Spy to the Rescue

To my family

“I
am not a spy,” I say with what I hope is the right mixture of innocence, irritation, and confusion.

The six cheerleaders who kidnapped me regard me with cold, hostile, disbelieving eyes.

If I was any sort of spy, I would not have been so easily bamboozled by the tall, willowy blond girl who sidled up to me as I was heading home from Reindeer Crescent Middle School and held a tiny, big-eyed kitten out under my nose.

“Isn't he beautiful?” the willowy blonde said in a baby voice. “Isn't he the most adorable ball of fluff you've ever seen?”

As if on cue, the little gray kitten reached out a paw to me.

“He loves you,” the blond girl almost sang. “He wants to go home with you. Here. Nuzzle him.”

My gurgly-voiced new friend thrust the kitten into my hands. Feeling him squirm and adjust himself in my grip made me melt a little inside.

“Take him home,” urged the blonde. “Be good to him. Give him the love he needs. He'll give it back to you a hundred times over.”

There were a million reasons to say no. My mom hates cats. My dad is allergic. My brother can't be trusted not to sit on them. It would immediately fall in love with my little sister and ignore me. I'd have to feed him and clean up after him, but . . . those big eyes . . . the way he smooshes up against me. The thought hit me: Am I a cat person? I think I am!

I nodded at the blonde. She let out a sigh of contentment, hooked her arm through mine, and guided me toward a school bus parked a few yards away from the others.

“Jump in here and I'll give you his collar and his toys and then this wonderful kitten will be all yours.”

In there?
I should have said.
Why are a cat's collar and toys in a school bus?
I should have said.
By the way, who
are you, tall, willowy blond girl?
I should have said. But I was fully focused on the little gentleman squirming in my arms as I climbed the steps into the bus.

The second I was inside, my spy senses clicked into gear. This bus was no refuge for abandoned cats. It was filled with cheerleaders. There were six of them, including the willowy blonde who had lured me onto the bus, all dressed in little pleated skirts and tight blue crop tops bearing the Bronze Canyon Valkyries logo, all displaying enviable abs, all looking like they wanted to rip my head off.

The bus door closed behind me.

“Hit it!” snarled the blonde.

The occupant of the driver's seat, a horse-faced woman somewhere in her late twenties, pulled the bus away from the school.

“Give me that,” said the blonde as she yanked the kitten from me.

I sized up the situation. The no-longer-baby-voiced blonde stroked the mewling kitten and barred the door. The other five cheerleaders stood in what I would later discover to be bowling-pin formation in the aisle, making escape impossible.

“Where are we going?”

“Santa Clarita,” growled the driver. “To Bronze
Canyon Academy. The school you tried to blackmail.”

“I what?” I said, nonplussed.

The girl at the tip of the formation—or the pin-head girl, as I like to think of her—the one with blinding white teeth and hair tied up in a huge polka-dotted bow, thrust her phone in my face. I saw cheerleaders flipping and tumbling. To be more specific, I saw Reindeer Crescent's own Cheerminator squad filmed, in somewhat shaky fashion, mid-practice.

I darted a glance out the window nearest me. The bus was traveling in the opposite direction of my route home.

A finger snapped in my face. “Hey!” barked Big Bow. “Eyes on the screen.” I felt a thin wire of anger begin to pulse in me. I looked back at the phone, which now displayed an email. I had to lean so close to read it my glasses almost touched the screen. But I managed to make out the text:

Pay me $1200 & you'll get the rest of the choreography b4 the Cheerminators premiere it at Classic Cheer.

The bus juddered around a corner. I stumbled forward, almost falling into Big Bow. She took a step back. The two rows of Valkyries behind her stepped back at the
same time. I grabbed on to a seat to get my balance.

“Ladies,” I said, trying to remain calm, “I think there's been a mistake. What's going on here is cheer business, and even if being an awesome judge of character isn't a required Valkyrie skill, if you spend a quarter of a second looking at me, it ought to be blindingly clear, I don't care about cheer business.”

“Your name does,” said one of the mid-pin girls.

Once again, I was forced to squint at the screen. The email was sent by someone known as Weird Debt Girl.

“Don't cheereotype us,” said Big Bow. “Being an awesome judge of character is a required Valkyrie skill. In fact, we look for a whole range of talents. One of which is the ability to rearrange letters to form other words.”

“Anagrams,” I said.

“Cheerleaders love anagrams,” she declared. “For instance, if you rearrange the letters of Weird Debt Girl, you get . . .”

“Bridget Wilder.” I nodded. “You also get Blew Dried Grit, Bed Dig Twirler, Bridled Wet Rig, and Brr Weed Dig Lit.” I used to be very into making anagrams of my name before I was cool like I am now. (My record was two hundred. I know there's a lot more.)

“But mainly you get Bridget Wilder,” scowled Big Bow. She folded her arms in triumph. Behind her, the
two rows of Valkyries folded their arms in unison.

“You think I sent you an email demanding money for footage of the new Cheerminator choreography?”

The Valkyries nodded in unison.

“Motive!” shouted the willowy blonde. “Your sister's a new Cheerminator.”

This was true. My younger sister, Natalie had, on a whim, tried out for the Cheerminators a month earlier, and like the effortless overachiever and automatic center of attention she is, instantly became the high-flying jewel in its crown.

“You conspired with her to cut out the competition,” accused Big Bow.

