"You want to make a cannon?" Sherlock repeated slowly. "For your science fair project. A cannon?"
Seven-year-old Rose nodded. "Yes! A very tiny one of course, otherwise it would be too heavy to get to school and put on a table and then it wouldn't do me any good," she explained.
Sherlock found himself slightly torn as how to respond to her request. Her bright smile and happy, shining eyes prodded him to say yes and he had to admit, he was proud of her creativity. Yet, the school couldn't possibly allow that, could it? And then there was Mycroft…
But oh, she looked so excited!
"I'm not entirely certain this is a good idea," Sherlock admitted. "I don't think your school will allow it, considering a cannon is an explosive." And cue the sad puppy eyes, he thought to himself, but was pleasantly surprised when she didn't try to pull that.
"They did Sherlock! I asked my teacher and put it in my proposal that I was going to build a miniature cannon and Mr. Macleod said I could. It's in writing and everything," Rose assured her big brother.
"I really hope you have that permission in writing for me to see, because I don't want to spank you for making things up," Sherlock warned. "If you have it, go get it for me and let me see."
Rose turned and bounded off down the hallway to find her school bag by the front door. After digging in it for a moment she pulled out a folder and ran back to the dining room where Sherlock was working. "Here, see? See? I wasn't making it up."
Taking the folder from her, Sherlock opened it up and looked at the two sheets inside of it. One was the project proposal, which did indeed specify that she planned to build a homemade miniature cannon and the second featured the signature of her teacher verifying that he approved her project for the fair.
"Pleeeease!" Rose begged, wrapping her arms around him and bouncing a bit. "I want to be a cool kid and then people will like me better. Everyone likes a cool friend that builds cannons, right? Because that's seriously awesome science!"
It had been on the tip of his tongue to tell her that they should really find a better project, one that would meet Mycroft's approval, and then she mentioned her desire to be cool. His poor Rose, so misunderstood by her classmates. She might be much smarter than they were, which undoubtedly stung when they were older than she was, but Rose had such a bubbly and fun personality that it should, in theory, have smoothed things over with her classmates. It hadn't, and she'd been a bit on the outskirts of the school's social calendar because of it. A cannon would go quite a long way towards impressing those dunderheads, though why Rose wanted them to be her friend- or at least like her- so much Sherlock really didn't understand. It just might, in fact, make her irresistible, and cut the number of bullying instances she experienced.
"There will be rules," Sherlock began. He was quickly cut off by Rose's exuberant display of excitement.
"YAY! Yay Sherlock, yay, yay, you're the most fun brother in the history of the world!" Rose squealed. She let go of him long enough to bounce around several times while yelling in triumph before throwing herself at him and holding on tightly.
"Are you done shouting now?" he asked, easily picking her up and kissing her cheek.
Rose kissed his cheek in response and nodded.
"There's going to be rules if we do this and you have to agree to each and every one of them. If you break any of them at all, we're done and you won't have a project for the science fair," Sherlock warned. "You will do everything exactly as we build this and under no circumstances are you to load and fire it yourself. Additionally, we will create a loud boom, but there will be no projectiles. We don't want to injure people. I'm going to volunteer for your fair and you will keep your hands off the gunpowder unless I am there with you at your table. And most importantly of all…" Sherlock took a deep breath before finishing. "Don't tell Mycroft."
That last requirement gave Rose pause, a thoughtful look settling on her face as she contemplated that particular rule. Not tell Mycroft? "Are we doing something bad?" she whispered, her eyes growing wide.
"In general I think most people would consider creating your own cannon to be a bit not good. But it's for a very good cause and we'll be very safe. I'll keep us safe, and it's for science."
Rose still wasn't entirely convinced that keeping something from Mycroft was the best choice to make. "Sherlock, what if he asks me? I don't want to lie!"
Sherlock chuckled and kissed her nose. "I hardly think Mycroft is going to say 'Rose, are you by any chance building a cannon?' However, if he should happen to, you may tell the truth."
"Then I accept your conditions," she agreed. "This is gonna be brilliant! But we should eat ice cream first, because we need sugar for energy to make a cannon."
"Why not?" Sherlock shrugged. "Ice cream it is. Four scoops?"
"Nope, five," the little girl countered.
"Four and chocolate sauce or five without it. I have to pretend to have some rules you know," Sherlock explaining, giving her a wink.
