Agent Brand shifted uncomfortably. “Families are hard to keep together. Your mother is OK?”
“She’s a statue. It’s hard to tell,” Matilda said. “My brothers seem fine. It’s hard to tell if they’re acting out more now than they were before.”
“It can help when you have a sibling,” Brand said.
There was a long silence between them, as if Mr. Brand were somewhere else, a place where memories were filled with sharp edges.
Matilda knew she should change the subject.
“Well, I have another concrete suspect,” Matilda said.
“Who?”
“McKenna. She’s got the bridge device—that’s what they’re calling it—and she knows how to use it. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll go in and arrest her. I’m sure she’ll be awake and updating her social media profile, which, by the way, you should probably have Benjamin delete. I’m sure she’s just told the whole world she was in another universe.”
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
OMG! I’m totally going 2 another universe
today to rob it blind. Hate2BThem!
1 hour ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Tiff wants 2 bring the new girl … ugh.
58 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
OMG! Almost murdered by py-rats and a
shark but the worst part—no cell service 4 10
minutes! I don’t know how I survived.
30 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Countin’ my money. Holla’ 4 the dolla’ people!
22 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Py-rats are scary, yo! Arrrrr.
15 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Look at my loot, people. Jealous much?
10 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Weird kids in the cabin. One has craz-ee braces.
6 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Weird kids are arresting me. So lame!
5 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
Blindfolded but still txting! Take that nerd kids!
3 minutes ago
McKennaOMG McKennaOMG
I M N A rocket! Craz-eeee!
1 minutes ago
McKenna Gallagher was not happy. She was locked inside a tiny room with concrete walls and floors. There was no way she could get a signal for her phone—not a single bar! How would anyone know that she had been kidnapped if she couldn’t update her Facebook status? Her Twitter followers should know that the room had one exposed light bulb hanging from a dirty lamp and that it was shining right into her eyes! She needed to let everyone know about the new girl—the Korean-American one with the bad temper—and her gang of nerdy misfits. They had locked her in a basement. This was not LOL! It was SOS!
Maddie sat across from McKenna. “I know you must be confused,” she said. She wasn’t wearing her cheerleader uniform anymore. Instead, she had on a black bodysuit that zipped up the front to her neck. If Maddie hadn’t kidnapped her, McKenna would probably have told her she looked fierce.
“T 2 the H!” she cried. “You better let me out of here!”
“Pufferfish, what did she say?” Maddie asked.
A girl with superkinky blonde hair stepped forward and opened a laptop. “Just a second. According to my search, she’s a talking in text messages. ‘T 2 the H’ means, ‘Talk to the hand’.”
“OMGYG2BK!”
“OMGYG2BK?” Maddie asked.
Her friend typed furiously. “Um, just a second. That means ‘Oh, my gosh, you’ve got to be kidding.’” The girl shook her head. “It’s like she speaks another language.”
“Yeah, it’s called annoying,” Maddie said, then turned back to McKenna. “Listen, we don’t want to waste our time and we don’t want to waste yours, so let’s just get to the point. It’s over. We know who you are.”
“LDO!” McKenna said.
“‘Like duh, obviously,’” the frizzy blonde translated.
“I was on homecoming court. I’m a cheerleader. I have nine thousand Facebook friends and twelve thousand My space friends. I’m topping out at seventeen thousand Twitter followers. Everyone knows me! IMDB!”
The blonde girl started typing. “That means, ‘I’m da bomb.’”
“Gerdie, let’s—”
“Who? My name’s not Gerdie, idiot!”
“We don’t need to play this game any longer,” Maddie said.
“I hope your parents have great lawyers, ’cause my dad is a crazy great lawyer and he’s going to sue you for every penny. H8TBU!”
“‘Hate to be you,’” the blonde girl translated.
“Please calm down, Gerdie,” the newbie said.
McKenna jumped to her feet and made a dash for the door. “My name’s not Gerdie and I will not calm down! Help! Help! Let me out of here!”
