The Great Shelby Holmes Meets Her Match

  “Come on!” Carlos called out. “Or are you a bunch of cowards not wanting to go against me?”

  John Wu sat next to Carlos on the floor. “ ‘Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.’ ”

  “Yeah, okay, whatever,” Carlos replied with a shake of his head. “Actors.”

  As John and Carlos played, I watched Jason as he read my newest post. It freaked me out to watch someone read my work. But fortunately, Jason was a pretty expressive reader. His eyebrows shot up a lot, and he also laughed, mostly at stuff Shelby had said.

  “Chocolate on the cork!” Jason exclaimed with a laugh. “Man, that girl is smart. She makes it look easy.”

  Yeah, solving crime was pretty easy … for Shelby.

  “Y’all have got to read Watson’s journal,” Jason announced, but all eyes were currently glued to the TV where Carlos was giving a play-by-play of John’s untimely demise.

  “Hey, man, I appreciate you reading it and saying all that nice stuff,” I told Jason. Because it did mean a lot to me. He was really the only person I felt that I could talk to about my writing, except for Ms. Onder, but that was her job. Jason read my stuff because he liked it.

  Mom used to read my stories and laugh in all the right spots (and maybe even a few extra places because she’s my mom). I hadn’t told her about the online journal because then she’d find out what Shelby and I were really up to. At this point, she thought Shelby was simply showing me around or that we were working on schoolwork. Mom told me that I couldn’t get involved in Shelby’s cases since I shouldn’t stick my nose into other people’s business. That it would bring nothing but trouble. As far as Mom knew, I hadn’t done any sleuthing with Shelby since taking Sir Arthur to the dog show to help with the Lacy case. I hated keeping things from Mom, especially since she’d always been supportive of my writing.

  “Of course I’m going to read your stuff, man!” Jason threw his arm around my shoulder. “Us creative types have to stick together. So what’s next for the dynamic detective duo of Holmes and Watson?”

  “Ah,” I mumbled because I had no idea what was going to be next. I didn’t know what I was going to post tomorrow. There was no way I could write about Shelby’s suspicion about Mr. Crosby since he was a teacher and, you know, there weren’t any facts. I was itching for something real to write about (no offense, Sergeant Speedo), so where did that leave me?

  There was cheering from Carlos and groaning from John Wu and Bryant in the corner. “Let’s go again!” Carlos demanded.

  “ ‘A man can die but once,’ ” John said as he handed Bryant the controller. “Your turn.”

  Bryant took the controller and held it up. “No way. I can’t tire these fingers out. We got a new Mozart violin sonata in class today.” He glared at me. “Your friend already had it memorized before class ended.”

  I simply shrugged in response. Shelby made everybody look bad, especially me.

  “Watson!” Carlos called out. “That means you’re up next. I know you got army blood and all, but you’re about to see what it’s like to go against someone who currently has Navy SEAL coursing through his veins.” He started up some war game on his TV.

  There were many things my mom didn’t approve of—junk food, soda, Shelby’s cases—but this might be the worst: playing a war-based video game. War, she liked to remind me, was no game. After serving two tours in Afghanistan, and getting injured in combat, she should know.

  I reluctantly started to play, even though I had no idea what I was doing. I couldn’t get into it. And it wasn’t just disobeying Mom that left me uneasy. Hanging out with the guys was great and all, but I felt restless.

  “Dude, are you sleeping or are you playing?” Carlos taunted me as he killed my guy for the second time in as many minutes.

  I held it up. “Anybody else want a go?”

  Jason saved me as he grabbed the controller, then gave Carlos a taste of his own medicine by not only killing his guy, but upping the trash talk.

  John Wu and Bryant laughed, while I remained quiet. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I mean, I was having fun. This was what I wanted: an awesome group of friends. It was a nice, typical afternoon with my dudes.

  Still, I was bored. I wanted some adventure, something different.

