The Cheerleaders of Doom

by Michael Buckley

  Ms. Holiday stood up from her chair and straightened her skirt. She couldn’t let this woman get in the way of the security of the world.

  “I was a cheerleader when I was in college, Mrs. Choi. In fact, the only reason I went to college was because I won a cheerleading scholarship. When I got there, the other girls pushed me around. But I worked hard, and before any of them knew it I was the captain of the squad, and I made them work hard. Most of the girls learned to respect me and the ones who didn’t learned to fear me. When it was all said and done, my squad won the national championship. You want to know how many disorganized, disrespectful girls I had to manage, Mrs. Choi? Twenty-four! If you let Matilda try out for this team, I think the things she’ll learn about leadership will be more than enough to handle six rowdy brothers. Much more than enough!”

  “Ben?” Molly asked.

  Mr. Choi smiled. “I’m all for it. Anything that gets Matilda out of those ragamuffin clothes and combat boots she likes so much. Look at her. What a beauty! I say yes.”

  Molly’s eyes narrowed and a disapproving crease appeared in between her brows. She shook her head, then stood up and left the room.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Holiday,” Ben said as he got up from his chair. “Matilda’s mother and I rarely see eye to eye these days, but I have to respect her choices even if I don’t agree.”

  Ms. Holiday watched as Mr. Choi followed Molly out of the room. “Alexander is going to roar. It drives him nuts that he needs a parent’s permission to send an agent out to save the world.”

  “Maybe the Hyena can go in my place,” Matilda said, trying not to look too happy.

  Just then, Molly returned with something under her arm. “You cannot go, Little M, unless someone from our family goes along to look after you.” She offered Matilda the little stone statue from her room. “Take old grandfather with you. Keep him in your pocket. He will protect you whether you are cheerleading”—she turned her eyes to the librarian—“or doing something dangerous.”

  Ms. Holiday swallowed hard.

  Matilda and Agent Brand sat outside the YMCA in Arlington, Virginia. A steady stream of pretty girls stepped through a set of double doors for the tryouts for Team Strikeforce, the elite Junior East Coast Division cheerleading squad that the NERDS believed Gerdie had joined. A thousand girls like Matilda had come from all over the country for what was rumored to be nine vacant spots. Unlike Matilda, they were full of pep and smiles. She wanted to punch them all in the face. She hated her skirt flapping on her legs. She hated the hour it had taken to do her hair and makeup. She hated the pains in her cheeks from smiling. If she was going undercover, it should have been as a bullfighter or a luchador! It didn’t help that these girls went through the doors to the auditorium happy and high-spirited, only to come out sobbing into their hands. It made Matilda nervous. Not about failing or even looking foolish—she sort of expected that. No, she was worried about feeding one of her fists to the judges. Whatever they were saying to the hopefuls was brutal. She hadn’t seen so much blubbering since the time she challenged the men of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity to a punch fight.

  Mr. Brand seemed even more nervous than Matilda. Most of the time the former spy was unflappable. Matilda had heard he once fought off a dozen assassins with only his fists and a bottle of champagne. But today he kept tapping the heel of his right shoe on the marble floor like a jackhammer. Perhaps he was just uncomfortable out of his tuxedo. Today, to keep a low profile, he was dressed in linen pants and a white shirt.

  “Why isn’t the Hyena here to give me pointers?” Matilda said, hoping to distract the spy from his tapping. “You weren’t a cheerleader, were you?”

  Mr. Brand shook his head. “The Hyena has other responsibilities.”

  “Yeah? What are those, exactly?”

  Brand stiffened. “Sorry, but you don’t have security clearance for that kind of information.”

  Wheezer was stunned. “I have the highest security clearance in the country. I have higher security clearance than the president!”

  Brand’s face told her not to press the issue. The Hyena’s mission was a secret for another day.

  “Ms. Holiday cheered in college. Why didn’t she come?”

  “Ms. Holiday was transferred to the team just days before the Mathlete’s mom moved them to Ohio. They spent very little time together, but if Gerdie were to recognize Lisa, our plan would fail,” Brand said.

  “Oh, she’s Lisa, now?”

  Brand blushed. “Ms. Holiday and I have become … friends.”

