Embedded Files
Sherlock and Millie’s American Cat Christmas
by NumberOneHolmesAndWatsonFan1895
“WATSON, YOU’VE KILLED SANTA CLAUS!” Sherlock Holmes shouted, holding his smoking six-guns with their barrels pointed skyward.
“Should we hide the body in the outhouse pit?” John Watson asked, looking to his brilliant friend for answers.
“Well, we certainly have to dispose of the body somehow, my in-laws will be arriving shortly for Christmas dinner. Do you have your bone saw?”
“Right here, Holmes! I do hate to ruin his lovely suit, though. The bloodstains aren’t even noticeable.”
“You have a certain genius in some part of that dullard brain, Watson!” Holmes exclaimed. “Why does Santa have to be dead, just because you’ve killed him? All he does is sit in that chair most days and listen to children’s wishes. That doesn’t require much animation.”
Watson started in wonder at the cleverness of Holmes’s solution. “Why, I have these darkened spectacles we can use to cover his hideous death stare. Here, let me hook them around his ears, and . . .”
“Perfect, Watson! You’ve saved Christmas! Help me get him into the wingback chair.”
No sooner than they had settled Santa in, Millie came in from the hall.
“Sherlock, I shall need your help bringing the goose from oven to table. Moving such a large dead thing around is a two person job, and . . . oh! You didn’t tell me Santa had arrived. How are you, Santa?”
“He’s meditating, Millie,” Sherlock whispered. “Building up his Christmas cheer and all that. Let us away to the kitchen and see about that bird.”
Sherlock and Millie headed for the kitchen, leaving Watson to stare at Santa like an interior decorator trying to make final adjustments to staging a room.
“I’m so glad that I’m finally getting to meet your family, Millie. Coming to America has me missing brother Mycroft, I must admit. Do you use any brain-speak with your siblings?”
Millie laughed.
“Of course not, silly. They don’t have brains as large as you or I.”
“Holmes!” Watson ran into the kitchen out of breath. “There are about a hundred feral cats on the front porch! And they seem to want to come in.”
Holmes chuckled. “Watson, are you telling me that you didn’t remember Millie’s family was coming? The Jellicles are the whole reason we bought this enormous bird!”
Suddenly the sound of singing came from the front of the house.
“The family is definitely here,” Mille grinned.
The singing started rising from a quiet whisper to a chorus that echoed down the hall.
“Millicent is a very tall cat, who walks upon hind legs,
“She went all the way to London, and hid behind some kegs.
“Her claws are short, her shotgun, too,
“And she’s good in a hullaballoo,
“But her new husband is real doo-doo,
“So to the litter box, we’ll shoo . . .”
Millicent put her hands over Sherlock’s ears as quickly as she could.
“I think you got some goose gravy on the side of your head,” she said, smushing his ears around.
“Why does that always happen to me?” Holmes asked, holding perfectly still as Millie massaged his ears until the Jellicle family quit singing and started a dance number.
“OHHHH, THE JELLICLES ARE HERE!” a familiar female voice came from the down the hall.
“Grace!” Watson chirped and left the kitchen.
Millie did a few bits of lapping at Holmes’s ears to convince him that all the goose gravy was gone, and Watson was soon back with the epitome of the American doctor-lady, Dr. Grace Hart. As Millie greeted her friend, Watson stole over to Holmes and whispered, “There’s a skeleton with a Santa hat in your sitting room, Holmes. I believe your in-laws ate Santa Claus.”
“What?” Holmes remarked, “We got the extra large goose. They will have spoiled their dinner.”
“What are you boys whispering about?” Doctor Hart asked. “Something under the tree that you just can’t keep quiet over?”
“Why, it’s Christmas, Grace! The season of mystery and . . . and . . . oh, look, mistletoe!” Watson held his sprig of distraction mistletoe over his head. Despite being a modern doctor lady, Grace did the traditional thing.
From the sitting room, the Jellicle family could be heard singing about some cat that rode in hansom cabs and was friends with the horses.
“That’s Uncle Jasparity,” Millie said proudly.
“Do they know any Christmas carols?” Watson asked.
“Carobella the Christmas cat’s song is pretty much it.”
“Shall we go make introductions all around? I will have to sing it all, of course, but I’m feeling in good voice,” Millie said and gestured to the hall.
Holmes looked at Watson. Watson looked at Holmes.
“Erm, yes. We could do that,” Holmes said. “I fancy there might be a surprise or two awaiting us in the sitting room.”
“I’m sure of it!” Grace replied. “It’s Christmas and I think you’ve had a visitor.”
Holmes crooked his arm for Millie to take, but Watson nervously took it instead. The ladies laughed and Millie took Grace’s arm, and they proceeded to the sitting room, which was knee deep in felines. In one chair sat a skeleton with a Santa hat, and as Holmes immediately observed, a great big bow, where a corsage would be on its rib cage. Under the bright red bow was a tag that read “To John H. Watson, the merriest of Christmases, your friend, Santa.”
Holmes picked up the tag and read it aloud.
“Why, it’s the medical skeleton I wanted for my office!” Watson gleefully exclaimed.
There was a new blue fez on the mantlepiece with a similar bow, and embroidered on the fez were the words “Build Britain Back Better.”
“How did Santa know!” Sherlock cried.
“It appears you aren’t the only one who can come back from the dead, Holmes,” Watson told his old friend, just before Millie blew into her pitch-pipe.
And then the tuneful introductions of family and friends began, lasting several awkward hours.
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