Sherlock's Snake (a true story from 'Swapping Lies,' my next book.). ***by Frank Hickey*** At age seven, my parents rip me out of my Flatbush, Brooklyn, street and deposit me into strange concrete Manhattan. I'm scared. "Franky, why can't you sleep?" my actress Mommy asks at night time. "Mommy, I saw a Sherlock Holmes TV show. The bad man used a snake to kill someone." "Franky, you don't have to worry. We're on the second floor.". "Mommy, that's no good! The snake comes through the bars to bite them! "Somebody will come under our window," I whine. "An old German man from Germantown on Third Avenue. The Germans are Nazis. He has the snake under his dirty raincoat. And he'll have his snake crawl up the wall, through the bars and kill me." "Look, Franky. I'm closing the window.All right?" "Maybe the snake's in the apartment already. Or he'll come back tomorrow!" "Just lie still," she enunciates. "You're just a big rag doll, lying all spread out." Us four kids are eight, seven, five and three. That's why Mommy isn't acting this year. Mommy says she's no spring chicken. But she's acting tonight. "Don't move," she says. "Your head feels big and heavy. You legs are all tired out. Sooo tired. Just try to sleep". ***Frank Hickey ***. Somehow Frank survives the snakes and becomes a detective. He writes the Dancing Max Royster crime novels about the world's only ballroom dancing detective at frankhickey.net