Apologies in advance for the angst in this chapter. :{

Many thanks, as ever, to you all for reading and reviewing, faving and following my stories. If I haven't replied to your reviews yet, I will shortly. I promise!

Chapter Five

After delivering the children to their respective classrooms - she taking William to his and he taking Freddie to his – Sherlock and Molly regrouped outside the school's main entrance and entered together. The Receptionist greeted them with a welcoming smile.

'Good morning, how may I help you?' she asked, brightly.

'We're here to see Dr Braintree,' Sherlock replied, giving the woman the full searchlight smile.

'And you are?' she asked, turning ever so slightly pink around the ears.

'My name is Sherlock Holmes,' he replied, 'and this is Dr Molly Hooper.'

'And do you have an appointment?' she asked, quickly scanning her list of expected visitors and finding it wanting.

'We do,' Sherlock replied, omitting to say that said appointment was on a different day, at a different time.

'Oh,' she exclaimed, a little flustered, 'I'm so sorry, I don't appear to have you on my list. Erm, just a moment, please, I'll ring the Headmaster's PA.'

She picked up a handset from the desk behind the counter top and tapped in a four digit number then smiled self-consciously at them both, as she waited for the call to be answered.

The call was answered.

Oh, hi, this is Dawn on Reception,' she announced. 'I have Mr Holmes and Dr Hooper here to see Dr Braintree. Unfortunately, their appointment isn't…?'

'Dawn on Reception' paused, interrupted by the person on the other end of call. She listened to the reply, then said,

'Ah, I see. Just a moment.'

Looking back at Sherlock and Molly, Dawn said,

'I'm so sorry but there seems to have been some sort of administrative error. Your appointment isn't today…'

'Yes, we know,' Sherlock interjected, still smiling seductively, 'but we consider the matter too important to delay, so we came at our earliest opportunity.'

The Receptionist began to relay this response to the Headmaster's PA but was interrupted again, since the PA had already heard what Sherlock had said and was speaking again.

'Yes, yes, I see,' said Dawn, down the telephone and then, to the visitors, 'I'm so sorry, sir, madam, but the headmaster is very busy this morning…'

'Yes,' Sherlock replied, 'as am I but I'm happy to make time for the headmaster, as is my wife, who is also very busy.' His smile remained in place but his penetrating gaze had taken on a hint of warning.

There followed a short pause, while poor Dawn stared like a rabbit in the headlights and the PA talked into her ear, then the Receptionist smiled again and said,

'If you wouldn't mind waiting for just a moment, Dr Braintree will see you shortly.'

Sherlock nodded his thanks and he and Molly moved away from the counter. Two minutes later, the door just to one side of the Reception desk opened and a tall, elegant lady in a tweed skirt and a twinset emerged and beckoned them to approach.

She led the way into a suite of offices off a short corridor and invited them to enter the room at the end where they were met by Dr Braintree, standing in the middle of the floor with his hand extended in greeting.

'Good morning, Mr Holmes, Mrs Holmes,' he said, grinning like a Cheshire cat. 'Please, do sit down.'

He indicated a sofa and two easy chairs, to the left of the doorway. Ignoring his gesture, Sherlock crossed the room to the Headmaster's desk and held the back of one of the upright chairs while Molly sat down then took the second seat himself. After a moment, the HM walked back to his desk and sat down facing them, still smiling but a little less catlike.

'Now, first of all,' he said, 'I do appreciate that you must be very concerned about Freddie, which is why I've agreed to see you at such short notice but I'm afraid…'

'No,' Sherlock interrupted, 'we aren't at all concerned about Freddie neither are we here to talk about him.'

The Headmaster was wrong-footed again.

'Oh, I thought… You did receive my letter…?'

'Oh, yes, we did,' Sherlock replied, taking the letter from his pocket and placing it on the desk in front of him. 'That's what we're here to talk about.'

'Oh. Right. Erm, in that case, I'm afraid I don't understand…' the Headmaster began.

'Neither do we,' Sherlock replied, picking up the letter and turning it over in his hand, scrutinising the envelope. 'Where are the trigger warnings?'