Another figure blocked her way. He was cute, with blue eyes and wavy blond hair. But when he smiled—ugh! She remembered him from her abduction—he had a mouth full of metal. Now that he was up close she could see his braces were moving around as if they were alive. They spilled out from between his lips and transformed into huge spindly spider legs and lifted the boy off the ground. McKenna was so shocked she fell backward. Her first instinct was to text Tiffany, but crawling away in a desperate gamble for her life was a close second.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” Maddie said.
“Help! Help!”
“Gluestick, Flinch?”
A roly-poly boy ran up the side of the wall, then across the ceiling, then down the other side to block her way. Frantically, she scurried to another side of the room, but a jittery Latino kid with a crazy look on his face was blocking that way, too. She turned again only to find him standing there as well. How did he move so fast?
McKenna shook with rage. She stomped her feet, and though later she would feel childish, “I’m telling!” was the first thing that came to mind. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
“I am so posting this!” she snarled.
But she never got a chance. Maddie jumped out of her chair, snatched the phone, and then, much to McKenna’s surprise, flew into the air, hovering just out of reach like a bumblebee.
“OMG! You are in big trouble, you freaks!” she shrieked.
“Gerdie—”
“Who is Gerdie?”
“You! You are Gerdie Baker,” the girl with the computer said as she held up the bridge device. “And this machine you invented is very dangerous. You’re causing all kinds of damage to the national power grid, not to mention all the strange stuff that’s getting yanked into our universe.”
“UGTBK!”
The girl went back to her laptop. “‘You’ve got to be kidding.’”
“I didn’t invent this machine!” McKenna cried. “Do you think I could invent something this complicated? Tiffany gave this to me. She said it didn’t go with her eyes. I said it didn’t go with mine, either, but she said I had a boxy head and this made it look thinner. I don’t even know how that thing works except you push the blue button. There’s a gauge on the side that tells you how long you have until the battery is recharged. That’s all I know!”
McKenna watched the odd children huddle and whisper. They kept looking over at her suspiciously. She wanted to send frown face texts to them all.
“So Tiffany gave you this?” the chubby one asked. “She invented it?”
“I don’t know who invented it, but I highly doubt it was Tiffany. She’s as dumb as a box of rocks. I swear her mom sets her clothes out in the morning and has to remind her which are pants and which are tops. Please don’t tell her I said that. She can be very mean. SWMBO.”
The blonde typed furiously. “‘She who must be obeyed.’”
“All I know is it showed up about three weeks ago,” McKenna cried in a panic. “It could’ve come from anyone.”
/> “Well, you’ve got to get back to the squad,” Flinch said to Matilda. “Figure out which of the other girls brought it in.”
Matilda shook her head. “This mission is over. We have the device. Let’s just toss Texting Tina in some cell for a while until this blows over.”
“A cell? Like a jail? I’d never make it. They only let prisoners go online a half hour a week!”
Just then, a man entered the room. He was a hottie, even though he was totally old. McKenna couldn’t help but stare at him.
“I’m afraid this mission is far from over, Wheezer. Just because we have this bridge device doesn’t mean Gerdie won’t build another one. We have to find her so she can help us stop the tears in the universe. They’re popping up all over the place now. Agents are telling us they’ve found a nuclear sub sitting in the middle of that park you girls were in last night. It’s not one of ours—the crew was made up of angry beavers.”
“I have always suspected the beavers would rise up against us,” Jackson said, laughing.
“This is serious business, Braceface. We need to find Gerdie on the double!”
Matilda scowled. “Fine! I’ll go back to the stupids and weed out the Mathlete!”
“Who are you calling stupids?!” McKenna snarled.
A pretty woman in glasses stepped into the room. A little blue ball floated in the air behind her. There was so much weirdness around McKenna. Was she losing her mind? She had to stop eating the meatloaf surprise.
“Better leave right away, Wheezer,” the woman said. “There has been another tear and something else disappeared.”
“What?” Agent Brand asked.
“The Washington Monument.”
Brand paused, and then roared, “We have to find a way to stop these tears! Find Gerdie Baker now!”
