Sherlock: The Next Generation

Chapter 45

Chapter 45

The rest of the summer holidays went by, filled with both relaxation and excitement. The family didn't go away anywhere for the holiday, though the many cases that came up caused the majority of them to travel around London. Hamish was allowed to solve a few on his own, as long as they were approved by Sherlock. He ended up dragging Molly in to help him when Martin showed no interest. Martin spent his days playing his instruments, drawing and on his laptop. He went on a few more dates with Karina, their relationship now official, and spent some time with Max and his family when they came down to London for their holidays.

As expected Hamish passed his GSCEs with straight A*s. They hadn't exactly been that hard. Martin went back to school a week before Molly and Hamish did, beginning his third year in senior school. But finally the dreaded day (for Hamish, at least) came when they too had to return to school. Molly, as normal, was excited about this. She was in year six, although she could have been beginning senior school she had decided to put it off for another year. Hamish didn't understand why. Then again, he had never really understood some things about Molly. Like her love of... sport.

At least he only had two more years of school. Then he would have passed all of his A levels, of which he was doing as many as possible, and be going off to university. After a few years there doing some random course he would be able to take up his dad's mantle and become a consulting detective. He had the skills to do it now, at the age of fourteen, but neither of his dads would let him. Papa said that he had to go to university. Which just wasn't fair.

Hamish trudged through a morning of boring maths and spent break reading alone in the library. He headed into Chemistry with low expectations. The teacher had made a seating plan, directing Hamish to a desk at the back of the room. He got out his books and folders, beginning to read through an advanced Chemistry book that his dad had given him the other day. He couldn't exactly get in trouble for reading it; it was Chemistry after all.

"Hello!" Hamish glanced up with a scowl as someone sat down beside him. He quickly swept the boy with his deep blue gaze. His skin tone indicated that he was of a Spanish origin. One Spanish parent, one English parent. His accent indicated that although he spoke fluent English he was used to speaking another language. From what Hamish could see the boy was a year or so older than Hamish. So relatively smart, probably. The marks on his hand showed that he liked building stuff. He was the youngest of four, the only one left at home. No pets. He didn't seem all that bad.

"Hello," Hamish replied politely, arching an eyebrow as the boy leaned over to look at Hamish's book.

"That's some advanced stuff you're looking at," the boy smiled with a wink. "I'm Oliverio." He stuck out his hand. "But I prefer Ollie."

"Nice to meet you, Ollie," Hamish smiled slightly and shook his hand. "I'm Hamish."

"Nice to meet you too," Ollie nodded. "I'm guessing you're pretty smart going by what you're reading."

"You could say that," Hamish shrugged. "Youngest in the year. You must be smart too, if you're fifteen and in this year."

"In a way, I am. At least, I'm good at science. Not so much English and all that social science nonsense"

"Some of it is actually quite useful."

"Not for me. I'm going into Engineering."

Hamish nodded slightly. The teacher had started talking but neither were paying attention. Hamish didn't need to. He knew it all anyway. "I'm going to go into detective work."

"Really? What do you take at University to go into that?"

Hamish shrugged. "Truthfully I don't know. I can really take anything I want, considering I'm going to be a consulting detective like my dad."

"A what now?"

"Consulting detective. When the police are out of their depth with a murder or something, which they always are, they will come to me to help them. It's what my dad currently does. Have you ever heard of Sherlock Holmes?"

"Never in my life. Let me guess... He's your dad."

"Yes. And really? Never? He's solved a lot of big cases. Some in Spain as well. I would have thought that you would have at least heard of him over there."

"Never. And how do you know that I come from Spain?"

"Just like how I know your age, that one of your parents is English and the other Spanish, that you're the youngest of four and that you like making things. I deduced it from your whole person."

"That's pretty neat, actually." Ollie grinned, dark brown eyes twinkling. "Understatement of the century, actually. That's amazing!"

"You really think so?"

"Of course. Why, do people normally not think that?" Ollie tilted his head to the side. "I mean it's obvious that you are a genius but that is one step further."

Hamish felt a slight blush of embarrassment cross his pale cheeks. "Most people just tell me to stop trying to be like my dad."

"Live in his shadow, then?"

"Sometimes. But not really." Hamish left it at that. Sometimes there was that feeling of pressure. That he had to be like his dad, that he was going to go into his line of work. But then again Hamish had a natural love for solving cases and crime scenes. His dads certainly didn't put pressure on him. After all it wasn't like there was any pressure on Martin to like things like that.

Hamish was surprised at how easy he found it to talk to Ollie. They chatted throughout Chemistry and also through Physics were they ended up sitting beside each other (the younger ones have to stick together, as Ollie had so poignantly put it). Ollie even forced Hamish to have lunch with him and the group of friends he had made in his first day. The people Ollie was friends with weren't too bad. Could have been worse people.

By the end of the day Hamish felt that it was safe to say that he once again had a friend.