With impeccable timing, this "Holmes" character stepped through the door. At 5ft 10in, he towered 5 inches above me. His sharp gray eyes stared down a thin beak, and he had a rather unkempt head of onyx hair. Presently, those eyes were narrowed on my person. I swear I was standing there for 10 minutes under that scrutinizing gaze.

Finally, "My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise." I wasn't quite sure if I agreed with myself, but for the sake of not being a skitzo, I put the thought aside.

"Shall we?" He held open the door for me. I gathered up my things, including my hefty clarinet case and backpack.

We walked down the hallway a bit before Holmes turned toward me and fixed me with an unreadable gaze. "Why didn't you just tell him?"

"Wha'...er...ugh...nerh?" Oh, good, Holmes' first impression of me is my being articulate and sounding intelligent. Oh right, AND it appears as though he knows everything about me.

He merely shrugged and we continued walking until we came to a sort of hub area. Holmes began pointing energetically and talking in hyper-speed. "That hall leads to the performing center, which has 12 different performance halls, so don't get the 12 confused; that to the music education building. It has a different 'hall' for each section, which are denoted by letter. For example, woodwinds may be in W12. This way leads to the traditional education halls. That's your science, arithmetic, and so forth. Do you understand?"

"Yeah, sure." As if just being in England wasn't complicated enough for me.

"Good." He spun down what I thought was the music ed. hallway, but I couldn't tell from my vantage point on the floor, because I had turned straight into a walking wall of muscle. He had a jaw chiseled from stone and meticulously styled blonde hair. His clear blue eyes drilled straight through Holmes' skull.

"Well, if it isn't Sherlock Holmes," the bombshell snarled, but he managed to sound cultured and dignified, because of that gorgeous English accent.

"Still sore about that orchestra chairing, Robert?"

"If it were anyone else, I wouldn't care, but being beaten by you is a rather harsh hit to my ego."

"It needs to take a hit every now and again, in order to keep your giant head from exploding."

Robert's eyes narrowed. "I'd watch myself if I were you."

Holmes sneered. "I'm quivering in fear."

"You ought to be."

As if remembering something very important, he turned toward me. "I am so sorry miss. Where are my manners?" He helped me off the floor. "My name is Robert Moriarty."

"Anna Stephens."

"Pleased to meet you." He raised my hand to his lips and kissed it. "I hope to be seeing you around." Robert went on his way, leaving me oh-so-charmed. I wanted to see him again too, the sexy piece of man-meat...

I must have appeared love-struck, because Holmes cleared his throat and looked at me with a mix of expectance and contempt. I raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"We have a class to go to."

"Yeah I suppose..."

Holmes raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that what you're here for."

"No, I'm here to hook up, obviously."

"There's no need for sarcasm."

"Sorry, I felt compelled."

After all that, we still managed to get to first- hour full orchestra rehearsal with time enough to spare for me to warm up my clarinet and for him to run and do whatever those violinists do, with rosin and so forth. By the way, the class was in a performance hall, so I was COMPLETELY off. As I took stock of the class, noticing that my only acquaintance was over halfway downstage from me, guess who came through the door and planted his bum at the low end of the violin section? Yeah, definitely Robert.

I must have been staring, because he grinned at me and sauntered over.

"It's that girl that ran into me," Robert said as he leaned his elbow on my chair.

I blushed red as a tomato. "Uh, yeah, sorry about that. Pretty smooth of me, eh?"

"Don't worry about it. If you hadn't run into me, I never would have met you."

"Where'd you learn your pick-up lines? An American movie from the '80s," said a smooth, urbane voice from behind me. Holmes had finished doing whatever those violinists do, and was at that moment standing there looking pretty ticked off.

"Dear Abby," Robert said in that fantastic English accent. Wait, he knows who Abby is? Impressive indeed. "My arch-rival enemy is trying get my girl. What should I do?"

I'm absolutely sure Holmes would have come back with some brilliant retort if he were given the time, but he was cut off by the untimely ring of the bell. Everyone scurried to their seats, except for myself, who stood by the director's podium like an imbecile, waiting to tell the director of my existence and to pick up my folder of potential doom and disaster. I'm being melodramatic, but this could be really hard!