No Clues, You Lose: Joey Jacobs Mysteries, #1

By A. B. Donahue

Who could be behind the disappearance of the team's uniforms?

When her wheelchair basketball team's uniforms go missing, Joey Jacobs takes the lead to solve the mystery with the help of her friends and family. In the process, she catches the perpetrator of a city-wide crime spree and learns how to be a better team player—both on and off the court.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bandersnatch Books, LLC
• Release date: Oct 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798985315110

Book preview

1

Monday, November 5th, 3:45 p.m.

"J osephine Jacobs! Put on your shoes!"

Mom was yelling at me about footwear again. Apparently, it’s a big deal to leave the house without shoes on. Like it’s socially unacceptable to most people.

But not to me. I hate shoes.

I can’t find them! I was still changing my clothes for basketball practice. They’re not in the bathroom!

Did you look in your bedroom? Mom was getting louder, coming down the hall.

Yes! I was adjusting my sock seam perfectly across my toes when I saw what I thought was Mom’s head pop around the corner of the doorway. I say thought, because she’s only four feet eleven inches, so I always have to look closely to see if it’s her or my ten-year-old sister, Emma, who has the same dark hair.

Are you seriously still getting ready? Mom squinted at me. She thinks it’s a scary squint, but it’s not. We are already late for practice, you don’t have your shoes on, and you’ve had thirty minutes to get ready.

I’m almost done, but I have to use the bathroom, too.

Mom’s eyes got big. "Joey. Do you care about being on time?"

We would be almost on time. Maybe five minutes late. Which is basically early for our family. But I didn’t care about finding my shoes. They were a pain to put on, even when I wasn’t wearing my orthotics. And they felt weird because I only have partial feeling in my feet. I was kind of hoping we would leave without them.

And you are not leaving the house without your shoes. You would just have to miss practice. Coach Mike is cracking down on the rules. He wants you to practice how you play. You can’t play a tournament without shoes, so you can’t roll up to practice without shoes.

Ok. I’ll find them. Wherever they are, I’m sure they’re together. I tucked my #1 Necklace under the neckline of my shirt. You can’t play a tournament in jewelry, either.

Mom held up a black orthotic tennis shoe with a zipper that ran all the way around the side. I’ve already found one. It was in the laundry room.

Ugh.

Mom crossed her arms. I don’t even want to know why. How my children manage to constantly have a shoe by the front door and a shoe missing is beyond me.

If it makes you feel any better, I don’t want to know, either! I thought I left them both by the door, so it’s really weird that you found it in the laundry room! Like, who has been wearing my shoes on their dirty feet? I smiled and started to shut the bathroom door.

Since you have to finish getting ready, I’m going to ask Matt to help find your other shoe.

Not Matt. Anybody but Matt. He’ll actually find it.

Don’t bother Matt. It’s fine. I’ll just put on my socks with the fake ballet slippers printed on them, and no one will ever know. I was talking from behind the closed door, shuffling my bathroom medical supplies around. I have a habit of opening packages and leaving the wrapper in the bin, which means it’s sometimes hard to find a new pack. Kind of like trying to dig the keys out of your mom’s purse when it is full of tissues.

What did you need help with? Matt’s voice was outside the bathroom door. He must have overheard us talking from his room. Matt is twelve, super smart, and always in my business.

We’re running late and need to find Joey’s shoe.

Shoes? Matt asked.

No. Shoe. I already have one, Mom said.

Did you check her room?

Don’t go in my room! I yelled from inside the bathroom.

Pretty sure it would be in her room, Matt said.

I was stuck in the middle of my bathroom routine, so I couldn’t go stop him. Don’t you dare go in my room! It’s not in there! I was feeling panicky. My room is, honestly, a hot mess of ADHD-style organization. I may have shoved a couple too many important things I wanted to save into reused holiday bags. It’s not like Matt could do anything to make it worse. But I still didn’t want him touching my stuff.

If you don’t want him in your room, then why don’t you give us a suggestion as to where to look? Mom’s voice was getting sharp.

Um, I’m thinking . . . I straightened my clothes, hurrying to get back out into the hall. Come, Daisy, I quietly said to my service dog, who was lying on the floor.

That was it.

Hey, Mom. I opened the door. Let Daisy sniff it. She was trained in search and rescue for Brandon, and I’m sure my shoe smells a lot more than a person does. My younger brother, Brandon, is nine now and doesn’t wander away as much. But when he was younger, he wandered a lot. Enough that we cross-trained my service dog to go find him.

