Grady Jones's DayGrady Jones's Day Grady Jones was destined for greatness. He could feel it in his bones. When Grady daydreamed--and he daydreamed a lot --he would imagine himself walking down the street, and people would turn to each other and whisper, You know who that is? That's Grady Jones, the great... something. The problem was figuring out what that "something" was. For example, when Grady turned ten, he got a microscope for his birthday. The moment he unwrapped the box, he realized he might be a Genius Scientist, and threw himself into the school science fair project with a dangerous amount of enthusiasm. It would, he decided, be the most talked-about science fair project ever. And it definitely was talked about, just not the way Grady had hoped. The talk was less "Wow, that Grady kid is amazing. Did you hear about his science project?" and more "Yikes, that Grady kid is a disaster. Did you hear they're still cleaning slime out of the light fixtures?" After that incident (or "gymnasium-destroying slime explosion," to be specific) the school guidance counselor suggested that, since Grady clearly craved attention, maybe his mom should find him some sort of performing arts program. (Or any activity, really, so long as he never did science again.) Of course, upon hearing "performing arts," Grady decided that he might be a Great Actor and begged his mom to enroll him in the Hammett Children's Theatre program so he could star in one of those cool holiday shows they did at the community center. The details of how that went wrong will be discussed later. Suffice to say that even though most of the injuries were relatively minor--only three audience members had to be hospitalized, and none of them for very long--it still meant a quick and certain end to Grady's acting career. At this point Grady was starting to get a reputation around town. The word "oddball" was used on more than one occasion. But did Grady care about that? Heck, did he even notice? He did not. So what about soccer? That was his older brother Andy's suggestion. Andy was hoping it would turn Grady "normal," but Grady's skills did not match his all-star-level confidence, and the only thing he managed to accomplish was giving himself a concussion during the first practice when he accidentally headed a goalpost instead of the ball. But still the attempts at greatness continued! Olympic Figure Skater didn't work out, nor Sushi Chef, nor Olde Tyme Glassblower, nor Certified Public Accountant. At this point a lesser individual might have started to worry that he wasn't as awesome as he thought he was. But Grady wedged those doubts into a deep cobwebby crevice of his brain and diligently ignored them. He would figure out what he was great at even if it killed him. Even if it took months. And then finally, on a mild day in December of his sixth-grade year, it came to him. Grady realized with absolute certainty what he would be great at. He would be a Rock Star. Now, there's a good chance that at this point you're thinking, Wait, is this a book about a rock star? I thought it was a book about a detective! Well, life is funny, and it just so happened that the day that kicked off all the mystery, murder, and mayhem of the next couple of weeks was the very day when Grady, belting out a hit song at top volume in the shower, decided he didn't have a half-bad voice, and maybe Rock Superstardom was a valid career path. It's sort of an embarrassing detail, but it's what happened, so that's the story that needs to be told. It should be noted that Grady couldn't carry a tune or play an instrument. But he did have an electronic keyboard that he had gotten the previous Christmas, and he had learned a few C-major chords from an online tutorial. He could also press the drum preset buttons (disco, salsa, honky-tonk, and so on). In other words, he had everything he needed to form the Greatest Rock Band Ever. He was up in his room working on the band's tour poster when his little brother, Kit, wandered in. Kit was eight, had sandy-blond hair, and unlike Grady was super skinny, so he always had his belt cinched tight in a futile attempt to keep his pants from falling down. "Aren't those my markers?" Kit frowned, hiking up his pants. "You're using up all the orange." Grady's hair was a flaming demolition derby of orange curls, and if he wanted to draw himself properly, he needed a lot of orange ink. If he decided to color his freckles, he'd need even more. Unsurprisingly, orange was his favorite color. Kit looked the poster over. "What's this for, anyway?" "We're forming a rock band." "Who is?" "Me and whoever else from Hilldale Avenue wants to join. I'll probably need at least three other guys, but if everyone wants to do it, they can be, like, backup singers or something." "Cool! Can I join? I could play my kazoo." Grady had expected that this might come up, and he tried to let Kit down easy. "Kit, I promise when you're a little older, you can join, but third grade is just too young for rock superstardom. Me and the other Hilldale Avenue kids are all in sixth grade or higher." Kit sat on Grady's bed and pouted. He watched Grady color for a minute. "Well, not that I care, since I can't be in it, but what's the band called, anyway?" Grady grinned. "Okay, this is epic. So, I still have my Dracula cape from Halloween, and I'm gonna cover it with sequins, and the band will be called"--he raised his fingers, miming a glowing marquee in front of a concert hall--"Count Spectacular and the Spectacles. I'm Count Spectacular, of course." Kit frowned. "And the Spectacles? Like glasses? Count Spectacular and the Eyeglasses?" "No, no, Kit. 