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She yanked down an outdated flyer.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 221A 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
3
Before Mom and I moved, Dad sat me down for a talk about living in the “real world” (aka not on an army post). One thing he told me was that I shouldn’t go looking for trouble, especially where the police were involved.
Apparently, Shelby’s dad never had that talk with her, since she handed me Sir Arthur’s leash and marched up to the police officers. “Hello, officers. What’s going on?”
“Shelby!” An older white guy wearing an apron that matched his white hair emerged from the deli. “Look at what they did to my storefront!”
The metal security gate that was drawn over one side of the deli had A GHRA spray-painted across it in big red letters.
“Tell me everything that happened, Kristos,” Shelby insisted.
The deli’s name was Kristos, so I deduced he was the owner.
(See, Shelby wasn’t the only person who could figure out things without being told!
So there.
John Watson: one. Shelby Holmes: a gazillion.)
Before Kristos could tell his story, a woman with a badge on her belt appeared from inside the deli. She groaned upon seeing Shelby. “Leave this to the police, Holmes. We can handle this without your interference.”
“I’m sure you can, Detective Lestrade.” Shelby smiled sweetly at her. It was the first time I’d seen her smile, and it looked really unnatural on her.
“It’s a basic case of vandalism, end of story.”
“Then you shouldn’t mind if I take a teensy look around?” she asked the detec
tive, her tone innocent. Shelby then turned toward Kristos. “Would you get me a Fudgsicle? I’m going to need a lot of sugar for this.”
Kristos obediently ran into the deli.
“Holmes,” the detective scolded. “I told you, we’ve got this.”
“Just like you had the guy who robbed Sal’s last month?”
Lestrade narrowed her eyes. “That was pure luck, kid.”
Ah! The free pizza finally made sense. (Shelby turning down said free pizza was still a mystery.)
“Just a quick glance.” Shelby reached into her backpack and took out a measuring tape. She began to measure the graffiti from every angle. She took a few steps back and then paced some more, talking to herself the entire time, until Kristos handed her the Fudgsicle.
Sir Arthur was lying on the ground, his legs stretched out. He knew we were going to be a while.
While Shelby studied the graffiti, I tried to think of what A GHRA could stand for.
This was what I came up with: absolutely nothing.
It was five letters. That wasn’t a lot of evidence.
For a regular person.
Shelby approached the detective, who was talking to a fellow officer. “I assume you’ve been able to deduce that the vandal was Irish, about six foot one, with a rotator cuff injury on their right arm? Most likely a baseball pitcher. I doubt there are a great many people in the area who fit that description.”
“Is that true?” the police officer asked Lestrade. “How does she know that?”
“It’s quite simple,” Shelby began to explain. “Generally, people write at eye level, and this graffiti is fairly high up on the gate, which explains the vandal’s height. Also, handwriting tends to slope upward. This gradually slopes downward. That leads me to presume that the person’s shoulder has limited range. A ghrá is Irish for ‘my love.’ The apartment building across the street is known as Little Dublin since the majority of residents are Irish students attending Columbia. This appears to be an act of love.” Her nose twitched as if she smelled something gross.
“That’s incredible,” the officer remarked with his mouth slightly agape. His eyes lit up. “You’re that girl? I’ve heard about you!” Lestrade quickly waved him off.
“New guy,” Lestrade muttered. “While it’s always a pleasure to watch you work”—Lestrade said it in a way that let you know she felt exactly the opposite—“there’s no need to blow this out of proportion. Vandalism happens every day. We’re not going on a wild-goose chase for some guy solely because of your hunches. Seriously, Holmes, what do you expect us to do?”
Shelby stood up tall to the detective, although she was still two feet shorter than her. “How about your job?”
Uh-oh.
I might’ve been new to the neighborhood, but I was pretty sure getting sassy with a police officer was never a wise move. For anybody. I took a few steps back, wondering if I would draw suspicion if I ran as far away from Shelby as I could. Although I realized that not only did I have no idea where I was, we were definitely farther away than ten blocks. First day on my own and I already broke one of Mom’s rules.
“I don’t have time for this, Holmes.” Lestrade turned toward Kristos. “Call if you discover anything missing,” she said before walking away.
The deli owner stood there, looking helpless.
“Don’t worry, Kristos.” Shelby crossed her arms defiantly. “I’ll get someone to clean up this mess until it’s as good as new. I have a few people who owe me a favor or two.”
The short, stout man patted her on the head, a move that did not make Shelby extremely happy. “You take such good care of me. Do you want some more chocolate?”
“Like you need me to answer that.”
“What about your friend?”
Shelby seemed surprised I was still there. “Oh, Watson? He’s diabetic, so he should probably have something else, like a piece of fruit or nuts.”
“How did—” I stopped myself. Of course Shelby knew I was diabetic. Was there anything she didn’t know?
I declined Kristos’s kind offer, since I was still craving pizza. We began walking home, mostly in silence. Shelby enjoyed her candy bar while I kept trying to figure her out. I went with John Watson’s Foolproof Way to Make New Friends: ask questions and let the person talk until you find some sort of common ground. It was something that I’d perfected over the years (and many moves).