"You're holding the chocolate sauce hostage? That's a criminal offense of the highest order. Pull yourself together man!" Rose chided playfully.
"I'll pull you together in a minute," he growled, tossing her up in the air. Sherlock easily caught her, smiling as she squealed in delight.
"What are you two so excited about?" Mycroft asked, coming into the kitchen and dining area in search of tea.
"Ice cream. Ice cream is very exciting," Rose explained. "Very exciting and very serious business."
"Two scoops and a reasonable amount of chocolate sauce," Mycroft responded, giving them a firm look. "And I mean reasonable for the average human being, not the Rose version of reasonable amounts which is one-fourth of the bottle."
"BOO!" Sherlock and Rose cried out in unison. "Boo on reasonable!"
Mycroft merely rolled his eyes at them and retreated to the sanctuary of his study with his tea, hoping they would listen for once and not necessarily wanting to know if they didn't.
Over the next week Sherlock and Rose worked on constructing a baby sized cannon from wood and a PVC pipe in whatever snatches of time they could manage to find that were Mycroft-free. Any lingering doubts Sherlock had about them getting away with this project or its potential pitfalls fell away in the excitement of teaching Rose about all the different physical elements and scientific concepts that had shaped the history of cannons in warfare. She was so bright and eager, always ready to get her hands dirty or listen to careful instructions and pepper him with questions. It was a joy doing such a project with her, even if it did not serve to make her popular with her idiotic classmates. And, as an additional bonus, for the first time perhaps in his whole life, Sherlock was going to get something over on Mycroft. That was an exciting thought indeed!
The Friday of the science fair finally arrived! Rose was so excited about it that Sherlock was glad Mycroft had left for work in the wee hours of the morning. The way she was carrying on right now they would never have got out the door with the cannon!
"It's going to be so brilliant and amazing Sherlock! I can't wait to show everybody what we made. We made a cannon!" Rose squealed. She promptly began bouncing around the kitchen as Sherlock dodged her while trying to butter some toast, her pigtails flying about as she jumped.
"We did build a cannon," Sherlock confirmed with a smile. "What's the plan for today? Do you remember?"
Rose nodded, bouncing over to the table to eat her toast. "Of course I remember. It's a very important plan for safety," she replied. "I can't fire the cannon by myself, or load it by myself, so if you aren't there I shouldn't even think about doing anything with it. Also, I can't put projectiles in it, which I think is very sad and I'm sorry I agreed to that part, because there are some people I would like to launch baby cannon balls at. Except we don't have any." The little girl sighed sadly.
"No, we don't have any and please don't create any makeshift ones or put marbles in it or anything else that might be shot at someone and potentially cause harm. If we hurt people, Mycroft will find out and then all our fun will be over," Sherlock reminded her. Not to mention their days of sitting! "So let's get the mighty Holmes cannon in and out with no trouble. Agreed?"
Rose nodded and gave him a salute. This was going to be the best day ever!
The gymnasium of Rose's elite and expensive school was overflowing with people. Students, teachers, parents, volunteers and even a few members of the school's board of governors were milling about as projects and presentation boards were being set up on a multitude of tables packed into the room. Each was labeled with the name of a student and Sherlock, carrying the cannon in a large bag, searched for Rose's name.
"There I am," Rose suddenly said, pointing at a table. "Aw, that boy's got projectiles beside me." She gave Sherlock a bit of a pout after spotting the neighboring table, its miniature catapult and small balls of what one would assume was a melon.
"He might have projectiles, and in effective ones at that, but yours goes boom," Sherlock reminded her. "Boom is much more important than firing melon balls at people isn't it? No one will pay any attention to that all after they see yours." He smiled proudly at her before approaching the table and unloading the cannon.
"What's that?!" the catapult owner asked, abandoning his own table to come look at Rose's.
"What do you mean what is it?" Sherlock asked, frowning down at the boy. "It's a cannon. Isn't that fairly obvious?"
"Oh," the boy said. "Does it have cannon balls?"
Rose shook her head sadly. "Not allowed. But it goes boom and has gunpowder and everything."
"Whoa, really?" The boy began to look absurdly excited. This was way cooler than a catapult! "I bet you're going to win and everyone is going to be very impressed. I'm Adam, by the way." The boy was a few years older than Rose and was rather impressed that someone so young would come up with such a project. "Did you make it? Or did you buy it?" he asked conspiratorially.
