I’d joined the Squad as a computer hacker with a third-degree black belt, and they’d turned me into a cheerleader. After a series of more-than-intense makeovers, fashion interventions, and instructions on the finer points of the toe touch, I looked like a cheerleader, cheered like a cheerleader, sat at the popular table for lunch, and spent my afternoons training for and going on missions that would blow most people’s minds. That last part, I loved. The rest of it was pretty much Toby torture.
I checked my watch. It was only seven-thirty in the morning, and between the Great Body Glitter Debate of 2008 and Brooke’s refusal to give me any actual cookies, I was already up to two woe-is-me moments today. Considering there was a pep rally in my near future, I could only conclude that things were going to get much, much worse.
“Blue’s got better contrast.”
“But gold accents our tans!”
Apparently, the debate was getting pretty intense. How messed up was it that we could unanimously agree on how to handle potential terrorists, but nearly came to blows over body glitter? After a few more minutes, Brooke decided to put the “issue” to a vote, and as the others weighed in, I looked at each girl in turn. I had to actively remind myself that, sparkly cosmetics aside, these girls were a force to be reckoned with, and pretty much no one knew it but me.
Zee Kim, in addition to being a first-class gossipmonger/ party queen, was a former child prodigy. She’d gotten her PhD in forensic psychology at the age of fifteen, and soon thereafter transferred to Bayport High for the sole purpose of joining the Squad. The fact that she got a second chance at living the high school high life was just an added bonus—one that Zee took full advantage of, one A-list affair at a time.
Brooke I-Am-Captain-Hear-Me-Roar Camden was the very definition of A-list. She decided who or what was in, and behind closed doors, she was the one who ran our decisions by the Big Guys Upstairs, our vague and anonymous contacts in Washington. Brooke was a legacy, raised by a mother who’d been part of the Squad pilot program back in the day. As a result, Brooke had been taught from the cradle to do two things: to cheer and to lead our team like the little diva/dictator she was. Of all the girls, Brooke was the only one who could match me in hand-to-hand, which meant that when it came to combat, she was (as much as I hated to admit it) darn near amazing.
To Brooke’s left, the twins were adamantly voting for their body glitter of choice—gold. Brittany and Tiffany were absolutely identical and shared matching aptitudes for fashion and the manipulation of the so-called stronger sex. All things male melted into a pile of XY chromosomal goo in the twins’ presence. When they weren’t playing the seduction card, the twins designed our outfits for missions. They’d also appointed themselves the masters of my personal wardrobe, which was why I now owned more pairs of shoes than most of Young Hollywood combined.
Tara Leery—the most down-to-earth and therefore least Hollywoodesque of the girls—was a British exchange student whose parents were operatives overseas. She’d moved to Bayport to become part of the Squad, and as far as I’d been able to tell, she lived with an “aunt” who may or may not have been CIA. Tara spoke somewhere in the neighborhood of eight zillion languages, and could read and write more than that. She was my Squad partner, and from the beginning, she was the one I counted on to have my back.
Since I’d joined the Squad, my back had needed a lot of covering, due in part to the great deal of enmity that Brooke’s second in command, Chloe Larson, seemed to have for computer geeks in general and me in specific. A former child inventor, Chloe was now one hundred percent high school power player, and despite the amount of brain cells she reserved for playing the popularity game, Chloe’s grasp of microtechnology put mine to shame. Needless to say, she could also without question outsnob, outsnark, and outcheer me any day of the week.
That just left our peppy-to-a-fault weapons expert, Lucy Wheeler; our contortionist and resident space cadet (figuratively speaking), Bubbles (yes, Bubbles) Lane; and April Manning—the only other new recruit this season besides yours truly.
Looking at the girls, split 5–4 on the body glitter issue, I thought about everything that I knew they were capable of doing. They were smart. They were athletic. They were beautiful, and they were continually and severely underestimated.
They were, in other words, perfect spies.
“Toby? Earth to Toby?”
I registered Brooke’s tone and sent her a look that some people might have described as surly. “What?”
“Blue or gold?”
Apparently, they were still waiting for my vote. Let’s see, I thought, what color body glitter do I want to wear?
“Neither.”
Brooke smiled. “Blue it is.”
Damn.
CHAPTER 2
Code Word: Interesting
By the time we hit the locker room, there was exactly half an hour until first period, and my only goal was to delay being glittered for as long as was humanly possible. It was bad enough that I’d actually agreed (under duress) to wear a cheerleading uniform to school. The last thing I wanted was to draw any more attention to my uncomfortably short skirt, the bright blue ribbon tied around my superhigh ponytail, and the fact that my current look was about as far from my trademarked antifashion combat boots as you could possibly imagine.
Somehow, I didn’t think blue body glitter would do anything to de-emphasize my predicament.
“You don’t stand a chance,” Zee whispered, patting me consolingly on the shoulder. The good thing about having a profiler on the Squad was that she was a little more sympathetic to my obvious torment than most of the others. The bad part was that she was so perceptive that she may as well have been psychic, and the very idea of psychic cheerleaders scared the crap out of me.
“I could make a run for it,” I said under my breath.
Zee shrugged. “You could try,” she said, “but the twins might take it personally, and then you’d wake up tomorrow with rhinestones glued to your eyelashes.”
I stared at Zee in complete horror, knowing that there was at least a ninety-nine percent chance that she’d accurately predicted the twins’ most likely course of action. While I considered the inhumanity of having my eyelashes defiled in my sleep, one of the twins snuck up on me, and before I could dive-roll out of the way, she had a hold on my arm.
“Hold still and close your eyes!” Brittany ordered.