  “Friends that kiss and hug?”

  Matilda could tell the man was uncomfortable. He kept tugging at his collar as if it were strangling him.

  “Ms. Holiday sent along a list of tips and a cookie,” he said, shoving them into her hands.

  Matilda quickly put the cookie aside. Ms. Holiday was a wonderful lady, but her baking bordered on dangerous. The cookie was as hard as a manhole cover. She opened the letter. “‘Dear Matilda, Here is my best advice for your tryout. First, you have to be positive. No one wants to see a grouchy cheerleader.’”

  “She told me to practice smiling with you,” Brand said. “Flash me your best smile.”

  Matilda smiled.

  Agent Brand cringed.

  “What?”

  “You’re supposed to look happy when you smile.”

  “Well, give me something to smile about.”

  “Think about ponies. Girls love ponies, right?”

  Matilda frowned. “I don’t.”

  “Ribbons?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Doll babies?”

  “I’m almost twelve!”

  “Then what do you like?”

  “Hmm … demolitions, explosions, bonfires,” Matilda said. “I like to watch barroom brawls. I love sports that involve an ax and pretty much anything to do with pro wrestling!”

  “I see,” Brand said. “Imagine you and one of these pro wrestlers went to the park. What a beautiful day it is. The sun is shining. There isn’t a cloud in the—”

  “And we found some bullies and gave them all head butts! While they were dazed, I climbed up in a tree and leaped onto their heads for a superatomic dog. Then, when they were down, we smashed a steel chair across their backs!”

  “Why was there a steel chair in the park?” Brand asked. Then he sighed. “It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you are smiling, but you might want to work on it. I suspect they don’t want a cheerleader who looks like she’s an escaped mental patient.”

  Matilda glared and then returned to Ms. Holiday’s list. “‘Second, make eye contact with the judges. They want to feel like you are cheering right to them.’”

  “Eye contact, right,” Brand said. “Remember what we taught you in your spy training. Looking someone in the eye can elicit a sense of trust and welcoming.”

  “Really? ’Cause I’ve been using it to intimidate people. You should see how it works on dogs! They run off like they’ve seen the devil.”

  “Keep reading.”

  “‘The third thing is play up your strengths,’” Matilda read. “What are my strengths?”

  She could tell Brand wasn’t comfortable with giving compliments. “You are a gifted athlete. Use your acrobatic skills. Also, try to turn some of that happy energy you have when you knock out someone’s teeth into a positive expression of hope and joy. If that doesn’t help, I had the brains at the Playground build you something.”

  He pulled a briefcase from beneath their seat. Inside were four brand-new asthma inhalers and a leather belt with tiny slots to hold them.

  “What are these?” Matilda asked, gazing at them with wonder.

  “Specialty inhalers.”

  Matilda strapped the belt around her waist. “And a utility belt! I’m like an asthmatic Batman!”

  “These might come in handy on this mission. The blue set acts as an underwater breathing apparatus. There’s enough concentrated air in them to keep you alive for si
x hours. You never know when something like that might come in handy. The green set is what we hope will help you today. One squeeze of the plunger and it’ll lift you off the ground.”

  “Um … I have a set that does that already.”

  “Not like these. These are stealth inhalers. No explosions. No rocket flames. They’re whisper-quiet. You will be able to jump, backflip, and somersault higher than any of the other girls. Gluestick says that a long pump could allow you to reach the observation platform of the Empire State Building, not that you’ll need that today.”

  “Very cool, but it does feel like we’re cheating, Mr. Brand,” Matilda said.

  “All is fair in love and national security. What else is in the letter?”

  Matilda turned her attention back to Ms. Holiday’s notes. “It says, ‘No wooing’?”

  “Lisa—I mean, Ms. Holiday—says it’s sort of a nervous reaction some girls do when they are out on the floor. They start ‘wooing.’”

  “That’s silly. I can promise you that I will not ‘woo’!”

  “See that you don’t. She says it’s very annoying.”

  The door opened and a pretty red-haired girl poked her head out into the hall. Her face was one big smile and her eyes were bright with excitement. She reminded Matilda of Flinch the time he ate three Cookiepuss ice cream cakes in one sitting. They couldn’t get him off the ceiling for an hour. “Matilda Choi? Are you ready to BRING IT?”

