"I am not going to school." She told him. His blue eyes closed as he shook his head. They had had this argument ever since he enrolled her in the local secondary school. She had gone willingly the first time (Monday) and by the end of the week she was hating it, but starting a new school in the third year just after Christmas was a hard thing for any child let alone this particular child to do.
"Why not?" he asked tiredly, opening his eyes to look at the girl who was an exact replica of her father, apart from her long blonde hair, that was dripping water from her shower onto the living room floor.
"It is a waste of time. The teachers get everything wrong." She insisted. The girl was stood in her favourite dark purple dressing gown and purple checked pyjamas. He rolled his eyes. Just like her father.
"John?" Came a familiar voice to both the girl and the man. The girl smirked.
"Sherlock will you please tell Ebony to get her uniform on so I can take her to school." John told his friend. Sherlock turned to the girl.
"Why won't you go? One good reason and I will get Mrs Hudson to call the school and tell them you are unwell." Sherlock reasoned. Ebony met her father's blue eyes with her own identical shocking blue ones.
"One good reason why I should go and I will." She told him. John saw his opportunity.
"To learn things from teachers." He jumped in. Ebony narrowed her eyes at him.
"I don't learn from them, they learn from me. They get their facts completely wrong and then refuse to admit it. And they demand respect, they don't earn it." Ebony argued. Her father nodded. She could see this point, though he agreed, would not get her out of school.
"To mix with children your own age." Her father countered. She looked at him.
"The other kids aren't exactly fond of me. They would rather taunt me than be friends with me." Ebony's voice was softer when she said this. She may have been a super smart teenager that was willing to learn everything she could from her father, but she still felt the out of control emotions of a thirteen year old girl. It was John's turn to narrow his eyes.
"What do you mean taunt?" He asked suddenly. Ebony's head snapped up as Mrs Hudson came into the room.
"Mycroft is here to see you all." The older woman said. John shook his head. Looks like he lost that argument. Ebony smiled and walked to her room to get changed and dry her hair.
Ebony stopped on her way out of her bedroom door. She could hear her uncle and John arguing.
"She is a thirteen year old girl! She needs to mix with children her own age. Not witnessing murders every weekend" John was saying.
"Yes but we must take the fact that she is smarter, more mature, and not as normal as these other children into account. She could, god forbid, get hurt. Children are not as accepting as they were when we were young John. And they get away with so much more than they did years ago." Her Uncle Mycroft, getting her out of trouble once more. He was always there when she got into trouble at school. Whenever she got into fights with other, less intelligent children, he was the one fighting her corner. She didn't dare have her father in for fear he would get her into more trouble at school. If parents made too much complaint about her and her father to the teachers or even the head teacher, well Ebony would have preferred not to think about it.
"Mature? She is thirteen! She's worse than him!" Ebony presumed John was talking about her father because the next thing that was said was:
"I am not that bad! Ebony is perfectly fine the way she is. Just like her mother and father she is incredibly intelligent. Unlike her mother and father however, she can put up with stupidity to a certain level. Ah! Ebony!" Sherlock said as his daughter walked through to the living room wearing grey jeans and a purple and black stripy jumper. She looked up from the mobile phone she was holding and smiled, looking around then seeing her Uncle.
"Hello Mycroft." She greeted him as she sat down at her piano to play. Most people would hug their family, not Ebony. There just wasn't that connection between them. John sighed, it pained him to see what should be a happy family so tense and stiff. All of them well spoken and extremely clever but to see Ebony and Sherlock not having that father daughter bond was wrong. It seemed that, if anything, Ebony felt uncomfortable that her friends had good bonds and two parents, or even one, that cared about what they were feeling, and she didn't. The fact that she subconsciously hinted at being bullied added to his theory.
"Ebony, why aren't you in your school uniform?" John asked her. Ebony's head tilted to the side.
"Uncle Mycroft is here. I will go to school later if it pleases you but not now thanks John." Ebony smiled at him, not understanding why he wanted her to go to school really. It was a pointless place, the teachers always told her that if she was wrong to admit it. So why didn't they? They were always wrong and they just told her off for it! Hypocrites.
"Not planning on actually going to school though are you?" Mycroft asked. Ebony smiled and shook her head.
"Not really no." Mycroft sighed and sat down as Ebony started playing her own composition, her father playing his violin in time with her. They were geniuses with about almost anything, music often helped the pair to think, relax and it was their only thing to bond over. Except solving crime of course.
"So Uncle Mycroft, I take it you didn't just come to hear my wonderful compositions?" Ebony asked, still playing with perfect precision.
"Your teacher asked me to come in for parents observation day. Have you actually told them I am not your parent?" Mycroft asked his niece. Ebony nodded and then, as Mycroft opened his mouth to talk again, she shook her head at him with her eyes wide.
"I would love to go. What about you John?" Sherlock asked, stopping playing at once. Ebony kept on playing, pretending she couldn't hear them. John looked at her and said,
"I'm not missing this. Uniform on Ebony." The piano slammed shut and Ebony stormed to her room to get redressed again.