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He moved into the room, floating above the ground much like Benjamin. He stopped in front of a mirror hanging on the wall and stared at himself without words or emotion—just looking at himself the way a baby might stare at itself, with wonder and curiosity. Then, without looking at Gerdie, he began to speak.
“Well, it appears I’m going to have some trouble buying hats,” he said, then he broke into hysterical and troubling laugh, all the more disturbing when combined with his new appearance. “I suppose that’s the risk you take when you suddenly become the most intelligent being in the multiverse.”
Gerdie stepped forward with all the bravery she could muster. “I destroyed the bridge device. We’re trapped here. Whatever you had pla
Screwball glanced down at the broken machine. “A minor problem for one such as me.”
She watched as he focused on the broken pieces, and they lifted off the floor as if they were weightless. Gerdie couldn’t believe what she was seeing. They spun and twisted until every little piece fused back together in perfect working condition. When it was finished, the bridge device floated toward Screwball. He looked down at his tiny, useless arms and frowned. Then the device swirled and expanded once more until it was transformed into a gigantic helmet. It floated onto his head and a glowing light appeared at its center—directly between his eyes.
“Look at me. I found a hat after all,” he said and laughed his maniacal laugh. With a wave of his hand, Gerdie was sent flying across the room by an invisible force. She slammed hard into a wall and winced in pain. As she struggled to recover, she watched the helmet glow with power and create a new interdimensional bridge. The ball of light grew until it was big enough for the monster Screwball to enter.
“Don’t do this!” Gerdie begged.
“Mathlete, you of all people should understand. The smartest people should rule the world. That’s just simple math.”
“You’re wrong!” she shouted. “You’re not smart. You’re a hurt little boy who wants the world to love him, and when it didn’t, you never imagined the reason could be you. I did the same thing. I made it impossible to like me.”
“You may be right, Gerdie,” Screwball said. “I’ll keep that in mind as I’m conquering the multiverse.”
Then he hovered his grotesque body into the glowing ball and was gone. The ball began to vanish, but Gerdie saw one last chance. Reconfiguring a few buttons on the harpoon, she knew she could send one last message into the multiverse—one last warning in case her plan failed. She pushed the transmit button and a second beam shot through the tiny white ball before it vanished all together. She prayed that someone, somewhere would hear it.
As Gerdie stood in her new, silent world, numbers and equations began to fly around in her mind.
“Benjamin?” she said.
At once, a little blue orb popped out of a glass table in the center of the room.
“Do I know you?” it asked.
“My name is Lilly—no, my name is Gerdie Baker. I’m a NERD and I need your help,” she said.
“What can I do for you?”
“You and I are going to sit down and do some math,” she said.
“Whatever for?”
“We’re going to figure out how to rescue the population of this planet from an alien race,” she said.
Benjamin spun and clicked. “A lovely idea, Gerdie.”
“What’s going on?” Matilda shouted. She could barely hear Agent Brand over the roar of the cheerleading fans and her squad’s squeals of delight.
“The team is on its way, Wheezer. Ms. Holiday, the lunch lady, and I will be there as quickly as possible. Do your best to keep the crowd safe.”
“Safe? From what?”
Suddenly, there was a scream from the crowd, and chaos erupted. Before she knew it, people were ru
She took a shot of her inhaler, then turned to the squad. “Girls, I have to go to work.”
“What can we do?” Kylie said.
“You’re cheerleaders,” Matilda said. “Get the crowd’s attention and lead them to safety. Get them as far away from here as you can.”
McKe
“Hey!” McKe
“Sorry, national security has to come before your social networks!”
“Be careful,” Tiffany said to Matilda as she led the squad toward the crowd. “You have to help us defend our championship next year!”
Matilda squeezed the plungers on her inhalers and felt a rush of power in her hands as she shot straight into the air. Leveling out, she could see four kids falling from the sky. Their parachutes opened in the nick of time and soon they were touching down on the National Mall. The NERDS had arrived.
Gluestick was the first to leap into action. He shot the giant floating head with a stream of sticky glue. Braceface created a huge fist with his amazing braces and slugged the head, but the monster just kept coming. Flinch seemed to have the most luck. His harness aglow, he threw a few lightning-fast punches that knocked the monster for a loop. It slammed into a few parked cars, crushing them flat, but the haymakers’ effects were short-lived.
“Did Heathcliff drag that thing out of another universe?” Matilda asked as she hovered over Ruby, who was busy analyzing the head’s weaknesses with the help of her computer.
“No, that is Heathcliff!” Ruby answered.
Matilda eyed the disgusting creature and noticed the gaping hole where its two front teeth should have been. “What happened to him?”
“Gerdie said he used us all to get upgrades on a different Earth.”
“Where is she?”
Ruby shook her head. “The portal closed. She’s trapped there—wherever there is. Unfortunately, it didn’t close before Mr. Potato Head showed up. Got any ideas?”
“Well, they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Duncan said as he joined them. “But that only works if you can see.”
Matilda smiled. “Good idea!” She hefted the boy up under the arms and flew him toward Heathcliff.
They buzzed around his head, and at just the right moment Duncan fired glue into his eyes. Without the use of his tiny hands, Heathcliff could not wipe it away. He was blinded.
“Now, that wasn’t very nice!” Heathcliff roared as a red glow appeared behind the glue. Laser beams shot out of his eyes to clear the mess. “That could have been a real nuisance if I didn’t have full control over every cell in my body. With just a little concentration I can alter everything about myself—changing the very nature of what my senses can do. For instance, if I just give a single thought, I can do this!”
Suddenly, a frosty wind exploded from his mouth and trapped Braceface and Pufferfish in a gigantic ice cube. Jackson’s braces then morphed into ice picks and chipped away at their frozen prison until the two were free.
Meanwhile, Flinch was busy shoving Twinkies into his mouth to fuel his harness. He was soon shaking with the sugar. He leaned over and pulled up a tree, roots and all, and swung it like a baseball bat at Heathcliff’s head. The abomination fell face forward.
Instead of pain, though, Heathcliff giggled. His laughter went through his strange body, and he rolled back and forth on the ground like a fat dog. It was the same horrible laugh Matilda had heard him make at the hospital—only this one was fueled by true madness. If he hadn’t been insane before, he certainly was now.