Now for Akemi to meet up with the three kids! There's also some humor later on! Also, I appreciate everyone's reviews, and I also appreciate that you all enjoy reading my author's notes!

Chapter Seven

As Akemi had predicted, the police never called them with leads on where her parents were. After a week, Agasa decided to send her to school, and Akemi was glad to have something to do.

Ai walked her to the office, and went with her to class after she'd confirmed that Akemi was going to school there now. When they reached their classroom, 1-B, she told Akemi to wait in the hall until she was called inside.

Soon enough, the teacher did. When she walked in, there were immediate intakes of breath, and whispers started circulating around the room.

"Class!" exclaimed Miss Kobayashi, getting their attention immediately, "this is Fujimine Akemi-san. Please make her feel welcome. Now, Akemi-chan, where should you sit?"

Miss Kobayashi took a look around the room, and then said, "How about you sit next to Ayumi-chan? Ayumi-chan, raise your hand please."

Akemi saw where the girl was, and sat down next to her. She actually hadn't needed for her to wave, since Ayumi looked just like she would in the future, just a lot younger. She looked around and saw Mitsuhiko and Genta sitting around her, looking at her with interest. Along one wall, she saw Conan and Ai sitting next to each other, looking bored.

Ayumi turned around and said, "I'm Ayumi, Akemi-chan. Nice to meet you!" she sounded really happy to have a new seatmate.

"Nice to meet you too, Ayumi-chan!" Akemi said happily. They then turned back around and listened to the day's lesson. Akemi was having fun. They material might've been a bit easy, but at least it wasn't too easy. She enjoyed all the creative stuff they did, too, though she had to keep catching herself to make sure she didn't write her real name on anything. She knew if she did that there would be a lot of awkward questions.

After school, Akemi was changing her shoes at the shoe lockers when Ayumi came up to her, along with Mitsuhiko and Genta. Conan and Ai were standing in the background. "Akemi-chan! I'd like to introduce you to my friends. This is Mitsuhiko-kun, Genta-kun, Conan-kun, and Ai-chan. Each one nodded to her when their name was mentioned.

Ayumi continued, "Akemi-chan, since you're new here, we were wondering if you might like to join our club. It's the Detective Boys. We solve all sorts of difficult cases!" Ayumi said proudly, and Mitsuhiko and Genta looked proud, too. Akemi noticed that Conan was rolling his eyes and Ai was looking on with amusement.

"What do you all do, then?"

"People come to us with hard cases for us to solve, and we solve them for them. We've done everything from lost cats to kidnappings, and we've even caught murderers!"

"Sounds fun!" exclaimed Akemi excitedly. "I'll join up!" Akemi was glad for a distraction, especially if it was detective work. She'd inherited her love for sleuthing from her dad, and she'd even started a similar club at her school in the future, which just so happened to be this same school.

"All right then!" exclaimed Ayumi excitedly. "Let's check for cases!" Genta opened his shoe locker, but all it had were his shoes. All three looked downcast. "Nothing…" they said miserably.

Conan came up and said, "Then how about we go play soccer?"

The kids brightened and said, "Let's go!" They ran out of the school, dragging Akemi along.

Conan and Ai were walking behind the others on the way to the park.

Ai said, "Any luck on finding out Akemi-chan's past?"

"No," said Conan glumly. "No one's called the police claiming she's their kid. So if she did run away, she ran away from someone who didn't want her. But that would contrast with her personality. She's always happy, and never seems sad, though she does look towards the sky sometimes, looking wistful."

"Something's weird, though," said Ai. "Akemi-chan's very intelligent. She's obviously not over 6-7 years old, since she would have finished that test earlier around the same time we did. She finished a few minutes before the other kids, but well after we did. And she joined the Detective Boys so rapidly, even after Ayumi-chan said we've caught murderers. Normally, a kid would shy away from that."

"I agree. There's something very odd."

They walked in silence the rest of the way, lost in their own thoughts. When they got to the park, Akemi was waiting for them. She quickly divided them off into two teams of three. It was Genta, Akemi, and Mitsuhiko on one team, with Ayumi, Conan, and Ai on the other. Ai and Genta were the goalies, and Conan prepared himself for an easy, boring match.

Soon the game started, and it was a mad dash for the ball. Conan got it, and started dribbling it towards Genta's goal, but was suddenly cut off by Akemi, who stole the ball. Conan was surprised. He'd had ten years more experience than any of the kids, but the ball had just gotten stolen from under his nose!

Akemi and Mitsuhiko passed the ball back and forth, heading towards Ai's goal. Ai had always taken goalie whenever she played on Conan's team because she knew that Conan would keep the ball on the other side. So she was surprised to see Akemi and Mitsuhiko coming towards her with a red-faced Conan in hot pursuit. Suddenly, Ayumi came out of nowhere and stole the ball just as Akemi was aiming it towards the goal. She passed it to Conan, who took it towards Genta again, before scoring.

The game went on like this for a while. Conan and Akemi were constantly stealing the ball from each other, and were running back and forth like madmen. Ayumi and Mitsuhiko wore themselves out chasing the other two, and had to excuse themselves from the game multiple times to catch their breath.

After about 45 minutes, the score was tied, and neither of them was calling it quits. Ai could see Conan's face wrinkled in concentration, and she knew that he was actually enjoying the challenge of not having an easy game for once.

Eventually, the sun started setting, and the game had to be called off. Conan and Akemi met at the center, shook hands, and said, "Good game." Then everyone went home.

Ai asked Conan, "You enjoyed yourself, then?"

"You bet!" said Conan brightly. "Akemi-chan's good. Nearly as good as me, which is weird considering all the extra practice I've had."

"10 years worth," said Ai, agreeing. "It is weird. She must have had a teacher show her how to play from a very young age."

"Indeed. No one could get that good from living on the streets, especially if they were teaching themselves. She's hiding something. Something big."

More proof Akemi's hiding something! Next up, Kid sends a note, and there's a crime? (Of course there is, it's Detective Conan!) Look forward to reading about how Akemi goes about solving it and taking Conan's spotlight (again)! And please continue reviewing, and submit ideas about where you want the story to go and who Akemi's mom is!