Joe Sherlock Kid Detective 1 : The Haunted Toolshed (3 page)

Sister Sledgehammer

“Hello?” I say, hoping Mr. Asher has called to say that it was all just a big mistake.

But the phone is dead. “Hello?” I say again just to make sure he’s gone.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Jessie sneers while rolling her eyes. This is nothing new.

She rolls her eyes whenever she communicates with anyone.

“Mr. Asher’s up to his neck in weird stuff tonight,

” I say, staring at the phone. “Dad says I can go and help him get to the bottom of things.”

Jessie is thirteen years old and has been extremely moody since she turned eleven. She spends most of her time locked in her room practicing being angry.

Jessie’s most favorite thing to do is to call her friends and talk about how miserable she is. Her second favorite thing to do is glare at me like I’m something stuck on the bottom of her shoe.

“You flushed the toilet, didn’t you?” I ask, mostly to change the subject.

“Aaaghgh,” she says again. “You’ve got a problem with that?” Another eye roll.

“Well, my toothbrush was in there,” I explain.

This stops her dead in her tracks. She can’t even roll her eyes. Her mouth drops open slightly.

“Um,” I say, simply to break the uncomfort-able silence. “It was my favorite toothbrush. A collector’s item, actually. I was about to fish it out of there right before you flushed it.”

“Aaaghgh,” she gurgles, regaining her composure. She spins and storms off down the hall. She’s almost running. I’m sure she’s about to speed-dial all her friends to tell them that her freakish little brother now brushes his teeth in the toilet bowl.

But I must admit, that was the friendliest she’s been in six months.

Suddenly I realize the phone is barking in alarm because I forgot to hang it up. And I’m still wearing my Inspector Wink-Wink slippers.

Worse yet, I’m wasting time while poor Grandma Asher is floating so many air biscuits that every small bird in the neighborhood may be in danger.

“We haven’t a moment to spare,” I say to the empty kitchen. I’m not sure why I say this; it’s just something Sherlock Holmes always says when he’s late for a train.

It doesn’t make me feel any better.

Because deep down inside, I know that I’m about to come face-to-face with my greatest fear in the world . . . the dark.

‧ Chapter Seven ‧

Howl

As I wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, the moon looks down at me like a giant panic button. Then it disappears, gobbled up by clouds.

“Sherlock!”

I flinch and spin around in my best kung fu fighting stance.

“Oh, please,” Hailey snorts, coming out onto the porch. “You’d be better off just lying on the ground and playing dead.”

“You almost gave me a heart attack,” I grumble.

“You’ll need this,” she says, handing me a pink Girl Chat Sleepover backpack. (I lost my own backpack in an unfortunate fishing accident.) “And you’ll need this,” she says, clipping a matching Girl Chat Sleepover walkie-talkie to my belt.

“I can’t wear this,” I complain, holding up the backpack. “It’s for girls.”

“Listen, Sherlock,” she says, waving a finger in my face. “This is the real deal. This is not a drill.

This is not one of your dumb detective movies. So if Dad won’t let me go with you, you’re not leaving here with just a magnifying glass in your back pocket.”

“Okay! Okay!” I surrender, pulling my arms through the thin straps of the daisy-covered backpack. “I just hope nobody sees me.”

“It’s packed with everything you might need,”

Hailey explains, looking me over. “Now you’re fully equipped with a flashlight, your fingerprint kit, a whistle, a comb, a clean pair of underwear, twelve plastic bags for collecting evidence, a notepad, six pencils, a watch, and a compass.”

“Please don’t touch my underwear ever again!” I exclaim. “That’s gross.”

“Oh, I also put some leftover crab cakes in there,” she says, ignoring my concern for the privacy of my underwear drawer.

“I hate crab cakes,” I protest.

“They’re just a diversion in case you’re attacked by a pack of hungry dogs,” she explains.

I must admit I feel a little safer with the backpack on.

“Too bad it’s such a spooky night,” she says, peering up at the moon dodging in and out of the dark clouds. “Especially since you’re the only kid I know who needs three night-lights.”

“Do you think werewolves like crab cakes?”

I ask, watching the moon.

“If you’re not back by nine o’clock, we’ll assume the worst has happened,” she says.

Before I can chicken out, I begin walking toward the dark end of Baker Street.

Red Leader

“Red Leader! This is Blue Fox! Do you copy?

Over.”

It’s the walkie-talkie Hailey clipped to my belt. I’m only a few houses away, and she’s already calling me.

“Hailey?” I ask while pushing down a little daisy-shaped button on the walkie-talkie.

“Red Leader! This is not a secure line. Do not use real names. I repeat, do not use real names on this frequency! Over.”

Is she kidding? “Um . . . okay, Blue Fox,” I say into the walkie-talkie. Geez, do I feel like an idiot.

“You forgot to say ‘over’! Over!” blares the tiny voice amid a storm of static.

“Uh, okay . . . over,” I say, trying to keep my voice down.

“Red Leader! What’s your ten-twenty?

Over!” Hailey’s voice barks through the miniature speaker.

“What’s that mean, Red Leader? Over,” I say, looking around to make sure nobody is looking out their windows.

“Hey, you’re Red Leader! I’m Blue Fox.

Ten-twenty means your location. Over.”

I’m getting a headache that’s three miles wide.

“I just left! I’m only four houses away from our house, for goodness sake! Now leave me alone. Over and out.” I clip the walkie-talkie back on my belt.

“Roger that, Red Leader!” Hailey’s voice booms out into the night. “Have you used that extra pair of underwear yet?”

she giggles.

I stop walking and turn the volume way down. “It’s hard to get good help these days,” I say to nobody in particular.

Now I know why the great Sherlock Holmes didn’t use a walkie-talkie.

You can’t concentrate on the case at hand while someone is hollering at you all night about your supply of emergency underwear.

I pick up my pace, worried that I’ve just wasted valuable mystery-solving minutes yakking with the irritating Blue Fox.

Before long, I swear I hear the ragged breathing of bloodthirsty hounds in every shadow. I think I hear footsteps behind me.

For some reason, I can smell my mom’s beef stew with broccoli and lima beans—which is about as terrifying as it gets.

Just as my stomach starts twisting into a pretzel shape at the imagined odor of my mom’s nasty beef stew . . .

I feel the trembling, bony fingers of the Grim Reaper as he rests his hand on my right shoulder, ready to pull me into the next world, kicking and screaming. Without thinking, I run for my life.