Also by Elizabeth Eulberg
The Great Shelby Holmes
The Great Shelby Holmes Meets Her Match
The Great Shelby Holmes and the Coldest Case
For all the librarians, especially my mother, who have helped raise readers (and detectives)
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER
1
There were many things I’d learned about Shelby Holmes in the time I’d known her. Besides that she was prickly and abrupt and short-tempered.
One: she was never late. Two: she liked her routines. Three: she never missed a day of school for anything, not even if she got sick.
Because of those three things, I found myself walking upstairs to Shelby’s apartment on Monday morning. She always stopped by my place on her way to school, but so far nothing. And I didn’t want to be late because of her.
I knocked on the door to 221B.
“Come in, Watson,” Shelby called out.
When I opened the door, I was relieved to find Shelby dressed and ready for school. Although she was frozen in an armchair in the living room next to the fireplace. She sat face-to-face with her nemesis. Well, one of them.
She had a lot of adversaries, because of, well, the exact qualities I listed above.
But perhaps her biggest foe stared right back at her.
Her brother, Michael.
Yep. It was a sibling standoff.
Neither of them made a sound. It was so quiet you could hear the cars driving all the way over on Lenox. I began playing with the strap of my backpack. Honestly, being around the two of them generally unsettled me. But this was another level. They glared intensely at each other. Eyes were slit and everything.
What now? Usually they were at odds over some random science fact. Or having to live in the same space.
“Um, Shelby,” I began, but Shelby held her hand up to silence me.
She then jumped up.
“Aha!” she exclaimed. “Well done, Watson!”
Well done? What did I do? Not like I wasn’t going to take a compliment from her, since they were pretty rare.
“Your interruption gave me the exact clue I required,” Shelby said. “Granted, stronger minds wouldn’t be so easily distracted. Yet I’m dealing with a lesser opponent.”
Okaaaaay.
Shelby walked over to the giant bookshelf near the door. She ran a finger over the books. “Yes, yes . . . ,” she said while Michael shifted in his seat.
She faced her brother with a grin as she pulled a large red leather book off the shelf. She opened it and flipped through the pages.
“Hello, what’s this?” she remarked before pulling out a tiny piece of paper, about the size of a thumbnail.
Michael folded his arms. “Lucky break,” he replied in his monotone voice.
“Ah, see, dear brother, luck has nothing to do with it. But it is quite easy if you know what to look for. Right, Watson?”
“Yeah,” I replied. I wanted to get moving so we wouldn’t be late for school. Although Shelby was correct. Working on cases with her has taught me not to simply see but to observe. Whatever she found had to do with deductive reasoning.
Shelby turned her back to me and explained to a not-amused Michael, “When Watson spoke, it distracted you enough to glance at the bookshelf. That led me to deduce you hid the note there. Thanks to our parents assigning you to clean the living room this weekend, the dusting was subpar. A quick examination of the bookshelf showed which book had been removed recently.” She dragged her finger along the bookshelf and showed us her dirty finger.
Michael yawned in response. I glanced at my watch.
“We have ample time to get to school, Watson,” Shelby stated.
How did she—? Shelby wasn’t even facing me. I swear she has eyes in the back of her head.
“The glass on the picture above the fireplace,” Shelby said, looking over her shoulder.
“What?”
“I could see your reflection in the glass. That was how I knew you were getting antsy.”
Unbelievable. Although it wasn’t really. It was just Shelby Holmes.
She grabbed her oversized purple backpack. “Okay, Watson. We’re quickly arriving at the minimum time we should allot for walking to school.”
Ah, duh. That’s why I was up there in the first place.
Shelby continued, “Be advised that I have a treat for you this afternoon when we get back home. I’m going to teach you how to examine knife wounds on a carcass to determine the height of an assailant.”
I stopped dead in my tracks. “What?”
“Oh relax. My parents bought a pot roast for dinner. I’m going to use that.”
Shelby and I really, really needed to talk about what I would consider a treat. Because it would never have to do with a carcass. Gross. Besides, we would never work with a stab victim. (At least I hoped. Oh, how I hoped.)
Michael yawned again as he brushed a hand against his light blond, nearly white hair. “You’re still pretending to be a detective? How charming.”
Charming?
What Shelby and I did was anything but cutesy. We dealt with real cases. Since I’d begun working with Shelby, we’d caught a dognapper, helped out a teacher, vanquished a nemesis worthy of Shelby’s talents, and saved a figure skater from injury.
So yeah. We’d become kind of a big deal. At least around our Harlem neighborhood.
But Shelby just gave Michael one last glare before we walked out of the apartment.
“So what was that all about?” I asked.
“What was what?” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a candy bar—what Shelby Holmes called a balanced breakfast. “Please be more specific as it’s all in the details, Watson.”
