“Exactly!” Matilda said.

“Cheerleaders have a lot of pep and enthusiasm. You act like you’re at a funeral.”

Matilda snarled. “I’m doing the best I can!”

“No, you’re not,” the Hyena barked. “You have a lousy attitude. Do you think the National Cheerleading Association is looking for a girl who wipes her nose with her pom-poms? You may think you’re too good for this, but there are a thousand girls out there who really want to be cheerleaders and you’re taking their spot! You can’t even give them the respect of doing a good job.”

Matilda stomped her foot. “It’s no secret around here that I’m not a girlie-girl. I want a break.”

“A break? The tryouts are tomorrow, Wheezer! I’m trying to teach you something that takes months to learn, and you only have tonight to learn it. We don’t have time for a break or your bad attitude.”

The Hyena wanted to clobber Wheezer—really, just kick her in the backside with her boot—but what would it solve? Nothing! She was wasting her time. The NERDS would have to find Gerdie Baker some other way. The Hyena stomped across the gymnasium floor and out into the hall. There she punched a locker and growled.

“You’re approaching her the wrong way,” Duncan said. He was standing in the doorway and had clearly seen the whole thing.

“Oh yeah? How would you do it, sticky?”

“I’d stop trying to get her to adapt to your teaching and start adapting to her way of learning,” Duncan said. “She’s not like a lot of girls. She’s interested in things most girls turn their noses up at. Find a way to connect to those things.”

“So stop everything and get to know her? We don’t have time.”

Duncan nodded. “OK, then here are Matilda’s five favorite things in order: professional wrestling, Ultimate Fighting, punching people in the face, punching people in the belly, kicking people.”

“Cheerleading is not a combat sport!” the Hyena said.

“Isn’t it? There’s a lot of kicking and punching the air,” Duncan said, then he turned and walked back down the hallway.

The Hyena watched the chubby boy waddle away and thought about what he had said. Cheering and wrestling were so totally different. She looked up at the clock and sighed. They were running out of time, and she had run out of ideas. She might as well give it a try.

She pushed open the gymnasium doors and stepped inside. Matilda was lying in the center of the basketball court staring up at the ceiling. “Back for more?”

The Hyena stood over the girl. She stared down at her for a long time, trying to find the connection that Duncan spoke of—but cheerleading was all kicking and jumping and acrobatics, and wrestling was all …

“Let’s try the clap one more time,” the Hyena said.

Matilda got to her feet and rolled her eyes. She put her hands in position but without any excitement.

“I want you to imagine that there is a bad guy’s head between your hands.”

“Huh?”

“You’re going to box his ears, which will mess up his balance and make him cry,” the Hyena explained. “You don’t want him to get away, so you have to keep your hands within your shoulders.”

“That’s good advice,” Matilda said, her eyes suddenly sparkling.

“Plus, you keep your hands straight and tight. A quick and hard clap could burst his eardrums, which is a plus.”

“Like this?” Matilda asked, suddenly producing a perfect cheerleading clap.

The Hyena smiled. “Exactly. It’s very dark and troubling, but it’s perfect. Now let’s try some high kicks.”

Matilda frowned.

“You know, like kicking someone in the face.”

Matilda smiled.

The two girls went to work. The Hyena taught the tiny spy everything she knew, tailored to Matilda’s violent hobbies. When Matilda imagined she was crushing someone’s head using the T Stunt or corkscrew backflip, she did it with zeal.

They worked all through the night, and when the sun came up, the Hyena smiled. Matilda was a first-rate cheerleader, even with the bloodlust in her eyes.

The Hyena walked out of the gymnasium and found Agent Brand standing in the hallway.

“My work here is done,” she said.

“Cheerleading?” Molly said skeptically.

“Cheerleading?” Matilda’s brothers cried in unison.

“Cheerleading?” Ben said. “You want to be a cheerleader?”

Matilda nodded.

Mickey laughed. “That’s hilarious!”

The other boys laughed uproariously. Marky fell off the sofa and groaned between giggles.

“Shut up, monkeys,” Molly snapped, then turned her attention back to Ms. Holiday.

“My daughter wants to stand in front of football teams and wave pom-poms?” Molly asked. Her face was like stone.

“Um, yes,” Ms. Holiday said. The librarian had come to the Chois to convince Matilda’s parents to allow her to try out for the NCA. Ben Choi seemed thrilled—and slightly bewildered by his daughter’s new look. Molly, however, was intense and suspicious. She had totally stolen Ms. Holiday’s confidence. Lisa felt as if the woman could hear her thoughts. “Just to be clear, competitive cheerleaders don’t cheer for athletic teams. It’s a sport unto itself, combining cheering with acrobatics and dance.”

Ben spoke up, nodding. “Molly, cheering is very popular. I took some photographs of it for a magazine. People love it.”

“That makes no sense,” Marky said. “If there is no team, who are they cheering for?”

“Marky, hush!” Molly scolded, then turned back to Ms. Holiday. “That makes no sense.”

Ms. Holiday turned to Wheezer, who sat on a couch nearby. She hoped the girl might help win over her mother, but Wheezer just shrugged.

“If she makes the squad, she will go to a cheerleading camp right here in Arlington, where she and other girls her age will prepare for the national competition held on the Mall in D.C. She will be gone for a week, and completely supervised the whole time.”

“Why does the school care about cheering in the summertime?” Molly said.

Ms. Holiday blinked. She wasn’t prepared for such a question, even though it was perfectly reasonable. Of course the school didn’t care about cheerleading! What could she say? Mrs. Choi looked as if she could smell a lie from a thousand miles away.

“They think it will help me come out of my shell,” Matilda said.

“I’ve seen you come out of your shell. Tell them you should go back in,” Moses said. This made the other boys fall all over themselves once again.

Molly stood up. “All of you. Go bounce an egg! Out!” she bellowed.

The boys ran out of the room like they were trying to escape from an erupting volcano. When they were gone, Molly returned to her seat. Her eyes locked on to Ms. Holiday’s once more. The librarian could feel the suspicion radiating off her.

“It will also teach me some leadership qualities,” Matilda said.

“Leadership?”

“Sure!” Ms. Holiday said. “It will teach her how to work in a team.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “Matilda does not need to know how to work in a team. She needs to know how to lead one. She comes from a family of very strong women. Her brothers will need her guidance. You saw them! What can silly cheerleading give my daughter to make her brothers fear her?”

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!”