“___ not you …”

Once upon a time, there was a world-famous detective named Aiden who was working on solving a mysterious case. One day, while he was trying to crack a clue, he saw a note that read, “___ not you…“, but there was nothing else written.

Aiden scratched his head and started to ponder what could be the answer. Suddenly, he realized that the word ‘ITS‘ would perfectly fit in the blank space. But how did he reach this conclusion?

The detective thought back to a time he had played hide-and-seek with his little brother. His brother had hidden behind a door and said, “It’s not you, Aiden, I can’t see you!”, meaning that Aiden wasn’t the one who was hiding.

From this childhood memory, Aiden deduced that the answer to the crossword clue was ‘ITS,’ as the blank was not referring to the person solving the clue but rather something else entirely.

With that, Aiden successfully solved the case and the note turned out to be a vital piece of evidence! And every time he came across this type of crossword clue, he would always think back to his brother’s words and remember that the answer may not always be related to the person reading the clue.