'Spectacle' means 'something that's spectacular.' Like, fireworks are a spectacle." Kit pondered that. Then his face lit up. "Oh! I have a great idea! I still have my werewolf costume, so what if you had a vampire and a werewolf and instead of 'Spectacles' it was 'Count Spectacular and the Wolf Boys'?" Grady stopped coloring for a moment and chewed that over. He had to admit, it was kind of a killer concept. And he hadn't yet colored in the band's name on the poster, so there was still time to change it. "Okay," he said, warming to the idea, "?'Wolf Boys' it is. I just need to find an eraser." "So... does that mean I can be in the band?" Kit pleaded, clasping his hands in a beg. "Please, please, puh-leeeeeease ?" That third "please" wormed its way into Grady's brotherly heart. "Fine, you can be in the band." Kit leapt up. "Yay! I'll get my costume!" He started for the door. "Oh, but wait," Kit said, realizing something. "The other guys won't have werewolf costumes." "No problem. We'll get some cotton balls and brown paint, and we can make wolf beards for everyone." A rock band and an art project? The other guys in the neighborhood would think this was awesome. An hour later the boys headed downstairs to debut their act for Andy. The Joneses's small two-story house was no Buckingham Palace, but their mom had always worked hard to keep things presentable for guests. That meant, in particular, that the living room was off-limits to the boys, its carpet vacuumed to the point where every little fiber stood at anxious attention. So fun stuff--snacking, playing video games, cavorting, sweating, or otherwise being kids--was confined to the den, or as their mother had dubbed it, the Sty. Their mom never even bothered to clean the Sty. She had tried once but had given up after an hour, looking glassy-eyed and defeated, her bottle of Windex empty and her hair matted with dust bunnies and Skittles. So the Sty couch was a jumble of misaligned cushions and half-open board game boxes, and the rug was crusty with ground-in popcorn kernels and orphaned jigsaw puzzle pieces. Grady and Kit found Andy there on his weight bench counting off bench presses, with discarded protein bar wrappers strewn on the floor around him. "Get ready to have your world rocked!" Grady proclaimed. Andy finished his last lift and sat up quickly, whacking his head on his barbell. He looked at Grady and Kit and their costumes in confusion. "What happened? Is it Halloween again?" "I'm forming a rock band!" Grady announced. "We're gonna be called Count Spectacular and..." He stepped aside, and Kit stepped forward. "The Wolf Boys!" Kit barked. "Grr!" "We've only got one Wolf Boy so far," Grady explained, "but I'm going to invite all the other guys on Hilldale Avenue to sign up, so we'll probably have, like, six or seven total." Grady showed Andy the poster. "See, I'll draw them in next to Kit once the contracts are signed." Andy studied the poster for a long time. An important thing to know about the Jones kids is that they had lost their dad in a car accident about five years earlier, and ever since then Andy took his job as eldest and wisest very seriously. Right now he was frowning as he examined the drawing of Grady and Kit onstage. "Why is Kit eating a slice of pizza?" "That's a kazoo!" Grady explained. "I even considered making it an all-kazoo band, but then I figured we should keep an open mind in case some of the guys in the neighborhood play drums or electric guitars or something." Andy looked at Grady like he was the weirdest kid on the planet, which was how Andy mostly looked at Grady these days. Andy was in eighth grade, and was athletic and popular, and when his friends said "I can't believe Grady is your brother," he always replied, "I'm pretty sure he was adopted." "Grady," Andy ventured delicately, "I see you worked really hard on the poster and everything, but... no offense, but those other guys are way too cool for this." "Rock stars are, like, the coolest guys there are!" "Yeah, rock stars are cool, but sixth and seventh graders pretending to be rock stars --" "And a third grader!" Kit piped in. "Yeah, and a third grader," Andy said. "Okay, Grady, maybe 'cool' is the wrong word. I guess I'm saying they're a little too... mature for this. They're into, you know, riding their bikes, riding their skateboards. I saw two of them playing lacrosse out there. I think one of them even has a girlfriend, whatever that means to a seventh grader. Maybe instead of, like, putting on a costume and trying to recruit them to be backup wolf boys in your rock band, you could just roll your bike out there and say hi, and hang out, and just be, like... normal. You know, not all weird and everything." Grady sighed and shook his head. Andy was trying to be helpful, but he didn't know the Hilldale Avenue kids the way Grady did. They weren't into just boring "mature" stuff like bike riding and sports and girls. Years ago, when