Corn
Warnings: The Detective Boys. General silliness. Probably inaccurate details of Japanese culture.
Notes: Based on a true story.
Disclaimer: I do not own Detective Conan.
It was time for everybody's favorite part of school—lunchtime. And at Teitan Elementary, in class 1-B, lunchtime was never normal. This was because of a certain group of five students, who had formed a group called the Detective Boys.
Today, the Detective Boys were sitting at their usual table, acting like they usually did. Conan was thinking about the latest case, Haibara was silently reading a book, Ayumi was staring at Conan and thinking about how smart and handsome he was, Mitsuhiko was staring at Haibara and thinking about how smart and beautiful she was, and Genta was oblivious to everything around him other than the 37 (or was it 38?) bowls of food he was eating.
Mitsuhiko momentarily stopped his gawking at Haibara to turn Ayumi next to him, who was about to open a container of salad. "Oh, you're eating your vegetables," he commented.
Ayumi nodded her head. "Yep. My mom packed them for me," she said, opening her container.
Mitsuhiko looked inside. He saw cabbage, tomatoes, corn, and chopped celery. "Oh wait, they're not all vegetables," Mitsuhiko said, remembering something Kobayashi-sensei had once told them. "Tomatoes are fruits."
"Oh yeah, I remember that," Genta said, joining in on the conversation.
"So, what would corn be?" Ayumi asked, looking at the pieces of corn in her salad.
"I think it's a fruit," Genta said.
"No, it's a vegetable," Mitsuhiko said.
"Fruit," Genta said, glaring at Mitsuhiko.
"Vegetable," Mitsuhiko said, returning the glare with equal force.
"Fruit."
"Vegetable."
"Fruit."
"Vegetable."
"Fruit!"
"Vegetable!"
"Actually," Conan cut in, "I believe the official classification for corn is a grain."
Both Genta and Mitsuhiko turned their glares on Conan. "Stay out of this!" they shouted simultaneously.
"Hey, Conan-kun," Ayumi said. "How could corn be a grain? It's not anything like wheat or rice."
"Yeah, how could it be?" Genta challenged.
Conan sighed. He did not feel like explaining this kind of thing to children who probably wouldn't understand. He turned to the brown haired girl at his side, who was still reading calmly. "Haibara, help me out here."
Haibara looked up from the book in her hands, regarding them all with her normal emotionless gaze. Then, in all seriousness, she said, "You're all wrong. Corn is a poison." And at that, she turned back to her book.
"Oi oi!" Conan thought, sweatdropping. Haibara was obviously going to be of no help.
Ayumi looked at her salad with wide, frightened eyes. "Ayumi suddenly doesn't feel like eating anymore," she whined, pushing the container away from her.
"Hey, what are you guys talking about?" The Detective Boys looked towards the direction of the voice to see Maria, another girl in the class.
"Oh, we're just discussing what corn is," said Mitsuhiko.
"Yeah," Ayumi said. "Genta-kun says it's a fruit, Mitsuhiko-kun says it's a vegetable, and Conan-kun says it's a grain." She purposely left out Haibara's apparent opinion.
"Really? I always thought it was a vegetable," Maria said.
"See?" Mitsuhiko said to Genta in triumph. "It is a vegetable!"
"No, it's a fruit!" Genta protested.
"Yeah, I agree!" cried another kid who was listening in.
"Hah! Take that!" Genta cried at Mitsuhiko.
"No, Conan's right! It's a grain!" cried another kid.
And at that, more students in the class started stating their opinions and taking sides, much to Conan's chagrin. He wasn't really sure why its classification was so important to them. "Just eat the stuff and move on with your lives!" he was thinking. Soon, all the kids in the class, except for Conan and Haibara, were arguing and yelling at each other about whether the plant was a fruit, vegetable, or grain.
Suddenly, the door opened up and Kobayashi-sensei walked in. Upon seeing all the students gathered around one table and yelling at each other, she went over to break it up.
"Hey! What's going on here?" she asked in a loud tone, causing everyone to shut up and freeze.
Conan sighed upon realizing that nobody else was going to answer. "We're just having a conflict here," he said. "We're trying to decide whether corn is a fruit, vegetable, or grain."
Kobayashi-sensei looked at them in confusion, then decided she didn't want to know. To the whole class, she said, "If you really must know, corn is officially considered a grain, although many people informally call it a vegetable. Now, any other questions?" Nobody in the class answered. "Good, now it's time to get back to work."
"Okay!" the whole class cried, the children all getting back to their seats.
That day, after school, the Detective Boys came across a murder case in a restaurant, where the man fell dead while eating his meal. After forensics did their investigation, Detective Takagi received and read the report.
"Um, let's see," Takagi said. "It says the victim died from someone poisoning his food. Traces of poison were found in his side of corn."
Conan practically choked on air. "W-what?!"
Behind him, Haibara smiled slightly. "See? I told you it was a poison."
More Notes:
-I don't know if this is really how corn is classified in Japan, so if it isn't, sorry.
-Based on a true story. One day, back in sixth grade or so, my friends and I had an argument at lunch one day over what corn was. After a while about half of the kids in the cafeteria also got in on it, taking sides, and we all argued over it for a very long time. It even got to the point where we asked the principal; I used what he said for Kobayashi-sensei's explanation. And yes, one of us did say that corn was a poison. The last part with the murder didn't happen to us though.