Welcome to Baker Street

114. An icy relationship

Flashback to Sherlock's childhood

It was a freezing winter day, January 6th: Sherlock's birthday. Sherlock had just turned nine and was playing with the new microscope and chemistry set that his parents had given him as a present. He had been badgering Mycroft (soon to be sixteen) all morning, demanding to play together and get colourful chemical reactions. But his brother had completely ignored him, and Sherlock was chasing him around the house like a pesky sprite.

"Myc, would you do some experiments with me?" he begged.

"Leave me alone, Sherlock."

"Please. It's my birthday," he whined, shadowing his every move.

"Oh, is it?" Mycroft faked surprise. "Then why don't you behave more maturely and stop pestering me?" And he marched imperiously into his bedroom, slamming the door in his brother's face. He had always had that strut, even as a teenager.

Sherlock pouted but didn't give up. He went to the kitchen and experimented with some household products, using his brand-new beakers. It was on that occasion that he discovered that by mixing bleach and vinegar, you can get chlorine gas—'don't-try-this-at-home' warnings would invariably go unheeded with him. He poured the toxic mixture under Mycroft's door to drive him out. His brother bolted out in less than thirty seconds, coughing and covering his nose with his handkerchief, glaring at Sherlock with red, watery eyes.

His little brother smiled proudly at him through his goggles and sniffed to clear his running nose—by playing the mad chemist, he couldn't help but slightly poison himself, too. It was worth it, though: Myc was finally out of his room. Now he would play with him.

To his utter dismay, however, his brother was even less keen on spending time with him now. He reprimanded Sherlock for putting him in danger, repeating that chemistry could be very destructive. In hindsight, that piece of advice turned out to be quite useful for the future.

Sherlock was puzzled and upset. He thought his brother would appreciate his cleverness; he thought Mycroft would deign to glance at him, at least on his birthday. It hurt him that his big brother was always so quick to dismiss him.

Adding insult to injury, Mycroft announced to his parents that he was going ice skating with his friends. Classmates would have been the exact term—he didn't have friends. To be fair, nobody had invited him, but he knew a group of his classmates used to ice skate on the frozen pond three miles away; he had deduced that much on multiple occasions. That day, even mingling with that hideous crowd of goldfish seemed a better alternative than being at the mercy of his nagging little brother.

Sherlock got offended. It was his birthday, after all; he, too, wanted to go ice skating and spend the day with his only friend—his big brother. So, when Mycroft went to the entrance to take his coat, hat, and ice skates, Sherlock slipped silently out of the back door and hid in the boot of their parents' car, knowing his brother would try to steal the car before his parents could stop him. As a self-taught, it had taken Mycroft only an afternoon to teach himself how to drive, one time when their parents had gone to a friend's house nearby. Sherlock had witnessed him rev up in the driveway a couple of times before he grasped the basics. Two hours later, Mycroft had become a skilled driver and had gone for petrol to cover up the consumption of his driving self-lesson. Their parents had never suspected anything.

That was why on Sherlock's birthday, their parents reacted with some second delay when they heard the roar of the engine in the garden. They came out of the front door just in time to see Mycroft turn onto the country road next to the house and disappear beyond the trees. They sighed; there was no stopping their firstborn, ever.