How's it going guys and gals? Storyus Raccoonus here with chapter 7 of growing up.

The day after the funeral Sly was still contemplating what Inspector Fox had told him and looked at his cane not sure if he still wanted to keep it if it had been used as a murder weapon until he shook his head to get those thoughts out of his head as he kept saying the same thing over and over in his head, his dad would never kill someone. It was one of if not THE strictest rule that the Cooper clan followed, no matter what the circumstances it was absolutely forbidden for a Cooper to take a person's life criminal or not. The reason the Cooper clan cared so strongly about that rule was because unlike other criminals they followed a code of honour which had rules like only stealing from other criminals and Sly always heard his dad say he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he went against those morals. As Sly continued thinking Bentley and Murray walked in as they noticed Sly looked like he was having some emotional issues.

"Sly what's wrong?" Bentley asked as Sly just continued to look at his lap while his two friends walked over to his bed with concerned looks.

"I'm not sure I want to become a thief." Sly said completely out of the blue as Bentley and Murray both stopped dead in their tracks.

"What? Sly why the sudden change of heart?" Bentley asked as Sly looked up from his lap.

"What if Inspector Fox wasn't lying and my dad really did kill a police officer? I don't want to become a thief if I might end up doing the same thing." Sly answered as Bentley gave a frustrated sigh and walked right up to Sly.

"Okay Sly, look Inspector Fox may have said that your dad killed someone but did he tell you when it happenned? Did he tell you where it happenned?" Bentley asked sternly as Sly moved back a bit to get some space.

"Well, no but-" Sly didn't get a chance to continue when Murray decided to get involved.

"And do you know why he didn't tell you that stuff Sly? Because he probably lied to you." The pink rotund hippo said as Sly looked at how serious both of them looked.

At that moment something almost seemed to click in Sly's brain as he realised what Bentley had said actually made sense, Inspector Fox hadn't gone into much detail about what his father had supposedly done. Before any of the gang could say anything else the loud speaker outside the room suddenly came to life and Miss Puffin's voice could be heard over it. "Can Sly Cooper please come to my office?" The puffin's voice on the loud speaker said as Sly and his friends started wondering what Miss Puffin could want.

Instead of saying anything Sly just walked out the door and made his way to Miss Puffin's office. When he got there he opened the door and saw Miss Puffin sat behind her desk with two adult wolf's sat in front of it with Sly instantly knowing what was going on here. When the three of them saw Sly come in Miss Puffin was the first to speak.

"Oh Sly you're here good. These two are Mr and Mrs Copper and they've said they're very interested in adopting you." The head of the orphanage said as Sly gave a slight frown. Was she being serious? The wolves both got up and bent down to look at Sly and introduce themselves.

"Hi Sly, I'm Harold and this is my wife Linda, we heard how about what happenned to your mum and dad and we thought you would probably want a family to take care of you." The male wlf said as Sly noticed how nice the couple were and felt kind of bad knowing he was instantly going to say no to their offer.

"Sorry no thanks." Sly said blankly as the smiles left their faces and were replaced with dissapointed frowns as they both gave understanding nods to him as they went back to Miss Puffin.

"Well it was worth a shot, it was nice meeting you Miss Puffin." Linda said sadly as the two of them walked out of the room.

"Okay Sly, you can go now." Miss Puffin said casually to Sly as he did just that. Sly got to the other side of the hallway but then heard a car pulling up next to the orphanage and looked out the window to see Inspector Fox getting out of his police car in his trench coat and cap that Sly had seen him wearing every time they met (Try thinking a fox version of Zenigata from Lupin III)

When Inspector Fox got to the front door Sly quickly hid and saw him walk into Miss Puffin's office and being the curious child he was walked over to the door and placed his ear against it to hear what the two of them were saying.

"Oh Inspector Fox. What can I do for you?"

"Miss Puffin, can you keep a secret?"

"Well that depends, what's this secret of yours?"

"When I told Sly his father killed someone I was lying."

*Flashback*

It was a night like any other. The moon was shining, the street lights were buzzing gently and it was relatively peaceful. That peace was broken however by a voice yelling. "Freeze Cooper!" Diego shouted loudly with his orange shock pistol as Connor Cooper turned around holding a sack filled with treasures over his shoulder and twirling his cane around in his other hand while just standing there with the cocky grin he was famous for.

"Alright Cooper, theres no where to run, just drop the sack and give up peacefully." The interpol inspector ordered sternly as the raccoon pretended to look confused.

"Sorry Diego give up isn't in my dictionary." Connor said as he slammed the bottom of his cane on the ground producing a massive cloud of smoke allowing Connor to make a break for it. With Diego still hot on his tail Connor stopped to take a quick breath and placed the sack down with a smile showing what he planned on doing with a small proportion of it.

"Even with just a few items from here I should be able to get Sly that NES he wanted for his birthday." Connor said until he noticed Diego was closing in on him again with another officer next to him and started off again.

Diego was for lack of a better word, livid, Cooper was about to get away agian like every other time. What Diego didn't notice was that his rookie partner Reginald Jones had decided to run across a plank to get to him but it ended up giving out under his weight casuing him to go falling from the building as he could be heard screaming until a thud was heard. When Diego went to see if he was alright he saw that Reginald was lying motionless on the ground as Connor kept running until he was off in the distance.

*End flashback*

After hearing the entire converstion Sly was ecstatic, his father hadn't really killed someone. The celebration was short lived as Sly suddenly heard the doorknob turning.

And with that chapter 7 is brought to a close and as always plase leave a review. Until Next time guys and gals, Storyus Raccoonus out.