My sister was in love with Sherlock Holmes, and he was absolute rubbish. Especially his name. Sherlock Holmes is an eccentric name eccentric parents give to their eccentric child. My sister's name? Molly Hooper. Molly Hooper is a good, sensible name that good, sensible parents give to their good, sensible daughter. Maybe that's why Molly fell in love with him the first time she saw him.
She told me once that she was tired of being good and sensible. She was tired of being the responsible older sister that cut chewing gum out of her younger sister's hair and stayed home weekends and studied instead of going to parties. She wanted to be rebellious and clever and just for once be something other than Molly Hooper. I told her that was stupid and couldn't she please cut the gum out of my hair before Mum came home?
Molly cut the gum out because she was Molly. I'll bet that Sherlock Holmes would have studied chewing gum's rate of decay when tangled in human hair. I think I'll stick a piece in his hair the next time I see him and find out.
You might be wondering why I hate Sherlock Holmes so much. Well, I don't hate him. I just don't like him. But anyways, hating or just not liking him, there's a story behind it, I guess. The story starts when my older sister grew up.
I'm still not sure why she decided she had to grow up, because she used to have a lot more fun before she "grew up." Why does growing up mean that you can't run through the sprinklers or swing on the swingset anymore? Suddenly, everything was about school and homework and boys and there was never any time left for me. Sometimes we'd go see a film, or she'd take me to the park and "watch me play," but that was it. That was worse than nothing. At least when she was ignoring me, I could bounce on her bed and play with her makeup until she chased me out of her room and locked me out.
But when she was being nice to me, it was awful. I always told her I didn't appreciate being condescended to, even though I wasn't really sure what it meant. She'd just laugh and tell me I was too smart for my own good and I should write her papers for her. I'd say my school was already too hard, and she'd smile and shake her head knowingly, and I'd feel condescended to again.
The summer she was 18 and I was 9, Molly graduated, and she suddenly had time for me again. We'd go out for walks and buy snacks without permission and she'd have tea parties with me, and one time I even got her to swing on the swings with me. I probably should have realized that it was too good to be true, but I was so happy to have my sister back that I didn't think about it.
It must have been near the end of summer when I realized something was wrong. Molly was back to her old tricks of studying, and Mum was crying all the time. I even saw my Dad tear up once when he thought I wasn't watching, but I didn't tell him I saw. He didn't like it when people saw him cry. I asked Molly what it was all about, and she laughed. "You know why, silly. I'm leaving soon."
That's when my world came crashing down. I learned that Molly was going away to university all the way off in London so she could learn how to be a doctor for dead people, and no one had bothered to tell me because they'd all been pretending I already knew. Apparently I was supposed to be happy for Molly because not many people got the chance to be a doctor for dead people, but I wasn't. I was just angry that I was losing my sister again.
I didn't talk to her for the next three weeks while she went shopping for her new room in London and packed up her room at home, and I hid in the attic the day she left for university.
Dad was upset when he had to crawl all the way to the back of the attic and drag me out from behind a stack of boxes. Mum was crying yet again, but Molly was excited, the traitor. She hugged and kissed Mum and Dad goodbye, but when she tried to hug me, I ran upstairs and hid in the attic again. "Just give her some time," I heard Dad say when Molly asked about going after me. "She's got to learn to live with it." So they drove Molly to the station and she went away to university and left me behind.
Now after all that, you might still be wondering what any of this has to do with Sherlock Holmes. After all, he wasn't the reason Molly grew up, or the reason she left for London.
Well, the answer is simple: Sherlock isn't the reason Molly went to London, but he's the reason she stays there. I guess it's partly my fault, though. After all, it all started the time I ran away from home and a detective named Sherlock Holmes found me.
