Thanks once again to all my lovely followers on this (now very Blyton-esque) adventure!
The only thing I must add to this chapter is that the last section must be considered with regards to the time period.
John's year may not have been playing cricket in lessons, but a team was set up rather quickly when it was mentioned that there ought to be a tournament between some of the schools in the area. It was less of a competitive match, more in the spirit of friendship that seemed to have sprung up since the start of the war, and John was surprised but rather pleased to see Harry's school on the list of those taking part. He immediately went to write to Harry, and a few days later received the enthusiastic response that Harry would be playing for her school, as John would be playing for his, and both of them found this notion somewhat amusing.
Therefore, on a bright day at the start of October, a deluge of students from various schools descended onto the lawn, and John raced down from the gym, where he had changed into his kit, to see if he could find Harry. He eventually spotted her, dressed as she was in a kit that bore the bright colours of her school, and shouted and waved; Harry came running over, grinning.
'Your kit is better than ours,' she said a little ruefully, indicating the rather smart cricket gear that John now wore. 'But you won't beat us at the actual sport. We need to prove girls are better than boys once and for all, even at cricket.'
'Hey!' said John good-naturedly.
Harry grinned. 'Don't worry,' she said, 'I'll support both teams. I hope you do us Watsons proud.'
'And I hope you do,' replied John.
And they embraced each other, still in a state of friendly rivalry but immensely happy to see each other again after what felt like an age.
'Is that Sherlock over there?' Harry asked then. 'Yes, it is – hullo, Sherlock!' she called out.
Sherlock, who had followed the crowd down to the lawn but looked as if he didn't quite know how he had got there, came distractedly over to John and Harry, and greeted the latter one in a vague sort of voice.
'I thought you would be on the cricket team,' Harry observed. 'You run fast, and you have a good aim.'
'I don't much care for team sports,' Sherlock shrugged.
'You do fencing, though,' John reminded him. Then, turning to Harry: 'Sherlock doesn't boast about it, but he won the county fencing tournament. I wish he'd be a bit more proud about it. He was against a boy twice his size.'
'Oh, well done, Sherlock!' cried Harry.
Sherlock blushed a little. He was in fact more than a little proud of his medal, which he kept in a box with several of his other most treasured belongings, but he wasn't one to brag, or indeed make the slightest mention of it. It came under the heading small talk, and he didn't care for small talk in the slightest.
'Anyway,' said Harry, 'I need to introduce Sherlock to Molly – and John, you should meet Clara, she's great – where have they got to? – ah, there's Molly –'
She indicated a girl with a ponytail who, though she looked rather more "girly" than Harry, had the same sort of defiant expression on her face. She wasn't dressed in cricket kit – she had just come along to support the players – and smiled when she caught sight of Harry and the others.
'Molly, this is John, my brother, of course – and I've mentioned Sherlock Holmes,' Harry said, when they had gone over to the other girl. 'Everyone, this is Molly Hooper. She's in my dormitory.'
Molly shook hands with everyone, a little shyly, especially when she came to Sherlock.
They would perhaps have struck up conversation, but that the voice of the games master suddenly cut across the lawn, saying that all of the teams needed to gather ready to begin play, and everyone else needed to head to the field.
Therefore John and Harry apologised to the others, and went away with the rest of their teams; Sherlock and Molly were left feeling a little awkward, and, though in the crowd they were forced to walk side by side, didn't say a word to each other as they went to the field.
It took merely a glance for Sherlock to work out that Molly didn't have any friends who weren't playing in the tournament, and so didn't really know who to attach herself to. Furthermore, she seemed to have deemed him, as a mutual acquaintance of John and Harry Watson, a suitable target, for this afternoon anyway. Therefore he found himself with something of a tail in the form of a girl who most definitely wasn't this shy the majority of the time, but seemed tongue-tied at present. Though to be honest, those who found themselves in the presence of Sherlock Holmes never did find much to say to him.