  Maybe it was being in New York City, but I had come to expect something more from my downtime.

  Oh no. It hit me. It wasn’t New York City that had changed me. It was being around Shelby.

  Shelby Holmes had ruined me for a normal life.

  CHAPTER

  9

  “How was school?” Mom asked as I entered our first-floor apartment at 221 Baker Street.

  “Good. How was work?” I asked as I set my wet backpack down on the floor. It was still pouring outside.

  “You’re home early.” Mom looked at her watch. “I thought you were going to be at Carlos’s for a little while longer.”

  “Yeah, just felt like heading home,” I replied with a shrug. Even when the guys decided to switch to a football video game, I didn’t have it in me. Virtual reality wasn’t cutting it anymore.

  “Do you have a lot of homework tonight?” she asked as she opened the fridge.

  “Yeah, I’ll do it after dinner.” I sank down on the couch.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Mom put her hand against my forehead. “You didn’t drink any soda, did you? Should I check your glucose levels?”

  “I’m okay,” I told her. “I had some chips and salsa, that’s it. I’ll do my insulin soon.”

  “Okay.” Mom rubbed her thumb gently on my check. “My baby is growing into such a responsible young man. I’m glad you’ve settled in so quickly, although you always do.”

  “Hey, didn’t you have a book club at lunch today?” I asked her. “Did you meet any new people?”

  I had to keep reminding myself that Mom was starting over, too. She made some friends at work, but she didn’t have school to force her to meet new people.

  “I did!” She sat down next to me at the kitchen table. “I was all set to talk about the book, but all anybody wanted to discuss was the latest hospital gossip. It was fun, though.”

  “Did you at least like the book?” I asked.

  “Not really, but now I know I don’t have to read it for next time.”

  Mom got up from her chair, walked over to a laundry basket, and pulled out a pair of my jeans. “John, would you care to explain what this is?”

  My jeans not only had huge dirt stains on the knees, but there was some plaster stuck on them. I meant to wash them out, but then I was so emotionally scarred from Shelby’s “crime scene” that I just balled them up in my closet. I completely forgot about them.

  “Oh, yeah.” I quickly tried to think of an excuse. “Oh, sorry about that. It was from a science experiment. I got a little sloppy.”

  She scraped her finger at the plaster. “I don’t know if I can get this out. In the future, Mr. Scientist, soak.”

  I laughed a little louder than I should have. It made me nervous to lie to Mom. I felt bad not telling her everything, but I also wanted to keep working with Shelby. I figured what she didn’t know …

  There was a knock at the door. I quickly went to get it, always intercepting Shelby before she could talk to my mom.

  “Hey there, Shelby!”

  There was a smirk on her lips. “You’re home early,” she echoed my mom’s exact words. “It appears that an afternoon of staring blindly at a glowing screen with Neanderthals no longer satisfies your intellect like it once did.”

  But that comment was 100 percent grade-A pure Shelby Holmes.

  She held up a piece of paper that was crinkled and taped together. “While it never gets old saying that I’m right, you know what is old?”

  “Ah.” I looked back at Mom, who was listening with interest. “I’m going upstairs to Shelby’s. She, um, has a question about homework.”

  Shelby glared at me. “I ce
rtainly do not—”

  I walked out into the hallway and shut the door behind us. “Shh,” I said to a very annoyed Shelby.

  “Watson, there is no way anybody would believe that I would need assistance from you on our so-called homework.”

  She had a point. But it was too late to make another excuse.

  “I know,” I replied in a low whisper as I headed to the stairs. “I just don’t want my mom knowing about a case, until, well …”

  I left it at that. I didn’t know when I’d be able to tell Mom about a case, and honestly, Shelby could figure out the details on her own.

  Meanwhile, Shelby didn’t correct me about having a case.

  It was about time.

  CHAPTER

  10

  “Hello, John!” Mr. Holmes greeted me as we entered apartment 221B. He was reading a newspaper in one of the armchairs in the living room. “How’s school?”

