'Obvious.' John reread Sherlock's note. John picked up his pencil and wrote quickly, not wanting to be noticed by the teacher. 'How is any of that obvious?' Then passed it back to Sherlock. Sherlock scoffed but continued to write his deductions of the boy sitting a few seats ahead of him for John. 'You're so dull. Can you not see all the mud on his pants?' Sherlock passed the note back to John. The boy shifted in his seat and John was able to get a better look of his face. he had dark brown hair with black eyes. his nose was hooked and his face seemed to be fixed with an ugly sneer.
'Yes, but I don't see how that tells you where he was this morning- there's mud everywhere, he could have been anywhere.'
'The mud isn't from direct contact with the ground. It's been splashed up and smeared by a second party. Now look at her knees-'
Sherlock openly pointed across the room to a girl with dark skin and curly black hair. John did look at her knees to see that they were covered in mud. John was once again amazed that Sherlock could link the two. John took up his pencil and wrote on the paper and passed it to Sherlock. Sherlock chuckled at John's note. 'Brilliant.' Sherlock started to write out a response when he got tapped on the shoulder. He looked around to see one of the students holding a piece of paper out to him. It was Sarah Sawyer. "Pass this to John," she whispered, placing the note on the desk. Sarah quickly looked away and pretended to pay attention to the lecture. Sherlock opened the note quietly and read it.
'Do you want to hang out this Friday?'
Sherlock stared at it for a moment, grabbed his note to John and scrawled, 'have you ever kicked a dog for fun?'
Knowing full well what the answer would be, Sherlock passed the note to John and waited. Sherlock neatly folded Sarah's note and put it in his pocket. John read over Sherlock's question with a slightly appalled expression. The paper that they had been passing was now used up, so John pulled out another piece of paper and wrote:
'No! Why would anyone ever do that?'
John shoved the paper onto Sherlock's desk. Sherlock grabbed it eagerly, folded it in half then passed it to Sarah. Sarah grabbed it and ripped it open then stopped suddenly. She held the note in front of her and read it over and over then slowly placed it on her desk with a crestfallen look on her face. She was too absorbed in the note to see the smug, devilish grin that was spread across Sherlock's face, which he tried to hide behind his hands. Sherlock then remembered to respond to John's note. He grabbed a new piece of paper and wrote, 'I don't know, I was just wondering,' then he passed the paper to John. They continued to pass notes through class and walked out onto campus together when the bell rang. Sarah ran past them with her books clutched to her chest and her head down, clearly very upset. John looked at Sherlock with a questioning glance. Sherlock merely shrugged and kept walking.
'He'll find out sometime,' Sherlock thought to himself, 'but it won't matter by then.' A ghost of a smile skirted Sherlock's lips, but he turned away from John to hide it. John knew him all too well to believe that it was nothing if he saw.