would do such a thing.”

“How many thought the same of Heathcliff Hodges? Now he’s in a mental hospital for the criminally insane.”

“Actually, I had my suspicions about him,” Jackson said.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Holiday, but Mr. Brand is right,” Duncan said. “From what I’ve read, Gerdie is the only person in Akron—maybe even in North America—who has the brainpower to create a device that steals electricity. Though all that electricity is probably being used to power something else—something a lot more dangerous. I believe she’s messing around with the multiverse.”

“Huh?” Flinch asked.

“The multiverse,” Duncan said. “Didn’t you guys read Bartlett’s Quantum Irregularities paper in Scientific American magazine?”

“Sorry, I must have missed that one,” Jackson said.

“I’ll try to simplify it as much as possible,” Ms. Holiday said. “You’ve all heard of the universe, correct?”

“Sure,” Matilda offered. “The universe is everything—Earth, the moon, the stars, forever and ever.”

“That’s right, Wheezer,” Ms. Holiday said. “The universe is everything. Now imagine there was another ‘everything.’ Imagine there was another Earth, and moon, and stars—existing in the exact same place, only in a different dimension. Imagine it had people and animals and oceans and land.”

“Two Earths?” Pufferfish said.

“More than just two. Imagine there are thousands, millions, even billions of universes like ours—only in their own dimensions. Benjamin, could you be so kind as to visually demonstrate?”

Benjamin projected a holographic image of Earth before their eyes. Then it duplicated the image. Then again, and again, and again, until the copies filled the entire room.

Matilda could barely wrap her head around the idea. “Exactly like ours?”

Ms. Holiday shook her head. “Not exactly, and that’s where the multiverse gets interesting. Some of these Earths are a lot like ours, while some you wouldn’t even recognize.”

“I have to admit I’m a bit lost,” Agent Brand said.

“Think of it like this,” Ms. Holiday told them. From her handbag she took two candy bars, which she placed in front of Flinch on the desk. “Flinch has two candy bars. He can choose to eat the coconut-peanut bar here or he can choose the one made from nougat and honey. Which one does he choose?”

Flinch looked distressed. It was clear that making this choice was probably the hardest thing he had ever had to do in his short life. His head went back and forth from one treat to the other, like he was watching a tennis match, until he finally snatched the coconut bar. He tore open its packaging and ate it greedily.

“So Flinch made a choice and the rest of his life will move forward according to that choice. But the multiverse allows for other possibilities. If the theory is correct, there is another Flinch, in another universe, in another dimension, where he chose the nougat-and-honey candy bar.”

“Who cares which candy bar he ate?” Matilda said. “What difference will it make?”

“Very little, probably,” Ms. Holiday replied. “But sometimes the decisions are much bigger and have much wider consequences. In the multiverse there’s an Earth where the Germans won World War II. There’s an Earth where Native Americans still control this continent. There’s probably even an Earth where everyone is a pro wrestler.”

“Awesome,” Matilda said.

“Is there an Earth out there where I ate both candy bars?” Flinch asked, eyeing the other treat.

Ms. Holiday giggled. “Yes. There could even be one where you didn’t eat them. Maybe you had carrots and hummus instead.”

“I assure you there is not,” Flinch said, licking his fingers. “There might be a trillion versions of me, but not one of them would pick carrots and hummus over a chocolate bar.”

“There might be a Flinch who is allergic to peanuts and coconut and got very sick from eating the candy bar. There’s one where he is a donkey who likes candy. Another, where he was never born. Still another, where candy was never invented, and so on and so on. All of them exist—they are real—on their own Earths, at least according to the theory. Do you understand?”

“Sure, I get it,” Pufferfish said. “There are a billion different me’s, some good, some bad, some that don’t swell up like a balloon whenever I eat eggs. What does this have to do with Mathlete and her machine?”

Duncan stepped forward. “We can’t be sure until we question her, but I believe she’s using some sort of device that builds a bridge from our world into those alternate Earths.”

“Someone’s been watching too much Star Trek!” Matilda said. “Even if she did build something like that—why? What would she gain from it?”

“We think we know,” Benjamin said. The tiles on the walls flipped over to reveal a massive television screen displaying Gerdie Baker’s face. “Four weeks ago Mathlete visited a dentist. She ordered a set of porcelain veneers for her teeth and had her jaw fractured to correct an unfortunate under-bite. The procedures in total cost nearly thirty-five thousand dollars.”

“So maybe her mother got a good job or won the lottery,” Jackson said.

“According to this report, Gerdie didn’t pay with money. She paid with this.” Brand snapped his fingers and the image changed from sad Gerdie Baker to an ancient treasure chest overflowing with gold coins, pearls, and silver chalices.

Flinch stuffed the other candy bar into his mouth. “Where did she get that?”