“You're a spy for the Cheerminators,” said the driver. “You're trying to get us to buy the footage and then you'll report us to the Cheer Classic competition committee and get us disqualified for contravening the rules.”

“I am not a spy,” I say.

Which is where
we came in.

“Only someone who is a spy would say something like that,” yells the willowy blonde. She takes the kitten's paw and claws the air with it. “This cat hates you.”

“I'm being set up,” I tell the Valkyries. “I didn't send the email. I didn't film the practice. I don't want your money.”

“What do you think, Coach?” Big Bow calls over to the driver. “She made a pretty convincing case. Should we turn around and take her back to her school?”

The driver taps her fingers off her chin. “Mmmmm . . . ,” she ponders. “No.”

Big Bow puts a hand on my shoulder and goes to shove me down in the nearest seat. “Relax, Bridget Wilder. You're going to be here for a while. We're taking you back to our school. You're going to confess in front of the entire faculty and student body so that they know our cheer-tegrity is intact!”

“Shouldn't that be cheer-tact?” I ask. Big Bow acts like she didn't hear me.

I make a quick scan of the bus. Blonde and kitty still blocking the front door. Bowling-pin formation stands between me and the rear exit. That leaves windows to my right and left. Am I fast and limber enough to jump toward them, open the locks, and slide out?

You never know if you don't try.

I leap to my left, slither nimbly across the seats, unlock the window, jump up and . . .

. . . Big Bow grabs my ankle and yanks me back.

“Uh-uh, Weird Debt Girl,” she mocks. “You're not going anywhere.”

I grope for the window but I clutch only air. What a tragic difference from the days when I was the proud
owner of a nano-tracksuit and sneakers that enabled me to run like the wind. As Big Bow drags me across the seat, my face makes contact with an unearthly stink. My mind immediately goes to the many butts this seat has supported over the years. I try to think about something less gruesome. Sadly, I can't.

As Big Bow thwarts my big escape plan, the rest of her squad accompanies my defeat with an impromptu cheer session.

“We are the Valkyries and we wanna win!”

Clap-clap.

“We murdered you before, watch us kill you again!”

Clap-clap.

Big Bow chants along with her spirit sisters while dragging me across the seats. I'm not a regular bus rider but one thing I know: however gross the seats may be, what lurks underneath them is far, far worse.

While Big Bow chants along with her crew, I summon up inner courage and shove my hand under the school bus seat.

“You're old and slow, we're young, fresh, and fast.”

Clap-clap.

My trembling fingers make contact with something both hard and soft. I resist the urge to gag.

“And we might just decide to stomp all over your . . .”

I wrench the foreign object from under the seat; then I twist around and hurl it straight into the open mouth of Big Bow.

I think it's a black banana but, thank God, I'm not close enough to find out. I am, however, close enough to see the expression on Big Bow's face.

Her eyes widen. She goes bright red. She makes a noise that sounds a bit like
pwah-pwah-pwah
. And she doubles over, coughing and spitting and dry-heaving.

The rest of the Valkyries flock around her, rubbing her back and making sympathetic clucking noises. The willowy blonde puts the kitten up on her shoulder while she ministers to her traumatized teammate.

I pull myself upright and start leaping over the seats. No tracksuit but still nimble! I'm less confident I can squeeze out the window but I know I can kick my way through the rear exit.

Fast as I am, the Valkyries are faster.

One girl from the back pin does handsprings down the aisle of the bus. She lands in a standing position. A second back-pin girl climaxes her handspring by leaping up on the first girl's shoulders. She has to bow her head to avoid banging it on the bus roof but it's an impressive display. Both Valkyries smirk at me. Instinct makes me whirl around.

I see the two mid-pin girls kicking up their legs in the air in perfect time. I do not want one of those flying feet connecting with my face. The Valkyries have boxed me off. I don't have the time or the stomach to search for another black banana. Instead, I squeeze out of my shoes and charge toward the high-kicking duo.

At the exact moment their legs go up in the air, I let myself fall backward as far as I can go without actually slipping over, and I slide straight through their legs.

“Get her!” scream the mid-pin kickers.

My blond friend looks up from the still
pwah-pwah-pwah
-ing Big Bow. I slide toward her, pull myself upright, and snatch the gray kitten off her shoulder.

“She's got Boots!” shrieks the blonde.

“NOOOOOOO!” chorus the Valkyries as one.

“Let me out or the kitten gets it,” I say while stroking the cute little fellow to stop his trembling.

The Valkyries gasp in unison. Some of them start to cry.

“Don't hurt him,” begs the blonde.

“You were going to hurt me,” I point out.

“You're a . . . ,” she starts.

“I'm not,” I yell in her big dumb face. “I'm not a spy. I'm not a blackmailer. Someone set me up.”

“You can tell it to the Classic Cheer committee,”
shouts the coach as she picks up speed. I look out the window. We're on Interstate 5 and she's driving faster.

“Let me off at the next exit or it's curtains for the kitten,” I warn her.

“Cheering is more important than kittens,” the coach growls back at me. I hear more Valkyries sobbing behind me.

“Let her go, Coach,” begs the blonde. “I think she's telling the truth.”

“You're cut from the squad,” spits the coach. “Traitor.”

Okay. Here's the scenario. I'm stuck on a school bus headed to Santa Clarita, some five hours away from my home, with a bunch of emotionally damaged cheerleaders and their demented coach, who clearly is not about to set me free. As I see it, I have only one option. I start to run down the aisle toward the rear exit.