“You and Michael. The stare down. The note. What did it say?”
“The piece of paper didn’t say anything,” she replied.
“But then why were you looking for it?”
“We were playing a game.”
“A game?” Yeah, siblings played games and stuff, but Shelby and Michael weren’t the fun-game types. Or the type to do anything that normal siblings would do.
There had to be a catch.
Shelby furrowed her brows. “You must’ve heard of hide-and-seek.”
Ah, yeah. Who hadn’t?
Wait a second. “You play hide-and-seek with a tiny piece of paper?”
Shelby snorted. “Indeed. How do you play it?”
“Um, like everybody else.”
Shelby scrunched up her face. Clearly she didn’t realize how the game was usually played.
Of course she didn’t.
Shelby Holmes was many things, but a regular kid was not one of them.
“Yeah, so a person or a group of people hide wh
ile someone tries to find them,” I stated.
She tilted her head. “So your version of the game is for people to hide? That doesn’t seem like a challenge at all. In fact, it appears to be quite pedestrian.”
“It’s not my version. It’s how it’s played!”
I mean, really!
I tried to hide my annoyance as we arrived at the Harlem Academy of the Arts with only a couple minutes to spare. As soon as we entered the hallway, Shelby gave a little grunt.
“What is it?”
She pointed her finger at my friend John Bryant, who was walking down the hallway with his head down.
“It appears your acquaintance had a rough evening.”
Bryant’s shaggy blond bangs covered his face, so I couldn’t get a good look at him. He did seem to be dragging his feet a bit, but I knew Bryant better than Shelby, and he didn’t seem all that different to me.
Although the most important thing I’ve learned about Shelby was this: never argue with her. She was always right.
And yes, it was as annoying as you could imagine.
“How do you know that?” I asked, because it was the only way I’d learn.
“From observing, Watson.” She paused. “But I guess you can do the uninspired thing and simply inquire of him directly.”
She shook her head in disappointment as she walked to her locker.
Typical Shelby.
CHAPTER
2
You know that thing I said about Shelby always being right?
Yeah, well . . . there was something wrong with Bryant. When I sat down next to him at lunch, he had no color in his already pale face. His light blue eyes were puffy and darting all over the cafeteria.
“Hey, man,” I said. “How was your weekend?”
“Yeah. I didn’t get a lot of sleep.” His attention settled on his lunch bag, even though he made no effort to take any food out.
“That’s the worst,” I said, patting his shoulder. “I hardly slept during our figure skating case last week. It took me an entire weekend of sleeping like ten hours a day to start feeling normal again.”
Even thinking about my alarm clock blasting at five in the morning caused me to yawn. Not to sound like my mom, but sleep was important.
And by the look on Bryant’s face, he really needed a good night’s sleep.
“What’s up?” Carlos said, dropping his lunch and sketchbook on the table with a thud.
Bryant jumped at the noise.
“Calm down, dude.” Carlos held out his hands in surrender. “What? Did you watch some scary movie last night?”
Bryant shook his head as his entire posture drooped down even farther.
“Speaking of,” Jason began as he sat down, “we’ve got to talk strategy for Halloween.”
Carlos patted his stomach. “I can’t wait to get my just rewards for an awesome costume. I’m obviously talking about candy, candy, and yep, more candy.”
I looked over at Shelby, who ate alone at her usual table. She had only come over to join us for lunch once, despite an open invitation. She was on friendly enough terms with some of the guys (which was saying a lot for her). But Shelby always replied that spending lunch “surrounded by incessant chatter” would disrupt her “precious research time.”
That girl never stopped studying.
Halloween had to be Shelby’s favorite holiday since it was focused on her favorite thing: sugar. Since her parents still had her on a sugar ban (even though she had found ways to get around it and was possibly eating more sugar now), I doubted they would let her go out this Thursday. Not like they could control her that much.
“What do you think, Watson?” Jason asked me as he tucked one of his locs behind his ear.
I shrugged. I hadn’t really thought much about it. I always like getting dressed up with my buddies, but with my diabetes, I couldn’t really eat a lot of candy. Mom would let me have a couple mini-bars during the week, but I would end up handing out my stash to my friends. I guess I could give it all to Shelby, especially when I needed her to be in a better mood, which was pretty much all the time.
“Oh!” Carlos exclaimed. “Maybe you can wear that costume Shelby made you for your last case and go as a figure skater. HA!”
“I am not going as a figure skater,” I stated. I was never going to wear that sparkly, sequined monstrosity. Never. “Next idea, one that won’t cause me to have nightmares.”
Jason let out his loud, infectious laugh, which caused Bryant to bristle. Seriously, what was going on with him? Unless he didn’t want me to even mention my cases. He was not Shelby’s biggest fan, but still. It’s what I did.
