Case Studies
Sherlock was balanced on the edge of the counter with an egg in one hand and a skewer in the other. Their parents were still dressing him in short pants, and his long bare legs dangled down in socks and miniature Oxfords. Mycroft, who had just innocently come into the kitchen to see if there were anything worth having in the icebox, stared at him in horror. Once again his younger brother was perpetrating an Atrocity.
"What are you doing?"
Sherlock looked down at him and grinned. "Look at this. Mary showed me how to blow eggs for Easter yesterday."
Mycroft's eyebrows went up. "Blow eggs?" He was going to have to talk to Mamma about Mary. She had only been governess for a few weeks, and she was already encouraging Sherlock in his Atrocities.
Sherlock took the skewer, and, holding it like a dagger, punctured a hole in the top of the egg. Another sharp blow, and the tip of the skewer emerged from the bottom, coated in yolk.
"That's grotesque - " Mycroft started to say, and then Sherlock put his mouth to the hole on top and blew as hard as he could, sending a yellow stream of yolk and white shooting like particularly thick and unhealthy piss into the sink, where it slopped unpleasantly. Mycroft paled. "Sherlock!"
"Mmm." Sherlock hefted the egg with satisfaction and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "Look. It's rather like when Cook makes fowl for supper and the intestines burst. Except much more useful of course, and I've made less mess."
"You are going to get botulism. Or salmonella. Or AIDS." Mycroft hurried to the sink and lifted Sherlock down, ignoring it when Sherlock kicked him in the stomach. "And then you'll die."
"You can't get AIDS from eggs."
"You can get AIDS from anything."
"You think you know everything because you're at boarding school. I'd be at boarding school too if you hadn't told Mamma about the cat."
Mycroft pursed his lips. The Cat Incident, as he termed it, had occurred when Sherlock had found a young dead cat in the street near their house and had smuggled it into his room under his coat. There he had nailed it to a board and dissected it, removing all of the organs in perfect condition and preserving them in vinegar. Mycroft had been quick to alert Mamma as soon as he found out. "You don't deserve to be at school until you can behave like a human being."
Sherlock gave him a queer look from those pale eyes of his. Sherlock's eyes had always unsettled Mycroft; they were-thin, in a way, almost slanted, as tight as his mouth when he smiled, which he rarely did. They were strange eyes and a strange mouth under that tousle of dark hair. People did not pat Sherlock on the head and call him a good lad the way they had done to Mycroft when he was younger.
"Why should I behave like a human being?" Sherlock asked.
"So you can go to school," Mycroft said shortly.
"And know everything, like you do? I know everything already."
Mycroft scoffed. "Everything."
Sherlock raised his eyebrows. "I know that you can't get AIDS from eggs. Salmonella. But not AIDS."
"So you want to get salmonella."
"Not myself. But I'd like to study it." And then he reached up and wiped one egg-smeared thumb on Mycroft's cheek.
Mycroft recoiled, digging frantically in his pocket for a handkerchief. He could just feel the bacteria spreading on his face eagerly, sending out little bacterial emissaries to plant flags on behalf of the State of Infection on his skin, claiming him as their new conquest. His stomach turned. "Christ! You're going to give me something! You little bastard!" At last he found the handkerchief and scrubbed his cheek with it, then turned the tap on and washed his face a couple of times to be safe, and dried himself with another towel from the drawer so his handkerchief wouldn't reinfect him.
When he finally turned back to shout at Sherlock, Sherlock was watching him with that tight little smile.
"You'd make a good test case."
