The tale is getting really quite nasty so I'd advise the tender hearted not to read it. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, and I'm sorry for breaking my update routine a few times. I'm sorry for my apparent stupidity in the last chapter, but I cannot reveal too much information in this story for some personal reasons.

I looked in the mirror again. My doppelganger stared back at me. I hissed at her to put on a smile or something; she looked clinically depressed. She told me she was depressed because she didn't like to think what I was going to do to Noelle, the poor girl.

I rolled my eyes at her. My doppelganger had the uncanny ability to predict what I was planning to do next. I told her, very firmly, that she didn't have to feel sorry for Noelle because she had had it coming to her for a long time.

"Don't you remember how it started?" I asked her. "Why am I so nice as to spell it out for you again? We were best friends in elementary school but in secondary school there was just too much competition for the necessities of teenage life and we fell out and started trying to outwit each other at every turn. We're still at it."

My doppelganger wanted to know what necessities we were fighting over.

"I know it sounds trivial now," I said. "But it was a great deal to me in those days. Things like attention, where we dueled to see who could get the loudest laughter or the longest applause. Things like grades, where we wanted to be the best in everything. Things like being the leader of our pack of friends. But there is room enough for only one leader, and I was there first…"

My doppelganger suddenly looked very sad. I guess she was grieving for the friend she had lost. We see a lot of these cases. I threw a towel at the mirror before walking out of the door. I always end off with throwing a towel at the mirror when I finish my session of self-reflection.

The doorbell rang while I was on the landing and I raced down the rest of the stairs, nearly colliding with Sherlock. Noelle was standing on the doorstep.

"Since you're here you can help me decide what game to play," I said, dragging her into the house in a false show of friendliness. "What shall we play? Snakes and Ladders? Cluedo? Monopoly?"

"I'll stick with Monopoly," said she, laughing. "I like grabbing other people's property!" She plopped herself down on the sofa and to be hospitable, I hung around talking to her and Sherlock.

The doorbell rang again, interrupting us. I went to the door and opened it, only to see an empty doorstep and nary a sign of human life. I was about to mutter something about pranksters when three figures leapt out from behind the rose bush and yelled, "Merry Christmas!"

I thought my heart would fail there and then; they had scared me so badly. Jade, Kristall and Christine trotted into the house, leaving me with my hand frozen to the doorknob in fright.

I found Sherlock sitting on the sofa and Noelle slumped down to his left. Noelle was talking, but she was speaking so softly I couldn't hear what she was saying. She was smiling a little, but her eyes were obscured. Sherlock had a slight look of distress on his face, but he was trying to hide it. When he heard us troop into the room he jumped up like a rabbit which had been shot in the backside and gave us a loud welcome, brushing some imaginary dust off his left shoulder.

My friends greeted him back, and Noelle screamed at them from her place on the sofa. It was the usual rowdy greeting we gave to one another, and it was just like old times again. Sherlock seemed a little agitated though, something which was rather unusual. I would have expected Noelle to be the agitated one and Sherlock to be the one with the pants glued to the sofa.

It was terribly odd, and I meant to inquire about it afterwards but it slipped my mind in the face of all the trouble the gang was giving me.

We ate separately from the rest of my family, because I knew my friends were sure to make a mess. Usually we were pretty tidy eaters but when we ate together we would behave like overgrown children. We had to hold Jade and Kristall down to stop them from throwing mashed potato at each other. That wouldn't stop them from yelling insults between bites, though.

"You have such elegant table manners, Jade," remarked Kristall sardonically when Jade tried to build a snowman with her potatoes. Jade slammed down her spoon, smashing the snowman and sending gravy splattering everywhere.

"You can just take that back, you great big taffeta punk!"

Christine looked at the remains of the snowman and said gravely, "My condolences on the sad demise of the potato man, destroyed by my friend Jade on the twelfth of December, 2104."

We played Monopoly after we had finished dinner. Kristall had a whole bag of tricks up her sleeve, and not a single one of them legal. Halfway through the game, Christine thought it was a little too quiet for her taste and demanded that I play some music. Jade followed me upstairs.

