Charlie paused at the saying. He had never thought of fish as overly creative. Instead of saying so, he took the last bite of the berry cobbler and thought about it. He supposed a fish could be creative if it were that sort of fish, but he wasn't sure he'd ever seen a creative fish. Then again, how would he knew whether or not the fish were creative? He didn't speak fish, nor did he know any fish personally. So, his ability to reason whether or not the fish could could creative was slightly limited by his lack of experience or information. He hmphed softly and focused on the question.
"I have learned them by experiencing them. Many of them. Some of them I've been told. I've been here..." The detective had to think about this one too. How long had he been here? "Not as long as I've been not here. Been elsewhere. I've been mostly elsewhere." Charlie nodded, as if that were a good enough answer. It was actually all the answer the kid was going to get at the moment. Charlie honestly had no idea how long he'd been in the City.
"I'll ask my friend for exact numbers; he does numbers. I don't." Charlie did other things. Sure, he had to do numbers on occasion, but he was better at the other things.
"How creative are fish anyway?" Charlie looked as if he really did want to know.