'I beg your pardon?' Dr Braintree asked, thoroughly confused.

'Where does it say, 'The contents of this envelope may cause distress''?' Sherlock asked. 'I thought one had to put trigger warnings on material that some people might find upsetting. Isn't there one of those…law thingies?'

The Headmaster's brow furrowed, as he struggled to make sense of what this rather odd man was saying. Sherlock gave him a moment or two and then continued,

'Is this how you normally communicate such sensitive information to the parents of your pupils? With a blunt instrument, straight to the cerebral cortex?'

The silence in the room stretched out, while the Headmaster opened and closed his mouth several times but still couldn't produce anything coherent.

'You see,' Sherlock went on, 'we don't understand why a person in your position – head of a prestigious school – would send such a letter, out of the blue with no warnings given, unless the intent was to cause the recipients great distress. Perhaps you could explain that to us.'

The HM's complection took on a purple hue.

'Mr Holmes,' he retorted, indignantly, 'if my letter has offended you in some way, I do sincerely apologise…but, since your wife had previously expressed concern about young Freddie's progress, we didn't expect that the contents of the letter would come as a surprise. We thought you would be pleased…perhaps even grateful…that the school was taking your concerns so seriously.'

'I beg your pardon?' Molly exclaimed. 'When exactly did I do that?'

'Well, Miss Trimble said…'

'I assure you, Dr Braintree, I have never expressed any concern about Freddie's progress, not ever!' Molly insisted. 'We are more than happy with his development.'

'Perhaps you have the wrong family,' Sherlock posited.

The Headmaster was flumoxed. Molly and Sherlock could almost hear the cogs whirring inside the man's head as he searched his memory banks for the relevant data.

'Did you not tell Freddie's teacher that you thought your son was physically uncoordinated?' he asked, at last.

Now it was Molly's turn to gape like a fish.

'I most certainly did not!' she gasped. Then a light bulb went on in her head and she said, 'Oh! I did once say – jokingly, I might add - that he was like a bull in a china shop. Which he is! Freddie doesn't tiptoe around things, he charges through them. That's just his way! It's not a problem!'

'That may well be so, Mrs Holmes,' the doctor rejoined, 'but what about Freddie's communication skills? They really aren't what we would expect of a child of his age. Have you considered your other son, William? How does Freddie compare with him, at a similar age?'

For someone whose older sibling had been repeatedly held up as a benchmark to which he could never hope to aspire, this was possibly the worst thing the Headmaster could have said. Sherlock's expression hardened.

'We don't compare our children to each other, Dr Braintree,' he said, acerbically. 'William, Freddie, Violet – they each have their own individual personality. They are unique, the best William, Freddie or Violet they can be.'

'And there is nothing wrong with Freddie's communication skills!' Molly jumped in. 'He's an excellent communicator, always has been, ever since he was a baby. He can command a room, just by smiling. He once engaged an entire cable car full of tourists, who were actually there for the view of Sugar Loaf Mountain but preferred to chat with Freddie.'

'Oh, but of course, his social skills are very well advanced but his speech and language are…quite delayed...' The HM said the last two words warily, apprehensive about how they might be received.

'Why? Because he says 'dat' instead of 'that'?' Molly exclaimed. 'Or 'tan' instead of 'can'?'

'Oh, so you have noticed…'

'Dr Braintree,' Sherlock intervened, taking the letter from its envelope and opening it out in front of the HM. 'Of course, we've noticed how Freddie talks. He's our son. We hear him talk every day. So, he says 'lellow' for 'yellow' but he says 'yight' for 'light'. We know this. We just don't see how it's a problem. Therefore, we don't see why it warrants a 'multidisciplinary assessment' or being described as a 'Special Need'…'

He pursed his lips and impaled the head master with his steely glare.

Dr Braintree knew when he was on the losing side.

'Mr Holmes, Mrs Holmes, we appear to have made an enormous faux pas, for which I can only apologise, unreservedly. We have completely misread the situation. And, I agree entirely that a letter such as this must have come as a terrible shock to you both. I apologise for that, too.'

