Chapter 4:
The noise from the neighboring apartment had finally stopped, but Sherlock was too annoyed to notice. He had been working on this case for nearly a month now, to no avail. John, and even Lestrade, had given up already, both insisted that continuing to search for clues that clearly weren't there was a waste of time. But Sherlock had never given up on a case before. There had to be a solution, and maybe, just maybe, the crazy family of mad scientists next door would have answers. He decided it was time to pay Danny another visit.
Sherlock was bored out of his mind. The boy had been sitting in his living room for the past hour, blathering on and on about nonsense. NASA, some airhead teenage band, blah blah blah. Being polite to people was so dull. He'd been planning to simply ask him what he had meant when he said his parents were installing a ghost portal, but John had said that would be "rude." Sherlock didn't give a shit if he was rude or not, but at least being polite got John to shut up.
Unable to stand any more of Danny's prattling, Sherlock interrupted him in the middle of a long spiel about some person named Sam.
"So. Danny, your parents like ghosts?" he asked.
"They hunt ghosts. It's unhealthy." Danny rolled his eyes.
"And they actually believe these supernatural creatures exist?"
Danny gave him a strange look. "They do exist... Don't you ever watch the news? Amity Park? The town with constant ghost attacks and the local hero Danny Phantom?"
Come to think of it, Sherlock had heard about it somewhere. He'd just assumed the person was talking about a novel or some silly television program. If this boy wasn't just playing with him, (which would be very unwise) then perhaps ghosts were the reason for all the break-ins and deaths.
"Interesting." Sherlock mused, lost in thought. The boy cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Oh yes, you can leave now." he said absentmindedly, waving a hand towards the door. Was that considered impolite? Oh well.
"How'd it go?" John asked as he walked in the door carrying large bags of groceries.
"Fine. Have you ever heard about Amity Park?" Sherlock questioned.
"The town with the ghosts? Of course I have, everyone knows about it." John replied.
"Well, I didn't." Sherlock said resentfully.
"So, did you discover any more about that "secret" you think the boy is hiding?" John asked, the sarcasm evident in his voice.
"I did, actually, so stop being so skeptical. He's hiding some sort of... secret identity."
"Mhmm. And why, exactly, would a teenage boy need a secret identity?" John snorted.
"That's what you're going to figure out."