The Great Shelby Holmes and the Haunted Hound

by Elizabeth Eulberg

  I nudged Shelby and gave her a look. The one my mom would give me if I needed to straighten up my act.

  Shelby grimaced. “You’re welcome, Bryant. I was most happy to be of assistance to you and your neighbors.” Then Shelby turned to me. “Is that acceptable?”

  I mean, I guess that was as much as I could expect with those two.

  “Yeah, okay. So I’ll see you in class,” Bryant said before waving us goodbye.

  “Yes, until then.” And I swear, she gave him the hint of a smile.

  Maybe there was hope for them yet.

  “Shelby,” I began.

  “Watson,” Shelby cut me off. “Is your friend not a satisfied client? Did we not get to the bottom of his problem?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Yes, I could be friendlier. Unlike you, I don’t like to muddy the waters with feelings. Look what happened with Moira when she made things personal. She ended up being careless.”

  I sighed. Every time I thought I was getting somewhere with her regarding people, she’d take eighteen giant steps back.

  “But, Watson, I don’t need to be the friendly one—that’s your specialty.”

  “That doesn’t make me special. Most people treat others with respect.”

  Shelby snorted. “Since when?”

  I shook my head. Shelby put her arm around my shoulder. “Watson, you know I could never do this without you. You center me. You sometimes see things that I can’t, especially when human emotions are involved. So thank you.”

  Wow. Maybe I was making progress. Even if it was just Shelby being kinder to me. I was going to take any small victory I could.

  “Are we okay?” Shelby asked.

  “Yeah.” We had solved another case. Bryant was going to be able to stay in his home. “We’re cool.”

  Because no matter how abrupt Shelby was, she was my partner and my friend.

  CHAPTER

  32

  “Here’s to another successful case,” Aisha said to me as she held up her glass of soda at Sal’s on Saturday afternoon.

  “And here’s to competing at sectionals,” I replied as our glasses clinked together.

  Aisha smiled at me, and oh boy, my stomach did this weird flutter. “Thanks, I’m so glad we were able to do this, especially since I have to step up my training next week.”

  We looked down at our table covered with the crumbs from our lunch of garlic bread and pepperoni pizza. Last time I was here with Aisha, she could only have a small side salad since being a figure skater was no joke.

  Okay, I also thought that she might’ve been sending bullying notes to her main rival.

  (I sometimes wasn’t the best judge of character when it came to our cases.)

  Luckily, Aisha turned out to be innocent and yeah, I liked her. Maybe Mom wasn’t the only person in the family who could date. Even though I was only eleven and so not ready to settle down or anything.

  Not like this was a date.

  Whatever.

  “This is so good.” Aisha closed her eyes as she finished her slice of pizza.

  “Yeah, Sal’s the best.” I took one last bite, since I had to be careful about eating too much with my diabetes. Mom gave me permission to have two slices, and then I had to get my glucose levels checked when I got home.

  I sank back in my seat. The case was over. I was spending my Saturday afternoon eating pizza with a cool girl. This new life wasn’t all bad.

  “I’m glad we were able to do this,” I said as I took the check from Sal. I had Bryant’s gift card burning a hole in my pocket. “My treat.”

  Aisha smiled at me before her eyes suddenly flew wide open.

  “What is it?”

  She tilted her head. “Is that your foot?”

  “Is what my foot?” My feet were on the floor, not touching anything.

  Both Aisha and I looked under the table at the same time.

  She was the first to jump up and scream. I was quick to follow.

  Because there—under our table—was a snake.

  Let me repeat: there was a snake in a pizzeria.

  “AH!” Aisha screamed as she jumped up on the table across from us. The other customers all looked on in alert.

  “Watson!” Sal came rushing over. “What’s wrong?”

  I couldn’t find my voice and could only point under the table, but then that familiar red hair popped up from the booth behind us. Shelby scooped up the snake in one arm. “Nothing to be alarmed about. A simple garden snake.”

  SHELBY?!?!

  “Seriously?” Aisha said before she jumped down from the booth and ran out the door.

  “What are you doing?” I scolded a confused Shelby as I ran out to follow Aisha.

  “I’m so sorry!” I called after her. “I have no idea what’s going on. But we can go back inside.”

  Aisha’s skin was ashen. “No way can I go back in there! I hate snakes!”

  Oh, man. Shelby was in so much trouble.

  “I’m so sorry,” I repeated. I didn’t want this to be the way our really nice lunch ended. “Maybe we can go get ice cream or something. Get as far away from Sal’s and that snake as possible. And Shelby.”

  Aisha shivered. “It’s okay. I need to get home. Um . . .”

  We both stood there. I didn’t know how to make up for Shelby’s behavior. It was a position I was often in, but Aisha wasn’t a client. She was a friend. A really cute one.

  “I’m really, really sorry.”

  “Watson, you don’t have to keep apologizing. You didn’t do anything.”

  I knew that, but I was used to apologizing for Shelby.