  Matilda nodded and stood up. She turned to Agent Brand. “Well, I guess I have to go ‘bring it’ now.”

  “How about one more attempt at a smile?” the spy said.

  Matilda forced one on to her face. “How is this?”

  “You look like you’ve just been stung by a wasp,” Mr. Brand said. “It looked better when you were daydreaming about braining someone. Think steel chairs!”

  Matilda walked through the door into the darkly lit gymnasium. In the center of the room was a spotlight and beyond that a stage where seven shadowy figures sat at a table. When she stepped into the spotlight, she was unable to see her judges at all. It was probably just as well. If she had to look at seven more grinning idiots, she might never get through her audition. The only drawback was that she couldn’t start searching for Gerdie Baker. If she caught Mathlete right away, she could avoid the whole mission entirely. It had only been a couple days, but she was growing weary of exfoliating her pores.

  “Name!” a girl shouted.

  “Matilda Choi.”

  “Matilda is not a good name for a cheerleader. We’ll call you Maddie.”

  The rest of the girls murmured in agreement, then turned their attention back to Matilda.

  “OK, Maddie, cheer for us. And try not to waste our time,” a voice demanded.

  Matilda nodded and took a quick shot of her medicinal inhaler.

  “Today!” another judge snapped.

  Ironically, it was her judges who provided Matilda with a smile, courtesy of a daydream in which she kicked them all in the face. “Ready? OK!” she shouted, and then she clapped her hands, imagining slamming a judge’s head. “We’ve got spirit. Yes we do! We’ve got spirit. How about you?”

  She did three backflips and a back handspring before running forward into a one-handed cartwheel. She then flipped end over end three times before landing perfectly on her feet. Each time she jumped she used her new inhalers for an extra couple of feet of lift. On her next run, two more super front-end handsprings became a complete one-hundred-and-eighty-degree flip, a jump she could never have done on her own. She ended her routine in a perfect split.

  She sat with her hands on her hips, grinning as best she could and staring up at her seven shadowed judges. Were they impressed? They just sat there without a word. They could probably tell she was a fake—the cheers, makeup, and clothes weren’t fooling anyone! She had failed the mission.

  Then her mouth opened and she did something she thought she would never do.

  “Wooooooooooooooo!”

  “You’re in, Choi,” one of the judges said. “Welcome to Team Strikeforce.”

  “What? Really?” Matilda couldn’t believe how happy she felt. In fact, it made her angry that she could get so much pleasure from being accepted by these strangers. If she hadn’t been on a mission, she would have been more than thrilled to tell them where they could shove their acceptance. But she nodded, thanked the judges, and left the gymnasium without punching a single person.

  Mr. Brand was waiting outside the door where she had left him. He looked fidgety, cracking his knuckles and tapping his foot. “What happened? I heard wooing!”

  OK, AT THE ADVICE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT, I WILL BE IN ANOTHER ROOM WHILE YOU TAKE THE REST OF THIS TEST. YOU’VE GOT AN INK PEN IN YOUR HAND, WHICH COULD EASILY BE USED AS A WEAPON, SO …

  ON A SCALE FROM 1 TO 10, RATE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT THE FOLLOWING LIST OF CRIMES—1 BEING “A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY” AND 10 BEING “A TINY CRIME.” WRITE DOWN YOUR ANSWERS ON A PIECE OF PAPER.

  1. DRIVING A CAR INTO AN ORPHANAGE

  ___

  2. TAKING THE WORLD HOSTAGE

  ___

  3. KIDNAPPING SOMEONE’S PET

  ___

  4. TOPPLING A GOVERNMENT

  ___

  5. CREATING HUMAN/ANIMAL HYBRIDS BENT ON WORLD DOMINATION

  ___

  6. BETRAYING THE HUMAN RACE TO ALIEN OVERLORDS

  ___

  7. TRYING TO OPEN A DIMENSIONAL DOOR TO A DEMON DIMENSION

  ___

  8. BUILDING A GIANT ROBOT TO CRUSH THE CITY

  ___

  9. BLOWING UP THE MOON

  ___

  10. MAKING YOUR MOTHER CRY

  ___

  11. LAUGHING WHILE YOUR MOTHER CRIES

  ___

  OK, LET’S TALLY THOSE NUMBERS.

