Inspired by a Cracked list called '5 Bizarre Ways the Weather can Kill You'.
In the fall after Sherlock Holmes' remarkable return to life and practice, we were obliged on the part of his brother to take a trip to Bath, Somerset, that smaller city to the west of our own London. Holmes was rather indignant about the whole affair, and made his grievances quite clear on the train over.
"Nothing interesting happens in Bath," he said. "Real criminals either come to London where the prospects and people are, or else take up in the country, where their dark deeds will have no witness. Bath is singularly calculated to provide absolutely nothing to stimulate the mind."
I was subjected to such whinging the entire trip. "Honestly, Holmes," said I at one point, "You could at least try to enjoy yourself. Surely Mycroft wouldn't send you all this way for something completely unmemorable."
"Pfff. The exception that proves the rule, Watson. Bath cannot even manufacture its own crimes, it has to import them - and inconvenience me in the process."
He eventually fell into a disaffected silence, and remained there as we pulled into the station, hailed a cab, and took up the hotel room that Mycroft had arranged for us. He ignored a perfectly respectable dinner, and brooded around his pipe until late into the night, when he abruptly decided that he absolutely had to go out. Were such petulance not completely characteristic of my friend, I might have been worried. As it was, I left him to his own machinations, and simply determined that I would try to improve his mood in the morning.
Holmes returned from his impromptu excursion just as I was finishing my toilet. His mood did not seem to have improved.
"The weather does not look promising," he said at breakfast, or rather, at the table where I was taking my breakfast and he was smoking and glowering at the overcast sky as if it had done him personal injury.
"We should hurry on, then, before the rain breaks," I replied. Holmes hummed an idle confirmation.
Some quarter of an hour later found the two of us passing down Bath's high street. The sky continued to grow dark with storm, and Holmes did his level best to match it in expression. That is, until something came down upon the pavement not a metre ahead of us, striking with a strange, not-quite solid 'thwup'. I glanced at Holmes, he glanced at me, and together we moved forward to investigate.
The mystery... thing appeared to be a clear puddle of no more than two inches across, viscous, and jiggled a bit when prodded with my cane. It seemed familiar, somehow. Holmes shaded his eyes to look at the sky, whilst I bent down to examine the puddle more closely. It reminded me of... a day on the beach?
"Holmes," I said suddenly, in disbelief. "This is a jellyfish."
In answer, Holmes grabbed my collar, yanked me to my feet, and pulled me back under a nearby awning. There was another thwup from down the street, and then another nearby, and another, and I watched with wide eyes as it proceeded to rain jellyfish in Bath, Somerset.
After a moment, I turned an incredulous eye on Holmes. He held up his hands.
"I know what you're thinking, Watson, and I had nothing to do with this."
With apologies to Bath, I'm sure it's a perfectly lovely city and Holmes' complaints are completely unfounded.
The boys do not belong to me.