Mom held the shoe to Daisy’s nose and gave a command. Daisy sniffed the shoe, lifted her nose to the air, then took off running toward the living room. I pushed past Mom and Matt and wheeled down the hall after her. I felt like a real canine police detective.

Daisy ran through the living room and into the kitchen. She stopped in front of the refrigerator. Woof, woof! Her nose was turned up, and her eyes were locked on the top of the fridge.

Found it! I yelled. Actually, I hadn’t quite found it because I couldn’t see it. The top of the fridge was not exactly accessible.

I took my forearm crutches off the back of my wheelchair and leaned forward. It was hard to get my feet planted on the floor without braces or shoes. I stabilized the back of my legs against the frame of my wheelchair and stood up, placing all my weight on the left crutch while I lifted the right one to swipe around the edge of the fridge. I felt the tip of the crutch come in contact with something, so I looked up and gave it a shove.

A flyswatter fell on my face.

You want me to get that for you? Matt was behind me.

No. I found it. I’m going to get it. I swiped around the edge again. Can you actually see it up there?

Yeah, it’s closer to the back.

I scooted over a few inches and swiped the corner near the back wall. I tapped something solid again. This time the object felt a little heavier.

You want me to . . .

No. I’ve got it. I hit the object hard.

Matt watched it tumble off like it was the most normal thing in the world for a shoe to be retrieved from the top of a kitchen appliance. And to be honest, for our family, it was.

I flopped back down in my chair, my left arm shaky from taking all my weight. Matt started to pick up the shoe from the floor, but I darted out my right crutch, stuck the rubber tip inside the opening of the shoe, and lifted it up like a fish on a hook. Then I reeled it in, hand over hand.

Just call me Super Sleuth, I told Matt. And I'm not accepting sidekick applications at this time. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye.

Oh, congratulations on doing it yourself, Matt answered. You’re obviously the best. Amazingly fast. He smiled. So fast that now you still have time to put on your shoes before practice.

Ugh. Matt knew I hated shoes.

Next time, you might want to ask me for help after all. He gave a cheesy wink.

Before I could think of a good reply, Mom rushed over with her jacket half on—one arm in a sleeve and the other sleeve dangling behind her. She grabbed the shoes off my lap.

No time to put them on here. You’ll have to do it in the car. She held the shoes in her jacketed arm, swiping her other arm unsuccessfully at the dangling sleeve like a blindfolded boxer. I just saw an email from Coach Mike. Your new uniforms are supposed to be at practice today, and they want everyone there early to pass them out and try them on. Her fist hit the sleeve and went in.

Five minutes late suddenly went from almost on time to actually late. I spun around, pushed by the couch to grab my zip-up hoodie, and beat Mom to the door.

Mom slung her purse over her shoulder. I hope they all fit. Ricky said if we needed any more, we’d need to give him a six-week turnaround to order in the right material.

"Well, I hope they fit so that I won’t be embarrassed about convincing Coach Mike to use Uncle Ricky’s new screen printing business to make them. What if they aren’t made right? What if Uncle Ricky got the colors wrong? I mean, we are his first order."

It couldn’t be any more embarrassing than last year when you threw up on the court. Last game of the season, and the team had to forfeit because you were their fifth player.

True. Not a lot could be worse than that. The other team had celebrated their win by calling it a Floor-Spit Forfeit. But I was about to find out that worse might be possible.

2

Monday, November 5th, 4:15 p.m.

"H ey, Joey. Did you hear what Coach Mike said to your mom about the uniforms?" Aiden asked, right behind my head. We were waiting our turn in line to make a shot.

No. We got here so late that she made me hurry into the gym to start doing warm-ups. I kept my face forward, watching the other kids taking their turns. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. But he was looking at his phone a lot.

All I know is that Coach told us to go on into the gym because we weren’t doing try-ons after all. Then he went around and said something to all the parents. With his serious face on. Aiden pushed his own face into a tight-lipped, wrinkly-browed replica.

All that stress to get here early-ish late for nothing.

Joey! You’re up! Aiden said.

I held my breath, squinted hard at the backboard, and launched. I launched from my core and kept my eyes on where I wanted it to go.

The basketball bounced off the rim.

I pushed my wheels hard in frustration, breaking off the front of the line. Inside my brain, an imaginary sports-announcer man with a megaphone voice was saying, Oooh . . . Another miss for number thirty, Josephine Jacobs!

Not wanting to see the other kids’ faces, I kept my eyes down as I pushed past the line. Then I spun around to take my place at the end. Coach Mike