"Don't you have anything good to listen to?" she asked, peering into the shelf where I kept all my favourite CDs.

"There's NDWZ, if you want."

"Geek music," she sniffed. "But I forgot, what's it stand for again?"

"The second New German Wave. I'll play my favourite one."

I reached down to get the CD. Jade frowned and asked, "I thought you said you didn't wear any crucifixes and stuff around your neck because of Protestant trouble?"

"That's right; I don't."

"Then what's that chain around your neck?" She pulled it out and stared at the diamond ring hanging on it.

"It belonged to Holmes' mother," I explained. "She eloped."

"Oh m goodness," breathed Jade. "Oh my goodness."

She looked like she was going to faint.

"You're engaged!" shrieked Jade. "To Sherlock Holmes!"

I sensed trouble, so I grabbed the CD and bolted. From the top of the stairs, everything looked pretty normal. Noelle was looking over Sherlock's shoulder at his cards and trying to give advice. Now that was funny, I thought, because Noelle never gave advice to anyone. I heard Jade racing down the stairs and I took one last look at the calm before Jade destroyed it altogether.

Jade pushed past me and into the circle. She yelled something, but I couldn't quite hear it because I was lost in my own attempts to make sense of Noelle and Sherlock's actions. I saw Kristall drop her money, saw the paper notes flutter away. It was so quiet you could hear everyone thinking.

"No!" I heard Christine say in disbelief.

"You know, Jade," said Kristall, her voice loaded with sarcasm. "I'm beginning to regret lending you those romance books."

Sherlock came up to me and took my hand. "It is true," he said quietly. I sighed. We had initially planned to keep our engagement as quiet as possible but it looked like it had been blown by Jade.

Everyone looked a bit shocked, with the exception of Noelle, who was sitting there flipping through her cards with a slight frown on her forehead, the expression she usually had when she was planning her next move. Then, she looked up and her expression cleared.

"Why, who would have guessed it?" she said, looking around at us. "Beth's just managed to snag Sherlock Holmes for herself."

They laughed. The jest was innocent, or at least meant to be. But I saw the gleam in her eye and I trembled inwardly, because I knew something bad was blowing in the wind. I wondered wryly what wonderful surprise would be laid out for me this time. Something was brewing and I didn't like it.

"Yes, who would have guessed it," I echoed. "The very nerd of Oxford, too. Indeed, our schooling life was very different from our present lives. Success there was not exactly replicated in this life." I sat back and smiled. I had to show Noelle I was no pushover. In a moment, Kristall would bring up the topic out of sheer habit, unconsciously launching a fresh attack against Noelle.

"Who says? You were brilliant in school, and you're still brilliant now, I believe," said Kristall. Good old Kristall, I thought. I only had to mention the words 'school' and 'success' to make her bring up the topic of my former glory.

"In fact," Kristall continued. "We all tried to beat you at grades and we haven't succeeded yet." Christine grinned and agreed heartily. Watching Noelle struggle to maintain her smile, an icy glee spread over my heart. Noelle hated hearing of my academic success, and it might occur to anyone to ask why. Noelle was among those who had tried to beat me and failed, and she had always been a little sore.

She cut Kristall off in mid-sentence and looked at her watch. "Goodness!" she exclaimed. "I think I will be setting off home now." She stood up quickly, accidentally knocking over my empty glass and sending the ice skidding across the floor. She said goodbye to all of us. Just before she left, she gave Sherlock one last look and walked away whistling softly.

Then it struck me and the blindfold was torn from my eyes. It was there all along and I had not seen it. You can go to Africa and stay there, I screamed mentally at Noelle's retreating figure. I know what it all means now, why you helped Sherlock, why he was behaving so strangely, I yelled. I know why now.

There came no reply, save for the steady tap-tap of Noelle's sneakers on the pavement.

I just realised that nobody really knows Lestrade's full name. I asked a dozen people and got a dozen different answers. And to my friends: look for the light at the end of the dystopia.