Focus: Culprit
A figure looked at the bottle in their hands and smiled before they pocketed it and headed out the door.

Focus Change: Silvester

A seven year old Silvester sat in his room as he waited for his parents. A book named “Steps to being a Detective Vol. 1” sat in his lap. While many children would find this book boring, Sylvester was fascinated by it. He always loved mysteries and his parents had even set up little treasure hunts for him. But they were never enough. He wanted to do something amazing. Do something important. Do something like solve a crime.

“The first step to being a detective is to gain the respect of many other detectives.” Sylvester read aloud, “This can be Diff-i-cult as usually det-ec-tives have one area they call their own and us-ual-ly a town has only one de-tec-tive, though there are a few detectives who wander, most do not. This means you will prob-a-bly have to move from town to town to get the respect and re-com-men-da-tions to take the Detectives Test of the Al-tha-nian De-tec-tive Bor-ough and become a Cer-ti-fied De-tec-tive.”

Silvester looked at the book before he sighed and thought ‘Dictionary’ and yelled “Call” an Althanian Basic (English) Dictionary appeared on the desk in front of him. He then put the two books side by side, the “Dictionary” on the left and the “Steps to being a Detective Vol 1” on the right.

“Okay, the first word I need to look up is ‘Cer-ti-fied’,” he said as started to flip through the dictionary. He stopped as soon as he found what he was looking for. “Certified means ‘having a cer-ti-fi-cate’, what is a certificate?” Sylvester looked for the word a read “A certificate is ‘a doc-u-ment ser-ving as ev-i-dence or as writ-ten test-i-mon-y, as of status, qual-i-fi-ca-tion, priv-il-ige, or truth of something’.”

Sylvester sighed as he thought ‘why can’t there be a dictionary for kids.’ Suddenly he felt a book fly off the shelf in the Infinite Library.

With excitement he yelled, “Call!” Another Dictionary, bigger than the one he had fallen next to the other Dictionary. The title was “Little Explorers Basic Picture Dictionary”. With excitement Sylvester opened the book and found pictures as well as definitions in the books. He then went and search for the word “Document” He couldn’t find it so he sighed and looked in his original Dictionary “A Document is ‘a written paper furn-ish-ing in-for-ma-tion or ev-i-dence, as a pass-port, deed, bill of sale, or bill of lading; a legal or official paper’.” Sylvester just blinked and then said, “Why doesn’t it just tell me it is a legal paper instead of adding all that other stuff to it. I can understand that.

After his little rant Sylvester continued on and decided to look up evidence next, he couldn’t find it in the child’s dictionary so with a sigh he looked inside the other one. “Ok so Evidence means, ‘Data pre-sent-ed in proof of the facts in issue and which may include the test-i-mon-y of wit-ness-es, records, doc-u-ments, or objects’. So it is just proof of something?”

As he was about to continue his search of words he heard a knock on his door. His mother then opened the door and said, “Hey my sweet boy, what you doing in your room on such a nice day?”

His mother was a fair skinned woman with golden blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. She wore a pink dress and a pearl necklace around her neck. She also had pink heals on that made Sylvester wince as he looked at them. He didn’t understand how women could stand those tight shoes.

“Reading mom!” Sylvester said with a scowl. He hated being interrupted while he read.

She just laughed as she walked up to the table. “What’re you reading?”

“A book!” he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Now son,” she said with fake disappointment, “I’m pretty sure you are reading more than one book since I see three open.”

“No,” he said with a huff, “I’m reading one book; the other two are Dictionaries since there are words I don’t know in this book.”

“Oh,” she said with piqued interest, “what words doesn’t my little Sylvest understand, maybe I could explain them better than those books on words.”

Sylvester scowled again, but this time at his nickname. He then sighed as he thought she probably was right. So he told her, “There are quite a few actually. First is testimony.”

“Ah,” his mother said with a smile. “Testimonies are facts given about an event. They are usually either written or given verbally. And describe the event to the best of the giver’s ability.”

Sylvester nodded with a smile. “So a testimony is one of the ways used to solve a case?”

His mother smiled. “Why yes actually, in fact, there are few cases where a testimony isn’t given as they tend to point a detective or knight in the right direction.”

Sylvester nodded again and said, “The next word is Qualification.”

His mother looked at him funny, “Qualification is a bit harder to explain. However I guess the best way to describe is the state of being qualified which gives you the right to do something or claim to be something. For example, in order to be a detective you have to be certified by the Althanian Detective Borough in order to claim to be a detective.”

Sylvester nodded and said, “Just like the book said.”

She looked at him in confusion, “What book?”

He smiled and said, “A book on how to become a detective.”

His mother just laughed as she shook her head. “I should have known.”

“Mom,” Sylvester then said just to get them back on subject, “the last word I don’t know is ‘Recommendation’.”

His mother blinked then said, “Well Recommendation means someone believes someone will do well with something to the point that they would tell others about that person if they need help. It is written in a formal letter.” After Sylvester heard this he nodded and then was about to go back to his reading. However before he could his mother grabbed his book and said, “It’s a beautiful day. Go outside and play.”

Sylvester was about to protest but his mother then glared at him with a look that said, ‘you have no choice.’ So with a sigh, Sylvester marked his place in his book and sent them all back to the Infinite Library then headed out the door.

‘I hope something interesting happens today,’ he thought as he walked down the path from his mansion into town.