A/N Sequel to "A Study in Tickle Me Pink." Since the last story received a bit of harassment for being inaccurate to the British schooling system, I'd like to reestablish here that I AM American, and this is a silly little crack!fic that I have no reason or compulsion to do research for. There will be regional inaccuracies, and though you may feel absolutely free to go ahead and point them out, I am not going to change them, simply because this isn't an important enough work of mine to be concerned with such things.

That said, the last story did well enough, and there were multiple reviews asking for a sequel, so I hope you all enjoy this one as well!

Disclaimer I don't own BBC Sherlock or any associated characters, events, etc.


one.five

"John, what do you know about money?"

John Watson glanced up from the worksheet across which he'd been scribbling an assortment of numbers, copying down the bold characters that their teacher, Mrs. Hudson, had traced out on the blackboard in sharp white lines. Intent on the figures as he had been—this time, he was quite sure that he had sketched the five facing the right way—it took him a long moment to process Sherlock's words, and longer to identify the motivation behind them.

"Money?" he ended up asking rather stupidly, despite the fact that he knew he should be well aware, at this point, of how Sherlock would judge him for not keeping up with his own sharp brain and tongue. John had no problem with spending the majority of time around the class's resident genius—in fact, he rather enjoyed it—but there was always the slight problem of being expected to keep up with the rapidity of his advanced mind.

"Yes, money. What is it to you? Just something your parents spend?"

"Well..." The answer was yes, of course; John, being six years old, had no reason whatsoever to know a thing about money and its uses. The significance of the thin paper notes had always escaped him—he didn't quite understand what was to be gained through them, when there were much more interesting things to be traded and exchanged.

"Typical." Huffing, Sherlock leaned back in his chair, his own long-completed maths sheet lying askew on the table before him. John spent a few seconds deliberating whether to ask the meaning of the large word poised on the dark-haired boy's lips, then decided that doing so would cause him to appear even slower than Sherlock's treatment had already made him feel. Sighing, he instead turned back to his sheet, and was just preparing himself to try for the tricky swoop of a well-formed 9 when Sherlock's low voice stirred the air once more.

"Sebastian seems to know more."

"Sebastian?" John echoed, his tongue stumbling over the assembly of consonants. It was an unfamiliar name, and his eyes flickered up to trace the path of Sherlock's cool grey gaze, eventually landing upon a wide-eyed boy standing near the front of the room, apparently speaking to Mrs. Hudson in a hushed yet aggravated manner. His lower lip was trembling, and John felt his stomach twist in sympathy. He hadn't been in room 221b long enough to know all the kids, but despite his unfamiliarity with the student apparently named Sebastian, he couldn't help but feel a surge of sympathy for whatever was aggravating him.

"Can't you do anything but repeat? Yes, Sebastian. He's our treasurer."

"Trea—I mean, what's that?"

"Never mind, go on and repeat. You sound even stupider otherwise."

John suppressed a cringe, trying to ignore the way that his throat grew bitter at the cruel word thrown in his direction. He knew that Sherlock didn't mean it, just had trouble when no one could properly keep up with him. Of course it would be frustrating. "Sorry, I... I don't know what that is."

"He's like a banker. He keeps track of the class fund... money for field trips, treats, the like. The piggy bank? It's his job to run it."

"I thought Mrs. Hudson took care of the piggy bank."

"Of course she really does, but she likes to make us feel involved whenever she can, thinks it'll help with our learning or something of the like. So she lets him count the notes. I'm surprised you haven't noticed—he does it every Monday, at morning circle."

John frowned for a moment, trying to recall which day was Monday, but his consideration was cut off by the sharp sound of Sherlock's chair grating back. His eyes widened, and he observed the reason for the other boy's disturbance an instant later—the slick-haired boy named Sebastian was now crossing the room in shaky strides, straight in Sherlock's direction, while Mrs. Hudson watched with pursed lips from where she stood with her hands clasped around her elbows.

"Sebastian," Sherlock greeted as the treasurer came to a sniveling halt before him. "Something wrong with the bank?"

Apparently oblivious to the slight condescending jeer in the curly-haired boy's tone, Sebastian dipped his chin in a pair of hasty nods, his fingers knotting together. "I... I thought that, since you figured out who was making people sick before, you could help, maybe. I don't know what happened."

"I'm sure you know quite well what happened, or you wouldn't have come to see me. What caused it, now... that's something else entirely."

Sebastian, apparently put off by Sherlock's rudeness, let out a particularly loud sniff, which earned him confused glances from a few of the other students sitting around the room, pencils at their worksheets. He quickly stifled his whimper, then reached forwards and took the edge of Sherlock's sleeve with his fingertips.

"Please, will you help?"

Sherlock exhaled and raised his eyes to the ceiling, jerking his hand away from Sebastian's grip. "How much is gone?"

"How much what?"

"How much money," he got out through his teeth, and, this time, John understood his impatience. It seemed that Sebastian was rather slow—not at all the type that he'd make class treasurer, if he were in Mrs. Hudson's place.

"Oh—there wasn't any money missing."

John perked slightly at this, and so did Sherlock, his eyes swiftly narrowing and his words coming at a much sharper pace. "No money missing? Then what's the problem?"

"Its eyes..."

Now Sherlock was the one to reach out, seizing Sebastian by the edge of the collar. Dark curls spilled over his forehead, and he seemed to quiver with intensity, to the point where John nearly stood in an attempt to calm him. The other students, no longer able to ignore the whispered conversation, were beginning to murmur among themselves, and Mrs. Hudson raised her voice at the front of the room, bringing them back together with a clap of her hands.

