The Great Shelby Holmes (3 page)

“How's it going, Sal?” she asked a jolly-looking man as we passed by a pizzeria. “Any news?”

“All's good, Shelby!” He waved happily at her. “Do you and your friend want a free pie?”

“No, thanks,” she replied as she kept her fast pace up. Sal simply shook his head and walked back into his restaurant.

“Did you just say no to free pizza?”
Who does that?
And why was he offering it to
her?

“I have things to do, places to be.”

Okay, but still.
Who turns down free pizza?

I ignored my now rumbling stomach and tried to keep up with Shelby. It didn't matter if the person was old or young, female or male, black or white (or Asian or Latino—and I thought army posts were diverse), everybody seemed happy to see Shelby.

They obviously knew something I didn't.

“So this is a pretty friendly and safe neighborhood, huh?” I asked. I assumed a big city like New York wouldn't be the kind of place where your neighbors were your friends, but maybe I was wrong.

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On who you are,” she said with a confident swagger that was usually reserved for professional ballplayers.

I did my best not to laugh at her. I mean, seriously? She wasn't even four feet tall. The baggy jean shorts and purple T-shirt she was wearing made her skinny stature stick out even more. It looked as if her hair hadn't seen a comb in months. She seemed
exactly
like the kind of person people would mess with.

But what did I know? I was the new kid, and everybody in the neighborhood seemed to respect her.

“Ah, just the person I wanted to see!” She jogged over to the corner, where a scruffy white guy with long dreads (I wished the army barbers could've seen this!) was going through the trash. “Seen anything unusual today?”

“Naw.” He rubbed his scraggly beard. “You know I'd tell you if I did.”

She nodded as she pulled out a banana from her oversized backpack. “Thanks, Billy.” Then she tossed the perfectly good banana into the trash can between them.

“Thanks, Shelby!” Billy removed the banana from the trash and shuffled away.

“He's a freegan,” she explained, sensing my bewilderment. “He believes in only eating food that's already been thrown away. Strange, perhaps, but it also means he's quite knowledgeable about what people have in their trash. That's a handy contact.”

I had no idea what she was talking about but nodded anyway. I figured it was time for me to get the answers I was really interested in. “How did you know all those details about my mom?”

“What?” She was examining the headlines of a discarded newspaper.

“How did you know my mom served in Afghanistan?”

“Oh, that,” she replied, like it was no big deal. Like everybody could read minds. “It's fairly simple. First, your moving
boxes had the names of a few army posts written on them, so I knew you were a military family. There was a medical license on the counter. The sole of your mother's right shoe was worn down considerably compared to her left, which means she favors her right side. Based on the boxes, I deduced that an injury sustained during a tour of duty was likely. That meant either Iraq or Afghanistan. Judging by her age and her barely strained gait, I assumed she hasn't been abroad in about two years. Therefore, Afghanistan was my conclusion.”

“But you were only in the apartment for a minute!”

“So?” Her attention was now on a few posted flyers.

“That's really …” I struggled to come up with the right word. Everything she'd said was true. Every. Last. Detail. “Amazing.”

She lit up. “Why, thank you! It's nice to have a contemporary appreciate my talents.
For once
.”

I asked the question I was afraid to know the answer to. “What did you figure out about me?”

She arched her eyebrow. “Do you really want to know?”

Yeah, no
. No way did I want to know whatever theory she'd concocted about me. Because there was a very good chance she'd be right. I'd prefer to be left in the dark.

I had to get her off my scent. “But
how
did you do it?”

She exhaled loudly as Sir Arthur examined some weeds growing from the sidewalk. “I observe. Then I assemble all my observations into several different theories and pick the one with the likeliest narrative. It's called deductive reasoning. I don't understand why others don't do it. I realize some people find my observations rude, but I do know when to stay silent. For instance, I didn't bring up your parents' divorce.”

I kicked a stray rock onto the road. At this point, I wasn't surprised that she'd figured that out, too.

“When I was talking to the mover, your mom was twisting her ring finger, which no longer sports a ring. Force of habit, I presume. Six months ago?”

“Seven,” I answered glumly. Which was also the amount of time since I'd picked up a pen. Until this morning.

“My sincerest regrets.” She patted me on the back, which I could tell wasn't a natural gesture for her. My own powers of observation told me that Shelby Holmes was not the touchy-feely type. And that she was disappointed her guess was wrong by a month.

Shelby had already figured out too much, so I tried to not show any emotion on my face as I thought about Dad. He was such a huge part of my life on the army post. Well, of course he was—he was my dad. He worked in the recruiting office and had better hours than Mom, so I would see him
more. Then Mom went abroad and Dad was all I had until she returned. Now it was just Mom and me. Mom probably thought that being in a new home and city would make us miss him less. In fact, it made it worse. I felt even more alone.

I didn't want to think about that. It hurt too much. I also didn't want Shelby to do any more of her Jedi mind tricks, so I tried to distract her.

“What about your parents?”

“Married.”

“What do they do?”

“They work at Columbia University.”

“Figures that your parents are college professors,” I replied. Only two Ivy League brainiacs could produce someone like her.

