Read Online The Great Shelby Holmes by Elizabeth Eulberg - Free Book Online

andprickly—and that was putting it mildly. (No wonder she didn’t have any friends.)
    But then I thought about all the things I’d learned and been exposed to from knowing her for only a couple days.
    Actually, the answer was pretty simple.
    “Yeah, I do.” But the more I thought about Shelby, the more I came to my own deduction about her. She was so uncomfortable today when she had to pretend to be a friend. Being friends with someone should be second nature. I never really thought about it. I was just myself around my friends. But I’ve had years of practice. Shelby didn’t have any. She might be smart, but she didn’t know any better.
    This thought kept nagging at me. Maybe it was so easy for her to dismiss me because she never had anybody ever want to be her friend before.
    “Mom, I think she needs my help.”
    Yeah, Shelby didn’t need my help solving a case, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed someone to help in other ways.
    Maybe what Shelby Holmes truly needed was a real friend.

CHAPTER
    11
    I think this goes without saying , but things weren ’ t going that well for me .
    I felt even worse the next morning as I waited outside for Shelby with a peace offering. I stood facing the front door, so she couldn’t plan an escape.
    “What do you want?” she asked with a scrunched face.
    I waved a white tissue in one hand while I held the other out to her. She was about to walk right on by me when she paused. She looked at what was in my hand. “Is that for me?”
    “It is.” I gave her a bag of assorted candy that Kristos told me was her favorite. “It’s a thank-you for yesterday. And an apology for making you leave the Lacys’ early. And well, I know you think you don’t need help—”
    “I know I don’t need help,” she insisted. Her head suddenly tilted at me. Then she narrowed her eyes as she looked me up and down.
    Oh no . She was doing her thing to me . I immediatelytensed up, not wanting to hear whatever she had to say. Especially since there wasn’t anything she was going to tell me about myself that I didn’t already know, I hoped.
    Her scowl softened slightly. “This long of a verbal sabbatical with your father must be arduous.”
    She knew. Of course she knew. (At least I think I knew what she was talking about.)
    Dad didn’t call last night. I sat, like a total chump, with Mom’s phone on my lap, waiting for his call. When he was ten minutes late, Mom grabbed her phone and locked herself in her room, and I could hear her leaving messages, her voice getting louder with each one.
    His response? Zip. Zilch. Nada. Diddly-squat.
    Maybe I should hire Shelby to solve the case of the disappearing dad?
    “We don’t have to talk about it,” Shelby offered.
    So Shelby could read social cues.
    I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to even think about it. It was too painful. What I did want was to get back to this case. I needed something to distract me. Something that would make me feel useful.
    “Thanks.” I stood up a little straighter, hoping to appear more confident. “Listen, it’s obvious you don’t need my help solving the case, but I figured that maybe I could help you deal with the Lacys. They seem like a handful.”
    It was the only thing I could think of to get her to agree to let me help her—to make the Lacys seem like the problem.
    Shelby paused for a moment. She untied the bag and put a few Swedish Fish in her mouth. After a few moments of consideration (and chewing), she finally said, “They have proved to be rather troublesome. With such dissonance amongst them, I wouldn’t have blamed Daisy for running away.”
    I debated saying more but realized it was best to leave my argument as basic as possible.
    Shelby took another handful of candy. My teeth hurt just watching her inhale all that sugar.
    She nodded. “Fine, but at no point are you to impede my investigation.”
    “Of course!” I replied, even though I wasn’t sure what impede