McKenna almost felt bad for Maddie. She would text her a frownie face if she could. But before she could reach for the phone, a needle was stuck in her arm and she blacked out.
THIS NEXT TEST JUDGES HOW YOU PERCEIVE THE WORLD. DOCTORS CALL THIS A RORSCHACH TEST. WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO IS LOOK AT THE PICTURES AND TELL ME WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING THINGS YOU SEE IN THEM. HELPFUL HINT: THE PICTURES ARE NOT TALKING TO YOU. THEY DON’T TALK. IF YOU HEAR VOICES COMING FROM THEM, THEN I THINK WE CAN BOTH AGREE THAT THIS TEST IS OVER. THEY’RE JUST PICTURES. I PROMISE.
a. TWO SEALS GIVING EACH OTHER A KISS (3 POINTS)
b. A SPACESHIP FLYING THROUGH AN ASTEROID FIELD (3 POINTS)
c. THE BOTTOM OF A BIRDCAGE (3 POINTS)
a. A ROSE (3 POINTS)
b. A CLOWN’S FACE (5 POINTS)
c. THE MONSTER THAT VISITS YOU AT NIGHT (10 POINTS)
a. A DOG (3 POINTS)
b. A MUTANT BUNNY (8 POINTS)
c. A MUTANT BUNNY CROSSED WITH AN ELEPHANT AND THE DEVIL (10 POINTS)
a. A WHITE STINGRAY RIDING ON TOP OF A BLACK STINGRAY (5 POINTS)
b. A STEALTH FIGHTER PLANE (3 POINTS)
c. A GREAT SYMBOL FOR MY SUPERVILLAIN COSTUME (9 POINTS)
a. A GOOD-LOOKING DUDE (1 POINT)
b. A STAGGERINGLY HANDSOME MAN (1 POINT)
c. MY MORTAL ENEMY (10 POINTS)
TOTAL THEM UP, BUSTER.
WOW. SCARY.
McKenna was given a memory drug that erased the last twenty-four hours of her life, which saved Matilda’s cover story and allowed her to continue her search for Gerdie Baker. Getting both of the girls back into the camp, however, was no easy task. McKenna slobbered like a bulldog and her legs were jelly, but Matilda somehow managed to pull her along. She dumped the dozing cheerleader onto her bunk and shoved her cell phone into her hand the way one might give a toddler a security blanket. Then Matilda fell into bed herself and slept as deeply as she ever had.
She woke from a dream in which her family—her mother, father, and brothers—were all living happily under the same roof. Ben and Molly waltzed around the living room, twirling like tops, smiling and gazing into each other’s eyes. Waking up to the real world felt like a body slam, and Matilda sat staring out the window next to her bunk and trying not to cry. She wondered if she could use Gerdie’s bridge device to find the world of her dreams. A simple push of a button could take her to a place where her mom and dad still loved each other.
When she felt calmer, she decided to take advantage of the fact that everyone else was still asleep. She climbed out of the bunk and moved from cabin to cabin, quietly searching through Lilly’s, Kylie’s, and Pammy’s belongings. She opened their drawers and duffel bags, rifled through their personal things, even peeked under their beds. Unfortunately, she didn’t find anything useful, except that Pammy might be a candy hoarder.
Frustrated, Matilda put everything back in place and returned to her bunk. She flipped open her notebook and took stock of her notes. Her suspects were mysteries to her. Kylie was kind and funny and in a crisis she kept a cool head. She could certainly have learned that from spy training. Tiffany was very athletic, something that would have come in handy as a secret agent. On the other hand, there were Pammy and Lilly, who spent most of their hours in front of the mirror, complimenting themselves. They followed Tiffany around like puppy dogs, and both could be exceptionally mean, but these were all just surface observations. What did she really know about them? Nothing! They were almost strangers to her. Kylie was sweet—she could even possibly be a real friend to Matilda—but getting to know the others made Matilda cringe. With her friends at home she had complete confidence, and she wasn’t bashful about speaking to anyone. But here, at this camp, with her makeup and cheerleading skirt, she felt awkward. Odd how suddenly becoming what most people thought of as beautiful and popular made her feel like a nerd. If only she could swap out the lip gloss for her combat boots!
