“Pyramid!” Tiffany barked, and Kylie and the other girls quickly assembled into a human pyramid, six bodies stacked on top of one another. Tiffany climbed to the top. She stood on McKenna and Pammy’s backs and looked down at Matilda and the other three girls.
“Now listen up, ’cause I’m only saying this once. The Rocket is usually done with the help of a spotter who hoists the girl onto his hands at chest-level. Then you jump upward, do a corkscrew twirl, and land on your feet at the top of a pyramid. I say ‘usually’ because we do it differently.” She grinned. “We cut out the spotter. Watch carefully.”
Tiffany bent her knees and then leaped backward into the air. She did a corkscrew turn and then landed squarely on McKenna’s and Pammy’s backs. The girls let out a painful groan. Matilda could hardly believe what she had seen. It was an incredible move—like something only a highly trained secret agent might be able to do. Could Tiffany be the Mathlete?
“I think I’m going to be sick,” one of the other new girls said. She and another of the new girls ran off the field and were never seen again. Matilda and one other girl were left for the last spot.
“Maddie, let’s see what you can do,” Tiffany said, climbing down off the pyramid to watch from the side.
“Just let me check my inhalers—I get a little asthmatic and—”
“No one cares about your stupid disease,” McKenna said. “Are you going to do this stunt or not? I have text messages to respond to!”
Matilda climbed the pyramid slowly. When she got to the top, she could hardly stand up straight. It was clear McKenna and Pammy were trying to knock her off. She dug her shoes into their backs and they yelped in pain. Matilda smiled sheepishly at them and bent her knees. Leaping backward as hard as she could, she tapped her stealth inhalers and blasted into the air with a whisper-quiet thrust. She did the corkscrew spin during the flip and landed cleanly, making extra sure to plant her feet on McKenna’s and Pammy’s heads.
There was silence. Tiffany looked stunned, and Matilda’s sole remaining competition dropped her head and walked out.
McKenna turned to look up at Matilda angrily. “This isn’t over,” she said, then rocked hard. The human pyramid began to sway and buckle. Then it collapsed. If Matilda fell from that height, she’d hurt herself badly, so she fired the inhaler once more and up she went, spiraling and forward-flipping gracefully until she landed right in front of Tiffany. The team leader eyed her closely.
“Welcome to Team Strikeforce,” Tiffany said, red-faced and angry.
Once the pile of cheerleaders untangled themselves, Kylie found Matilda. “That was awesome,” Kylie whispered to Matilda.
“Thanks,” Matilda whispered back as she watched Tiffany storm off the field. “But I’m worried it was a little too awesome.”
When the girls finished practicing “Shoot the Rocket,” they headed to the kitchen for some dinner. Matilda snatched a banana and a peanut butter sandwich then raced back to the silence of the cabin. She had only a few opportunities to be alone and check in with the NERDS team. Once she closed the door, she squeezed her nose to activate her comlink.
“Congratulations are in order, Wheezer,” Mr. Brand said. “I hear you are an official member of the squad.”
“Don’t tease me. This is so silly.”
“Well, the world appreciates your sacrifice. Do you have any suspects?”
“Maybe Tiffany. She’s got moves a normal kid doesn’t usually have,” Matilda said. “Everyone seems to think she’s been cheering since she was in diapers, but you know as well as I do how a back story can be invented. I’m keeping an eye on her. If you could have someone activate the comlink around three in the morning to wake me up, I’ll search her stuff. But I don’t know where she would hide that machine. If it’s as big as Gluestick thinks it is, there’s no place for it in this cabin. I’ll have to search the other buildings.”
“Happy hunting,” Brand said.
“Wheezer, out.”
Before she knew it, she was fast asleep and having terrible dreams about monstrous pom-poms chasing her through the woods. She was pulled out of the nightmare by a rougher-than-usual shaking. She leaped out of bed and swung wildly, her secret-agent training taking over. Her fist connected with someone’s mouth.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jeannie shouted when the lights came on.
It was then that Matilda noticed that Jeannie was on the floor, clutching her cheek. She frowned and helped the girl to her feet. “I’m sorry. I can get a little jumpy. Are you OK?”
“Nothing a surgeon can’t fix,” the girl said angrily. “It’s time to suit up.”
Matilda glanced out the window. It was still pitch-black out—too early for practice. “Now? It’s the middle of the night.”
“Less talk, more action,” Lilly snapped.
Matilda slipped into her clothes and stepped out of the cabin and into the night.
The moon was high in the sky over the practice field. The squad headed straight across it to the woods, and Matilda followed.
“Listen up, Maddie,” Tiffany said.
“It’s Matilda.”
“It’s what I say it is!” she roared. When she calmed, she continued. “The squad wants to invite you to take part in a little job.”
“What kind of job?”
“Not so much a job—more like a shopping trip,” McKenna said.
“Shop Op!” Shauna and Toni said together, then gave each other a high five.
“Sounds … fun. You do realize it’s the middle of the night? What store is even open?” Matilda asked.
“It’s not a store and it’s not really shopping,” McKenna said.
“But there is going to be some shoplifting,” Jeannie added.
“Shoplifting?” Matilda said. Kylie stood nearby. From her expression, she was as unhappy about the plan as Matilda.
Tiffany bristled. “Cheerleading is an expensive sport. The uniforms, meals—hey, do you think this camp is free? Team Strikeforce doesn’t have sponsors and the prize money is peanuts. The competition fee for the finals alone is more than my allowance until the end of time.”
“So we’ve found a way to pay for it,” Lilly said.
“By stealing?” Matilda asked.
Everyone nodded.
Matilda had never stolen anything in her life, but she knew she had to play along. “No arguments here. I’ve lifted a few tubes of lipstick and a purse. Shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Well, listen to public enemy number one,” Pammy said, laughing.
McKenna lifted her arm to reveal an odd-looking glove that wrapped around her hand, forearm, and elbow. It had buttons and little glass screens mounted near the wrist that flashed numbers and images. Matilda knew immediately what it was. Gerdie had given her gigantic machine its own makeover.
“Are we far enough away from the camp?” Pammy asked. “That machine sucks all the energy out of everything. If we go back to camp and my curling iron is dead, heads will roll!”
“We’re far enough,” Lilly said. “There’s a strip mall not far from here that will feed the machine.”
McKenna nodded, and pressed a button. A bright electrical display lit her fingertips, and a small milky-white marble, crackling with electricity, appeared in her palm. It grew until it was as big as the whole squad.
“Jackpot, ladies,” McKenna said. “This doohickey says there’s something gold and valuable on the other side.”
“Let’s go, girls! We’ve only got ten minutes,” Jeannie said, and she raced directly into the ball and disappeared.
Duncan had explained Gerdie’s machine and what it did, but to actually see it was almost more than Matilda’s brain could handle. Even with all the tech in the Playground and the millions of tiny robots coursing through her own body, this device still felt like something yanked out of the pages of a comic book.
“Today!” Tiffany barked.
Kylie reached for Matilda’s hand. “C’mon, we’ll go together.”