“Wheezer looks like that because she wants to,” Flinch said.

“Yeah, she likes being different,” Jackson said. “Cheerleaders tend to look alike. Turning her into one is her worst nightmare.”

“It doesn’t help that the person doing the makeover is a former beauty queen, either,” Duncan added.

“I don’t know what you guys think I do all day, but I’m a pretty busy secret agent. I got yanked out of the middle of a mission to do this, and I’ve got to get back within twenty-four hours or risk blowing my cover, putting a lot of my team in danger. So let’s make a few things clear. I’m not here to judge her. If her inner beauty makes her a supermodel, well, zip-a-dee-doo-dah. But in my experience, cheerleaders tend to have a lot of outer beauty. If she wants this mission to succeed, she needs to be pretty, and I’m going to make her that way if I have to knock her out and moisturize her stupid, unconscious face.”

“What can we do to help?” Ruby asked.

“Have the paramedics on standby,” the Hyena said as she did a few stretches then ran in place to warm up. When she felt ready, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a set of tweezers. “I’m going back in.”

“Keep an eye on her teeth,” Flinch warned. “She bites.”

“We’ve all learned that the hard way,” Duncan said.

The Hyena took a deep breath and then opened the door.

“I will never forget you,” Jackson said just as it slammed shut.

The Hyena stepped into complete darkness. Matilda had broken all the lightbulbs in the room. Smart move. If she couldn’t be seen, she couldn’t be tweezed. Plus, it gave her a combat edge since her eyes had more time to adjust to the low light. Still, as a highly trained former would-be assassin and current spy, the Hyena had learned a few things about finding people who preferred to stay hidden.

“Wheezer, we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. Either way, I’m turning you into a babe.”

“Bring it on, you beauty pageant has-been,” Wheezer’s voice said from the shadows.

The Hyena bristled. Has-been? She was Oklahoma’s Tornado Alley Twister Princess two years in a row! She had been first runner-up in the Ms. Tweenager Pageant! She had retired at the top of her game!

“There’s no need to get personal,” she said, but her words were drowned out by the sound of rocket engines. Suddenly, the room lit up like a fireworks display. Temporarily blinded, the Hyena did not see Wheezer fly over her head, but she felt the kick in the ear. Instinctively, the Hyena leaped out of Wheezer’s path, slamming into a wall. Her ear and her shoulder burned.

“Count your lucky stars, Secret Agent Barbie,” Matilda shouted as she circled back for another attack. “I could have taken your head off your shoulders.”

As Matilda boasted, the Hyena studied her for weaknesses. She could see two: anger influenced her decisions, and she left her feet exposed when she flew. The Hyena planned to use them both against her. “You’re pretty confident for a girl who needs a stepping stool to get onto the toilet.”

Wheezer snarled and made a beeline for her.

The Hyena had to time her attack just right. If she missed by even the slightest margin, there was a good chance Matilda would give her another black eye. So she locked eyes with Wheezer, and just before impact, she leaned backward like a sapling in the wind and snatched Wheezer by the sneakers.

“Gotcha!” the Hyena cried in triumph, holding on to Wheezer’s foot as she sailed around the room. “That’s a little trick I learned in gymnastics—something I used in my highly successful career as a beauty pageant contestant and now as a highly successful spy.”

She hoped she sounded confident, because she was sure she was going to die. Matilda kicked and bounced around the room in an effort to lose her unwanted passenger. The Hyena was rolled and shaken, dipped and dragged. Somehow she found the strength to climb up Wheezer’s body one inch at a time until she was sitting on her back.

“Set us down!” she demanded.

“No!!!”

“Stop being a baby!” the Hyena said. “It’s not going to hurt … that much.”

“I’m not being a baby! I don’t want to be beautiful.”

The Hyena knew it was time to do something drastic. She clamped one hand over Wheezer’s eyes. Matilda lost control and the two buzzed around the room as blind as bats. With Matilda vulnerable, the Hyena reached around with her tweezers, grasped a rather thick follicle from between Matilda’s eyes, and yanked. Wheezer bellowed like a branded bull, and the two fell to the hard floor.

The Hyena had no time to nurse her wounds. She jumped on top of Wheezer and pinned Wheezer’s arms down with her knees. Then the plucking really began.

“Owww!” Matilda cried. “That hurt!”

“Stop complaining. You’ll get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it. I like my eyebrows the way they are,” Wheezer said.

“Eyebrows is the plural of eyebrow, but you have one giant one! You can’t be a cheerleader if you look like Bert from Sesame Street. Now hold still,” the Hyena said.

Matilda frowned. “I want to look like this!”

“Listen, when this mission is over, you can go back to being a hairy freak, but right now you have to save the world. And to do that, you have to be hot,” the Hyena said, yanking on another stray hair.

“Owww!” Wheezer screamed.

Twenty minutes later Matilda’s one eyebrow was two. When the Hyena handed her a mirror to show her the results, Matilda was so exhausted from fighting that she barely registered the change. “Am I done?”

“Done? Kid, we’ve barely begun!”

The next seven hours were the most grueling of the Hyena’s life. She dug deep into her encyclopedic knowledge of beauty secrets as well as her extensive background in restraining people. After she strapped Wheezer to a table, she went to work conditioning, shampooing, and detangling. She exfoliated with green teas, algae, and sand. She hosed the girl down with sunless tanners and wrapped her in eucalyptus leaves stuffed with mud and chocolate. She oversaw a laser teeth-whitening process, then covered the girl’s face in avocado and cayenne pepper. Wheezer’s toenails nearly required a belt sander to polish and trim. She was dunked repeatedly into a vat of moisturizer to combat her scaly feet and arms. By the time she was finished, the Hyena was covered in scratches and bruises, a clump of her hair was missing, and one of her front teeth was loose. But Matilda Choi was beautiful from head to toe.

The next morning at eight o’clock the Hyena limped into Nathan Hale’s gymnasium. She carried a boom box and was wearing black dancing apparel. Matilda was waiting, but she was wearing a shirt that looked as if she had stolen it from the world’s fattest man.

“What are you wearing?”

“I’m comfortable.” Matilda scowled.

“You look like you’re trapped in a parachute. You can’t wear that to learn how to cheer. Your arms and legs need to be loose and free.”

“They’re free enough to knock you out,” Matilda threatened.

The two girls stared at one another for a long moment, sizing up who would win in a fistfight. The Hyena had to admit she wasn’t sure. “Fine!” she cried. “Wear what you want! We’ll start with some basic stuff—clapping.”

“I don’t need a lesson on how to clap.”

“Oh yeah? Let’s see.”

The Hyena watched Matilda clap her hands like she had just seen a great movie. It was lazy and erratic. “Ta-da! Next lesson.”

“That’s nice if you’re cheering on a tractor pull, but that’s not a cheerleading clap. First of all, you have to hold your hands at chin level. Your fingers need to be tight and your hands like blades. You don’t spread your arms farther apart than your shoulders. It’s very specific.”

Matilda tried it grudgingly. She had the same reaction to everything the Hyena had her do. Wheezer could perform flawless handsprings and backflips, and jump and kick like the best cheerleader ever. But cheerleading requires enthusiasm and a smile, and Matilda didn’t have either. She mumbled a few cheers. Her smile looked like a grimace. Her body language screamed disgust and disdain. After hours of fruitless effort the Hyena threw up her hands. “This is pointless!” she declared.