File Four: "The Talk"

Kudou Shin'ichi juggled a checkered football in front of his library desk, bouncing it with his knees, then his feet, then his head, and then his knees again. Normally, the great detective would be puzzling over some indistinct connection of clues, like that of a hair pin with soap shavings, while doing this. But this was no ordinary problem; and though the ordinary problems of deduction filled Shin'ichi with a special thrill, this problem filled him with a special dread.

'Are you sure?' he asked Ran, after choking on his coffee and spilling it all over the morning paper. 'Conan's kind of young for that talk, don't you think?'

'But after what his classmates said,' Ran protested, 'he has questions.'

'I can't just—tell him everything!' he said, flustered.

'No, you're right,' Ran reassured him. 'Just—keep it simple.'

Heaving a sigh, Shin'ichi bounced the ball more and more vigorously. Simple? he thought, observing specks of dust in the warm sunlight as he brainstormed for the hundredth time. As if that's possible—

"Daddy?"

Startled, Shin'ichi kicked the ball so hard it flew across the room. The ball bounced, with a smack, on the marble floor and sailed overhead a little boy, whose bright eyes sparkled in contrast with his jet black hair. Leaping from the doorway, Conan connected his forehead with the ball and bumped it back to his father.

Shin'ichi jumped into the air like a goalie, grabbed the football, and let it drop to the floor. Then, reaching a hand behind his head, Shin'ichi gave Conan a weak smile. "Conan, your mother said you wanted to talk to me?"

"Mmm hmm," the boy said, with a sullen nod. "Uh, Daddy, kids at school keep asking me about—stuff."

A lead weight dropped into the pit of Shin'ichi's stomach. "Um, what 'stuff'?"

Conan bit his lip and stared at the floor, small beads of sweat forming on his brow. He squeezed his eyes shut, as if to gain courage, then popped them open and asked, "Daddy, why did you and Mommy—"

Here we go.

"—name me Conan?"

"Well, uh," tried Shin'ichi as he took a step closer, "you remember how much I love to read Conan Doyle, right?"

"But Daddy," protested the little boy, almost on the verge of tears, "that's what I tell everybody at school—and they still say my name's weird!" Then, before Shin'ichi could answer his complaint, Conan blinked and said, "Wait a minute! Mommy doesn't like Conan Doyle, does she?"

Shin'ichi eyed him cautiously, not liking where this was going. "Well, no, not exactly . . ."

Suddenly, Conan marched past Shin'ichi, hopped from the floor to the cushioned armchair, and then clambered on top of the desk to face his father—at eye level. "Then why did Mommy say the name 'Conan' was special to her?"

"S-special?" A faint blush bloomed on Shin'ichi's cheeks; Ran had never told him about this.

"Why, Daddy?" persisted Conan, his innocent gaze fixed on Shin'ichi as he planted his fists firmly on his hips. "Who's Conan?"

Shin'ichi groaned as he started to pace, running his fingers though his hair. Not just any answer would do, Shin'ichi knew, not even for a seven year old. Conan was his son, after all; but more importantly, he was Ran's.

Then, an idea struck him like lightening. Keep it simple.

"I'm Conan."

Conan blinked, and then scratched his head in confusion. "But your name's not Conan."

"Well," Shin'ichi said, grinning, "when your mother and I were still in high school, we went out to Tropical Land where I saw some suspicious men in black. Following them, I watched them close a deal with a gun smuggler; but they caught me, so they fed me a poison that shrank me to the size of a little boy. And then, since your mother didn't know about it, I called myself 'Conan' to trick her."

For a full two minutes, Conan gave him a blank stare—and said nothing.

Then, he snorted. "Daddy, that's the silliest story in the world!"

Leaping from the desk, Conan snatched the football and stormed out of the library—almost knocking over his mother in the process. According to Shin'ichi's guess, Conan planned to kick the ball around the yard until he discovered the real identity of his mysterious namesake.

Ran watched Conan disappear, then slumped against the doorframe and sighed. "What are we going to do?"

"Don't worry," laughed Shin'ichi, as he crouched beside a nearby shelf and removed a book: the Complete Works of Edogawa Rampo. "When he's old enough, he'll understand that, 'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'" He added, winking at Ran, "So said Conan Doyle."