She sneezed again and Duncan’s voice popped into her head.
“How is it going?”
“I’ve got the equation right in front of me. Wish me luck,” she said.
“It’s a shame this is such a priority, Wheezer,” Duncan added. “The NCA finals are tomorrow and Team Strikeforce has a real shot.”
“What do you mean?”
“My sister just joined her school’s squad and she’s obsessed! She told me that if the junior elite team doesn’t have at least eight members they have to forfeit. When you and Gerdie are gone, Team Strikeforce will be down to seven. They’ll have to drop out.” Matilda didn’t respond, and Duncan cleared his throat. “Well, good luck with Mathlete!”
Matilda tapped her nose to close the link and then went out to wash her hands. She had never considered Duncan’s claim. Arresting Gerdie wouldn’t just end her mission—it would rob the squad of their dream. All of their hard work would be for nothing. It was a shame the rest of these girls had gotten caught up in all of this. Although they were causing a lot of chaos, they truly loved cheering. Even under Tiffany’s general disdain for the others, glimmers of joy peeked out when they practiced. She hated to admit it, but she had started to enjoy cheerleading, too. It was intense and physical—a lot like being a secret agent. She would never admit it, but she was having fun.
She applied another coat of lip gloss as she looked at herself in the mirror, and with a start realized that she hardly recognized herself. Who was this Matilda—this cheerleading-sympathizing girlie-girl? She had never dreamed this person might exist underneath her ragamuffin hair and combat boots. She had worked so hard to transform herself from sick and suffering to superspy. She wanted people to see her as someone who could take care of herself. But had she gone overboard? Was there room inside her for Maddie the Cheerleader, too?
No! Angrily, she tossed the lip gloss into the trash. What was she thinking? She wasn’t a cheerleader! She was a NERD. She was sent on this mission to root out someone who was trying to destroy the world. Who cared about these stupid girls and their stupid competition?
Matilda crumpled the equation in her hand and walked back toward the picnic tables. The girls were gathered around them, chatting before the day’s practice.
“Does anybody know anything about algebra?” Matilda asked. “I flunked math and my teacher says if I can solve this problem, I can get out of summer school. It’s not fair! He worked for NASA or something before he came to our school.”
Kylie took the paper. Matilda hoped she wasn’t Gerdie. She liked Kylie and had come to think of her as her biggest friend in the group. But thankfully Kylie rolled her eyes and handed it to Jeannie. “I’m terrible at this stuff. It’s just gibberish to me.”
Jeannie had a similar reaction. Jeannie handed it to Toni, who cringed and then handed it to Pammy, like a game of hot potato. Matilda watched Pammy’s face recoil in horror as if the equation were something particularly disgusting. “This gives me a headache just looking at it.”
Pammy handed it to McKenna, who never even looked up from texting to see what it was. She handed it directly to Tiffany, who studied it hard. Matilda watched her face. Unlike the other girls, Tiffany was not filled with confusion and dread. In fact, she looked as if she were trying to solve it in her head. Matilda’s heart jumped. Tiffany was Gerdie. She had to be! But then—
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Not me!”
Matilda bit back her shock. Deep down Tiffany had been her primary suspect. Maybe she was just pretending to be dumb. Hadn’t Kylie told her that it was better to play dumb around the other girls? Maybe Tiffany was smart enough to know that math would give her away.
Tiffany handed the equation to Lilly, who examined it closely.
“What’s this?” Lilly asked.
“Maddie’s homework,” Tiffany said.
“The answer is two-thirds of ten to the ninth power. This is your homework? This is complicated stuff.”
“Wow!” McKenna cried. “Lilly’s like some kind of math whiz.”
“More like a mathlete,” Matilda said.
Lilly’s eyes met Matilda’s and the two stared at each other.
“Who sent you?” Lilly said.
“I’m with NERDS,” Matilda replied.
“You here to take me in?”
Matilda nodded.
“You think you can?”
Matilda nodded again.
“What’s going on?” Shauna said.
Lilly clenched her fists.
Matilda smiled. She hadn’t gotten to slug anyone in a few days. She was overdue. She threw the first punch, but Lilly blocked it. She threw another, with the same result. Matilda kicked and attempted a roundhouse, but each assault was blocked with ease.
“You’re good,” Matilda said, genuinely impressed.
“I got the same training as you, peewee,” Gerdie said, delivering a series of punches and kicks that Matilda swatted away.
“You two have to stop this,” Kylie cried. “You’re teammates.”
“No, we’re not,” Matilda said. “Tell them the truth.”
Gerdie jumped onto one of the picnic tables and shifted her fighting style to martial arts, sending precise punches to Matilda’s face, chest, and belly. Martial arts had never been Matilda’s strong suit. She hated the strict movements and preferred the freedom of a street fight, but she knew enough about it to defend herself. She also knew she wouldn’t last long in this type of fight, so she improvised, snatching up breakfast plates and silverware to use as weapons. Gerdie swatted them all away.
“Her name is Gertrude Baker,” Matilda shouted to the other girls. “The machine you’ve been using was her invention.”
Tiffany nodded. “It’s true. She gave it to me to get a spot on the squad. I didn’t want her.”
“You took a bribe!” McKenna exclaimed.
“It helped us pay for the bus. We couldn’t have gotten this far without it!”
“I’m so texting this!”
Matilda continued. “Gerdie used the machine to steal things from other universes, just like you did! She used the money to fund a massive amount of plastic surgery. If you saw what she looked like before, you wouldn’t even recognize her.”
Gerdie grimaced and turned up the intensity of her fight.
“Back at home in Akron, Ohio, they call her Gruesome Gerdie.”
“Shut up!”
“She has two sisters who are totally gorgeous—real model types. She was superjealous, so she decided to turn herself into them.”
“Shut up!”
“And she’s put the world and all the other Earths that you’ve visited at risk. In fact, there are trillions of worlds that are about to be destroyed because Gerdie wanted to be pretty, so you all would like her,” Matilda said, catching Gerdie with a shot to the belly. “But she’s not one of you. She’s a nerd. A loser. A misfit.”
“Just like you,” Gerdie seethed.
“No, not just like me,” Matilda shouted as she shot into the air using her inhalers. “I’m proud of what I am. I am proud of being a nerd!”
She kicked Gerdie in the face on the way up and the cheerleader fell off the picnic table to the ground, flat on her back.
Matilda landed, then pressed the comlink on her nose.
“Wheezer to the Playground.”
“Do you have good news for me, agent?” Mr. Brand said.
“I’ve got Mathlete,” she said, just as Gerdie scampered to her feet and tackled her. The two rolled around on the ground as the other cheerleaders screamed.
“What’s going on?” Brand said.
“At the moment, she’s beating me up,” Matilda explained.
“The team is on their way,” Brand said.
Gerdie slugged Matilda in the chin, rattling her teeth. In return Matilda thrust her elbow into Gerdie’s belly.