“What type of music do you like?” I asked.
“Classical.”
“Favorite class?”
“Science.”
“Oh, yeah?”
No response.
I continued, “What kind of things do you do with your friends?”
Shelby replied by licking her fingers, which were caked in melted chocolate.
So much for that foolproof plan (since now I felt like a fool). Shelby was a tough code to crack.
I slowed down as we approached our brownstone, wondering if I should invite her to our apartment. We didn’t have cable or Internet set up yet, but I could find the box with our DVD player. Maybe we could watch a movie. Or maybe she’d want to go to a park and toss a ball around. Something. Anything.
It wasn’t like I thought she and I could be friends, but she was the only person I’d met close to my age. My options were limited. I didn’t want to spend the afternoon alone, surrounded by boxes. While I was used to the moving, I didn’t think I’d ever get used to being in this huge city, especially without Dad.
Shelby continued her rapid pace and took the stairs leading to the front door, with Sir Arthur trailing behind her. “Good-bye, Watson.” She didn’t even look at me before the front door slammed shut.
I found myself standing outside our building, unnerved by how quiet our block was in the middle of the afternoon.
Now what was I supposed to do?
CHAPTER
4
“What’d you do today?” Mom asked as she washed some strawberries in the sink.
It was a normal question, but I wasn’t sure how to respond. I couldn’t make sense of Shelby. At first, she seemed like a really weird girl. Okay, she still seemed like a bit of a weirdo, but I couldn’t help but be impressed by everything she could do.
“Um, I walked around the neighborhood a bit with Shelby.”
Mom paused. “The girl from upstairs?”
“That would be the one.” It wasn’t like either of us knew anybody else in this place besides Mrs. Hudson.
“That sounds like fun. What did you see?”
I debated how much to tell Mom. She had some sort of lie detector in her brain and she could always, and I mean always, tell when I wasn’t being truthful. She was also pretty understanding, but to a point.
“We just walked around. I saw this pizza place that looks good. And, um, we may have gone more than ten blocks.” I started talking really fast, hoping she would hear me out before she got mad. “But everybody knows Shelby and she’s lived in the neighborhood her entire life and I didn’t think it was a big deal. Plus, she has this dog and knows jujitsu and at no point did I feel threatened or unsafe.” (Well, except for Shelby threatening my self-esteem, but that was an entirely different matter.)
Mom dried off her hands. “Well, I’m sure she does, but I want you to be careful. This is a very different place from anywhere we’ve lived before.”
Oh, how true that was. We were pretty contained on the posts. There was only so much trouble you could find. But I had a feeling that New York City was the kind of place where it could find you. As I thought about Shelby, I wondered if trouble had already met me.
“When you’re alone, I only want you going ten blocks,” Mom reminded me while she kept opening the kitchen cabinets. This always happened in each new home, trying to remember where we’d put everything. For people who moved a lot, we sure did have a ton of stuff. “Did you unpack the bowls today?”
I looked around at the boxes that still littered the kitchen and living room. “No.”
; Mom sighed, not the annoyed sigh that Shelby had perfected, but the sigh of someone really tired. “I asked you to unpack more boxes.”
“Sorry.” I took the scissors off the island and began opening the boxes marked KITCHEN to find our dishes.
Mom placed her hands on my shoulders. “You know, John, we’re staying here for good. There’s no need to keep anything in boxes anymore. This is our home now.”
Home. It was something I’d wanted for so long, but I still couldn’t picture us here long-term. I still couldn’t picture a life without Dad.
“Listen”—she leaned down so we were eye-to-eye, although she didn’t have to bend down as much as she used to, since I’d grown a few inches this summer—“I know you’re used to being in a new place, but this is different. Do you want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. Mom always wanted to have “open conversations” about how I was feeling about the divorce and being so far away from Dad, who moved back to Kentucky.
She gave me a tight smile and pulled me in for a hug. “I understand how difficult this has been on you and know you’ll adjust to life here. You’ll be in school in three weeks and won’t have any trouble making friends—you never have.”
Three more weeks of being alone in this city? I mean, I know I wasn’t alone alone, but Mom had work. I had only boxes to keep me company.
“Tomorrow afternoon I want you to come up to the medical center to meet with your new diabetes doctor. I made an appointment with her at four, and then afterward I’ll show you around my new workplace. I’ll leave you some money on the counter for a taxi. I don’t want you taking the subway or bus by yourself just yet. We both need to get used to the city first. Sound good?”
I said the only thing I could: “Yep.”
Because I really didn’t have any other choice. Or anything else to do.
CHAPTER
5
I spent the next morning unpacking more boxes until boredom got the best of me. After an early lunch, I found myself sitting on our outside stoop again. While I had my journal in my hand, I realized that I was waiting. I almost didn’t want to admit it to myself, but it was very clear what I was waiting for. Oh, who was I kidding? I was waiting for a who.