  “I know, but I feel bad. Really bad. So I’ll talk to you later?” I didn’t want this to be the last I saw of her.

  “Yeah.” She gave me a small smile and then gave me a hug. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  I watched her walk away with a big smile on my face, a smile that vanished once I turned back to Sal’s. I stormed into the pizzeria and saw that Shelby was beaming.

  “Did it work?” she asked.

  “Did what work? Oh, are you referring to trying to ruin my day?”

  I mean, really?

  Shelby’s expression fell. “Oh, but the emotions for fear and love are closely related, so many times people can form romantic feelings for someone when they’ve been put in a frightening situation. There are many studies—”

  “Shelby!” I cut her off. “Are you telling me you purposely scared Aisha so she would like me?”

  “Of course,” Shelby replied softly. “Isn’t this what you told me friends do? They help each other out. You’re my friend, I wanted to help you.”

  Unbelievable. I mean, it was kind of sweet when you think about it, but still. A snake. She thought a snake was going to make Aisha like me.

  Not like I wanted anything like that to happen or anything.

  Whatever.

  “Is Aisha mad?” Shelby asked.

  “What do you think?” I glowered at her.

  “I’m sorry, Watson. I really am.”

  And I could see by her face that she meant it. She really did try to help me, and it backfired big time.

  Shelby looked out the door. “She’s not coming back?”

  “No, she’s not. We were almost done anyway.” I took a few steps away from the bag in Shelby’s hand that was moving.

  The check wasn’t on the table anymore.

  “I took care of it,” Shelby stated as she handed my gift card back. “It’s the least I could do.”

  Ah, the least she could’ve done was to stay home and not pull that stunt.

  “So what I did wasn’t a friendly thing?” she asked, her forehead creased.

  Being a friend was hard for Shelby. There wasn’t a book she could study.

  I put my arm around her. “Shelby, we might have to do some lessons about how to treat friends.”

  “But you’re the only friend that matters, Watson.”

  Which was precisely why I neede
d her to realize that trying to scare someone was never a good thing. Didn’t she learn anything from this case?

  “I’ll be sure to properly apologize to Aisha so she does not hold a grudge against you. That was the opposite effect that I desired.”

  “Thanks, Shelby.” I could only shake my head. Leave it to Shelby Holmes to use science and psychology to try to help me with Aisha, even though I was doing fine on my own.

  Not that I—­

  Never mind.

  “I think I have something that will make you feel better.” Shelby pulled up a photo on her phone. It showed an angry Moira seated in an office between two adults who looked like they could be her parents. It was shot from a distance so you could see they were in a police station. “Lestrade sent it to me.”

  You know what, that did make me feel better.

  “So, I have deduced that you are free for the rest of the afternoon,” Shelby stated.

  “Yeah, Shelby. Clearly I’m—”

  But I stopped myself. Because it could only mean one thing.

  I couldn’t wait to hear her say it.

  “We’ve got another case to solve.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It’s all treat and no trick getting to work on another Shelby and Watson book. Thank you so much to the incredible team at Bloomsbury for all their work on this series: Diane Aronson, Erica Barmash, Anna Bernard, Frank Bumbalo, Liz Byer, Danielle Ceccolini, Phoebe Dyer, Beth Eller, Courtney Griffin, Melissa Kavonic, Jeanette Levy, Cindy Loh, Donna Mark, Patricia McHugh, Linda Minton, Brittany Mitchell, Valentina Rice, Sarah Shumway, and Lily Yengle. Special thanks to my editor, Hali Baumstein, for making these books stronger and having to endure a special trip to eat ginormous ice cream sundaes.

  Erwin Madrid deserves many bags of full-sized candy bars for his illustrations that bring Shelby and Watson to life.

  Believe it or not (because I often don’t), this is my twelfth published book. I’m so honored to get to write and never take it for granted. So much love to my family, friends, readers, and the wonderful booksellers, teachers, and librarians who have recommended my books. I couldn’t do this without you. THANK YOU!

  BLOOMSBURY CHILDREN’S BOOKS

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  BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY CHILDREN’S BOOKS, and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  First published in the United States of America in September 2019 by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

  Text copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Eulberg

  This electronic edition published in 2019 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Erwin Madrid

  All rights reserved

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Eulberg, Elizabeth, author.

  Title: The great Shelby Holmes and the haunted hound / by Elizabeth Eulberg.

  Description: New York : Bloomsbury, 2019.

  Summary: Super sleuths Shelby Holmes and John Watson must survive an overnight Halloween stakeout while investigating a local apartment building, where residents hear an unearthly dog’s howl at night.

  ISBN: 978-1-5476-0147-9 (HB)

  ISBN: 978-1-5476-0148-6 (eBook)

  ISBN: 978-1-5476-0149-3 (XML)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Mystery and detective stories. | Haunted places—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Harlem (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.E8685 Gsh 2019 (print) | LCC PZ7.E8685 (e-book) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019003806

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