This is for all the hardworking folk who must juggle parenting with work. Based on a true story...loosely...

-

Martin Lestrade had been trying to balance lying in with a bad tooth against missing out on a school trip to the Serpentine. It wasn't all that good of a trade, he thought sadly. On the other hand, it was a golden chance to start his studies without his brother getting in the way.

Absorbed in the joys of geometry and satisfied to call it an evening well spent, Martin was in the process of pushing more clove oil into his throbbing tooth when the downstairs door banged shut. Nicholas' heavy tread rattled up the carpeted steps, heavier than usual. And awkward. Martin winced as the vibrations of his larger sibling's tread vibrated in the sore spot inside his jaw.

"Martin!" The younger boy puffed slightly, a fruit-box balanced under one arm. Martin quickly put his book down Geometry would have to wait again. "You'll never believe what I found!"

"Knowing you, Nick, I'm not going to guess." Martin said dubiously. "It's alive, isn't it?"

Nicholas scowled at him. "Stop being so stuffy. I'll be glad when Tad takes that tooth out." He set the box on the floor gently; it was damp and glistened faintly on the sides. "Wish't he'd done it this morning." Their father had up and left for work long before both boys were up, and alas before Martin's tooth started acting.

"All right, Nick. What is it then?"

"Take a look for yourself."

"Bloom-" Martin made a face like a jack o'lantern. "I'm not looking until you tell me what it is!"

"But…" Nicholas' face collapsed. "That's just it, Martin! You have to look at it! I don't know what it is!"

"Oh, don't be stupid. Bird? Fish? Reptile? Amphibian? Mammal? Start there."

Nicholas gnawed on his bottom lip. "I suppose amphibian."

"You suppose?" Martin gaped. "Nick, what's the matter with you! It can't be that hard! Not for you!"

Nicholas sighed. With a martyred air he knelt and pulled the top off the box.

Martin looked inside.

He was without words for almost a minute.

"Nick," He said very quietly. "You found that in the Serpentine?"

"Well, not me really. Tommy and Georgette found it. They were afraid Mrs. Harrister would catch them with it so I said I'd take it."

"So she didn't notice you?"

"She didn't notice anything as soon as we got there. Some sort of accident on the other side of the lake. Had her spyglass all over the place."

"I'm surprised Tommy didn't try to make you pay for it."

"He took my lunch."

"Better not tell Mamm. She'll be furious."

"I'm not stupid." Nicholas sniffed. "Well? What is it?"

Martin sighed. "I think we'd better go find some books."

"Well we can't leave it in here." Nicholas was already protective of his new friend. "His skin's going to dry out for certain."

"All right…" Martin rubbed the back of his neck, unaware of how much like his father he looked. "Let's get a bucket."

"He'll crawl out of the bucket."

"You're right…we'll have to think of something…"

-

In Scotland Yard, their father was dealing with his own special variety of throbbing pain. It wore a coal-black suit, and smoked a cherrywood pipe. Dr. Watson had already warned him about the cherrywood pipe and its indicator of precarious emotional states.

"The tracks are as unmistakable as your own left foot, Lestrade."

"Mr. Holmes," Lestrade spoke with as much patience as he was capable of at the moment, but what he really wanted to do was pick up his hundred-weight oak desk and bash the amateur with it like an unrealistic but satisfying hammer. Beside him Watson was patiently taking notes and adopting that sympathetic listening aura doctors were famous for. "I can say the tracks are as you say in my report. But when it comes to the time where I must stand up in court and say so…they're going to tear me apart for that approach. There's more than one man with an uneven limp who favours his left side in London!"

Mr. Holmes was not impressed. Then again, he never was. "You lack belief in my abilities, and I am merely employing what is obvious."

"Obvious to you, Mr. Holmes." Lestrade had been insulted by some of the highest dignitaries off Westminster, and he could certainly weather the scorn of a Holmes. "But I repeat. The tracking you describe will not prove it is your man. We need more information."

"Lestrade," and here Holmes was using his special tone of voice, the one that wasn't nearly as scalding as it had been before Watson (bless the man) had come into his life. "There are a few things I should like to point out to you in regarding the specialty crimes—to wit, exotic animal trade in a most un-exotic climate..."

-

"You know," Gregson mused thoughtfully once Lestrade thought he might have his office back to himself, "I believe that man likes you."

