Chapter Text
"Sher!"I shout across the rolling grass, giggling.
My brother is rolling down the hill, green stalks tangling in his hair. When Sherlock stands up at the bottom, I see him rocking back and forth, completely dizzy. I run down the hill towards my brother and try to tackle him. Sherlock is five years older than me, and already a foot taller. I breath in his smell of dirt and vanilla as I try to push him over, belly laughing at my efforts.
Eventually, we both fall in a heap, laughing too hard to stand up. Bees lazily buzz around us as we calm down.
He then leaps up and pretends to stare out across a long distance. Making myself sound breathless in awe, I asks him, "What do you see, Captain Sher?"
He replies in a 'tough' voice, "There be a ship of his royal highness setting sail for us! All men to cannons! We'll burst apart those scallywags!" I wait, knowing an order isn't complete until the Cap'n's signature phrase. "Arg, me sister, what be ye waiting for? Give the order!"
I am turning around to shout out the order to the crew above the howl of the wind when Mycro comes strolling through the grass. "Arg me brother! Seems there be another ship of his royal majesty! They've got us surrounded!"
My brother and I look at each other and once again, we fall down laughing as Mycroft comes up to us. He is frowning, as he usually is, at Sher and I. "Mumsy sent me to find you two. Tea is being boiled, and will be served soon. Mumsy wants you two presentable, like I am." And indeed he is 'presentable'. He is wearing a grey and green button up, sleeves pushed up to his elbow, and a thin grey tie. I grumble, then notice Sherlock sizing up his older brother. I grin, knowing what is coming.
Sherlock suddenly shoots past me, running top speed at Mycro's retreating back. When he is a few feet away, he leaps into the air and tackles Mycro to the ground. A fight ensues, and I run over and leap in, getting a bloody nose.
Eventually, Mycro wriggles out and runs off to tattle to mum. Sher has twisted an ankle, and I let him lean on me as we walked to our home.
The big, shiny white plantation style building soon greets us. Mum is standing out front, with Mycro devilishly lurking behind her. "She is upset with us, but won't punish us as guests are coming soon," Sher whispers to me as we near her. She takes one look at our dirty, grassy clothes and sighs in exasperation before turning around with her hands up in defeat. Sher makes as if to jump on Mycro again, who runs off shouting in fright.
We enter the house through the front, instantly being admonished by our nanny for tracking dirt in the hallway she had just finished sweeping. She picks up Sher and I, taking us to our rooms to get us ready for yet another boring tea.
After baths, scrubbings, brushings, perfuming (for me) and tantrums, our nanny gets us into crisp clothing starched as if for Sunday church service. My scalp is tingling after having a brush pulled through my knotty hair. I am faring better than my brother, who is literally crying as his hair is tamed. At one point, the nanny jumps back screaming as a grasshopper crawls out of his curly hair. I make a grossed-out face at him, and he cheekily grins at me as the nanny calms down.
"Aubri, sit properly." I sigh and cross my ankles, my back straight. My big green dress balloons around me. Our nanny, a tall, skinny woman with a head of red hair, is always insistent on me being a lady. That means lessons on posture (consisting of me constantly dropping the book off of my head), proper tea manners (pinky out), and sitting properly. Sherlock also undergoes gentlemen training; he learned how to seat a lady at a table (he usually struggles to push me in), holding doors for people (it usually shuts in my face and once came close to squeezing my fingers), and how to escort a lady (always ending in a fight between us).
After many trips to the window so Sher can deposit bugs and flowers outside, the nanny deems us ready for the tea. She forcibly takes my hand (I had my arms crossed in defiance in front of me) and makes Sherlock escort me to the patio. From across the house, I can hear the chatter of mom’s society friends, gossiping and giggling. I look at me nanny with my best ‘are you kidding me’ face, but she ignores me.
We eventually come to the patio, filled with ladies in white dresses and flower-bedecked hats, their perfumes mingling as I scrunch my nose. Mumsy glances at us, a sigh of relief coming out as she scans us from hair to shoes. The nanny leaves us there, with a quickly whispered, “behave, you two.” I glare at Mycroft as I go to my seat, watching my oldest brother leap up to pull out my seat for me, looking at Sherlock with a haughty air. Sher looks at his brother, his fingers curling in and out of a fist. Ms. Scott, who is seated next to me, intervenes with a question. I look at her, and she repeats the question. “What were you and Sherlock up to, Aubri?” I make an ‘oh!’ face, and reply, “We were rolling down the hill and pretending to be pirates, Miss Scott.” I smile at her, thankful for the interruption that stopped the war about to break out behind me. Sherlock clears his throat, walking to his seat, and Mycroft goes to his seat. Ms. Scott likes Sherlock and I, always trying to keep us out of trouble at the required society events that my brothers and I were herded along to.
She and a few others laugh, and I relax as a teacup of apple juice is set in front of me. Mum was constantly trying to make me like tea, or to at least drink it, but I resisted every effort. Sherlock joked I was switched at birth and wasn’t British; he and Mycroft had both accepted tea early in their lives. I meet Sher’s eyes over my teacup, from across the table, and I nearly choke as he pulls a funny face. I glare at him until Mum taps me lightly under the table with her foot.
As I sit there, my back straight and my pinky out when I take a sip from my teacup, I strain my ears for daddy’s car. I watch Sherlock as he begins to get antsy, and nearly giggle at the expression on Mycroft’s face as he watches his little brother. I prepare to witness a fight between my crazy brothers, when the rumbling of an engine echo around the patio. My two brothers and I look expectantly at mum, who nods, dismissing us.
