Sherlock awoke in his and Mycroft's boring old room. How did he get here? He was expecting navies and purples, and magic bees. But it was just his – not even his – normal room: moving boxes; cracks in the ceiling – nothing had changed.
He noticed the button-eyed doll on the chair where he left it, where the Other Brother was sitting. He picked it up and absentmindedly went to scratch his wrist. He stopped, noticing that the rash on his wrist was gone. "It's gone, my skin irritation, it's gone...!"
Sherlock skidded across the floor of the living room, to the little door, still ajar. He peeked behind and finds the wall of solid bricks. "But… that doesn't make sense!"
He shook his head and pushed the door shut. The kettle whistled in the kitchen.
Mycroft, Sherlock and their father sat around the Breakfast table. Mycroft and Mr Holmes finished their "Breakfast Biscuits" and mugs of instant coffee. Preoccupied with their work – Mycroft reading the politics section of the newspaper while simultaneously checking his emails on his phone; Mr Holmes reading old notes from previous experiments – they half-listened as Sherlock recounted his dream, his breakfast untouched, "It was incredibly real, Mycroft! Only you weren't really you; you were my other brother."
"Buttons for eyes?" Mycroft asked disapprovingly, not really meaning it. He indicated Sherlock's untouched food, "Sherlock, you only dreamed you ate all that chicken. Take your multi-vitamin, at least."
Sherlock ignored him. "You were in the dream too, father. You had a wild-looking shirt and blue bow tie!"
"Blue?" Mr Holmes asked in mock offense, "My bow tie is red." He stood, and put his dishes in the sink.
"If the real Siger Holmes wants his equations crosschecked, he'd better wrap them up," Mycroft reminded his father.
"Are you going to help father, Mycroft?" Sherlock asked.
"Yes, I have the day off so I might as well make myself useful," Mycroft commented, taking a gulp of coffee.
"Or sleep for a week; Mycroft, you're running yourself ragged," Mr Holmes suggested.
"I'm fine, father. Besides, you need a crosscheck and Sherlock's too young and too stupid."
"Am not!" Sherlock defended.
"Yes you are. Now, father; I suggest you go to work so I can get an early start."
"Yes, Sir," Mr Holmes crisply saluted him, turned on his heel, and marched out the door.
Mycroft rolled his eyes and got up to clear the table with Sherlock. "Sherlock, why don't you go visit downstairs? I bet those "actresses" would love to hear your dream," He suggested.
"Miss Adler and Hooper? But you said they're idiots!"
Mycroft nodded, smiling smugly, "Yes." Sherlock growled in the back of his throat and got up to go, "And stop growling, brother mine; you aren't a feral dog."
It was drizzling outside and a white fog had lowered over the house and grounds. Sherlock – clad in his Belstaff coat, plastic specimen bags in hand – opens the front door. Stepping out onto the wooden decking, he tripped on a large bundle of mail. Annoyed, he picks it up and started leafing through the envelopes. "Anderson… Anderson… Anderson…"
A bad smell caught his nose and he sniffed the envelopes. It was disgusting.
He hopped down the front steps and found a sign that read "Anderson there" with an arrow that pointed up long, winding outside stairs. With an "oh well" shrug, he climbed up.
At the top, he knocked on the door, a little anxious. "Hello…?" He knocks again. "I think our post got mixed up. Should I leave it outside or..."
The door swung open. Curious, Sherlock peered inside. It was dark and cramped with something boiling on the stove and a caged chicken. "Hmmm..." Sherlock hummed.
Suddenly the tall man he saw exercising on the roof not so long ago swung down behind her and shouts, "No, no, no!"
Sherlock whipped around to find Mr Anderson upside down, reaching right at his face. He ducked and Anderson reached past him to his actual target - his door knob - and pulls it shut.
The Russian giant, dressed in a sleeveless T-shirt and shorts, pulled a raw beet from his pocket. He was not happy – even Sherlock knew that. "Famous Jumping Mouse Circus not ready, little girl!" He yelled.
"I'm a boy," Sherlock corrected, but his mind dwelled on the word circus, "Oh, I brought this for you." He held out the letters and Anderson takes them, smelling the stinky envelopes deeply and nodded approvingly.
"Mm... Noviseer."
"Excuse me?" Sherlock asked.
"New "cheese" samples," Anderson informed; then swung down like a spider monkey and stood beside him on the balcony. Sherlock backed away. "Very clever, using this "mix up" to sneak my home and peek at meeshkas."
"Meeshkas?" Sherlock questioned. He knew it was Russian, but he'd deleted most of his Russian vocabulary
"The Mice!" Anderson shouted.
"Oh, sorry. I'm Sherlock Holmes," He informed, trying to appear social.
Anderson bowed, "And I am the Amazing Anderson! But you can call me Mr. A, because amazing I already know that I am."
'Whatever you say…' Sherlock thought to himself.