John and Harry's teams were against each other in the first match, and as a good deal of people now knew that the two were siblings, there was much grinning when they saw the pair pitted against each other and exchanging smiles of their own. Harry was taller and perhaps even a little broader than John, and was certainly the favourite to win in this battle of siblings.
As John, whose team was batting first, looked out over the crowd of spectators, he spotted Sherlock sitting with Molly; the former was lost in some sort of daydream, as usual, and the latter was blushing scarlet. John gave them a wave but neither noticed.
There was a shout then, and the whistle was blown, and play commenced. John was the second to bat, and went forwards a little nervously, because there was a fielder just exactly where he usually ended up pitching the ball, and this fielder just so happened to be Harry.
But he didn't have time to think, only to keep an eye on the ball, and hit it with a thunk. It span towards Harry; she stretched her arms upwards – and it sailed over her, and rolled towards the copse at the side of the field.
And she sped after it, whilst John and the first batsman tried to get in as many runs as possible. At last the ball was hurled towards the wickets by a particularly fierce-looking girl; but John and the other batsman managed to reach their wickets in time, and so were not struck out, after three runs. John winked at Harry, who grimaced good-naturedly.
Play continued in much the same manner all afternoon, with the sun beating down on the players, and with John's team gaining a considerable winning streak against all of the teams they played. During half-time, John and Harry went for drinks, and met Molly there, but not Sherlock: the strange child had been as good as abandoned in his mind-palace, and still sat near the spectators' chairs as if the game was still going on. Molly had attempted to make conversation with him. He had just demanded that she get him a glass of orange juice, and otherwise ignored her.
By the end of the afternoon John's team had overwhelmingly won the tournament, and great cheers went up from their supporters. Harry encouraged her own team to cheer them, too, and sent up a loud hip, hip, hurrah! that was closely followed by John's own three cheers for all of the losing teams.
Some of the other schools stayed for a late afternoon tea, and so John, Harry, Molly and Sherlock reunited in the dining-hall over tea and scones, most of them chatting merrily about the afternoon's events: except for Sherlock, of course, who now more tagged along out of necessity more than anything else. He rather wanted to go up to the dormitory, but they weren't for the moment allowed.
'It was a great game,' Harry said, a little breathlessly.
'You played brilliantly,' John complimented her.
'So did you,' Harry returned, smiling.
'Shame we didn't win,' Molly laughed. 'Seems boys are better than girls, at cricket at least.'
'Subjectively,' Sherlock observed, without looking up. 'You would conduct a better experiment by repeated testing and analysis, and then when you had eliminated such factors as –'
'Sherlock,' John scolded him, but good-naturedly.
'He's a proper scientist, isn't he?' Harry grinned, glancing towards Molly, who no doubt knew about all of Sherlock's antics by now.
John sighed. 'Unfortunately... Hey, Harry! You haven't introduced me to your other friend... what's she called, Clara?'
'Clara! Oh, yes!' Harry looked around the hall before calling out this name. A pretty girl from another table beamed over at her, and came to the table to say hello. Introductions were thus made, and soon Clara, still standing, was caught up in conversation with the others.
The girls had to go at length; they said their goodbyes, and Harry embraced John tightly and looked a bit teary at this parting, but promised, in a low voice, that if she wasn't allowed to see him again before too long she would escape from school and come and find him. John grinned, but secretly hoped she wouldn't. Sometimes Harry was just a bit too much trouble.
As it was just Sherlock and John left then, the conversation entirely died, and both boys decided to go back up to their dormitory. Sherlock was deep in thought, and it was only once they had entered the bedroom that he next spoke.
'Harry's friend Clara –' he began.
'Pretty, isn't she?' said John with a laugh.
Sherlock looked annoyed. 'No, I wasn't thinking about that – and prettiness is entirely subjective anyway – I would say she was about middlingly pretty, and to me not in the least attractive, if you must know – but no: what I was going to say was – is she just Harry's friend, or –'
And he stopped, and though John was left entirely confused, Sherlock knew exactly where he had been heading, and despite himself began to worry a little about the way Harry and Clara had looked at each other.