  “It’s going pretty well, thanks,” I replied, much to Shelby’s frustration. She was not one for pleasantries (aka normal conversation).

  “Is that John?” Mrs. Holmes came down from upstairs. “So lovely to see you! How are you?”

  “Ugh!” Shelby stomped her foot. “Must you interrogate Watson every time he comes over? He’s clearly faring quite well.” Shelby waved her hand up and down me, as if to illustrate how fine I was. “We have important work to do!”

  “Shelby!” her father scolded. “We’re merely being polite, which is something you need to practice more often.”

  Shelby had her arms folded. She always seemed so put out by her parents, who were really nice.

  “So,” her father continued, “if you don’t apologize, we’re going to have to send you to your room and ask John to leave.”

  I had to admit it—this was good. Was Shelby really going to swallow her considerable pride and do what her parents wanted?

  Shelby exhaled loudly. “Father, Mother, my most sincerest of apologies for reacting so rudely to your inquiries. I must remind myself that you do not possess the same talents and insights as I, so therefore are required to ask redundant questions.”

  Her parents exchanged a look. For Shelby Holmes, that was about as good of an apology as you could get.

  “And don’t forget John.”

  “What about Watson?” Shelby asked.

  Yeah, what about me? I didn’t do anything wrong!

  Her father pushed up his reading glasses. “I believe you owe him an apology as well.”

  “I certainly do not!” Shelby protested. “Why do I need to apologize to him?”

  Ah, for starters, maybe for the way she said to him with such disregard?

  “For your behavior,” her dad said through clenched teeth. You didn’t need to be a body language expert to see that his patience was wearing thin.

  I felt extremely uncomfortable being caught in the middle. Whatever case Shelby had for us had better be good.

  She turned to me, and I could tell that she was not happy about having to apologize.

  Hmm. Suddenly I began to enjoy this. Shelby didn’t like to say sorry for anything, so I planned to stockpile this one for when she really did need to apologize (and her parents wouldn’t be there to force her).

  “Watson, I’m so, so, so sorry for my horrific behavior. Will you ever be able to forgive me?” Her voice was laced with so much fake sugar, my teeth hurt.

  “I believe I can find it in my heart to forgive you,” I replied with a smile on my face that infuriated her even further.

  “Now that I’ve properly paid penance for my misdeeds, I need to discuss a rather urgent matter with Watson. We’ll be in the kitchen.” Shelby led me past the dining room to their kitchen, which matched ours one floor below. “First, I really do need to apologize to you, Watson. For real this time.”

  This was a record: two apologies in one evening!

  “I’m sorry you had to witness that altercation with my parents. They do mean well, but their attempts at training me to be a mindless nitwit are in vain.”

  So she had set a new record in apologies—that ended up insulting someone. It was her specialty.

  Shelby held up the crinkled and taped piece of paper she’d shown me downstairs. “Tell me, who wrote this?”

  Aw man. This wasn’t about a case. This was only one of her tests.

  But wait. The paper was covered in something. And it smelled. It looked like something she dug out of the trash.

  “Yeah, I’m not touching that thing,” I said as I pulled my hand away.

  “Stop being such a prude,” Shelby reprimanded me as she forced the piece of paper on me.

  On the paper were only a few lines of text.

  I don’t understand why you would do this to me. Can we please talk this out and find some sort of compromise? I can’t do what you’re asking. I’m begging for at least an explanation of why this is happening.

  “So, who wrote it?” she asked.

  The dark brown stain on the letter could’ve been from a drink. Coffee, maybe?

  “An adult?” I guessed.

  “Yes, very good, Watson!” Shelby pointed to the letter again. “But don’t you see it?”

  “The coffee stain?” I mean, there wasn’t much to see besides the big stain and that the letter had been ripped into several pieces. “The person tore it up because they didn’t want anybody to see it.”