“John!” Carlos said to John Wu, who had just arrived. “What are we doing for Halloween? We should do something as a group!”
John pushed up his wire-rimmed glasses. “I’ve decided to use this Halloween as a way to fully encompass one of the greatest parts for an actor: Hamlet.” He dramatically held out his arm. “‘To be, or not to be, that is the question . . .’”
Carlos hit his forehead with his palm. “No, the question is what are we going as for Halloween?” He sighed. “Actors.”
“We could go as a team,” Jason offered. “Knicks? Giants? Yankees?”
“Boring!” Carlos countered. He opened up his sketchbook and started drawing with one hand while the other held his sandwich.
Jason leaned back in his chair. “Hey, I’m trying to think of things that don’t require a lot of work. I’m slammed by homework. Unlike Watson over here, I have to come up with my inspirations for writing class.”
Yeah, I was lucky that I had Shelby and our adventures to keep my writing journal full.
All eyes settled on me. Okay, Halloween . . .
“Zombies,” I threw out.
“Oh, I like it!” Carlos slammed his hand on the table.
Bryant looked like he was going to be sick. He hadn’t touched his lunch. Maybe he had food poisoning or the flu and that had kept him up all night.
“Or ghosts!” Jason added.
With that, Bryant put his head in his hands and leaned on the table.
“Bryant?” I asked.
The rest of us looked at each other, trying to figure out what was going on with him.
Bryant finally glanced up at us. His face was about as white as a ghost’s.
“Do you believe in them?” he asked in a soft voice.
“Believe in what?” John Wu replied.
We all leaned in to hear him.
“Ghosts,” he finally said. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
Was he being serious?
After a few beats of silence, Carlos let out a snort. “Totally. And zombies.” He then took a big bite of his sandwich. “Braaaaaiiiins!”
Everybody laughed, except for Bryant. He got up and started walking out of the cafeteria without a word.
“What’s up with him?” Jason asked.
“He’s the one acting like a zombie,” Carlos replied.
Even if Shelby hadn’t said anything, I would’ve known something wasn’t right. “I’m going to check on him.”
I grabbed the rest of my lunch and headed out to get to the bottom of this.
“Hey, Bryant! Hold up!” I called after him. I slung my arm around his shoulder as we walked down the hallway. “What’s going on? Can I help with something?”
Bryant started nodding. “Yeah. You’re probably the only person who could. Can you spend the night tonight?”
“Tonight? It’s a school night.”
“It can’t wait for the weekend. Please.”
“I don’t think my mom—” But I stopped myself when I saw how desperate Bryant appeared. He needed a friend, and I was going to be that friend for him. He and I had a bit of a rocky patch when the rest of the guys helped Shelby and me out with a case. So I owed him this. “Sure, yeah.”
Bryant finally looked at me. “Thanks. I really need your help.”
“Okay. Like with homework?” Bryant was prett
y smart. I wasn’t sure how much I could help him.
“No.” He paused and looked around the hallway. “It’s—I don’t really know what it is. But you’re a detective so I just thought, you know, you could maybe figure out something.”
“I could come after school?” I offered.
He shook his head. “No, it has to be at night.”
“Well, let me talk to Shelby—”
“No!” Bryant protested. “I don’t want her involved. At all.”
That wasn’t a shock. Bryant didn’t get along with Shelby. Yeah, not many people got along with Shelby, but Bryant really didn’t like her. She was his main competition in violin at school, and as you can imagine, Shelby wasn’t very gracious to those below her. Or basically anybody.
“What kind of case? Did you lose something?”
“You need to be there.”
Ah, so that wasn’t helpful at all. But I guess I’ll get some answers tonight.
“Sure. Whatever you need.”
Bryant looked off into the distance.
“You cool, man?” I asked.
He leaned in. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
This again?
“Not really,” I replied. I mean, Dad and I always watched scary movies together and all that, but I didn’t believe ghosts and zombies were real. That didn’t mean I couldn’t dress up as one. And to be honest, I didn’t really believe in most of the New York sports teams right now. They’d had some tough losses recently.
Bryant nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought before . . .”
He didn’t finish. He simply turned around and walked away from me.
A chill ran down my spine. It hit me, Bryant looked exactly like he had seen something truly terrifying. Something that had to be seen with his own eyes to be believed.
Something like a ghost.
CHAPTER
3
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
I’d repeated this question in my head all day. Even though I didn’t believe. Nope. Ghosts weren’t real.
Right?
Now I posed the question to Shelby on our walk home after school.
She didn’t break her stride. “I unequivocally do not.”
“Yeah, but how do you know? For sure.”
“There is absolutely no scientific proof of the existence of ghosts. Period,” Shelby said with a nod of her head, like she was done discussing the topic.
The Great Shelby Holmes and the Haunted Hound Page 1