"Are you still using last year's calendar, Gregson?" Lestrade asked wearily. "Fool's Day falls on the week-end this year."

"You laugh at me, but you'll notice I never have to buy calendars—just my appointment books."

Lestrade didn't laugh. He was smart enough not to cultivate the open hostility of Mr. Holmes, and he wasn't stupid enough to laugh at Gregson for anything. Ever since learning the calendar repeated itself every twelve years, Gregson's ingenious Scrooge-like slant of mind had inspired him to collect and re-use the same twelve calendars over and over. Since they corresponded to the Asian year, he kept track of his years that way.

"Waste not, want not Lestrade."

"That's one devil of a choice, Gregson." Lestrade snorted.

Gregson threw a wadded-up ball of paper at him. Lestrade blocked it with a boxing strike that was best left on the street and never seen inside the ring before the judges.

Lestrade finally sighed. It was the breaking moment Gregson had been waiting for.

"Exotic animal smugglers stealing from each other." He muttered. "Gregson, haven't we enough to do? Shouldn't murder be our priority?"

"If this keeps up, we might have a murder on top of it all." Gregson pointed out. "The Crown won't be happy to see some sort of outsider species of somewhat moving in. They've got too many friends among the Royal College, and the Museums, and the Historical Societies, and the Parks…don't forget the little forest we've got left."

"But animals!" Lestrade made a grasping motion in the air. "I swear to you, it is a good thing I am not the fool Mr. Holmes thinks I am, because I'll tell you why he's really upset at me. That shipment he was paid to find has vanished. And it isn't the fact that things didn't go according to his clockwork plan, Gregson…it's the fact that he so far does not have the satisfaction of solving the problem for himself…my word, he's as bad as the stumper everyone's got in the family…the one who spends his life solving those little puzzles in the papers or joining encryptogram clubs. There's one in every family, Gregson! Mark you, Mr. Holmes is the one for his!"

Gregson was very good at saving his laughter for later. "You might be right about that."

-

The water-bucket was far too small. The rubbish bin was already full of rubbish. The double sinks Mrs. Collins had paid so much money for in the old kitchen was too shallow.

For a moment it looked like the old hand-washing sink propped against the wall—the one their father used for tanning Uncle Bartram's eternal supply of rabbit skins—would suffice. But once it was cleaned out and filled with water, the new occupant began a slow, patient attempt to climb out.

"Is that all he does?" Martin asked at last. Exasperation put hands on his hips, just like his father though he didn't know it. "Try to get out? There's not enough room in that brain for another thought?"

"I don't think his brain is all that big to begin with. Look at the size of his head." Nicholas offered. "What if we gave him something to eat?"

"You're just saying that because I heard your stomach growl just now." Martin sighed. "Right. Go see if there's something in Mrs. Collins' vegetables. I'll watch him till you get back, then we get him in something bigger.

"Or," Martin added thoughtfully as he watched the prisoner's shortlegged movements, "Something slicker."

-

Gregson lowered his paper just as Lestrade practically kicked the front door open. Other Yarders took one look at his face and scattered. The rest scattered anyway. The little detective stamped through with a face most men would have deemed priceless had they lost the will to live. His clothing hung about him in a decidedly damp state, and there was an odour to that dampness that had its own signature.

"Pleasant day at the Serpentine, Lestrade?"

Lestrade's dark eyes narrowed to the point where they were just about to strike sparks off the nearest flint. "Remind me again why we're helping Mr. Holmes."

"We owe him for the Stolen Sea Monster Affair."

"Surely we don't owe him that much! It was a bloody forgery of whale bones and--and--I think the beak off a giant squid!"

"Well…we don't. Us working-class types can survive quite well without ever stepping foot into a museum…but it made the Palace very happy, and he made us take the credit for the case."

"Have you ever," Lestrade put his hands on Gregson's desk and leaned forward, collecting a doubtless itchy pool of the Serpentine on the desk, "wondered why Mr. Holmes insists on giving us the credit for these cockamamie cases? Have you never woken up in the middle of the night and asked yourself, 'why is it, self, that a man with enough pride to stock the East India Company in overweening arrogance, lets us poor idiotic, totally devoid of reason policemen take the credit for cases he solves?'"

Gregson watched the pool of itchy water spread. "Can't say I had the time or sleeplessness to, Lestrade."

