Human Kid (II)

5.

Alex smiled.

"I'm glad you completed your first mission early; it'll be put down as a good record for you guys. I'm guessing you're free for the day. Maybe you should train; your Coach did inform me that you are facing your CIN some weeks away, is it?" Alex said as he brought out a document.

"Here, sign this, all of you."

Suzanne picked up the pen and signed underneath her name, the others did too, one after the other.

It was the documentation of their mission file. In it was the evidences gathered on the case and the way it was solved. Also short personal statements of themselves were written down.

"You're right; we should train." Ryan nodded curtly.

"Alright, I'll leave you to it. If there's a new mission, I'll let you know." Alex nodded at him and walked out of the empty classroom.

"Ashley what's your skill?" Ethan asked as he turned to her.

"I'll tell you in a while, but first I want to hear all the details of how Andrew solved this case," she replied as she turned to Andrew and smiled at him.

"Yeah! Me too!" Suzanne agreed, moving nearer to Andrew as well.

"Fine, but we aren't staying here very long; you know I hate explaining things to anyone," Andrew muttered in his usual bored tone.

Ashley settled on a chair quickly.

Ryan just looked out through the window, not really paying that much attention to the details of how Andrew solved the puzzle of the dog-napping. But Ethan listened eagerly.

"Well," Andrew sighed and started.

"After we received the documents on the missing puppy, I researched more on Mrs Paulina, so I'd know more of her daily schedule and her personality. I wanted to know what kind of owner she was to Patches. What I gathered was that she was just a nice woman and on weekends she allowed some kids to come and play with Patches while she watched them and gave them light snacks." Andrew stood up and walked over to the board.

He drew six children; four were girls while the remaining two were boys.

He turned to look back at them.

"I found out that the six children normally played with Patches but not at the same time. Four girls, two boys...But one of the boys, Todd, moved out of the neighborhood a month ago, so I ruled him out." Andrew drew a big 'X' over one of the figures he drew on the board.

"So I researched more on the other five kids, afterall most children loved puppies and, who, when given the chance, might grow to love Patches and might want to claim her for themselves." Andrew went on with his explanation.

"I found out that out of the five kids, Betty, was one of the girls that played with Patches. Also I noticed that while the other kids lived around the neighborhood, Betty was the only one that lived far off. So how could she find time to come from her house to play with Patches?"

Andrew drew some houses and circled one.

"That means she knew someone in the neighborhood she could stay with, someone that knows her quite well; someone like her babysitter, Sally."

"That's real smart Andrew," Ethan gaped amazed.

Ryan scoffed from where he stood. "I bet you couldn't come to the same conclusion even if all the clues were staring at you in the face," he told Ethan.

"Why don't you come say that to my face?!"  Ethan demanded hotly as he stood up and started walking towards where Ryan was.

"Ethan shut up! Let Andrew finish his story!" Suzanne snarled at him.