The Sherlock Jr. Detective Agency by Marc Morgenstern Book Tour and Giveaway :)
The
Sherlock Jr. Detective Agency
by
Marc Morgenstern
Genre:
YA, Teen Mystery
Chas,
Zoe, Xander, Nickie and Patricia and Sally make up the Sherlock Jr.
Detective Agency. Even though they are only 12 years old, each one of
them possess their own unique specialty. Patricia is a computer whiz,
Zoe and Xander, the twins, are inventors, Nickie is a mathematician,
Sally is their administrator and Chas is the leader. In this
adventure, they are hired by Skids, the local skate boarding champ,
to find his missing dog Casper which was stolen out right of his back
yard in broad daylight. Suspecting foul play their detective skills
and the Sherlock Jr. Network in the neighborhood. They must put their
best foot forward to solve the crime before time runs out and the
kidnapped Casper is sold on an auction web site to the highest
bidder.
**only
.99 cents**
The
Trials
The
trials were an age-old initiation process that all members of
Sherlock Jr. had gone through. They were to test physical, mental and
intellectual abilities. The trials had to be completed in a certain
amount of time. If the subject failed to complete any of the trials
in the specified time frames, they couldn’t become a member. The
test was only administered to a person once. If you failed, you
flunked out for good. So you had better be positive that you could do
it. The
first trial was always a test of strength and endurance. You were
pushed hard and fast which was why the location was widely known: the
school playground at Benjamin Harris Junior School, named after the
president who was in office when Sherlock Holmes was first published.
Kids needed to pass this first trial and they needed to practice.
Today was no different. As
the Sherlock Jr. members walked up to the playground, there were a
few kids that were trying to beat the minimum time allowed. Most
failed. The team crowded around Jeremy. By the looks on everyone’s
faces, half were excited to get a new member, the other half were
skeptical. No
one had just ever jumped into the trials. Usually they had interned
and
helped out around the clubhouse and, when they were ready, they took
a few practice tests and when they were confident, they took the
trials. No one had ever done what Jeremy was attempting to do. Sally,
who had cleaned herself up, pulled out her huge stop watch and stood
before Jeremy. Jeremy looked out into the playground with ease. He’s
lived five minutes from here for most of his life. He’s played on
this particular playground since he was four years old and
considering he’ll be fourteen in a couple of years that was almost
a decade! Sally snapped her fingers in front of his face to get his
attention. “Alright,
listen up. You have to travel up the slide, make your way to the
monkey bar, swing across.” While Sally talked, Jeremy didn’t take
his eyes off the prize. “Continue to the rope bridge, cross the
rings and make your way to the end. To qualify, the time to beat is
one minute and thirty seconds.” Jeremy’s
lip curled in amazement. This seemed too easy. He turned to Chas who
was obviously the guy with the best time. “What’s your record?”
he pried. “I
wouldn’t try for my record. You may hurt yourself,” gloated Chas. “Just
tell me,” insisted Jeremy as he stretched out his arms and legs.
Chas looked Jeremy up and down, was this going to be a battle for
Alpha Dog status? “Fine,”
Chas acquiesced. “Forty-six seconds.” The record had stood for
four years. Chas was very proud of it. He had beaten his older
brother Michael’s record by a good nine seconds. “Forty-six
seconds,” Jeremy confirmed. Chas’ smile dropped away. He hoped
that this Jeremy kid wasn’t a show off. “Look,
don’t strain yourself,” Chas said, trying to ease Jeremy into
doing a good job. “You just need one minute thirty seconds to
qualify.” It didn’t seem to matter, Jeremy was focused and
determined. “Alright,
on your mark,” Sally bellowed as her stopwatch clicked back to
zero. Jeremy put his hands on the foot of the slide. The same slide
he had traversed a thousand times before. “Get set,” Sally urged.
Jeremy readied his body and gripped the edges. The others watched
with determination. Chas worried about his record. Sally waited an
extra second to add suspense to the entire scenario. Then she yelled
“Go!” and clicked the stopwatch. Jeremy
bolted up the slide faster than anyone had done before. To him there
was no slide, no monkey bars or rope bridge. It was just him and the
record – forty-six seconds. He focused on the slide and tuned out
the cheering crowd. “Ten
seconds!” shouted Sally. Jeremy was in fine form. Making it to the
top of the slide, he quickly ran up to the monkey bars and leapt. He
flew through the air with a mighty blur and made it to the fourth
rung from his jump, it was quite impressive. The average kid would
start at the first or second rung, not Jeremy, he was a dynamo. Then
much to the amazement of all, he crossed the bars two at a time!
