Chapter 2- Lonely Heart

She finished it in five minutes. The test, like everything else taught in the classroom, was too easy for her. She breezed through, occasionally putting in a wrong answer to avoid suspicion. Haibara put down her pencil and looked around. The other children all leaned over their papers with concentration. Tsuburaya-kun was constantly erasing things, Yoshida-san was biting her lip, and Kojima-kun looked simply horrified. Did they forget to study again?

Then she turned to look at the boy sitting next to her. He'd finished just a few seconds before she did, and was now chewing on his pencil, staring at the blackboard with a look of pure boredom. The result of having a high school student retake elementary school.

Haibara sighed. It would be twenty more minutes before the rest of the class finished, maybe more. They weren't aloud to talk to each other until then, and she'd forgotten her magazine. This meant she had free time.

After going through the work she'd done the previous evening and mentally noting that soy sauce would not work well in the antidote (contrary to Professor Agasa's theories), her mind drifted once again to his sudden departure. It wasn't normal for him to leave like that without even telling her where he was going. The Professor always remembered to leave a note whenever he went to buy a new chemical or some other explosive ingredient. She'd have to ask him about it when school ended.

"That test was hard!"

"I wish we had more time."

"I'm just glad that it's over!"

"What do you think, Conan-kun?" Ayumi asked, trying to push him into the conversation.

"It wasn't that bad."

"Yeah, right. I bet you and Haibara got 100% again." Genta sneered.

The familiar chattering droned on and on as they walked down the street. With the busy city as a background, it made for a loud, cheerful atmosphere, very different from the elementary school days of Haibara's past life. She could remember the times back when she lived in America. The kids never talked to her. Sure, they whispered behind her back, but as time passed they lost interest and she became a ghost to their eyes. She never made any real friends, which was actually better considering the situation she was now in-

"Haibara-san? Haibara-san?"

"Eh?" Startled out of her thoughts, Haibara found herself face to face with a cute little girl.

"Want to go to Tropical Land with us this weekend?" said Ayumi.

"It could make up for your birthday-" Mitsuhiko began, but Ayumi glared at him and he fell silent.

"Sure." Haibara replied, and watched as Ayumi's worried face turned into a bright smile.

They'd been acting strangely like that for two days now since, when asked what day her birthday was, she replied that she'd forgotten.

"You forgot!? How could you forget your own birthday?" Genta had cried.

To tell the truth, she hadn't forgotten, though she dearly wished she could. For it was on her birthday that, a year ago, before her transformation, she'd received the worst gift of all. The news of her sister.

Perhaps her thoughtfulness showed on her face, because she suddenly felt Kudo-kun's eyes boring into her. Trying to read her mind, no doubt. He was always trying to figure her out, but she preferred to remain a mystery, one he'll never solve. Haibara smiled inwardly. And that would be a great achievement, considering who he was.

The wind moaned and howled in the night, shaking the trees, chasing the restless clouds across the sky. The windows were lit up in the Agasa residence, but only one person was within. Haibara stood on a stool in the kitchen, making tea. The Professor still hadn't come back.

There were no notes, no calls, nothing to tell her where he had gone and why.

"Well, he probably just went over to a friend's house." she told herself while pouring hot water in a mug. "And as for the note, he must have forgot. There's no other reason why he would be out so long." But was there? Yes, and something deep in her heart told her that it was a much logical explanation for his disappearance.

Haibara sat down on a couch and sipped her tea. After all, it was bound to come someday. How long could such a masquerade last?

The wind shook the trees and the leaves rustled against each other. They made an unearthly sound, almost like a voice.

"Sherry…Sherry…"

But then again, why would only the Professor disappear? It made more sense to come erase them all at once, not one person at a time. It wasn't their style.

"Sherry…Sherry…"

She was hearing things again. There was no way the organization would do something so childish as whispering her codename to give her a scare. Absolutely ridiculous.

"SHERRY…SHERRY…"

She couldn't take it anymore. Grabbing her bag and a change of clothes, Haibara rushed out of the house and into the dark night. Sitting and guessing about the Professor's whereabouts wasn't going to help anything, she had to have answers. And there was only one place to go.