Chapter 13: Theft

"Genta!", Ayumi shrieked, accusing the boy once again, "You have stolen my bar of chocolate!"

"I wasn't me, I was playing soccer with Mitsuhiko in the garden." The normally vulgar boy stated, paying careful attention not to upset the girl in front of him even more, while fending her accusations off, "I didn't even have the time to steal your chocolate!"

"You liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! STUPID GENTA !" , the small girl screamed, even louder this time and big tears began to run down her cheeks.

The whole fiasco started when Agase offered every child a full bar of milk chocolate, stating that this would be the only one they get and while Mitsuhiko and Ayumi saved it mostly for later, Genta just gulped down the whole bar. After Ayumi and Mitsuhiko hide their chocolate in their rooms, mostly to prevent Genta from sneaking a bite, the three met up in front of the house to play soccer with Conan. At some point, Ayumi was tired and excused herself, leaving the boys to play. Barely a minute later she stormed back out, waving her empty chocolate wrapper around, face twisted in an upset frown, and started to yell at Genta for stealing her chocolate. At that time Conan wasn't around anymore and Haibara was chatting with Ran and Hakase at the sea side, so by the time the 4 responsible ones caught wind of the argument, it had already heated up to a point where Ayumi and Mitsuhiko, who took Ayumi's side after Genta pointed out that Mitsuhiko too could be the culprit, just screamed at each other, trying to yell louder than the other side to get their point across. Only by separating the kids, sending Genta with Hakase while Ran tried to calm Mitsuhiko and Ayumi, the quarrel finally ceased, and Conan and Ai could start to gather information on what has happened.

"Genta, that stupid liar, stole my chocolate and won't admit it!" Ayumi was quick to point out to Ai and Conan. "Why do you think Kojima-kun did it?" Ai inquired, and Conan immediately understood that she was not agreeing to the accusation, neither did he.

"Of course Genta did it, who else would be such a glutton?" Ayumi answered, not caring how she spoke of her close friend.

"How did you discover that somebody stole the chocolate?" Conan now ask, already in Detective-Mode.

"After I left you guys out her, I went to the toilet, then, after a minute or so, I went to the girl's room to take another bite of MY chocolate. That was when I discovered that it wasn't there anymore." The brunette girl finished her narrative.

"Have you immediately left the room or searched for you chocolate, after you couldn't find it?" Conan continued his line of questioning.

"The wrapper was still laying in the hiding place, so there was no need to search for anything." Ayumi replied, still visibly upset, but more in control of her temper than before, "So, I left the room right away.

Thanking Ayumi for the explanation, Conan pulled Haibara to the side and asked her to gather Genta's and Mitsuhiko's statement, urging her to pay close attention to what their movements were and search for possible openings to sneak away. He then hurried of, assuring Ran and Haibara that he would not peek at anything unrelated to the case and made his way to the girl's room. The door wasn't locked, but Conan, who went back to his room when Ayumi left for the toilet and only came back out when he heard the screams of the kids, was certain that nobody had sneaked past his door, which lay between the corridor entrance and the girl's room.

"So, whoever committed the theft had to come through the window" the detective concluded, approaching the window front. He noticed that one of them was half opened, definitely wide enough for a person to fit through, but then he noticed the large pill of clothes, which were stacked neatly right under the window. Taking a closer look , he discovered a brown smudge on a piece of clothing, at the bottom of the bundle, implying that this was the hiding place Ayumi used.

"Interesting", the shrunken teen detective muttered, carefully shifting the piles of clothing so he could lift himself up to look out of the window. The window faced the forest, which started at the back of the building and Conan noticed how close the branches were to scratching at the window glass. It would be impossible for any human to climb through the window without disrupting the twigs, most probably breaking a few of them, but none of the twigs showed signs recent damage.

"There's no way Genta could come in through here without leaving any evidence, when it would have been next to impossible for me." Conan mumbled to himself with certainty, "besides, the window is at least 2 meters (7 feet) away from the ground and there is nothing a small person could step on to gain the needed reach."

Dropping himself back to the ground, once again paying careful attention not to disrupt the stacks of clothing, he regarded the crime scene as now useless to further isolate the true culprit.

When he left the room, he had no doubt that nobody in the house would have either the needed time nor abilities to commit this crime, which left him with only one conclusion.

They were not alone her in this remote part of the mountains.


As always all right go to Gosho Aoyama, the original creator of the Detective Conan Universe.

Questions and review are highly requested and if you want to know how the story continues leave a follow.

I hope you liked it so far and are thrilled for more.

Farewell