Shelby stopped quickly in her tracks. A high-pitched sound that resembled a laugh escaped her throat. “
My parents?
You think
my parents
are professors? They are about as far from professors as it gets. How did you ever draw that conclusion?”

Her laughter stung. “Well, you don't have to laugh at me,” I snapped. “I was only asking you a question. You said they worked at Columbia. My
sincerest regrets
I couldn't deduce their profession based on your shoelaces.”

Shelby studied me for a second, and the scowl that had formed on her face had softened. “I wasn't laughing
at
you.
I was laughing at the idea of my parents as professors. My father is the officer manager in the administration department, while my mother works as an assistant in the financial aid department. We live in the same building, so there's a distinct probability you'll meet them soon, as well as my brother, Michael. He's sixteen. Anything else?”

“Ah,” I stammered, not expecting her to be so open with me.

“I'm … I'm sorry.” Her face scrunched up as if the word
sorry
caused her pain. It probably wasn't a word she used often. “I'm not used to people in my age bracket wanting to get to know me. They usually stay far away from me when they know what I can do.”

I was about to apologize to her, but her attention wasn't on me anymore. She was looking at flyers that had been posted on an abandoned storefront. It was like she was searching for something. Or it was possible she was simply bored.

I couldn't imagine being bored in a place like New York City with so many places to go, even though I was too intimidated to go to any of them by myself.

“Where do you go to school?” I asked.

She yanked down an outdated flyer. “I'm pleased to inform you that we'll be attending the same school.”

“How did—” I started to ask, but realized she must've seen something in our apartment.

Mom spent months researching schools in New York City before we moved. The Harlem Academy of the Arts, a charter school only a few blocks from our apartment, was first on her list. As she kept telling anybody who asked, it had “an excellent academic as well as arts curriculum.” I'd been accepted into the creative writing program.

It figured that Shelby would be in an academically challenging school. I simply hadn't pegged her as someone with an artistic side.

“Violin,” she answered before I even had a chance to ask. “I also dabble in acting. It's good practice for going undercover.”

Undercover?

She skipped over to a barbershop on the corner where a few guys were sitting outside, fanning themselves in the mid-August heat. Sir Arthur helped himself to the water bowl out front.

“Why, Miss Shelby Holmes!” An older guy with more salt than pepper in his hair reached into his pocket and handed her a butterscotch wrapped in yellow cellophane. “You staying out of trouble, or you trying to find some?”

Shelby unwrapped the candy. “What do
you
think?”

The men erupted into a chorus of laughter.

“Who you got over there?” The man gestured at me to come forward.

“Mr. Washington, this is John Watson. He moved into 221
A
with his mother, a former army doctor. John, Mr. Washington runs this barbershop and knows
almost
as much as I do about what's happening in our neighborhood.”

“Well, well, well …” He gave me a once-over. I stuck my chest out a bit, wanting his approval. “Listen here, son, you grow your hair out a bit more, and I'll treat you to a nice new style. Any friend of Shelby's is a friend of mine.”

First pizza, then a haircut. Why was everybody offering her free stuff? I mean, the haircut was technically for me, but it was because I was a friend of Shelby's. Well, we weren't really friends, but I wasn't going to argue with him. Free was free.

Shelby waved good-bye as she crossed the street. “You'll like the Academy.” She continued our conversation from before without missing a beat. “I'll also be in sixth grade.”

I nearly tripped over the curb. “How old are you?”

“I'm nine, but I skipped a couple of grades.”

Of course
she had. “You don't look nine.”

“I'm aware,” she said, kneeling down to pet Sir Arthur. “It doesn't bother me. I think it's best to look as young as possible.”

“Why?” All I wanted was to grow up and stop being thought of as a little kid.

“Adults always underestimate kids,
especially
girls. It does have its advantages. If you saw me on the street, you'd probably ignore me. Most people do,” she said without an ounce of pity. “It allows me to study my marks without worrying about getting caught.”

Her
marks
? At this point, I decided to stop asking questions. I didn't think I'd ever understand this girl.

“Plus, I've been practicing jujitsu for a few years, so I'm stronger than I look. Believe me, I'm not somebody people want to mess with.”

Oh, I believed her all right. I'd known her for less than twenty-four hours and I already knew not to get on her bad side.

“Now let's focus on you,” Shelby said as I tensed up. “We've got to do something about your name.”

“What's wrong with my name?”

“Well, there are two other Johns in our class. John Wu goes by John, and John Bryant goes by Bryant. So you'll need a sobriquet. I'm going to refer to you as Watson. It suits you. Trust me, you could be called worse things.”

I was sure Shelby Holmes had been called more than a few names.
Know-it-all
was one that sprang to mind.

“Okay,” I agreed, knowing it didn't really matter what I wanted to be called. She would've given me whatever name suited her.

As we rounded another corner, Shelby's eyes got big. She looked like a little kid on Christmas morning.

There, parked outside a deli on the opposite side of the street was a cop car with its lights flashing.

Shelby clapped her hands together excitedly. “Watson, I've got work to do.”

CHAPTER