“Certainly not from around here. This was found with it,” Benjamin said as one of the coins zoomed into focus. On it was a picture of a strange animal with the head of an owl, the body of a bear, and a long tail like a snake. The creature was wearing a crown. An inscription read, Coin of the Realm. His Royal Highness Doogan the Fifth, King of Zedavia and Surrounding Realms.

“Zedavia?” Matilda asked. “I’ve never heard of the kingdom of Zedavia.”

“That’s because it didn’t exist—at least not on our world. I’ve researched every history book in our database,” Ms. Holiday said. “If it was a real place, I would be able to find it. I may be a spy, but I’m a librarian, too.”

Gerdie’s face came back onscreen, and Brand continued. “A week later, Ms. Baker went to a dermatologist where she was given a laser dermabrasion procedure and a facial and pore treatment that cost nearly two thousand bucks. She ordered a package of ten spray-on tans and a tea bag massage. She paid with this.”

An image of a painting appeared on the screen. It looked a lot like the Mona Lisa.

“She stole the Mona Lisa out of the Louvre?” Matilda asked.

“This isn’t the Mona Lisa. Look closer,” Benjamin chirped as the image zoomed in on the famous painting.

Matilda studied the portrait. It was the same painting she had seen a million times in books. But when she peered closer, she saw something peculiar in the background: silver half-moon–shaped crafts hovering in the sky shooting lasers down on the countryside below.

“An alien invasion!” Matilda said.

“Some idiot painted a copy and added a joke,” Ruby said.

Mr. Brand shook his head. “No, we’ve had art historians study the brushstrokes. This painting was made by Leonardo da Vinci—or at least a Leonardo da Vinci. We found a strand of a brush in the paint and had it tested for age. It dates back to the sixteenth century. The signature is also an exact duplicate.”

“There’s more,” Benjamin said. “The next day, Ms. Baker had a consultation with Dr. Abigail Contessa, a plastic surgeon to the stars in Los Angeles. The day after that she received fifty thousand dollars worth of procedures, including a nose job, collagen injections in her lips, a brow lift, and an ear tuck.”

“You can do that?” Duncan said as he self-consciously tugged on his lobes.

“Let me guess,” Jackson said. “She paid with something that shouldn’t exist?”

Brand nodded and live video of an odd bird appeared on the screen. It had gray feathers, thick yellow talons, and a large beak shaped like the end of a wooden spoon.

“It’s a dodo,” Ms. Holiday said. “Dodos have been extinct for nearly three hundred years.”

“So Gerdie Baker is stealing from alternate worlds to pay for makeovers,” Matilda said. “What do we do? We don’t have jurisdiction over the multiverse.”

“It’s much worse than some interdimensional shoplifting,” Agent Brand said. “There have been what we’ve come to call ‘crossovers.’ Things have been coming into our world—things that should not be here.”

“Like the talking dogs?” Duncan asked.

“Worse,” Brand said.

The screen showed four strange creatures with black tentacles all over their faces. Though shaped like men, each had a wide wound of a mouth filled with sharp, pointy teeth. They were locked in a jail cell, shouting angrily.

“OK,” Jackson said. “I’m officially freaked out.”

“That’s just the beginning,” Brand said.

Matilda’s mind filled with worst-case scenarios. “So we track down Mathlete and arrest her.”

“Not so simple,” Mr. Brand said. “She’s had extensive work done on her face, and her doctors are reluctant to talk to us. Performing plastic surgery on a minor is unethical. Who knows if her face would have changed naturally as she got older? Besides, the doctors only saw her swollen face when she left their offices. Mathlete never came back for her followups.”

“We don’t know what she looks like?” Pufferfish asked.

“No one knows what she looks like. Not even her mother and sisters—as you know, she ran away from home.”

Matilda rolled her eyes. Why would someone have surgery to change their appearance? She liked how she looked, and who cared what other people thought of it?

“Let me get this straight,” Jackson said. “We’re searching for someone who has been trained as a spy. We have no idea what she looks like. If we find her, she has a machine that lets her escape into other worlds.”

Brand nodded.

“Grubblin-oogh!” Flinch said, pounding on his chest. The sugar from the candy was coursing through him.

“We do think we have a lead,” Brand said. “The National Cheerleading Association is hosting several week-long camps for its elite performers that end with a national competition here in D.C. We believe Gerdie has tried out and made one of the junior teams and is now practicing at one of the camps. Based on more strange electrical activity, we think we know which camp.”

“The bad guy is a cheerleader?” Jackson asked.

“Aren’t they all?” Matilda said. “I hate cheerleaders with their stupid skirts and phony smiles. I don’t know how anybody could have such little self-respect to cheer for a bunch of muscle-heads throwing a ball around. Well, I’m going to enjoy this mission! We go to the camp, figure out which one is Gerdie, then lay the smackdown on her! Better yet, we lay the smackdown on the entire squad until one of them confesses, and I get to try out a few new submission holds. Everyone wins!”