A couple of hours later, John returned from the store with a small kennel of the sort used to house-train puppies (and he had not had a row with the chip and PIN machine this time, thank you very much). As he opened the door and began to mount the stairs, he heard an unbelievably loud noise coming from the flat-or, more precisely, two unbelievably loud noises. One was Sherlock on his violin. The other was the surprisingly loud mewling of a tiny kitten.
John entered the flat, trying simultaneously to cover his ears with his hands and carry the kennel. Surveying the scene, he saw to his relief that Marbles was still in her carrier and appeared alive and well-apart from the crying, at least. It looked, though, as if the tiny kitten and Sherlock, sitting in his chair with his violin and studiously ignoring the little creature, were competing to see how loud and utterly obnoxious they each could be. Sherlock, scraping out one ear-splittingly discordant note after another on his violin, should by all logic have won hands down, but Marbles was not so easily defeated.
The tiny kitten stood squarely in her carrier, staring at Sherlock with her tail sticking straight up in the air. She never seemed to breathe as from her mouth came, over and over, mews of unprecedented volume and shrillness. John couldn't believe such a loud noise could come from something so tiny!
Exasperated, John turned to set down the kennel before dealing with Marbles and his flatmate, who, combined, seemed to have the approximate maturity of a socially-challenged and particularly obnoxious two-year-old. As he did so, he happened to glance at his watch: it was a little before 9:00. He sighed as he realized that this was going to be a very very long 60 hours.
Author's Note: Sorry for how short and infrequent my updates are; I'm really busy right now! I'll keep working on it, though, and I hope you like it anyway. Please review!