"I'm Rose, and buying it is cheating," Rose chided with a frown. "You're only allowed to work on your project yourself with a friend or family member. My brother and I built it and I learned all sorts of things about the history of weaponry and the science of firepower. Did you know the American Civil War is considered the first modern war and its armaments changed warfare from that point forward?"
Sherlock smiled to himself as he set out the supplies for the cannon, namely the matches and gunpowder, feeling quite proud that Rose had not only had fun learning such things from him, but had absorbed it like a sponge. She had always been that way, but it never stopped being enjoyable to watch.
"Oh look, the judges are starting to come around!" Rose exclaimed, interrupting his reverie. She indicated the group of teachers and school governors that were making their way from table to table. They stopped to ask questions of those with particularly interesting projects only and passing by projects that lacked the elements that would make it eligible for the prize.
Sherlock looked in the direction she indicated and rather than see the teachers, he spotted a large poster board that sported a very egregious scientific error. "What is that girl thinking?" he murmured, debating for several seconds about going over to correct the student, who appeared to be among the oldest of the school's age range. Really, cross pollination was not that difficult a concept! "I'll be right back," he told Rose. Before she could say a word, he disappeared into the crowd.
As Sherlock began to engage in a debate with an eleven-year-old over her project, and the girl's indignant parent who took offense to Sherlock's criticism, the judges were steadily making their way towards Rose.
Sherlock would come back in time, surely, Rose thought to herself. But what if he didn't? She couldn't even see him in the crowd, her small stature a considerable disadvantage just then. She promised she wouldn't set off her cannon without him, it was a rule! "Hurry up Sherlock," she muttered to herself as the minutes ticked by. Ten… fifteen… eighteen…
"Hello Rose," the school's newest administrator greeted the girl. "We're here to see your project. Can you tell us about it?"
Rose turned to face the judges, smiling brightly while on the inside her stomach was filling with butterflies. Where was Sherlock? She was going to kick his shin hard when she saw him next!
"Good lord is that a bomb?" one of the judges asked, looking quite worried.
"Oh no sir! It's a miniature cannon. Cannons are very important in warfare and have had a major influence on how we conduct war even today," Rose explained, launching into an explanation of the things she had learned while making her cannon.
"Is it safe? Does it work?" A few judges asked.
"Rose, did you have permission for a cannon?" the administrator asked, giving the girl a serious look.
"Oh, yes ma'am, from Mr. Macleod," Rose assured the woman. "Um, I can demonstrate my cannon if you like. It will merely go off, not send any mini cannon balls or anything, because that would be unsafe."
One of the judges gave her a puzzled look. Mini cannon balls unsafe, cannon itself safe? What a strange little child! And what parent let their child make a project like this?!
"Yes, please do give us a demonstration," one of the school board members encouraged. "I'm quite impressed with this."
Rose beamed and began loading the cannon, trying to be careful but brimming with both excitement and anxiety. She mentally justified the breaking of Sherlock's rules since Sherlock had wandered away from her and really, that wasn't her fault. Surely he wouldn't be angry about it! In her haste to capitalize on the good impression she had made thus far with the judges, Rose spilled a bit of gunpowder on the table and quite a bit more went into the cannon than probably should have. Lighting a match she lit the cannon….
A deafening boom was heard across the gymnasium and Sherlock began racing in the direction of Rose's table. The sprinkler system activated, beginning to soak everyone in the gym. Shoving people out of the way, Sherlock finally made it to where Rose's table was… Or rather had been. A haze of smoke and gunpowder hung in the immediate area of the table, which had collapsed from the explosion, and began drifting out of the gym as the nearby windows were shattered, glass everywhere. Somehow a small fire had started, which served to activate the sprinkler system in addition to the smoke from the one-time cannon that was now blown to pieces. Adults and children in surrounding area of the table got up from the floor and backed away while two of the school board's governors allowed the sprinklers to finish putting out the fire they had been beating with their suit jackets. And there, sitting among the glass from the window behind her, covered in dust and grime, and bleeding was Rose, looking a bit dazed and chanting "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," over and over again.
Sherlock went straight to her side and ascertained that the bleeding was from minor cuts caused by the shattered glass and lifted her up from the glass, moving her away from the chaos as the gymnasium was evacuated.
