I shuffled through the papers on the desk, looking for the missing pencil that I had just been using. How could something that was in my hand but a moment earlier just vanish?

I looked across the room at my flatmate, who seemed to be watching me curiously from the corner of his eye.

"Holmes?" I asked after a moment. "You haven't seen my pencil have you?"

"Have you lost it?" Holmes replied calmly, with an oddly canine tilt of his head.

"Yes." I answered, spreading my search to the floor incase the writing apparatus had rolled off without my notice. "It appears as though I have."

I paused and turned to Toby, who was laying by one wall with his chin on his paws. "You haven't taken it again, have you?"

The hound replied with a casual bark and a wag of his tail.

Holmes stood at this point, and strode over to me. "I do believe that Toby is innocent in this instance, Watson." said he, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. "And I think that I may know the whereabouts of your pencil."

I turned to face Holmes, half expecting him to have pulled it out from under some obvious paper that I had missed. "Where?"

Holmes, with a completely casual expression, reached forward to the side of my face and removed the missing item from behind my ear.

"... Oh..."


A/N: Oh yes, we've all had one of those days, haven't we?

Something about this almost sounds off to me... But I thought I'd publish it anyway. I'm still working on my characterization, so if anyone has some constructive critique, I'd love to hear it.