Anderson smelled his letters again, made pleased sound, and then seemed to fall off the side of the third story porch! Sherlock rushed over, and looked down. Anderson cartwheeled in from the porch railing behind her.
"Ha!" Sherlock jumped at hearing the Russian's voice, "You see, Sheldon, the problem is my new songs go oompah oompah. But the jumping mice play only toodle toot, like that. Is nice, but not so much amazing? So now –" He indicated the disgusting cheese, "I switch to stronger cheese, and soon – Vatch out!" He opened his door, crouched low and turned. He handed him a beet, "Here, have beet. Make you strong," He salutes him, "Daas vee DAAN ya, Sheldon." He scuttled inside and slammed the door shut.
"Sher-lock," Sherlock muttered. Looking at the beet, he made a disgusted sound and tossed it away, then headed down the stairs.
When he got to the bottom, he started towards the back, specimen bags out. "Oompah oompah, toodle toot, toodle toot," Sherlock tunefully whispered to himself.
"Eh! Sheldon: Pa-Dazh-Di' – Wait!" Anderson yelled from above.
Sherlock looked up. "No!"
Anderson leaped all the way to the ground, landing beside him, out of breath. "The mice...asked me to give you message."
"The… jumping mice?" Sherlock inquired.
Mr. A nodded gravely. He leaned down and whispered, his voice deadly-serious, "They are saying: do not go through little door. Do you know such a thing?"
Sherlock was startled. First of all, that mice had given this man a massage and, secondly, that they knew about the door. Whatever was going on was not boring. "The one behind the wall paper? But… it's all bricked up."
Anderson shrugged and straightened. "Bah. So sorry, is nothing. Sometimes the mice are little…" He pointed to his head and rotated his finger, "Mixed up, hmmm? They even get your name wrong, you know. They call you Sherlock instead of Sheldon, not Sheldon at all." He started back up the stairs, "Maybe I work them too hard…"
Sherlock stared after him.
Sherlock climbed down the steps to the basement flat. At the door, he tried the comedy/tragedy door knocker and waited. Nothing. He glanced down at the doormat – it read "No whistling in the house." He peered through the door glass.
A yapping dog suddenly leaped up inside, startling him, and a moment after, Miss Hooper – wearing some sort of house robe – opened the door and three Scottie dogs shot out and surrounded Sherlock. Miss Hooper tried to quiet them down, "Oh cease your infernal yapping!" She turned to Sherlock and smiled sweetly – but not wrong, like The Other Brother the night before, "How nice to see you, Sheldon. Would you like to come in? We're playing cards."
"Still Sherlock, Miss Hooper," Sherlock laughed slightly, following her into the house.
"Irene, put the kettle on!" Miss Hooper called to her lady friend. She led Sherlock into the living area, as Miss Adler, taller than Miss Hooper and sporting a platinum wig, prepared tea in the kitchen to the side. The dogs raced ahead and jumped onto the sofa. Sherlock scanned the walls to see framed posters from the "Shakespeare" the ladies used to perform years ago; like King Leer, and Julius Seize Her. Miss Adler peered out, half-blind without her glasses.
"Molly, I think you're being followed," She commented haughtily.
"It's the new neighbour, Irene - Sheldon? He'll be having the Oolong tea," Molly informed.
"No, no, no, no. I'm sure he'd prefer Jasmine," Irene smiled.
"No, Oolong," Molly argued.
"Ah, Jasmine it is, then," Irene said as she grabbed a handful of tea, put it in the pot and poured boiling water in.
"Come on, boys!" Molly scolded the dogs lightly. They leapt off the sofa and, as Sherlock took his place, he looked to the side and saw a towering bookcase filled with stuffed scotty dogs in knitted jumpers with angel wings.
"Are those dogs… real?" Sherlock asked.
Molly sighed, "Our sweet, departed angels. Couldn't bear to part with them ... so we had them stuffed," She started to point out different dogs, "Now, there's Hamish the third, the fourth, the eighth, the ninth. Angus the second, the fifth, the…"
Irene arrived with a tea tray and urged Sherlock to take a sweet as Molly babbled, "Oh go on, have one it's hand-pulled taffy from Brighton best in the world. And you look like you could do with some sweets…"
Sherlock reached for a pink and green one. But the taffy was so old and sticky, his fingers got stuck. Then his other hand got stuck, trying to get the first hand out.
Molly continued, not noticing that no one was listening, "...seventh, the third, the ninth, yes, the fourth, I'm right; and Jock Junior, Jock senior, Jock the third, the fourth..."
Sherlock, using his feet, finally un-stuck the sweet bowl; which flew up and stuck to the ceiling.
"...oh, and that's Jock's 2nd cousin, twice removed." Molly turned to Sherlock, about to sip his tea. Molly indicated the cup, "I'll read them, if you like."
"Read what?" Sherlock asked.
"Oh, your tea leaves, dear. They'll tell me your future. Drink up then, go on," Sherlock gulped down the bitter brew. "No, not all of it, not all of it. That's right, now hand it over."
