Chapter 1: 221

Amidst the hustle-and-bustle of the airport, I scan the crowd for the sign bearing my name. Wandering through, I finally spot the words "Cameron Redgate" printed neatly on a white piece of paper. I make my way through the crowd toward the sign to find a frail woman holding it. She looks far too old to be my host, but I figure, why else would she be holding a sign with my name on it?

"Are you Cameron?" she asks nicely. Her voice is little.

"Yeah," I say. "You're Mrs. Hudson?"

"Yes!" She hugs me delicately, as if I'm a china doll that could easily break. "Welcome to London! Hate to rush it, but we have to get back to my place. And I have a doctor's appointment, but you can stay and get acquainted with some friends of mine that live in the flat above us."

"Alright," I say, eager to meet people without having to find them on my own. Socializing is not my forte.

"So how was your flight?" Mrs. Hudson asks me eagerly as we enter the taxi.

"Good," I say. "Fine. Normal."

"That's good." We sit in silence for a few minutes.

"Well, my friends are detectives. One's pretty quiet, but the other- well, he's very eccentric. Not a terrible person or anything, no, but he's not quite- human. But there's not really a good way to explain him, you'll see when you meet him."

"Oh. Are they-" I pause, trying to put the term 'gay' in the most polite way possible.

"They say they aren't, but we all have our suspicions…"

"Right. So we're in downtown London?"

"Yes. 221A Baker Street. Here it is," she says as the cab halts at a black door. The door's knocker is off center. Fighting the impulse to correct it, I step inside.

"This way, dear," Mrs. Hudson says, directing me forward. "Here's my flat, I'll show you your room."

She leads me to a room painted a sky blue, featuring a white bedspread and matching curtains. It's smaller than what I had at home- just a little- but it was a good size for me for a year.

"Make yourself at home, Cameron, feel free to decorate it however you'd like, and then you can head into the kitchen, which is right down the hallway which we came in." She leaves me to unpack in peace.

I get out my luggage and change out of my airport outfit into some sweatpants from my old middle school and an old church tee shirt. I put my suitcase on the floor and get out my bag of room stuff. Making sure I don't end up tearing the paint off the wall, I put up my three favorite posters from home. I also place a framed picture of my family on the vanity and one of my friends and I on the dresser. I tape a photobooth set of pictures of my boyfriend and I on the mirror. Finally, I feel at home. Putting on my old, worn, knock-off ugg boots on, I walk to Mrs. Hudson's kitchen.

"Great, Cameron, just in time!" Mrs. Hudson exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "I have to go to a doctor's appointment about my hip, and I assume that you'd rather not go, or have nothing to do, so you can head upstairs. I'll go with you, of course," she adds, as if I wouldn't want to go."

"Alright," I say.

We walk up the steps to be greeted by a tall-ish, skinny man with dark, curly hair typing on a computer.

"Sherlock?" Mrs. Hudson asks.

"Yes?" he says. His voice is deep and smooth, it sounds like a panther inside a cello.

"This is Cameron, she's a foreign exchange student from America. Are you and John free to, well, you know, get acquainted? New neighbors generally do that," she says.

"Talk to John."

"Hi, Mrs. Hudson," another (shorter) man says, who can only be John. "Sorry, I don't think I know you," he says to me.

"I'm Cameron," I say, "I'm a foreign exchange student from America."

"Oh, nice! How old are you?"

"14. I got a lot of credits in middle school."

"Oh. Well, I'm John."

"Is it ok if she stays here for a little bit? I've got an appointment about my hip," Mrs. Hudson asks.

"Sure, sure," John says. "Feel free to have a seat."

I sit on a couch in front of a trellis-patterned wallpaper, a yellow smiley face painted on it. There's holes the size of bullets piercing the middle of it.

"Alright, I'll be back in an hour or two. Thanks, John, Sherlock."

"No problem, Mrs. Hudson."

"Would you like some tea?" John asks me after Mrs. Hudson shuts the door.

"Sure," I say.

"So, where in America are you from? John asks.

"About an hour from Chicago," I say.

"Nice, do you go there often?"

"I went about once or twice a year with my family," I said. "But when I visit them over Christmas, that's where we're heading for the week."

"Oh, that's great," he says, bringing me the cup of tea.

"Thank you," I say, taking the tea.

"No problem."

"So," I say, changing the subject, "Mrs. Hudson told me a few things about you two."

"Really?" John says. "Doesn't surprise me. What did she say?"

"That you two solve crimes."

"Well, he solves them. I'm more of an assistant."

"Oh. You do that a lot, then?"

"It's his profession, really, but I blog about it," he says. "So, yeah, I guess that we do it a lot. But I'm a doctor, I work at a clinic."

"Oh, nice," I say. "So you guys are basically a private eye...service...thing."

"Consulting detective," says Sherlock, briefly looking up from what he's typing. "Made the job myself."

"Oh."

"The police consult with us frequently."

"But I thought that the police couldn't consult with private detectives."

"I'm not an average detective."

"Oh, God, Sherlock," John says, "are you going to go off again?"

Sherlock pouts.

"No, you've got me interested now," I say.

"Well, I can see from you right now that you took the latest plane possible to get here by now. You straightened your hair, it's naturally curly, not unlike mine. You used to have two cats and you play piano. You are from the Midwestern United States, one sister, in a relationship." He pops the p at the end of the word 'relationship'.

"How did you-"

"You just recently got out of a taxi, within 30 minutes ago, as you've got a little bit of hair in your lipgloss that can only be in that position if you've recently got out of the wind. That means that you just got off a plane maybe an hour ago. Your hair has a dent in the back where you wouldn't be able to see. It looks perfectly straight in the front. Your sweatpants have cat hair of both black and golden colored cats on them. Your hands are playing piano scales on your lap. Your accent and dialect indicate that you're from the Midwest, and your pants are over 3 years old, but they're a middle school's pants, and middle schools only go for three years, and these aren't a boy's pants, so they were your sister's. And your phone's lock screen, which you checked while John was making your tea, was a picture of you and a boy acting incredibly flirtatious with each other." He says all of this in one breath.

"Amazing!"

A knock on the door interrupts me. "Come in," John says.

A silver haired man enters. "There's been a murder. Unknown cause of death as of right now, probably a self induced drug, but the crime scene suggests that someone else was there. We need your help."

Sherlock gets up, John following. "You want to come with?" John says.

"And watch you two solve a murder? Of course!" I say.

"Amazing, indeed!" Sherlock mutters as he puts on a large, black coat and a bulky purple scarf. We head out the door.