Rather than seek a cuddle and comfort from her brother, however, a look of anger settled on Rose's face, not unlike Mycroft's look when he was at his angriest. "YOU LEFT ME!" she screamed at him. "AND NOW I BROKE THE SCHOOL!" Rose pulled her arm back and slugged him in the arm, as hard as she could, before collapsing in his arms and giving in to the shock. Her body trembled and tears began sliding down her face, allowing Sherlock to wrap her up in his strong arms and carry her from the building.
As the school was evacuated and 999 was inundated with calls about a bomb at the school, the eldest Holmes was sitting in Whitehall looking anything but pleased and it had nothing to do with the mass chaos he had yet to learn his siblings had caused. Mycroft had a migraine the size of the United States, caused by that very nation and several others whose representatives were seated in the room around the large conference table. Any second now, two military advisors were going to come to blows if he didn't step in. The two men had been screaming at one another for the past two minutes and he'd had enough of it.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, let's maintain some decorum, if you please. We are discussing the potential cooperation of our countries in an area of the world in dire unrest. We will remain calm, cool our tempers, and work towards a suitable agreement that will enable us to discuss strategy," Mycroft interrupted, calling the unruly group back to order.
"Please do keep in mind I said strategy, rather than weaponry. Thus far in the history of the region in question, throwing guns and other advanced weaponry at it and crossing our fingers that any sort of stable democratic government will emerge from the haze of gunpowder has wrought only unmitigated failure. We, gentlemen, must be smarter than those who came before us and be strategy orientated, rather than limit the possible outcomes of this discussion to armed forces." Mycroft gave a significant look to a few of the representatives in particular. Sometimes it felt as though he played at being the parent of the free world, urging it to learn from past mistakes, widen its horizons, mind its manners, and play nicely.
As discussion resumed, Mycroft saw the intercom light up for the seventh time in the past hour. Benchley was his most competent PA to date and knew that she would know better than to try and interrupt him during a meeting of this magnitude. The fact that Benchley was trying very hard to reach him meant one of three possibilities: Her Majesty was calling, there was a call from either home or Rose's school, or someone had died. Though his curiosity was aroused by Benchley's insistence, none of those calls were important enough to excuse himself from the meeting. Sherlock was available if it was a problem with Rose, he couldn't revive someone who was already well and truly dead, and the Queen would understand. Anything short of terrorism or a declaration of war would have to wait.
"Damn it Mycroft answer!" Sherlock growled at his mobile. He had tried Mycroft ten times now, and talked to Benchley four times, and Mycroft had ignored all their attempts to reach him. That became the least of his problems, however, when news reporters began arriving on the scene and a member of the board of governors escorted a responding officer over to where he stood with Rose.
"It was her, her project. She brought a bomb into this school and caused serious property damage. I want her arrested," the woman, a Mrs. Burling ordered. She was bound and determined to see this troublemaking little girl properly punished for causing such damage to the school, both in building and potentially in reputation. If she wasn't arrested, or similarly dealt with in an appropriate manner, the school would be force to take responsibility for the incident and she was not having that.
"It was cannon, not a bomb, and it was an approved project by her own teacher! I have the proof with me," Sherlock said.
"He most certainly did not authorize a cannon with gunpowder!" Mrs. Burling shot back.
Sherlock scowled darkly at her. "And exactly what sort of canon doesn't utilize gunpowder? What idiot approves a cannon without realizing there would be gunpowder involved? It's hardly our fault that you employ dunderheads!"
"Ma'am," the recently minted officer spoke up. "If it's true that her project caused the explosion, no matter what sort of misunderstanding may have occurred, I cannot arrest her."
"And just why not?" the woman demanded, hands on her hips. She rewarded the officer's words with a glare that made the young man distinctly uncomfortable.
"We cannot arrest children under the age of ten ma'am," Officer Elbury explained. "It's the law."
"Aren't there exceptions for extenuating circumstances? I think this is an occasion should fall under any sort of exceptions to this law, or every child will start bringing bombs-"
"Cannons!" Sherlock interrupted.
"—to school with them," Mrs. Burling continued on. "Is that really the sort of impression you want to give the young people of this country, Officer?"
Feeling as though he had no choice, and unable to argue sufficiently against the logic of the woman's points, Elbury acquiesced. "I'll handle it ma'am. If you could give me some space, I need to read the child her rights."
Smirking rather evilly, Mrs. Burling stalked away, leaving a furious Sherlock and terrified Rose in her wake.
"I don't want to go to jail," Rose whimpered, clinging to Sherlock. "Don't let them take me, Sherlock, I don't want to go! It was an accident!"