Sherlock passed her the cup. Molly put a saucer on top and swirled it three times, removed the saucer and peered in at the abstract leaf pattern. She pursed her lips. "Oh... Sheldon, Sheldon, Sheldon; you are in terrible danger."
Irene snorted, "Oh, give me that cup, Molly, your eyes are going."
"My eyes! You're blind as a bat!" Molly passed the cup to Irene, who adjusted her thick glasses and peered closely into it.
"Oh, now… not to worry, child, it's good news: there's a tall, handsome beast in your future," Irene smiled with one corner of her ruby mouth.
"A what?" Sherlock asked, voice dipping an octave.
"Irene, oh really, you're holding it wrong," Molly forcibly rotated the cup, "See? Danger!"
Sherlock wants more information. "What do you see?"
The ladies, heads side by side, gazed into the cup. "I see a very peculiar hand..." Molly informed ominously.
Irene rotates the cup back again. "I see a giraffe."
"Giraffes don't just fall from the sky, Irene." The stuck sweet dish suddenly crashed to the floor. "Oh!"
"Oh, lord!" Irene gasped.
"Well, what should I do?" Sherlock asked.
"Never wear green in your dressing room," Molly advised.
"Acquire a very tall step ladder," Irene said with a quirk of her eyebrows.
"And be very, very careful. Now, was there something you came to tell us?" Molly asked airily, as if they hadn't been talking about doom a few moments before.
Sherlock thought it over, then shook his head. "No, I suppose not. Thank you for the tea, though." He got up and left, the dogs immediately returned to their sofa.
"Toodle-oo," Irene bid.
"Cheery-bye," Molly smiled.
Sherlock climbed the stairs up to ground level, intrigued by his fortune. "Danger?" Sherlock muttered to himself.
Behind him, a periscope rose from the waist-deep fog. Sherlock just caught it in his peripheral view.
He rolled his eyes but didn't let on he was aware of it. He walked ahead nonchalantly, the periscope following him, then suddenly turned and grabbed it, pulling up John, then punched him in the arm.
"Ouch!" John exclaimed.
"Great, the village stalker," Sherlock huffed.
"I-I wasn't stalking you," John stuttered, "We're hunting banana slugs." John took some salad tongs from a tool belt and snapped them.
"What do you mean, 'we'?" Sherlock asked. There was a soft grumble from under John's coat. He opened it up and the red dog emerged and climbed onto his shoulders like a cat. "Ha! Your dog's not wild, he's a runt-mutt." The dog glared at him angrily.
"What? He hates to get his feet wet," John shrugged.
"Runt-mutt," Sherlock mocked. Tired of her company, the dog jumped off John, onto a tree and up onto the roof of the house.
Sherlock softened, "So… that doll. Did you make it look like me?"
John, who was scanning under the ground fog for slugs, stuck his head up for a moment. "Oh no; I found it that way. It's older than Auntie – old as this house probably."
Sherlock was highly sceptical. John returned to his hunt. "Come on – navy hair, my coat?"
John stood excitedly and presents a huge yellow-green slug to Sherlock. "Look! Slugzilla!"
On any other day, Sherlock would have said it was interesting; but he was not impressed.
"You're just like them," Sherlock commented, frustrated.
"Huh?" John looked from the slug to himself.
"I meant my father and brother; they don't listen to me either," Sherlock pouted, crossing his thin arms over his chest.
John nodded, not listening again, and took his camera out of its case. "You mind?" He handed it to Sherlock. He acted bored, but framed a shot.
John signalled he was ready and Sherlock fired off one auto-flash shot after another as he struck silly poses making sound effects: horrified of the slug one moment; ready to eat it the next; pretending it's something from his nose in another. Sherlock couldn't help but giggle. "Ew!" Sherlock laughed.
Finished, John tossed the slug back into the fog, and took the camera back. He lowered his head, thoughtful, then glanced up past Sherlock at the house. He sighed and spoke in a sad tone. "You know, I've never been inside the Baker Palace."
"You're kidding," Sherlock was sceptical.
"Auntie would kill me. Thinks it's dangerous or something…"
"Dangerous?" Sherlock asked, his nerves were on edge. First the warning from Mr Anderson's mice, then Molly and Irene, now John.
"Well... she had another sister, a twin sister…" John began.
"So?"
"When they were kids, Auntie's sister disappeared. She says she was stolen."
"Stolen?" Sherlock tried desperately not to believe it. "Well, what do you think?"
"Uh, I-I don't know…" John stuttered, climbing onto his bike and whistles, "Come on, Redbeard!" The red dog jumped down from the roof, onto his shoulders. "Maybe she just ran away?"
"John!" Mrs Hudson called in the distance. John turned away: he had said too much.
"Look, I've got to go…" He started to pull away.
"Wait a minute!" Sherlock called, but John sped away.