Riddle 05

I flopped on the ground, completely exhausted. My body wasn't meant to handle 15 miles of biking, not with the extra person sized weight on the handlebars. Though we did stop for a quick breather, it wasn't enough. Cheri let me lay on the ground for what felt like an hour, though actually three minutes.



I felt a kick to my side,that came from a rather flip-flop garbed foot. I let a low groan, and rose to my feet. The sight that greeted my eyes was a dreary one indeed. St. Johns was not something you would want to see twice, or at all for that matter. To be honest, it looked like a stereotypical evil hospital right out of a movie set. In the front of the building there were police officers, and lots of yellow caution tape.

Even with the Police chief's daughter, there was no way that we were getting in.

"How do we get in?" asked said chief's daughter.

"Why are you so set on this. This is our first case, lets try something like a robbery or something."

"No can do, if you're going to do something, you're going to do it big!"

I rolled my eyes, though it was more an act to look around for other entrances. To my absolutely wondrous delight, the was what appeared to be a storage hatch to a lower floor, far away from the police, but still connected to the main building.

"What about that that... hatch thingy over there?"

"Looks good."

We stealthily moved over to the entrance. It looked like it hadn't been opened in decades, so I did the most tacitly obvious choice and moved to bust it open. A quiet punch to the stomach from my Watson stopped my action dead in its tracks. Cheri squatted down and begun to pick the lock.

"When where you planning to tell me you could pick locks?"

The rusty lock on the door clicked, and she yanked the lock off. Cheri stood up and said.

"Noah, I would just like to tell you that I can pick locks."

"..."

"Do you have something to say?"

"No ma'am..."

I lifted up the hatch to let Cheri and I in. We walked down the into the proverbial lions' den. Cheri pulled out a flashlight from her bag; only God knows what she has in there. Three minutes of wandering the basement later, a noise was heard. It was the unmistakable sound of coughing. Cheri and I looked at each other, then at the direction of where we heard the coughing. We rushed over to the sound to see a pair of legs from underneath a crate. I immediately started to lift the crate off the victim. Cheri grabbed the body and moved it from underneath the crate. I saw that it was a young boy, not more than ten years old. She laid the boy on the ground and administered CPR. If I wasn't concerned about the boy's life, I would have been slightly jealous. After two repetitions the boy sputtered to life. Cheri then started to keep the boy calm.

"It's alright, you will be fine."

"Th-thanks..."

"Alright that's good, be calm. Now what is your name?"

The boy looked around questioningly.

"I'm sorry... But I don't know."