“Riiiiiiight,” I said. “Covert. Because no one in their right minds would suspect that the government was training cheerleaders for the CIA.”
Lucy rewarded me with the perkiest of grins, either ignoring or failing to notice the sarcasm in my tone. “Exactly.”
“By the late eighties,” Lucy continued, “most of the remaining Squad programs had been disbanded due to various budget cuts, but ours remained operational. Over time, the Bayport High Squad Program evolved to be less and less about training and more about helping the government keep an eye on a very specific group of people.”
“In other words,” I started to say, and before I’d finished the sentence, Lucy was nodding.
“In other words,” she said, “we’re like totally special.”
I would say that she’d stolen the words out of my mouth, but thetotally specialcomment bore no resemblance whatsoever to what I’d intended to say.
“Okay,” I said. “Let me get this straight. Once upon a time, the government—God knows why—started recruiting high school cheerleaders and training them to be spies, andsomewhere along the way, it actually occurred to them that this wasn’t the best use of the taxpayers’ dollars, so they stopped with the cheer-spies thing, except here in Bayport, where the Squad went from being a cover-up for some sort of spy school to being an actual operative agency?”
Lucy nodded. “That about covers it.”
“And these people that we’re supposed to ‘keep an eye’ on?”
Lucy shrugged. “They’re the bad guys.”
How very illuminating.
I was going to ask more questions, but Lucy changed the subject with all the subterfuge her cheerleading mystique could muster. “What do you think—blow darts—in or out?”
I pictured myself blow-darting an evil football player. “In.”
I had so many more questions about the Squad—what exactly did we do? How much training did we receive? How was this whole thing even legal? Despite Lucy’s dumb act (and, overcaffeination aside, I was starting to suspect that itwasan act), I had a feeling that she knew more than she was letting on. At the same time, though, she was holding a knife, and I didn’t want to press her.
“So,” I said, eyeing the knife nervously. “Have you always been into weapons?”
“Me?” Lucy asked, and then she laughed loudly. Given the insanely broad smile on her face and the extra-large knife in her hand, it was borderline freaky. “Gosh, no. A couple of years ago, I’d never even seen a slingshot. I just wanted to make the varsity squad, you know? I’d been cheerleading for like ever, and making varsity seemed to be like this huge challenge and stuff. It was just something I did, and I wantedto do it well, you know? Cheerleading and student council and school and riding classes and … well, you get the drift. Anyway, when they brought me onto the Squad, I had like no specialty whatsoever. I wasn’t a transfer like you. I was just a regular old recruit, like April, but I wanted to be good at something, and their weapons person had just graduated …”
“Hold on there, Skippy … errr … Lucy, what do you mean ‘a transfer’ like me?”
Lucy shrugged. “Some of us are Bayport natives,” she said. “We grew up here, and when we were old enough, we started cheerleading. It’s just what people do here, you know?”
I didn’t interrupt her, but did concentrate on using my nonexistent mind-control powers to compel her to get to the point.
“When I was in fifth grade, everyone wanted to be a cheerleader. I mean, I think every single girl in our class tried out. They picked forty of us that year, and then the next year, it was thirty-five, and they kept getting rid of people. Tryouts kept getting more and more competitive. By the time I made JV, there were only twelve of us.”
Lucy’s voice took on a new tone as she talked about the lengths she’d gone to in her pursuit of making varsity.
“Lucy,” I told her. “Transfer.”
“Oh yeah,” Lucy said. “Well, the way it works is like this. The Bayport Cheerleading Association runs the tryouts for JV and under, and they’re like, a bunch of overinvolved parents and all of the coaches. And I guess maybe some of the coaches are government people or something, because by the time we reach JV, they have all kinds of reports on us. And every year, the Squad captain gets profiles on all the currentmembers of JV, and any other ‘people of interest’ in the sophomore class, and the members do a little digging around. We read through the files we’ve been given, and we do a bunch of prescreening and whoever the current Zee is runs all her psycho-whatsits on them, and then if there are any open spots, we make our recommendations to the Boss Guys.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“No idea who the Boss Guys are,” Lucy said. “That’s why I just call them the Boss Guys. Or maybe you were wondering about the whole ‘current Zee’ thing? Because obviously, there’s only one Zee, but I meant, you know, whoever has Zee’s job. Because picking the new Squad is part of the current Squad’s duty, and the current Squad is always changing and stuff, so …”
“Lucy?”
“Yeah?”
“Transfer.” I tell you, keeping the Queen of Babbling on task was a full-time job.
“Oh yeah,” Lucy said. “Well, you know how I said we fill in any extra spots with girls from JV?”
I nodded.