Grady had just moved to town, they had done all sorts of fun stuff, and they didn't think Grady was weird, either. He was actually widely admired for his creativity. He had invented the Space Game, and the Jungle Game, and the Pirate Game, and tons of other cool games. Back then he could simply stroll out of the house and announce that today they'd be playing the Zombie Game, punctuating this declaration with his much-anticipated tagline: "It will be our greatest adventure yet!" And kids would flock to join him. It was true that that was a long time ago. After Grady's dad died, it seemed like they were kind of nervous around Grady for a while, like they didn't know what to say to him. That nervousness faded eventually, but things were never quite the same. It was around that time that Grady started getting the idea that he might be a Great [Fill in the Blank], and the other kids sometimes got frustrated that Grady always had to be in charge--the Spaceship Captain, or the Lead Ghost Hunter, or the Senior Branch Manager (when they played the Savings & Loan Game, which wasn't very often). Eventually fifth grade rolled around and all the other boys started at Hammett Academy, the fancy private school over in West Hammett. Since there was no way Grady's mom could afford that, Grady was the only one at the public school. That made him kind of an outsider in the group. Which was why the rock band thing was a great idea. What better way to bond than touring the country in a van and playing concerts together? That said, maybe Andy had a point. Maybe those guys were too mature to get excited about being Wolf Boys. "Andy, you know what?" Grady said. "I think you're right." Andy looked relieved. "Good, Grady, I'm glad you can see it." "We'll change it from Count Spectacular and the Wolf Boys to Count Spectacular and the Wolf Men . That's much more grown-up." Andy slapped his forehead in exasperation, a gesture a lot of people made around Grady. "Grady, it isn't about the name . Anyway, since when are you a musician? Writing a song is hard!" "Actually, it isn't!" Grady said brightly. "I wrote three already, in just the last hour. Wanna hear?" Andy looked like he was about to argue, but then he sagged. "I guess so." "Trust me, when you hear them, you'll realize this idea isn't as dumb as you think." Grady placed the keyboard and lyrics sheets on the arm of the couch. "This first one is our theme song. You'll notice it's, like, scary, 'cause we're leaning into the whole vampire/werewolf angle." "Got it," Andy said. "Scary sixth-grade rock band. Keeps getting better and better." "Okay, here goes. Ready, Kit? Just like we rehearsed." Grady cleared his throat and started up the rock-and-roll drum preset. Kit tootled his kazoo with heavy-metal brio, and Grady plunked out the two C-major chords he remembered, singing with a ferocious rock-and-roll snarl. "Count Spectacular and the Wolf Men, rocking our way to the top! Count Spectacular and the Wolf Men! We're never gonna stop!" Andy looked pained, but Grady was too busy rocking out to notice. He continued, pounding out his chords two octaves lower, to sound super scary: "Come hear our story, because we are here! Not only are we gonna rock you, we're also fillin' your prescription for fear!" Andy stopped him there. "Wait. 'Filling your prescription for fear'?" Grady grinned. "To keep with the 'scary' theme. Epic, right?" But Andy seemed skeptical. "Maybe you should call yourselves Count Spectacular and the Pharmacists." Grady flipped to his next sheet of lyrics. "Okay, if you don't like that one, I've got a bunch more. This one's called 'Chief Executive of the Frightmare Corporation.'?" "Grady," Andy said, "I hate to say this, but maybe it's time to grow up and recognize, like, you're not actually gonna be a rock star." At which point Grady felt an uncomfortable twinge of doubt. Because if he wasn't a Great Rock Star, then what was he great at? Andy looked at him kind of sympathetically. "I've gotta get back to my workout." "Yeah, yeah, sure, go ahead," Grady muttered as Andy lay back on the weight bench. Deep in thought, Grady gathered up his lyrics and headed for the stairs, Kit close behind. "Kit, I've been thinking a lot about a kid who lives on a remote island." Kit folded up Grady's cape for him, carefully smoothing out the wrinkles, and laid it on Grady's bed. "Who, Tony Fellner?" "Who's Tony Fellner?" "A kid in my class from Staten Island." Grady shook his head. "No, no, not, like, a specific kid. Like, a hypothetical kid . He's on this island in the middle of nowhere, could be Staten Island, could be somewhere just as remote, and he has the skills to be the greatest yo-yo-er on the planet. You know, he's really amazing at, like, letting go of stuff, and then catching stuff again, just everything you need to yo-yo. But, Kit, here's the problem: he lives on this remote island. He's never even seen a yo-yo. You see what I'm saying?" Kit stared at him blankly and shook his head. "I have no idea what you're saying." "What if someone is great at something, but they never know it because they never get a chance?" And then, in case it wasn't 100 percent clear, he added, "What if I never figure out what I'm great at?" And that was when the sound of a car outside drew the boys to the window. Now, to