______________

1. WHEN I WAS LITTLE, THE OTHER CHILDREN WOULD MAKE ME

a. LAUGH (1 POINT)

b. HAPPY (1 POINT)

c. CHEER (1 POINT)

d. START FIRES (10 POINTS)

DO NOT PICK THIS ONE!

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2. WHEN I SEE THE SUNRISE, I WANT TO

a. THANK THE WORLD FOR ANOTHER DAY OF LIFE (1 POINT)

b. BASK IN THE WONDER THAT IS THE UNIVERSE (1 POINT)

c. FEEL ITS RAYS KISSING MY SKIN (1 POINT)

d. STEAL THE SUN AND HOLD IT HOSTAGE UNTIL THE WORLD PAYS ME A TRILLION DOLLARS (10 POINTS)

THIS ONE ISN’T GOOD, KID.

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3. MY PARENTS ARE

a. LOVELY PEOPLE (1 POINT)

b. INSPIRING (1 POINT)

c. MY HEROES (1 POINT)

d. CARNIVAL FOLK WHO TAUGHT ME TO SWINDLE PEOPLE (10 POINTS)

NOPE! NADA! NO PICKY!

______________

4. MY BIGGEST WISH WOULD BE

a. WORLD PEACE (1 POINT)

b. A CURE FOR ALL DISEASES (1 POINT)

c. AN END TO POVERTY (1 POINT)

d. TO CAPTURE MY ENEMIES AND DISPLAY THEM IN A HUMAN ZOO (10 POINTS)

THIS IS SO, SO WRONG.

______________

5. THERE IS NOTHING MORE ADORABLE THAN A

a. PUPPY (1 POINT)

b. BUNNY (1 POINT)

c. BABY (1 POINT)

d. A PUPPY VS. BUNNY DEATH MATCH REFEREED BY A BABY (10 POINTS)

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT CHOOSING THIS ONE, BUSTER!

OK, ADD THEM UP.

AAARGH! WHY DO I EVEN TRY?

Gerdie was led into the Playground by Matilda, the lunch lady, and a few kids she was told were current members of the team. She spotted Ms. Holiday waiting for her by the briefing table. It was nice to see a familiar face, even if its expression was full of disappointment.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Gerdie said, knowing the woman wanted an explanation for her behavior.

“You don’t think I know what it’s like to feel awkward, Gerdie?” Ms. Holiday said. “If you had asked, I could have shown you some old school pictures of me that would make your hair stand on end. I was a mess, but I grew out of it. You would have, too.”

“I couldn’t wait.”

“Your impatience nearly destroyed the world,” Benjamin said as the orb floated toward her.

“But you do have a chance to fix things,” Ms. Holiday said as she unlocked the handcuffs that bound Gerdie’s wrists.

“Are you ready for your upgrades?” Benjamin asked.

Gerdie nodded. “I’ve missed them.”

“Then let’s get started,” Matilda said. “I’m exhausted and I’d really like to get out of this stupid uniform.”

Ms. Holiday ushered Gerdie into the upgrade room, then slid the door closed behind them.

At once a familiar electronic voice broadcasted through speakers mounted on the wall. “Scanning for weaknesses.”

“Upgrade room, stop scan. This is Ms. Holiday. Access file name Mathlete.”

The electronic voice was silent for a moment and then, “File found. Accessing data.”

“Re-install,” Ms. Holiday said.

A bed lifted up from the floor and Gerdie was eased on to her back. Her hands and feet were strapped down. Hoses and tubes dropped from the ceiling to begin their work.

Soon she could feel the tiny robots coursing through her bloodstream and up into her head. Complex numbers and equations illuminated inside her mind like tiny lightning bugs. Percentages and probabilities swam around in the sea that was her consciousness—free of life preservers. She felt as if there was nothing she could not understand.

When the process was over, the door of the upgrade room slid open and she stepped out to greet the rest of the NERDS team. Agent Brand, whom she had never met, said hello. The lunch lady welcomed her back.

“Are you ready to get started?” he said.

Gerdie nodded and felt a smile growing. She was needed. She was necessary. If she hadn’t been torn from this world so quickly after becoming part of it … well, who knew? Maybe being a Bigfoot would have been more tolerable.

“Before you start, a few words of warning,” Benjamin said. “Miss Baker, I know you worked with Heathcliff—”

“Screwball!” the boy shouted from across the room.

“Screwball,” Benjamin corrected. “I know you worked with him, but he is not who you remember. Do not allow him to lure you into committing another crime.”

“Thank you, Benjamin, but I assure you that my upgrades make me much smarter than him,” Gerdie said. “He won’t fool me again.”

Heathcliff chuckled but said nothing.

The two of them got to work. She was impressed with his theory but quickly realized that the average person—even with a brilliant brain—couldn’t do the math to make such a machine work. With a team of a hundred scientists she assembled an equation that spanned fifty chalkboards. When they ran out of room, they used the tiles on the walls.

Heathcliff built and tore apart a dozen different versions of his atomic harpoon. Each version lacked some combination of power, output, and stability, and each failure sent him into a rage. He shouted at everyone, especially his goon, whose skin was still scarred and blistered from the bug attack. The man’s head was wrapped in gauze and he clearly needed to be in bed resting, but he said his place was by his boss’s side—even if all he did was fetch milk shakes and cheeseburgers for Heathcliff.

Remembering Benjamin’s warning, Gerdie kept a wary eye on Heathcliff. Still, she couldn’t help but admire his ideas. The two former members of NERDS stayed up late assembling the final version of the device they hoped would save the multiverse.

“So why are you doing this?” she finally asked him when most of the scientists were helping themselves to their fourth, fifth, and sixth cups of coffee. “They tell me you want to take over the world.”

“There needs to be a world for me to take over,” Heathcliff said.

“And when it’s done and the world is safe?”

“My next plan to conquer this terrible little dirt ball will begin,” he said without hesitation. “Oh, you look surprised. You think that I want to rule this world to crush it under my shoe? No. I want to make it a better place for people like us, Gerdie. Our whole lives we’ve been tormented by popular kids and bullies. Look at you! Your own family abused you so much you took drastic medical action. They drove you to create an all-new version of yourself. Does that seem right?”

“No,” Gerdie whispered.

“I want to change things so no one will ever feel that way again.”

“We’re nerds, Screwball. We can’t change that,” Gerdie said.

“That’s where you are wrong, Mathlete! We are special, and we are better than those around us. We should be held up as beacons of hope instead of having to hide in bathrooms and run home after school. That’s what I want for this world.”

“And an army of slaves that do all of your bidding,” Gerdie added.

“Well, of course! Who doesn’t want an army of slaves?” he said.

Gerdie turned the final screw in the device and took a step back. Before her were two identical atomic harpoons, which were squat metal devices with straps to wear like a backpack, and her sparkly pink bridge device. Her head spun as she double-checked her equations for any possible errors. But there was nothing to worry about. The machines would work. “We’re going to save the multiverse, Heathcliff.”