I hike up the skirt on my dress, trying to outrace Sherlock as we run to the front of the house. Daddy’s vintage car is just pulling in as Sher and I arrive breathless to the front porch. I look up expectantly at him, knowing a big sweeping hug would come, with him slipping us little sweets from his pockets.
Except he continues past where my brothers and I are, not even acknowledging us. Sherlock’s smile slips to a frown, and his eyes grow as his mind works. I stand there, tapping my foot, waiting for my brother to come to a conclusion. He glances at me, his voice soft as he tells me, “I...I think daddy lost his job, Aubri.” I jump out of my skin when the front door opens again, and Mum looks out at us as if we are conspiring. Her mouth is shut in a grim line as she looks at us, silently reprimanding Sherlock from speaking before saying, “I want you three to go to your rooms, and stay there.” We meekly comply, trooping into the house in single file. My room is the first one in the hallway upstairs, and I look at Sherlock and wink three times before shutting the door. Once inside, I quickly change back into jeans and a worn t-shirt, waiting for Sherlock to crawl in through the ceiling.
He lands seconds later on the stack of pillows I keep for this very purpose, a cap pulled over his curly hair. Mycroft peeks out of the hole, trying to make up his mind. “Mumsy said to-” he tries to say in a whisper, but I shush him. His head pulls back from the hole, as if he is returning through the secret passageway to his room, and I softly call after him, “Mycro’s a scaredy pants!” That makes his head appear at the hole again as he makes a face at me before leaping down onto the pillows.
Sherlock in the lead, we slowly creep to my wardrobe, opening it. Pushing past the dresses that smell of mothballs, we find the opening, dropping into the enclosure one by one. When I had discovered this particular room, Mycroft had likened it to the wardrobe in Narnia. I stifle a scream as Mycroft hurriedly crushes a spider. Sherlock puts his hand over my mouth, and then rolls up the covering on the grating overlooking the living room.
Heated voices arguing float up to us as we listen. When we heard my name, the tension in the tiny room increases.
“Aubri needs to be ready to enter the upper side of society. She needs to go to an all-girls private school.”
“No, Arthur, she needs to be free and grow up around other people!”
“Oh, so your etiquette training is helping her do that? Become an individual?”
Mother sniffed before replying, “She needs to know some etiquette, but I think schooling for it is absurd in modern day times!”
My brothers hold their breath as a silence stretches out. My heart is thudding. I certainly do not want to be sent to some snobby school- my blood turned icey at the thought- and have to leave my brothers behind.
“Patricia, Sherlock and even Mycroft are bad influences on Aubri. She needs to grow up separate from them, even if only for the duration of the school year.”
“If you’re going to insist on this, Arthur, she may grow up independently from the rest of you!” This was met by a deep silence, then footsteps on the stairs. My brothers and I scrambled out of the room, past the coats, and into my room. Mycroft leapt up into the hole, scrambling to get in as Sherlock prepared to jump. The footsteps got closer, and Sherlock jumped up, despite Mycroft still squeezing through it. I watched Sherlock shove his brother through the hole, scurrying into it and putting in the false cover for it just as my doorknob turns. I stand there awkwardly as Mum storms in, taking in the dirt trail from my wardrobe to the stack of pillows. She sighs, massaging her eyes as she calls out, “Mycroft and Sherlock, please come back this instant.” I hear a muttered debate going on above me, before the cover over the hole is moved away and my brothers pop through and onto the pillows.
“Children,-” At this, we all tense. Mother never called us children unless the news was bad. She continues as we exchanged worried glances, “Your father and I have had a disagreement, and I want you all to know we may need to leave this house if he refuses to change his position. I also want you to know I love you dearly.” We all nod, getting weak responses out before my two brothers jump back up into the hole, disappearing from sight.
Instead of walking out of my room, mum walks to my closet and pulled out my suitcase, which she begins packing with clothes. "Aubri, go get your toiletries from the water closet," she said as she quickly glanced at me. I swallow my questions, going out and getting my toiletries. Before going back to my room, I knock SOS on Sherlock's door.
When I walk back into my bedroom, nearly all of my possessions are in my flowery suitcase. Gingerly putting my toiletries bag on top and zipping the suitcase, I sit down on my bed in shock.I am running away from father and my two brothers.
Mum comes to the doorway, her face wrinkled in worry. I haul my bag off of the bed, rolling it behind me as I go to mum. As we go down the hallway, I look back at Sherlock, exchanging a single sad look with him before he shuts his door quietly.
As we exit the long, slopping driveway, I began weeping softly and I hear my mum inhale sharply as we plod along. I lose track of time as we walk into the city, me weepin the whole way. Eventually, we arrive at a decrepit building adorned with peeling red paint. She knocks on it, and another mother open the door. A little girl a bit older than me is peeking around her legs. "Oh, Patricia, how are you?" cries the stranger as the girl and I exchange glances.
"Joy, how are you?" says my mother, her face stretching into a smile. "Good. But please come in!" At this, 'Joy' stands back, and I follow my mother into the old house. The inside is worn, crying for attention, but seems welcoming. I startle a bit when Joy’s hand comes down on my shoulder and she asks my mum, “Is this Aubrianna, why she’s grown so much!” My mother looked down at me and smiled, saying,"Yes. And is this....?" The little girl peaks around her mother's legs and suddenly hugs me as our mothers keep talking. I was to learn later that this girl was named Amelia.
I stand back from Amelia and rub my eyes, smiling at her. Even though I would miss my brothers, I might get used to living here. Amelia smiles back even brighter.
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