Why is up, up? Why is down, down?
DET has asked easier questions before. This one doesn't let him go.
It starts with a globe, spun to the far side of the world, and a question that won't sit still: if down only means something because there's a ground to be pulled toward, what was gravity called before anyone gave it a name at all? DET opens Case File #3 with nothing but a notebook, a magnifying glass, and a partner who never says a word - and CW, as always, knows exactly where to look next.
What follows isn't a simple case. DET tests everything he thinks he knows against a plant that leans toward light no matter how many times you turn it, a pencil balanced on his palm, a feather and a stone dropped side by side on the porch steps, an old studio film reel of a real astronaut testing the same question on the moon. He even invents a fake law of his own - namity - just to find out what actually makes a real one different from something people simply agreed to believe.
Some of what he finds holds up to everything he can throw at it. Some of it doesn't answer at all - not because the case fails, but because some questions were never going to end in a tidy word at the bottom of the page.
The first case in the Case Closed, Sort Of series, for readers ready to sit inside a question instead of rushing past it to the answer.
