"Oh, he's such a freak,"
"It's just weird!"
"Is that a skull?"
"My mum says he's dangerous,"
"Freak!"
"Stay away from Sherlock Holmes."
It was John Watson's first day at Beckford Primary School, and already he was nervous. The last minute move meant that nobody had time to prepare – there was no room for the small sandy-haired boy. He'd spent most of the morning squished on the corners of assorted tables, struggling. Beckford Primary insisted on silent working, and division was hard. Everybody had friends already and none of them seemed to want to talk to John, except to warn him not to talk to Sherlock Holmes. Everyone seemed to agree on that.
Come lunch time, John didn't know what to do. He didn't want to sit alone, that was for sure. But was he just going to go up to someone? It seemed like the only option. And that left a resonating question – who? Everybody had friends; everybody was sat with someone, talking avidly and happily.
No, wait. That wasn't right.
A small, skinny boy with a mop of dark curls sat alone, clutching something to his chest. He looked sad.
John realised that he had been stood in the doorway shaking slightly for a good few minutes and nervously made his way to where the sad boy was sat.
"Hello." He began, still quivering a little.
The dark-haired boy looked up with confusion in his eyes. He didn't say anything.
"C-can I sit here?"
He nodded, still with the same confusion fixed on his face. "If you'd like."
He set down his lunchbox and sat down nervously. "I'm J-"
"I know who you are. You're John Watson, and you've just moved here with your parents and sister from Uxbridge a few weeks ago."
John's mouth dropped open. "You-you- how did you know that?"
As far as he was aware, he'd told nobody any of that.
"I saw it." The boy said quietly, looking down at whatever it was he cradled in his arms.
"Saw it? What d'you mean?"
Without need of further prompting, he began to speak rapidly, a torrent of words and realisation and things hadn't occurred even to John, explaining how he'd seen small details on John's apparel, the way he spoke, the things he carried. John struggled to keep track, listening attentively and awed.
He finished abruptly and looked up. "Go on then." He mumbled expectantly.
"Go on then what?"
"Aren't you going to hit me o-or yell at me?"
John furrowed his eyebrows. "Why would I do that? That thing you just did, that was really cool! How do you do that?"
"I-I don't know, I can just do it. Are you sure you're not going to hit me, though?"
"I'm sure – why do you think I would want to hit you?"
"Everybody does when I tell them things. They don't like it."
"Then why do you do it if they hit you?" John didn't understand this boy. But he wanted to.
"Because I like to do it." He said, without a second thought.
There were a few moments pause, as John seemed to process this. The boy seemed to understand everything a lot better than he did. Not just clever things, like he'd figured out all about him, but how the world was. People hurt him, and called him names and that was bad. But it was also bad to hit them back. He should definitely tell a teacher, John decided, but his patience was admirable. And he did what he liked doing. It should be that simple, right?
"Sherlock."
"What?"
"My name is Sherlock."
John was about to say that it was a weird name, but decided against it.
"Hello, Sherlock," John smiled instead. "What is that you're holding?"
Sherlock's grip on it loosened slightly. "It's a . . . a skull."
John tilted his head to the side. "Does it have a name?"
"A what?"
"A name – what's he called?"
"He-he doesn't have a name,"
"You should give him a name!" John exclaimed.
Neither of them said anything for a while, this time Sherlock's turn to think. After a few moments, he mumbled something into the top of the skull.
"What was that?"
"Isaidjohn," he rushed.
"I-I still can't hear you,"
"J-John. His name is John."