This is just a bit of silliness inspired by a joke on the RUSS-L list recently. It's characters from the Canon/Kanon relocated to a modern secondary school. Um, it's clearly less than faithful to the originals...
The Puzzling Affair of Baker Street Comprehensive: Part deux.
'But of course the really odd thing,' Watson nibbled distractedly at his pen and stared into the distance as Morstan took down the lesson notes beside him. 'The really odd thing, was that we examined the locker and -'
'Nothing had been taken?' Veronica stared at her friend. 'Cool!'
'It's not at all,' Russell frowned, following the problem as the teacher scrawled it across the blackboard, 'it's very frustrating, the thing had been absolutely ransacked but - oh 180o sir - she says nothing was taken...'
'Nothing - you've forgotten to carry the one, John - at all?'
'Oh, thanks.' Watson made the necessary adjustment to his ink stained and bedraggled exercise book. 'No, nothing, it's very odd indeed - Oh!'
'What? What's the matter?'
'Mobile went off.' Watson grinned sheepishly as he extracted his mobile phone from his inner pocket, and shielding it from the teacher's view began to read the incoming text message.
'COME @ 1CE IF CONV'N'NT. IF INCONV'N'NT COME ALL THE SAME.'
'It's Holmes.'
Morstan frowned. 'Shouldn't he be in English now?'
'Evidently he thinks not,' Watson grabbed his bag and held his hand in the air. 'Sir, may I be excused?'
'And of course there was that piece of paper - where's he going?' Whispered Russell as Watson crept from the classroom. 'He knows something!'
'He's probably just going to the loo,' Veronica Beaconsfield peered at Russell's work book, 'Mary, what on earth have I done here, this won't come right.'
'You've muddled your cosine formula.' Russell pencilled in a brief correction, 'Ronnie?' She flipped the pages of her textbook nonchalantly. 'Have you got a spare lipstick?'
'I found this in Elsie Patrick's locker, Watson, what does it suggest to you?'
Watson examined the scrap of paper that his friend thrust at him as they stalked purposely through the corridor.
'It's a piece of paper, Holmes, with the school header.'
'Yes, but what does that tell us, Watson?' Holmes paused as they reached the doors to the Boys toilets. 'You see, but you do not, um, thingy...'
Holmes craned his arm awkwardly around the edge of the cistern and withdrew two cigarettes bundled in paper towels. 'Are you keeping look out?' He hissed. 'Watson?'
'All clear, Holmes.'
The sound of a lighter being sparked up came from within the cubicle. 'So, Watson, any conclusions from the mysterious letterhead? It is implicative is it not?' A wisp of smoke began to curl over the door.
'Maybe she got a letter home?' Watson pondered, keeping an ear out for the footsteps of any approaching teacher. 'Remember when I got that letter home and we...'
'It was blank Watson, I think we can discount that hypothesis.' Holmes folded his legs beneath him, and perched on the seat like the youthful chief of some lavatorially obsessed tribe. 'I shall have to think.'
Watson yawned, and sought distraction in the graffiti covered wall before him. He raised an eyebrow. 'Holmes?'
'Hhm?'
'Do you think this is true about Kitty De-'
'Really Watson,' Holmes peered down over the top of the cubicle. 'Think! If it was, surely she'd walk with a limp.'
'I s'pose so - Holmes do you think ARGH!' Watson yelled as the door burst open. 'GIRLIN THEBOGS! GIRL, INNA TOILETS! ACK! HOLMES!'
'Oh grow up.' Russell sniffed dissmissively. 'You've nothing I haven't seen before.'
'Toilets...Boys...Girls...' Stammered Watson. 'Girls...'
'Ooh.' Ronnie exclaimed. 'Doesn't it pong in here?'
'Girls...Toilets...'
'Hey.' Mary Morstan waved over her classmate's shoulder. 'Watcha' Jim.'
'I...Girls...Toilets...Boys...Jim?'
' 'llo J'n'
Watson goggled at the four girls as they crowded the doorway. 'Holmes?' He called nervously. 'Have you finished your fag yet?'
'YOU BOY!' Moran's enraged head appeared suddenly above the quartet of females. 'I should have known you'd be at the bottom of this!'
A thin layer of dust and despair coated the furnishings of the Headmasters office. Half-filled forms and foxed, coffee stained, folders filled every available inch of shelving space. An optimistic degree hung in lonely regret upon the wall. Bleached by daily sunshine from the gap between the broken blinds on the window, it counted the days until it's shady retirement in the front room of a bungalow somewhere on the south coast.