Chas’ jaw dropped. “Fifteen
seconds,” Sally’s voice encouraged Jeremy further. Several other
kids from the neighborhood ran up. They all knew what this was. Chas
started to bite his nails. “You
look worried,” Xander commented as he leaned in to be heard. Chas
didn’t take his eyes off Jeremy. “No, of course not,” Chas
unconvincingly replied. By this time Jeremy had cleared the monkey
bars and was running up to the rope bridge - the playground’s
toughest obstacle. If Jeremy was going to stumble, it was going to be
here. “Twenty-five
seconds!” Sally shouted. The rope bridge did prove to be a little
tough. It hadn’t rained in a while, so the rope was dry like
sandpaper. Jeremy’s hands burned with each grasp of the rope. Chas
watched him carefully, noting each stumble or mistake. He didn’t
have to count high. As he neared the end of the rope bridge, Sally
shouted, “Thirty-five seconds!” Jeremy
had one more obstacle. The hanging rings. Everything seemed like it
was going in slow motion. Jeremy grabbed the rings and swung out
skipping the next two rings leaving air between the first ring he
left and the third ring he grabbed. The crowd went wild. Chas watched
nervously as this kid from nowhere was clearly getting close to
beating his record. Then the unfortunate happened. Jeremy missed one
of the rings. There was his fatal flaw, this new kid was over
confident, thought Chas. Chas’ grin grew as Jeremy swung back and
had to grab a closer ring to advance. “Jeremy!
Jeremy! Jeremy!” chanted the kids. Jeremy jumped down from the
rings and rounded the final bend. He pushed himself harder than he
had ever before. As he made his way toward the finish line, Chas
swallowed hard - this kid was good. The
crowd, which had increased three-fold cheered him on. As Jeremy
crossed the finish line Sally held her hand up while simultaneously
clicking the stop watch. “Stop!”
She cried. Jeremy skidded to a halt causing a tremendous amount of
dirt to fly up and rested with his hands on his knees and out of
breath. All of the kids quieted and stood on pins and needles to hear
the results. “Well?”
wheezed Jeremy. “Forty-three
seconds,” declared Sally. There was a moment of silence for
everyone to fathom what had just happened. It seemed to go on
forever. In the future when this story is told, this moment will be
at least a good minute and a half. Not so, it was more like half a
second, but you could, as they say in the biz, drive a truck through
it. Chas’
face dropped. His record was defeated. Everyone cheered and ran up to
Jeremy to congratulate him. As they patted him on the back, the crowd
parted to reveal Chas standing, staring at him in silence. The master
was now the student. Chas made no movement. Was this the passing of
the torch or were there hard feelings? Chas
thrust his hand out. The team jumped back. Was there going to be a
fight? It was one thing to break the record, but to smugly say you’re
going to do it beforehand and then do it was another. “Good
job,” complimented Chas. His hand was open waiting for a handshake.
Jeremy stuck his hand out and shook it. There were no hard feelings.
More cheers erupted from the neighborhood kids. “Nice
work,” Sally said stoically while jotting notes on her pad. “Next
is a test of observation.” She then pulled a blindfold out of her
pocket. A murmur started amongst the crowd. Jeremy was in for
something special.
Marc Morgenstern has been a part of the film industry for at least 25 years, but became a serious writer/director in 2004 when he shot his first feature film, The Vampire Conspiracy, that went on to receive worldwide distribution. In addition, it has been translated into four languages and sold in Wal-Mart, Blockbuster, Target, and more. It launched Fangoria's, the nations largest resource for horror fiction's online streaming service Fangoria TV, and during its release was searched in the top 700 searched movies on imdb.com. After it was turned into a graphic novel, it won a silver medal at the 2010 Independent Publishing Awards.
Since
then, Marc has achieved international recognition with his Cannes
Lions Shortlisting commercial "Poker Face", that either
placed or won in 10 different award shows.
One
of Marc's greatest industry accomplishments was as the creator of the
variety show HouseCapades with Mike Bullard, and achieved the #1 show
of its kind in its time slot and ran for over 250 episodes, one of
the longest running television shows in Canadian history.
After
that, he ended up becoming the Broadcasting Creative Director at Avid
Life Media, where he created and produced over 80 international
commercials for over 30 markets and directed the documentary Affairs
Across America. With Avid Life Media, Marc has written and developed
a variety show, a reality show, two feature films and a
sitcom.
Marc
is no stranger to directing children. He also created the three
award-winning nationally renown live-action shorts titled: Operation:
LabBrats. In 2013 Marc moved to California where he immediately went
into production, writing and directing the feature film 'Vitals' with
Christopher Showerman, Charlene Amoia, Tim Russ, Claudia Wells and
Sachin Mehta.
He
currently lives in Burbank, CA with his loving wife Tanya.
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