  “Yes,” Shelby replied. “I should be grateful he doesn’t have a shredder.”

  It’s a he? Hold on. Did this mean that this wasn’t a Shelby test, but an actual clue to a real case? And why did I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that this had to do with Mr. Crosby.

  “But wait, there’s more!” Shelby reached into her back pocket and produced a piece of lined notebook paper. “During my preliminary investigation of a possible crime scene, I noticed that a piece of paper was ripped out of a notebook. So I used a rather pedestrian method to discover what had been written.”

  She handed me the paper. There, peeking up between shading Shelby had done with a pencil, was Detective Lestrade’s name and phone number. “Detective Lestrade?”

  “Yes! Oh, how I’d love to show her up. Yet again.”

  Shelby’s current giddy demeanor made sense. Lestrade was Shelby’s enemy. Their relationship pretty much went like this: Shelby usually knew more about a case than the actual New York City detective, and Lestrade would dismiss Shelby.

  Yet, I still had no idea what the one letter and the detective’s phone number had to do with each other. Or with Mr. Crosby.

  “Okay, okay,” I said as I tried to put the pieces together. “The person who wrote this letter needs Detective Lestrade for something?”

  “Yes, but why call the so-called ‘police’ when there isn’t a crime that we can’t solve?”

  As much as I wanted to work on a case, I didn’t want to get involved in anything serious enough for the police.

  “Once again, Watson, who wrote this letter? Because he is our next client.”

  There was no way it could be Crosby, could it? She’d been poking around his office. But it didn’t make sense. The letter didn’t mention anything about a watch.

  I took a closer look at the letter. It was on a standard piece of paper. The person used the basic Times New Roman font. There weren’t any other clues.

  “What have I been telling you? You need to not just see, but observe.”

  “I have been observing,” I defended myself. There wasn’t much to observe—the letter was basic black and white. Literally. Well, except for the brown stain.

  “Really?” Shelby leaned against the kitchen counter. “How many times have you come up the stairs to see me?”

  “Was I supposed to count?”

  “No, but would you say that you have come up a few times a week since you’ve been here?”

  “Yes.” Where was she going with this?

  “Okay, so how many steps are there?”

  “What?” I blurted out.

  ?
??You’ve climbed those stairs at least several dozen times, yet you never noticed how many steps there are?”

  I was stunned. She was right. (OF COURSE SHE WAS!) I’ve gone up and down those stairs tons of times, but never paid close attention to them. “I guess …”

  “You should never guess, especially if facts are present.”

  “Do you want me to go and count?”

  She sighed heavily. “No, I want you to observe.”

  “Twelve!” I threw out a random number because I wanted to get back to discussing the case.

  “While that is a good guess since twelve is the average number of steps for a staircase, there are fourteen steps. I won’t even bother asking you about the design of the carpet, but do try a little harder when it comes to observing, Watson.”

  “Okay.” Now I was trying to remember what the carpet looked like. It had some kind of design, like, um, flowers? I had no idea. It had blue in it. Maybe gray? Wow. I really hadn’t been paying too much attention to where I lived. What hope did I have in solving cases if I hadn’t even noticed the carpet I walked on every day?

  Shelby held the paper up to the light. “First, this paper is very flimsy. Not high-quality stock. It’s the kind that’s bought in large quantities at an office or school. However, the big thing you’re missing is that there’s something very familiar with the inconsistency of the ink printer. See the lighter printing on the right side?”

  Shelby traced a line down the paper, and I saw she was right. There was a slight difference between the darkness of the letters on either side of it.

  “You don’t recognize the printing deficiency?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, Watson, you really need to study your homework closer.”

  Homework? She hadn’t given me any assignments about printing and ink yet. What homework was she talking about?

  “Well,” Shelby said as she threw her hands up like she was giving up on me (at this point, I wouldn’t blame her, I’d missed so much already), “we need to leave for school thirty minutes early tomorrow.”