Elbury knelt down on one knee in front of the little girl. "My name is Arthur, what's yours?"
"Rose," she said softly, beginning to sniffle. "I'm not bad, I'm really not."
"I'm sure you're not sweetheart," Elbury admitted. "But we do have a mess we need to sort out here, don't we? I'm sure you didn't do this on purpose, but we need to try and fix this the best we can."
"You're not arresting her, that's illegal and you'll lose your badge over it," Sherlock warned the officer.
"And you are?"
"Her brother. One of her brothers."
Elbury nodded, still looking up at Sherlock "I'm not going to arrest her, no matter what that woman wants, because it is, as you said, illegal. But I think it's important that we go to the Met and get this sorted out. Then that woman will be satisfied, thinking I've done as she asked." He looked at Rose once more. "Can we do that? I won't arrest you, you aren't going to jail," Elbury assured her. "But will you come in and tell me what happened?"
Rose nodded, earning a smile from the officer. "Good girl," he praised.
"There are reporters here," Sherlock spoke up. "I don't them to see her, so I'm going to wrap her up in my coat and carry her to your vehicle." It wasn't a question, but rather a statement.
"Of course," Elbury nodded. "Would either of your parents happen to be around? I'm not certain we'll be allowed to release her to a brother. Not that we're detaining her, but a child involved in something like this is typically released to a parent or guardian, because it's a traumatic event and she'll have to give a statement."
Sherlock sighed heavily. "Our mother is presently out of the country," he explained, wrapping Rose up snuggly in his coat. "Our eldest brother has legal guardianship of her in our mother's absence." Scooping Rose up in his arms, he hugged her tightly and kissed her cheek. "It'll be alright Rosie, I promise. Keep your face against my shoulder, alright?" When Rose did so, he looked at the officer and gestured for him to lead the way to the police vehicle.
Ninety minutes after Sherlock and Rose departed for the Met, Mycroft's meeting finally ended. He could hardly wait to get away from these people and have a cup of tea before the next crisis arose. Sadly, he would not get that opportunity.
"Sir! Sir, you need to get to the Met straight away!" Benchley exclaimed upon catching sight of her boss. "There was some sort of explosion at Rose's school-"
His heart stopped beating, he was sure of it.
"She's alright, but she had to give a statement at the Met and they won't release her to Sherlock since you hold guardianship," Benchley continued.
Mycroft breathed a sigh of relief at the words that Rose was alright. He was then filled with incredible anger that someone would dare to set off a bomb in a school in his country. Someone was going to pay! Then, just as he was about to start issuing orders, the mention of giving statements finally sunk in.
"Give a statement?" he asked.
Benchley nodded. "Yes sir. I don't quite know how to tell you this so I'll just say it: Rose's science fair project was what exploded."
Inwardly, Mycroft moaned, all too able to imagine what project she might have come up with that had the potential to explode.
"There are also news people at the scene and one of the school's governors has been essentially screaming Rose's name at them," Benchley said. "Sherlock managed to keep Rose from being seen by the press, as far as I can tell but-"
"Which governor?" Mycroft asked, cutting her off.
"Burling, sir. Bethann Burling."
"Benchley, activate the emergency protocols for Rose's identity," Mycroft instructed. He had a set of precautions and procedures ready and waiting to prevent the greater world from knowing he had a sister, information that could put Rose in grave danger should it fall into the wrong hands. And there were a great many sets of wrong hands that would love to find his one and only weak spot.
"Already did sir," Benchley assured him. Every possible record of Rose had been changed to reflect a new identity: name, address, name of parents, contact information had all been altered. Holmes wasn't an unusual surname and Rose, in and of itself, wasn't an unusual first name either. Rosenwyn Aramantha Holmes had become Rose Amanda Holmes and would remain under that name until the matter ceased to be of interest to the public.
"Thank you," Mycroft said sincerely. "Now, this Burling woman-"
"Contact info and vital information," Benchley interrupted, holding out a folder for him to take. "I thought you might wish to deal with her personally, sir."
"Good work Benchley," Mycroft replied. "Reschedule the remainder of the meetings I have today and contact me only if there is an elevated level of threat." Retrieving his mobile from an inner pocket of his suit jacket, Mycroft flipped open the folder and began to dial.
To be continued! How much trouble will Sherlock and Rose get into with Mycroft? How will Mycroft deal with Burling? Stay tuned!