“Hungry!” Lien Hua yelled. “Hungry! Hungry! Hungry!”
Suddenly I leaped up and started doing these really high theatrical kicks. Fortunately, I kicked Tina right in the face, and she fell backward and landed right on her butt. She dropped the sword and clasped her chin in pain.
“Turkey!” she yelled, rubbing her swollen jaw. “What in the world is wrong with you? How dare you hit me?”
“Well, sorry!” I told her. “But you’re the one who’s trying to kill me, remember?”
Tina picked up her sword and lunged at me again. “This time you won’t get away so easily,” she said sinisterly.
“Hungry!” Lien Hua yelled again, and I did another fantastic kick. Just like before, Tina went sprawling backward on her butt.
Struggling to her feet, Tina growled, “I am getting just a little bit sick of this.”
She hadn’t said turkey yet, so I was just jumping around like a maniac, dodging the sword she kept swinging at me, which was pretty tricky because my balance was off with my hands still tied behind me. Just then, I heard a shrill shriek behind me and turned to see that Mitzi and the Jennifers had hacked off almost all of Leah’s hair.
“Help, Jendra!” Leah screamed. “Help meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
I would have, but I couldn’t stop dancing, and besides, Tina was gaining on me with that sword. I kept looking out for Lien Hua, expecting her to do something else to help us, but I couldn’t see her anywhere in the room. It was like she had just suddenly disappeared.
About that time Tina thrust the sword forward and stabbed it through the toe of my shoe. Fortunately, my black sneakers are about a size and a half too big, so she didn’t do any toe damage or anything. Actually, I just kept dancing, and the shoe flipped off the point of the blade and flew through the air. To my horror, it crashed into the pompon case, breaking the glass.
“Oh, my gosh!” I exclaimed. I was getting pretty tired of jumping around the room like a Riverdance reject, but unfortunately, Tina was still jabbing with that sword of hers. And, over on the other side of the room, poor Leah sounded like she was being tortured.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” she wailed.
I whirled around to see what was wrong with her, and I noticed that the other cheerleaders had ripped off her Doc Martens and thrown them into the canal. That was a mistake. I mean, those shoes are sacred to Leah. They’re her most cherished possession, like her children or something.
I was scared to think what they would chop up next, so I danced over to the other side of the room and started crashing into the bloodthirsty cheerleaders.
“Where on earth did Lien Hua go?” I wondered as I knocked cheerleaders over left and right.
Tina, of course, was pretty angry by this time. “Listen, Jendra,” she snarled, “I’m getting sick of this. You had better hold still so I can kill you.”
“Do you even know how retarded that sounds?” I said, rolling my eyes.
“Turkey!” Tina spat out spitefully, and I dropped to the ground next to Leah.
Tina was gaining on us and the rest of the cheerleaders had flocked around us, looking as deadly as the most venomous killers that travel in a pack—cigarettes.
“This is it, Jendra,” Tina told me, closing in on us. “Say your prayers.”
But just then, I noticed feathers floating around the room, and I looked up to see a barn owl flying above us.
Letting out a gasp, Tina and the others dropped to their knees. “It is the goddess gray-eyed,” Tina said. “She has honored us with her material presence.” She took a deep breath and proclaimed, “We must stop to worship her. It’s the real Athena.”