Perfect Cover (The Squad #1)(22)
Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

CHAPTER 13

Code Word: Cheer Shorts

“F-A-B-U! L-O-U-S! Bayport Lions, fab-u-lous!”

I heard the rest of the Squad before I saw them. As we wrapped around to the practice gym, their shouts echoed down the hallway. Tara pushed the door to the gym open, and I spent about five seconds devoutly praying that the cheering girls in front of me were a hologram. Because if they weren’t…

“Last time,” Brooke called out, meeting my eyes, and a few seconds later, all of the girls struck poses, cheesy grins plastered to their made-up faces.

Brooke pushed a stray piece of hair out of her face, and I noticed that she’d worked up a sweat. So much for my hologram theory, I thought. Somehow, I doubted cheerleader illusions had holographic sweat.

“You guys get what you were looking for?” Brooke asked Tara.

Tara nodded. “Totally.”

Brooke smiled. “Awesome.”

How many other times had I overheard the cheerleaders talking like this? Had they always been talking in cheer code? Like I’d assumed that they were talking about some guy or MAC lip gloss or an outfit at the mall, and they’d actually been communicating on a completely different level? I was supposed to be the hacker. I broke codes without even meaning to, but all it had taken was one too many awesomes from them, and I’d assumed they were idiots.

Such was the brilliance of the Squad.

“Ready for practice?” Brooke asked.

I wonder what we would be practicing. Martial arts? Disguise and surprise strategies? Misdirection?

“You guys get changed. We’re getting ready to go over Saturday’s halftime routine.”

I opened my mouth to tell her that I seriously hoped she wasn’t talking about what I thought she was talking about, but Tara reached over and pressed gently on my chin, forcing it back up.

“Come on,” she directed. “Let’s get changed.”

And then before I could so much as audibly lament my dismal situation, she dragged me into the girls’ locker room.

“You have to learn to cheer eventually,” Tara told me.

“The sooner, the better, and side note, Brooke can get kind of ugly when she’s mad, so trust me when I say it’s not worth arguing with her over this.”

“I could take her,” I grumbled. Part of me wanted a rematch with Brooke on solid ground.

“Maybe you could,” Tara said, “but I couldn’t, and you’re my partner, which means…”

“I’m your responsibility?” I asked.

Tara shrugged. “Something like that.”

I whistled under my breath. “Man, they must really hate you.”

“Nah.” Tara shook her head as she stripped off her shirt and slipped into a sports bra. “It was either Chloe or me, and Chlo…”

“Hates me,” I finished.

“She doesn’t hate you,” Tara said. “She just doesn’t like what you represent.” Tara opened a locker and tossed me an extra set of workout clothes. I took one look at the teeny-tiny gym shorts, which had the word CHEER written across the butt, and gave Tara a look.

“It’s all part of the game,” she reminded me, and because I liked Tara and felt bad that she’d gotten the short end of the spirit stick and ended up with permanent Toby Duty, I changed clothes with only a minor level of grumbling.

“So what do I represent to Chloe?” I asked.

Tara bent down to tie her shoes, and she didn’t look at me as she answered. “What she used to be.”

“You’re kidding me.” Lucy had said that Chloe was a transfer—that she’d registered her first patent when she was ten, and it had occurred to me that the average child inventor wasn’t exactly Chloe-esque, but still…I had a hard time picturing a younger Chloe as me. In fact, I was more apt to believe that she’d been a watermelon in a former life than that we’d ever been anything alike.

“You ready?” Tara asked. I got the message: she was done talking about Chloe.

I deliberately took my time tying the sneakers she’d given me.

“Toby.”

“Fine.” I pulled my hair back into a ponytail. “Ready.” As we walked toward the door, I stopped. “Remind me again why we have to do this instead of downloading all of the information on the disks.” I paused. “And where are the disks?”

“We have a game on Saturday,” Tara said, answering the first part of my question. “If we don’t take ourselves seriously as cheerleaders, no one else will either. Hence, practice.”

I considered emphasizing the fact that the very phrase taking cheerleaders seriously was somewhat oxymoronic, but Tara didn’t give me the chance.

“As for the disks, I gave them to Brooke. She’s in direct contact with our superiors—she’d know if it was urgent, and if she says we practice first, then we practice first.” Tara didn’t wait for me to ask how she’d managed to give both disks to Brooke without me seeing it. Instead, she walked out the door, and I had no choice but to follow.

I don’t particularly care to relive that practice, but I’ll tell you one thing: cheerleading is hard, and not just because it should be illegal to be that happy about anything. It’s actually, physically hard. Everything hurts. You kick your leg up high next to your face, and even if you’re used to kicking karate-style, that doesn’t do much for you when you’re high-kicking like the freaking Energizer Bunny on uppers. Then there’s all these little nuances that the cheerleading Gestapo expect you to get right the first time. Point your toes! Pop your motions! Straighten your legs! Donut holes are bad, and hyperextension is good. It’s like they speak a whole other language.

By the time we took a water break, my voice was hoarse, my legs were killing me, and I felt like a complete and utter imbecile because I kept switching the words win and again in the halftime cheer.

“You’re not nearly as horrendous as we thought you were going to be,” one of the twins told me brightly.

I was too busy chugging water like a desert camel to respond.

“So,” another voice said. “You’re Toby Klein.”

I looked up from the water fountain. “Yeah,” I said. “And you’re April.”

I was the transfer. She was the regular recruit. I was a lifelong hacker. She was a lifelong cheerleader. For me, this whole cheer gig was a cover. For her, it was a way of life.

“There’s a party at my place on Saturday after the game,” April said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Daddy’s out of town, and we’ll have the whole house to ourselves.”