understand how weird it was to see a limousine pulling up in front of the Jones house, you have to know that Hilldale Avenue was not a limousine street. Hilldale Avenue was a family street. That meant Christmas lights in December, and inflatable splash pools on the lawns in summer. The families of modest means drove sensible compact cars, and the wealthiest went with inconspicuous minivans. There was not a flashy ride to be seen, no reds or yellows, no convertibles, and certainly no limousines . You'd more likely see a camel strolling down the halls of the middle school than see a limo on Hilldale Avenue. Except today a limo did, in fact, show up on Hilldale Avenue, and it stopped in front of Grady's house. Grady looked at Kit, and Kit shrugged, as confused as Grady. Outside, a massive chauffeur with a shiny, bald bowling-ball head emerged from the driver's side. He opened the back, and a woman in a blue suit clambered out. She tripped a little on the curb--apparently not everyone who rides in a limousine is graceful--but the chauffeur caught her before she could fall. She steadied herself and came hustling up the walkway. Grady and Kit were downstairs and at the front door before the woman even rang the bell. Of course they couldn't open the door (she was a stranger, and, while she wasn't dangerous-looking, rules were rules), but they stared at her through the door's glass window. Andy emerged from the Sty. "Did you see that limo out front?" he asked them, before seeing the woman on the other side of the door. She was maybe in her thirties or so, with blond hair in a tight bun, and thick black glasses that made her eyes seem big for her face. She stood right there on the other side of the glass, but she hadn't seen them yet, as she busily searched through her purse, a frown etched on her brow. "Ha! Got it!" she announced to herself, her voice muffled by the thick glass. She looked up from her purse and clutched her heart when she saw the boys there. "Oh! You startled me!" She quickly recovered and held up an envelope. "I have a letter here for Mr. Jones," she called through the window. "Is he home?" Grady exchanged a sad look with Andy at the mention of their dad. "Um, sorry, there's no Mr. Jones here," Andy told her. "But maybe you want our mom, Mrs . Jones? She's at the supermarket right now." Although, why would a limousine lady want Grady's mom? The woman looked again at her envelope. "No, it's definitely for a mister." In her other hand she had a small slip of notepaper, which she scanned carefully. "This is Hilldale Avenue, isn't it? Number..." She flipped the notepaper to the other side and read. "Number eight-eighteen?" "Yes," Andy confirmed. The woman inspected the sheet again. Then she slapped her forehead. "Oh my gosh, I've done it again." She turned the paper. "I was looking at it upside down." She laughed to herself. "Sorry to bother you boys." She left the doorstep and walked to the end of the walkway. There she looked around, glanced at the paper, turned it again, and hurried back to the door, where the boys still stood. "Ha," she said. "Funny thing. Eight-eighteen upside down is still eight-eighteen. Are you sure there's no Mr. Jones here? A Mr. Grady Jones?" Grady felt his freckles flush with guilt. Both Andy and Kit looked at him. Andy scowled. "What did you do this time?" "I--I'm sorry!" Grady stammered. "It was an accident! The handle was loose! The sun was in my eyes! I--" Wait. What had he done? He really couldn't think of anything. Nothing recent, anyway. Straightening up, he smiled. "I'm Grady Jones," he told the woman brightly. "I knew I had it right!" The woman smiled back. "Anyway, I'm supposed to hand-deliver this envelope to you. I can just slide it through here." She passed the envelope through the mail slot, and it dropped to the floor at their feet. Grady hesitated a moment, then picked up the envelope and examined it curiously. Thick paper, nice texture, very elegant. "Okay, well, that's all," the woman finished warmly. "Good luck, Mr. Jones." They all watched as she turned and headed back to the limo. The giant chauffeur opened the door for her, and she got in. As quickly as it had arrived, the limousine rounded the corner off Hilldale Avenue and was gone. The three boys turned their attention to the envelope. Kit tugged at Grady's shirt. "Open it, Grady! Maybe you're invited to a fancy party or something." "The only way Grady's going to a fancy party is in a clown costume," Andy grumbled, though Grady could tell he was just as curious as Grady and Kit were. Grady carefully opened the envelope, with Kit and Andy peering over his shoulder. Inside was a single note card. Grady slid it out just a tiny bit, just enough to read the salutation line. "Dear Mr. Jones," it read. "Grady, pull it out already," Andy said impatiently. But this was the most interesting thing that had happened to Grady since the Hammett town fair last summer, when he had gotten stuck on the waterslide. He wanted to savor the moment. He slid the note out a little farther, just enough to read the first lines. Dear Mr. Jones: Only you will be able to solve the mystery of my murder. Excerpted from Grady Jones and the Great Detective Game by Kerry Douglas Dye All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