Both parents scrutinized him and Molly was assured of his sincerity. Her indignation dissipated immediately and was replaced by an over-whelming sense of relief. For Sherlock, by nature less trusting, the jury was still out.

'However,' the HM went on, tentatively, 'the fact remains that we are still a little concerned about Freddie's developmental progress. We think he may be dyspraxic.'

Molly's sense of relief vanished. As a scientist – a doctor – she viewed a diagnosis as a positive thing. It narrowed the parameters and allowed you to make certain assumptions about the history, aetiology and prognosis of a condition. But, as a mother, there was something devastating about giving a phenomenon a name. Up until this moment, Freddie had just been…Freddie, their rambunctious, big hearted, quirky, loveable, idiosyncratic child. Suddenly, all the things that made Freddie who he was were being given a name – and not a very nice name. The mother won out and Molly gave an involuntary gasp, putting her hand to her mouth.

Sherlock did nothing…for a second and then he leaped to his feet – causing the headmaster great alarm – and paced away, plunging his hand into his jacket pocket and pulling out his iPhone. He tapped the word 'dyspraxia' into the browser, selected an option and began to speed read a list of characteristics for a pre-school age child. Out of thirteen items, he could ascribe seven to his youngest son. Fifty per cent? That didn't seem very conclusive. Scrolling down, he found a menu of options and clicked on Speech and Language, finding another list of characteristics. This one rang rather more bells, particularly with reference to use of consonants. Sherlock had to concede that it described Freddie with remarkable accuracy.

Having accessed the relevant data, Sherlock spun round sharply and handed his phone to Molly then sat back on his chair.

'This 'multidisciplinary assessment', what does it entail?' he demanded.

Dr Braintree, relieved that Sherlock had done nothing more dramatic than consult Google, relaxed back into his seat.

'I'm not really the best person to answer that question, Mr Holmes. Our SENCO is the one you need to speak to but, unfortunately, she is teaching at the moment so she can't see you today. But she is available for our scheduled meeting, tomorrow.' He couldn't resist making the point.

'And, assuming that this assessment confirms your suspicions, what happens next?' Sherlock asked.

'A remedial programme would be put in place and Freddie would receive extra help.'

'From whom? Therapists? Teachers? Who?'

'Again, Mr Holmes, I can't really say at this point but we do have a number of Special Needs Support Staff, who work with those children in need of extra help. They work alongside the class teachers, in small groups or one-to-one; sometimes they work in the classroom and sometimes withdraw the children and work elsewhere.'

No doubt the HM thought his words would reassure Freddie's parents but, in truth, the opposite was the case. Molly, still staring at the website that Sherlock had accessed but not taking in anything written there, felt every word like a stab to the heart. This was her baby they were talking about, not a 'child in need of extra help'. She felt a compelling urge to put her hands over her ears and block out the conversation on-going between Sherlock and Dr Braintree but her hands were not co-operating.

'And what if we refuse to have him assessed? What then?' Sherlock asked.

'Well, as Freddie's parents, it's obviously your prerogative to refuse an assessment but I must be frank, Mr Holmes, if Freddie doesn't undergo the tests, we won't be in any position to provide the extra support he needs. It could impact very seriously on his education.'

That was the final straw.

'I want to go!' Molly exclaimed, jumping to her feet and heading for the door.

Of the two men in the room, the Headmaster was the least surprised. He had seen this reaction before in similar circumstances. He got to his feet, mumbling platitudes. Sherlock, on the other hand, had been so absorbed with his own agenda, he hadn't even noticed Molly's distress so it came as quite a shock to realise that his wife was in tears.

He hurried after her, out of the room, though the suite of offices, into Reception, where he caught her by the arm and pulled her into a hug.

'I want to go home,' she hiccupped.

'Of course..' Sherlock murmured and guided her out through the main school entrance, on to New Change, where he flagged down a cab and they climbed inside.

ooOoo

Sorry again about the angst. I know this is a sensitive topic and one very close to my heart so, be assured, I don't embark on this storyline lightly. :}