"Now, does anyone have some numbers that they'd like to show the rest of the class? Sally? Sarah? Andy, what about you?"

The others' attention returned to their numbers, and Sherlock released a breath that John hadn't noticed he was holding. "Its eyes," he repeated in a growl. "Something's wrong with its eyes."

Sebastian nodded several times. "I'll show you—"

"Do. Immediately."

He nodded again, then turned and scampered across the room, to where the fat pink piggy bank was situated on a high counter. Sherlock followed at a more leisurely pace, and glanced over his shoulder after a footstep, one dark eyebrow cocked in a gesture that John rather wondered at the mechanics at.

"Coming?"

It took John a moment to realize that he was the one being talked to; upon that revelation, however, a grin warmed his lips, and he hurried to his feet as an affirmation, leaving his pencil to roll across his half-completed maths work, trailing a thin strand of graphite off of the end of the lopsided number 9 that he'd just been completing.

In a few seconds, they were at the other side of the room, and Sebastian was just pulling the bank down from the shelf, its rosy ceramic form cradled in his thin arms. "Here," he mumbled, apparently paying no heed to the fact that Sherlock was being tailed by another, probably less helpful boy. He tilted the pig's face forwards, and John had to suppress a gasp at the sight there.

Where there had before been two round, beady black eyes painted above the curve of the pig's nose, there was now nothing—nothing but white-flecked scraps of glaze, for the eyes had been scratched entirely away, presumably with an object so sharp that John knew it would never be allowed in the classroom. White lines now crisscrossed the pig's muzzle and forehead, disfiguring its formerly adorable countenance into something gruesome.

"Isn't it awful?" Sebastian whimpered.

"It's... strange," Sherlock acknowledged, extending the tip of one pale finger and tracing the jagged angles of the gashes. "Why would anyone...?"

"That's what I was wondering!" Sebastian cried out, his voice this time reaching a volume that earned him a few muffled whispers of shh from the closest-situated students.

"Fascinating... most fascinating. Thank you, Sebastian—we'll be able to handle the rest of this on our own, I think."

"Will you be able to figure out who d-did it?"

"Most likely. Go on, now, don't you have maths work to make up?"

Sebastian dragged his sleeve over his nose to muffle another sniffle, and blinked away wavy tears from the corners of his eyes. "Yeah... o-okay. Thank you."

"I'll do what I can."

Sherlock pried more than accepted the piggy bank from Sebastian's quivering grasp, lifting it until they were nose to round pink nose. He contemplated it in this manner as Sebastian returned to his seat, and John folded his arms, watching Sherlock think. It was always quite something to try and see the pale boy's mind work—it was nearly invisible, but there were some physical traces of his exhaustive brain activity: a twitch of his brow, a curl at the edge of his lips, a slow breath. Now, however, he was perfectly still, and it was, by John's count, almost a full minute—a minute was fifty seconds, he was sure it was—before his shoulders, swathed in the dark coat that he refused to take off even in class, fully relaxed.

"See these, John? These aren't just scribbles... these are letters. A message."

Letters? This time, John refrained from repeating the word aloud, but instead took it to heart, squinting in an attempt to decipher the characters that Sherlock was now regarding with such triumph on his face. P... no, D, that was a D, wasn't it? D... A... N...

"Dan?"

"It means something else, of course, it must. But... yes. DAN. A message, presumably—not for Sebastian; he had no idea what it meant."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. He would have told Mrs. Hudson if he were being threatened... he's smart enough for that, if nothing else. No. There's another recipient. Somewhere in the classroom, somewhere nearby... there."

He tilted his head towards the table beside which they were standing. Curious, John's stare lowered to the name card sitting atop the spot nearest to them, letters written across in plain blue marker, a bit shaky from the unadjusted hand of the kindergartener that had laid them out.

Eddie Van Coon.

"Eddie Van Coon," John read slowly, scowling at the unfamiliar sound. Perhaps he'd pronounced it wrong. "Eddie Van... Vahn..."

"Van Coon, it's Van Coon," Sherlock muttered, running a hand through his curls as he settled the piggy bank back onto its shelf. "If Sebastian wasn't meant to read it, then Eddie Van Coon was. But if it's for him... then where is he? Perhaps the message didn't only appear today, Sebastian only just bothered to check—maybe it's from yesterday, or even earlier, he hasn't had to look at the bank since Monday, and that was three days ago—but why did Eddie Van Coon go home?"

John, immured in Sherlock's questions, was so carefully trying to piece them out that he didn't notice the other boy's departure until he was halfway across the room once more, this time with the apparent goal of reaching Mrs. Hudson. Sighing in frustration, John tripped after, but only managed to reach Sherlock's heels after the brief words with the teacher were over, leaving them both with an expression of yet increased concern and frustration.

"She won't say," Sherlock muttered out of the corner of his mouth as he gripped John by the shoulder of the sleeve and brought him back to their table. "His symptoms aren't released, or something of the like..." At John's uncomprehending expression, he indulged himself in a swift eye roll. "They're keeping it secret. No one is allowed to know if he's sick, or hurt... yes, that message was definitely intended for Eddie Van Coon." Releasing John's shirt, Sherlock stood back, his stare scoping out the classroom, teeth shining in a sharp clench as the gears of his brilliant mind churned and twisted invisibly. "And I intend to find out who sent it."