“And spirit pins,” I said earnestly.

“And spirit sticks.”

“And we’re having a car wash next Saturday.”

“And we’re trying to get Krispy Kreme to sponsor us, so maybe if you buy something now, we can get you free donuts later.”

The security guard seemed taken aback, but he didn’t move at all.

“I can do the splits,” Brooke volunteered, sounding as air-headed as Bubbles at her worst.

“Ronald, what’s going on out there?” a voice called from further back, inside the office.

Ronald—who I’d decided looked like a Mopsy—turned around. “Some girls selling cookies,” he called. “They can do the splits.”

Moments later, Phillip Ross exited his lab and made his way to the reception area, where Ronald/Mopsy, who was eyeing us slightly more speculatively, had nevertheless kept us in the hall, instead of inviting us in. Looking past Mopsy’s shoulder, I could see Ross, who looked every bit as nerdy in person, flanked by another security guard—Flopsy. I could only infer that Cottontail was in the lab or the kitchen, safeguarding the loot.

“What school do you guys go to?” Ross asked, peering around Mopsy’s massively broad shoulder.

“Bayport,” Brooke said. Fake names, real school. It was a combination specifically designed to discredit Ross’s story if he happened to try to pass it on. After all, if we were parading around in our own school’s uniforms, oozing Bayport High spirit from our very pores, why would we bother with fake names? It made no sense, and that was exactly why we did it.

Ross appraised us through his thick, wire-rimmed glasses. “Maybe you’re from Bayport and maybe you’re not. Won’t you come in?”

The invitation sounded ominous. Apparently, inventing an incredibly dangerous little doodad had convinced Phillip Ross that he was a badass. I could only imagine that he was inviting us in to determine if we were who we said we were, and if he didn’t buy it…

Well, then I’d get to really use this so-called spirit stick.

“Awesome,” Brooke said, and the two of us stepped into the office. The doors closed behind us.

I held out the clipboard. “You can sign up for cookies here,” I said. “The Sis-Boom-Baked Chocolate Chip are my favorite.”

“But the Go, Fight, Cinnamon are also really good,” Brooke put in.

The fact that we were even managing to do this with a straight face was remarkable.

“Or you could buy a pin,” I said, holding one up for his inspection. He took it, turned it over, and then handed it back to me.

“So you girls are cheerleaders,” he said.

We nodded.

“You cheer?”

We nodded again.

“Prove it.”

Man, this guy really was paranoid. Then again, he was also right, but that was completely beside the point.

“Prove it?” I repeated dubiously.

Brooke wasn’t nearly as thrown as I was. “Clap your hands,” she said, and then she went into major cheer mode.

“Ready? Okay!”

My response to those two words was purely instinctual. It had been drilled into me over and over again, and I knew exactly what to do.

“Clap your hands, everybody! Everybody, clap your hands!”

We threw ourselves into the cheer, and I managed to keep up with Brooke, move for move, head bob for head bob.

“Goooooooooo Lions!”

Cheering without the entire Squad felt slightly sacrilegious, but it was far preferable to being shot by Flopsy or Mopsy, and Brooke and I finished with bright smiles on our faces.

“They’re cheerleaders,” Flopsy grunted. “Can’t fake that.”

“So, do you guys like want some cookies, or what?” I threw an extra like in there, just for good measure. “The guys downstairs bought like a ton.”

“Let me see that,” Ross said, taking the order form. “You guys want anything?” he asked the bodyguards. “I think I’m going to get a couple boxes of Rah-Rah Rum Raisin.”

Do not laugh, I ordered myself silently. Do not laugh.

“That last jump made my tummy all rumbly,” I said instead, sticking out my lower lip and feeling like the idiot I was pretending to be. “Is there a bathroom in here?”

Ross amiably pointed me toward the bathroom, all suspicion he might have once harbored toward me flying out the door. I was young, I was a cheerleader, and—as every single member of the Squad had pointed out—I had the world’s flattest chest, which, for some reason, meant that I was the exact type of person that Ross instinctually saw as unthreatening and trustworthy.

He must have had some bad experiences with big boobs in the past.

I made my way to the bathroom, aware as I walked that Flopsy had slipped away from the group to follow me. I opened the bathroom door, stepped inside, and locked it. I crouched and listened, until I could see Flopsy’s feet right outside the door.

Now I just had to undo the vent and climb into the air-conditioning ducts without making any noise that might tip my good friend off to the fact that I was dealing with more than a rumbly tummy.

Luckily, I was good at improvising.

I put the toilet seat down and stood on top of it to reach the vent. I took a bobby pin out of my hair and began to unscrew the screws holding the vent in place, and to cover the noise, I did something that no other member of the Squad would have thought to do.

I pressed my lips against my arm and blew, making an incredibly loud and disturbingly realistic fart sound. There were some pluses to having grown up with a little brother, and this talent, nay, this gift was one of them.

I took another screw out and let out another juicy noise. Outside the door, I could see the bottom of Flopsy’s feet as he took a cautionary step away from the bathroom.

Chalk one up for fart noises.

The vent finally came off, and I let out one more massive faux fart, and just for good measure, I groaned a little.

Outside the door, Flopsy backed further away.

“I…uhhhh…I think I might be a minute,” I called.

Flopsy was too traumatized to reply. Excellent.

I set the vent cover down and boosted myself into the air duct. All things considered, it was a minor miracle that this building had air ducts big enough for me to fit into. Most modern buildings didn’t, and honestly, you would think that if a person was planning on being an evil mastermind, he would invest in an office that didn’t provide his enemies with a convenient route of passage through his wannabe lair.

Once I was inside the duct, I started crawling. It was dark, but my eyes adjusted quickly, and I made my way as fast as I could toward the kitchen. My brilliant performance in the bathroom had probably bought me a couple of minutes (Flopsy wasn’t exactly going to be anxious to break down the bathroom door), but I couldn’t count on more than that.

I counted inside my head, imagining how fast I was going and calculating the distance between the kitchen and the bathroom, and finally, I stopped over another vent. There, right below me, was Cottontail.

He was bigger than either of the guards I’d already seen, and he looked significantly more deadly. Someone who’s had as much martial arts training as I have can spot another master a long way off, and the guy below me was good, no question. Very quietly, I reached for my spirit stick blow gun. I’d been instructed to use it as a last resort, but time was passing, and the only way to ensure that I didn’t engage the enemy was to take him out now. Besides, if Ross wasn’t going to advertise the fact that he’d lost his prototype and acquired a decoy, I doubt he’d take out billboards announcing that one of his guards had fallen asleep on the job.

As for Cottontail, from what I understood of the darts, he wouldn’t remember a thing.

Positioned directly above someone this dangerous, I was struck by a momentary fear that he would look up, but just as he began to gaze unwittingly toward me, I heard a voice from the other room.

“Hey, Merv? You want any cookies?”

If he said yes, I wouldn’t have to go against orders and dart him. And even if he said no, at least the question distracted him long enough to allow me just enough time to double-check my aim.

“No,” Merv barked. “No cookies.”