"So he can cash his chips in, Gregson. So he can cash his chips in when a case looks like it's going to be a little too muddy. Or dirty. Or slimy. Or he needs an arrest warrant. Or something else he can't do." Lestrade spoke calmly enough, but his eyes were still shooting out sparks like twin Catharine Wheels. "And did you know what I found out today when I was back at the Serpentine, searching the trails he bloody well insisted I follow?"

"You fell in?" Gregson guessed.

"Nooo, Gregson. I found there'd been a wrecked wagon and quite a lot of tossed small boxes and crates into the water. All of them were large enough for carrying small, portable animals in…but they were all…empty. So where the blazes did the contraband, or whatever it is you're calling stolen animals, go??"

-

"Mum's home!" Nicholas lit up.

"She won't feed you," Martin reminded him as their mother swept into the foyer.

"When's supper, mum?" Nicholas asked hopefully.

"The same as it always is," Clea said absently. "You had a large luncheon, young man. I took in the fact you'd be outside all day. You shouldn't be hungry."

Nicholas wilted. His expression was pathetic. Martin was glad their mother couldn't see it.

"Martin, how's that tooth?" She gently tipped his head back to take a quick peek. "Mmn. Are you certain you don't want me to pull it out?"

"Yes, mum!" Martin barely avoided a panicky note, but he did pull a hasty step back. "Yes…thank you…it can wait until Tad comes home."

"Well, all right, but if I see you rolling on the floor you'd best believe I'm taking the pliers to that!"

It was Martin's turn to wilt. They watched their mother go up to their rooms, humming to herself.

"I'm hungry." Nicholas said in the quiet.

Martin could well believe it. His brother took after their mother's side of the family in all ways, and that included a specially designed gullet that could eat large portions of just about anything, six times a day.

Someday, their father often muttered, Nicholas would be able to pay them back for all the eating with a career as a circus strongman…but in the meantime, Nicholas was already fading from hunger. Martin knew what would happen: he'd give himself away at the dinner table by eating far beyond his usual means and then there would be Mr. Deal to pay because if there was something their mother despised, it was her hard-won cooking going to a destination she hadn't intended for…and swapping a thick sandwich for an unidentified species of amphibian that was no doubt the ugliest thing seen in England since the creation of the natterjack wasn't going to impress her at all.

"Maybe we can get something to eat," he offered.

Nicholas drooped even further. His stomach growled in the wake of his mother's usual perfume, which was whatever she'd been doing at the cooking school. Cinnamon-sugar, vanilla, ginger, and pumpkin-pie spice mingled with groundnut-sauce. Indian cooking again. Probably something with vegetables and a bit of chicken.

"Let's ask Mum if we can go outside," Martin said carefully, "to…I dunno…if we can find something for Tad's birthday before he comes home?"

Nicholas looked doubtful. "She'll want a receipt." He said glumly. "At least the pawn-ticket."

"I got a few," Martin held out a handful of loose coins. "What we need is to get back outside with her approval. And Mr. Barrett's got his eel-stall up. We could ask him what Tad likes while we drink a cup of broth."

"Extra vinegar?" Nicholas breathed.

"Course." Martin sniffed. "Do I look like a girl?"

-

Clea Lestrade heard her husband's familiar tread at the doorstep and peeked down the stairs to smile down. Her smile faded.

"Have one of those days again, love?" She guessed.

"Cleabihan…" Geoffrey's response was in Breton. It had to be. Mrs. Collins was just coming in off the side-passage, and she was no love of cursing.

"Youngster," the old woman sniffed, "someday I will learn what those words mean. Best enjoy yourself now." She bustled off with a high pile of fresh curtains in her arms.

"…tripledie." Geoffrey said under his breath.

Clea chuckled. "If that's the best you can do, the day must've been a hard one." She had whisked a clean towel up and wiped his face off. "Get yourself in the bath, then. There's the smell of the Serpentine all around you."

"Good thing I didn't have my good coat on." He smiled. "All right, just let me get a change of clothes—"

"Don't go in our bath," Clea warned. "I'm soaking the muslins in there. Just use other bath for now. It's not like anyone uses it anyway. And see to Martin. He's got a bad tooth and it needs to come out before the poor boy loses any more of his appetite."

To Be continued...