On the battered and bulky desk which claimed almost all of the available floorspace, a half dozen chewed and broken pens stood, half-heartedly crammed into a mug which proclaimed it's owner, despite all evidence to the contrary, to be the 'World's best teacher.'
Mr Lestrade [headmaster] sighed mournfully and perched on the edge of his desk. He wrung his hands miserably, and looked up. 'Is it because you aren't getting enough attention?'
Holmes, Russell, Watson, Morstan, Beaconsfield and Hunter cringed.
'Hormones!' Moran growled as he entered the staff room, a somewhat unconventional greeting at any social gathering. 'The bloody place is soggy with 'em.'
'Oh.' Anna Coram [Modern languages and Social studies] looked up from her marking. 'Not Harriet Doran and that awful Moulton boy again?'
'Gods, are they still at it?' Moran shuddered and began to brew a pot of tea. 'No, no,' He poured out two cups and passed one to his colleague, 'You'll never guess who I just found clustered in the fifth year toilets...' He let himself fall into the nearest armchair, scowling grimly. 'Revolting I call it....'
'Well?' Mr Lestrade looked out from under weary, heavy lidded eyes. 'Do you want to tell me what all this is about?'
Holmes and Watson stared across at their Headmaster. 'Wewerejustintheloosandsuddenlysheburstinforabsolutelynoreasonand-'
'-wejustwantedtohaveawordwithHolmesisallhedoesn'thavetobesuchaplankaboutit.' Finished Russell.
Lestrade blinked. 'Miss Morstan? Would you care to translate?'
Mary Morstan cleared her throat. 'I think,' she smiled politely, 'That perhaps Russell was lost, and wandered into the wrong toilets, because of being new and all.'
'I-'Russell opened her mouth and found herself distracted by the pressure of Morstan's foot bearing down upon her own.
'Because of being new.' Repeated Morstan. 'And that would explain why Vi and I followed her in there. Because we wanted to tell her she was lost.'
'That would explain it, wouldn't it.' Mr Lestrade peered down at the new girl. 'She is new.'
Morstan grinned. 'And we are helpful.'
'Um, yes, of course...' Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. 'Holmes, do you think that if I were to give you some kind of responsibility you could allow a day to go by without my seeing your face?'
'Uh,' Holmes froze, 'Sir-I-I don't think-'
'Nonsense,' Lestrade rubbed his hands together and rose to his feet. 'I'll tell you what Holmes. It can be your job to show young Mary here around - '
The pair glared at each other in abject disgust.
'Maybe you can pop round to her house after school and go through the timetable with her, no, no, don't worry,' Lestrade waved his young charges out of his office, 'I'll phone your parents and tell them where you are, run along now...' And then he smiled. Because even a headmaster needs a laugh now and again.
'Watson?' Holmes stood outside the office door. 'I've never hit a girl.'
'One of your more redeeming qualities, Holmes.'
'Do you think that if I gave Monkey girl a tenner she'd give that, thing, a good hard kick up the arse for me?'
Wastson stared at his shoes 'Prob'ly not.' He mumbled.
'No.' Holmes twitched. 'Didn't think so...'
'Patrick?' Russell called out as she dumped her muddy school shoes at the kitchen door and flung her blazer across a nearby chair. 'Anyone? Anybody ho-ome?' She turned back to the kitchen doorway with distaste. 'Come on. There's no-one -'
'Mary? Is that you, back from school?' Patrick rounded the corner wiping his hands with a dishcloth. 'Oh, you've a friend with you, Mary, and on your first day too!'
'S' Patrick.' Russell gestured awkwardly in the direction of her employee. 'He works here.' She flipped a hand towards Holmes. 'S' Sherlock,' she mumbled, 'we're going to study.'
'Well isn't that just dandy,' Patrick beamed. 'Always got her nose in a book, eh,' He paused to ruffle Mary's hair as he left the room, 'our little Hermione.'
Holmes snorted and raised an eyebrow. ''Our little,''
'sh't'p!'
'No, no,' Holmes suppressed a smile, 'I think it's a perfectly charming-'
'I was nine years old!' Russell blushed. 'It was a very popular book!'
'Indeed, who hasn't at some time wished they were a...' Holmes sniggered, 'wizard....'
'sh't'p! sh't'p! sh't'p! sh't'p! sh't'p!'