  IT’S TROUBLING HOW HIGH THIS NUMBER IS. ALL OF THESE CRIMES ARE REALLY, REALLY BAD.

  YOU ARE A SICK LITTLE MONKEY.

  Heathcliff—or rather, Choppers, I mean, Simon … no, Screwball, or whatever his name was—hated the Arlington Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He hated the doctors and the nurses. He hated the security guards. He hated the dull gray paint on every wall and the bland meals served with plastic utensils. He hated the dingy fluorescent lights and the patch of dying grass they called the yard. He swore to himself that when he ruled the world the first thing he would do was destroy the hospital—with a big wrecking ball, or maybe explosives—no, a rocket! In fact, imagining the building in flames helped him pass the endless hours with a smile on his face.

  But there was one thing he thoroughly enjoyed about being locked up in the loony bin: arts and crafts class. Twice a week the patients were herded into the art room and encouraged to explore their feelings using clay, paint, papier-mâché, and ribbons. On this day, Screwball was working with glue, dried corn, peas, and other vegetables. It was then that he discovered a new passion. If the whole “taking over the world” thing didn’t pan out, he might have a lucrative career as a street artist.

  “OK, everyone,” Dr. Sontag said. “I’m happy to see so many of you working on your projects with so much focus. It’s time to share what you have created. Why don’t we start with Bob?”

  Heathcliff sneered. Bob was a serial kidnapper. He also had no eye for color or line. When the stumbling fool raised his canvas, it took all of Screwball’s self-control not to rip it into shreds and laugh in the stupid man’s face. A rowboat on a little river? That’s what Bob called art?

  “A lovely day on the water,” Dr. Sontag said. “Why don’t you tell us how this makes you feel?”

  “My dad used to take me to this river when I was little—before I started to hear the voices,” Bob blubbered.

  Screwball rolled his eyes.

  “It looks like it meant a lot to you, Bob. Let’s move on to Chucky,” the doctor said. “Let’s see your masterpiece.”

  Chucky Swiller was a slack-jawed idiot with a face like an orangutan. He also had the artistic talent of one.
Paint was everywhere—and mostly on his dopey freckled face.

  “I made a house,” Chucky said.

  “And it’s on fire,” Dr. Sontag said with a little worried frown on her face. Chucky was in the hospital because he liked to play with matches and gasoline.

  “Oh, is that what you made?” Screwball said. “’Cause what it looks like is you drank your paints then barfed them all over the canvas!”

  Dr. Sontag frowned. “Heathcliff! This is not a place of judgment. However Chucky chooses to create his art is valid. Apologize to him!”

  Screwball sighed. “Chucky, I’m sorry. Sorry that you are clearly colorblind and don’t know the first thing about perspective or three-dimensional drafting. I’m sorry your work is bad, but mostly I feel sorry for me, as I’m the only one who cares enough about you to tell you that you are terrible and should stop painting. You should go back to being a pyromaniac and stop victimizing the world with your art.”

  Dr. Sontag’s face puckered with impatience. She took a deep breath and appeared to be mouthing numbers to calm herself. When she finished, she turned to Screwball.

  “OK, Heathcliff. Show us what you have made.”

  “Dr. Sontag, I have asked you to call me Screwball.”

  Sontag sighed with exhaustion. “Screwball, show us what you created.”

  Screwball held his work out proudly. It was a triptych—a three-paneled painting—featuring images of great destruction made from dried vegetables. The panel on the left showed little snow-pea people running and screaming as a giant turnip robot stomped down the street after them. The panel on the right featured a sea of green-bean prisoners marching across a field of flames with armed guards eyeing their every step. In the center panel there was a baby carrot and pearl onion depiction of Heathcliff himself, sitting upon a gigantic throne that was crushing planet Earth.

  Dr. Sontag sighed again. “Everyone, how does this make you feel?”

  Dr. Trouble slowly raised his hand and Dr. Sontag called on him. “Yes, Dr. Trouble? Does Heathcliff … I mean, Screwball’s work make you feel anything?”

  “Sad … scared.”