She managed to catch a few more minutes of sleep before she felt someone standing over her. Pammy was fully dressed in her cheerleading outfit with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.
“Cheerleaders can’t be lazy,” she snapped.
“Um, tired! Attacked by pirates—almost eaten by a shark!”
Pammy rolled her eyes. “Boo-hoo! Let me play a sad violin for you! Get dressed.”
Matilda swallowed her impulse to deliver a roundhouse kick to the snotty girl and instead called out to her. “Listen, I know we don’t know each other well, but maybe we could be friends.”
“Friends? You’ve been watching too much Sesame Street,” Pammy said.
“I don’t know the first thing about you,” Matilda said. She tried to remember Gerdie’s file. What had it said about her sisters? Were they triplets? Yes! “Like, do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Pammy turned and looked at Matilda for a long time, then sighed in surrender. “No, I’m an only child. My parents wisely decided to spend all their time and money to make me the amazing person that I am today. Now, if you’ve got enough info for your biography, you better get outside and be ready to cheer in five minutes!”
As Pammy stomped out of the cabin, Matilda jotted in her notebook that she was an only child. She tucked the notebook under her pillow, then leaped out of bed. A moment later she was dressed and rushing outside. She hoped that Tiffany would notice her eagerness and not abuse her as much as usual; her mostly sleepless night was starting to catch up to her. She also hoped she’d have a chance to talk to her other suspects, especially Lilly and Kylie. Unfortunately, she was the last one to arrive for practice. Lilly was propping up McKenna, as the effects of the memory wipe were clearly still causing balance problems, and poor Kylie was forced to follow Tiffany around with a hot cup of cocoa in case their leader needed a sip.
“I thought Pammy told you to get ready!” Tiffany snapped at Matilda.
“What? I am ready!”
Tiffany laughed. “Your hair is ugh and where’s your makeup? When we practice, we have to look like we’re going on stage. You may think you’re a natural beauty, but I promise you that you’re not. Oh, and take Kylie. She could use some work, too.”
Matilda enjoyed a
beautiful little daydream about body slamming Tiffany into the muddy practice field, but she also realized that their leader was doing her a favor. Now she would get some alone time with one of her suspects.
Matilda and Kylie stood in front of the bathroom mirror. They debated blush and eyeliner while Matilda pretended to know the difference between them.
“So you’re makeup challenged, too?” Kylie said.
Matilda nodded. “I wasn’t exactly a girlie-girl before cheerleading entered my life.”
Kylie smiled. “Nice to know someone else was going through an awkward phase.”
“Awkward, huh?”
“The worst. Sometimes I wondered if I was even human—but hey, look at me now. I’m hot!” She licked her finger, set it on her arm, and then made a sizzling sound.
“I’m so hot I have a fever!” Matilda said. She couldn’t help but like Kylie. Unlike the other girls, who seemed proud of how shallow and superficial they could be, Kylie had a sense of self that couldn’t be touched by petty insults. She didn’t seem to care what the others thought of her.
“So, where are you from, Kylie?”
“Oh, everywhere. My mom moves us around a lot. You?”
“Well, I was born in San Francisco but moved east when I was a baby. My parents wanted me to get a good education. I’m a bit of a math prodigy. Do you like math?”
Kylie smiled. “I can barely add two plus two,” she said. “And I wouldn’t walk around bragging about being smart in front of the rest of the squad. There’s nothing that makes dumb people angrier than having a smart person reminding them that they’re morons.”
“HEY!” Tiffany’s voice bellowed from outside. “Let’s go! The portal is opening right now!”
How is that possible? Matilda thought. She and the NERDS had confiscated it.
They raced into the forest and saw Toni and Jeannie vanishing into the huge white ball. This time, Shauna was wearing a bridge device, brand-new and just as pink and sparkly as the last.