No no no no no not again. This would be unbelievably tedious. I opened the door.
"Don't look at me like that dearie, you'll be fine."
"But Mrs. Hud-"
"Mr. Derby is cooped up with the flu, I couldn't put him there," she explained, following me in.
She put the bag by the spare bed and proceeded to clear off my books and papers from it.
"John Watson won't be here long," I said. I wondered what would be the last straw with my future roommate. A noxious experiment perhaps? A poorly played violin too many nights in a row?
"How did you-" she was cut off by a sharp glance.
"Obvious."
Another sigh, a tut. This woman was full of them.
"Well he'll be up in a bit, he's down in the lobby going over his final schedule. He's a very nice boy, you kn-"
I tuned out the rest of her speech and curled up on the bed to focus on my notebook instead. I had nothing new to add – no new ideas of experiments to start, no new thoughts on any mystery. The boredom must've finally gotten to me – the ever-lasting expanse of nothing, absolutely nothing of interest. Out there. On Earth. At all.
Except John?
My internal monologue was cut off by the sound of rain against the only window in the room. Lightening flashed one... two... three and there was the thunder. A fast-moving storm.
A new hypothesis formed in my mind about electricity and plant life, and I set off to write.
The preparation of the supplies for this endeavor was cut off by the sound of a strong raprap on the open door just below the large B, judging by the sound it produced.
John was here.
I ignored his entrance and kept my eyes on the table under the window, jotting down specifics of my equipment in my notebook.
"Er, hello there? I'm J-"
"John Watson, yes, I know," I interjected. "I judge you know how to find your side of the room and unpack."
A pause, followed by: "Yes, yes of course."
Not three seconds later: "You're Sherlock Holmes, correct?" he asked. "I've heard a bit about you. The bunch in gym had a few words to say about you."
I stiffened. What had he heard already? Why would he still be here than to gather his things and risk sickness with Derby?
He went on without further prompting.
"They said you could tell all about a person by just looking at them. They said that you got a teacher fired for, er, fraternizing with a student. Is it true?"
"The relationship was obvious," I said, moving to my bed. "That level of an idiot could not go from failing advanced algebra to passing in that period of time."
He turned to look at me.
"No, I meant about telling the life story about someone by just looking at their shoes."
"Ah. Yes, it's true."
"Unbelievable," he muttered.
"Not quite. I can deduce a failed marriage by the state of a wedding ring, I can tell if someone has been medically trained by the palm of their dominant hand, I can tell where someone had last gone on vacation and when."
A look of yeah, right, flitted across his face before he returned to unpacking.
Not wanting to think John didn't believe me, I continued.
"Just how I can tell that you were in an accident not two months ago."
That stopped him.
"How," he said, "could you possibly know that?"
I smirked, standing. Fully observing him.
"I can tell by the way you hold your bag that you injured your left shoulder. The wound was severe enough to cause you to quit the rugby team. Why rugby? The unusual faint tan lines on your face and the definition of your arm muscles. Your family was in trouble financially after the accident, probably a car wreck, possibly because it was your family's fault, so you had to move here possibly for extended family, more likely because your mum found a better paying job. Stress lines around your face say that your family is fighting internally, maybe an older sibling out of school still living at home, and the fact that your father is absent isn't helping the situation. Need I go on?"
He stood, blinking slowly as he absorbed the information.
"Again," he said, "how do you know that?"
"I don't know, I simply observe."
Another blink.
"That, that was bloody amazing."
I think my jaw may have actually dropped.