When morning came he woke up on his own, but could hear his mother knocking on Harry's door, calling for her to get up.
"John, time for school!" she called, banging on the door impatiently.
"I'm up, I'm up!" John groaned, trying to sink back into his pillows but it was impossible to lie there carelessly when such a huge obstacle was looming in front of him. A new school. So he crawled out of bed and pulled on his clothes, the nicest pair of jeans and the most comfortable tee shirt, which looked presentable yet not too classy, as if he were trying too hard to make a good first impression. John spent a little longer than he would've liked to on his hair, making sure it wasn't sticking up annoyingly or anything like that, and even sprayed on a little bit of cologne for good measure. When he trudged downstairs he could that Harry was already up, in what she might try to call a nice outfit, poking at some waffles Mrs. Watson had made.
"Good morning John." his mother said cheerily, dumping a waffle onto his plate. She looked extra happy about something, maybe relieved the kids were getting out of the house, or maybe excited to go job hunting. Mr. Watson was probably still asleep, since he still had to install some phone lines and therefore couldn't work.
"Nice day outside, beautiful." Mrs. Watson decided, pouring more batter into the waffle maker as John took his seat.
"Any more noises last night?" Harry joked, sniggering.
"No, there wasn't." John snapped, angrily buttering his now lumpy waffle.
"That's good. Your father caught a mouse in one of his traps, so that was probably the source of all of this hysteria." Mrs. Watson decided, but John wasn't so sure. It didn't sound like a mouse the other night, it sounded like a footstep. So unless these mice were much, much bigger than he remembered them back home, there was a bigger problem on their hands.
"Better get going then, the bus comes in ten minutes." Mrs. Watson decided, checking the small clock on the stove. John ran up to make any last minute changes to his appearance, grabbed his bag and books, and ran back down the stairs, to were Harry was trimming a loose black thread from her leather jacket. She looked like some want to be biker chick, as usual, and John kind of hated that. He looked so normal compared to his weirdo sister. They walked outside into the heat once more, waiting for the bus to come pick them up. Finally, in a puff of smoke with the groan of an old motor, the bus pulled up on the road, it's peeling black letters reading Southwest High School. John sighed, walking on the bus as soon as the doors opened. The bus driver, a greasy old man, smiled but didn't say anything, as if trying to remember if he had driven them around before. John got on the bus, and a hundred eyes stared at him, of all ages, from wide eyed little sixth graders in the front to the seniors without a car in the back. John smiled weakly and found the first empty seat he could find, sinking into it and keeping his head down, not really wanting to make friends on this smelly bus. He was in eleventh grade, but sat near the front in the midst of the middle schoolers, liking the company of the lesser human beings just so that he wasn't judged by the harsh clientele of his own year. He didn't know where Harry went, probably all the way to the back, she was fearless, that was the only quality he could really respect in his sister. The bus ride was thankfully short; they seemed to have been the last stop, because it pulled right up to the school. When the doors opened they all flooded out, John following the crowd into the building and searching hopelessly for his locker. They were supposed to have had orientation or something, but they weren't yet in the town for that, so he was lost. His mother had printed out a little map for him, but John felt considerably stupid, pressed up against the wall, trying to read a small, inky map while also trying to avoid the stream of traffic going both ways. Finally he orientated himself, trekking into one of the back hallways and finding his locker, number 363. John sighed, undoing the lock with the little combination he had scrawled onto his hand the night before, and swung the locker open. He wasn't sure what he would and wouldn't need, but he checked his schedule. It said he needed to be at history first, so he dumped his other text books in the locker and moved on, hoping that he could find it again without too much trouble. He followed the map and the stream of strange faces down one of the hallways to a Mr. Tyler's room, decorated with flags and maps of the world. The teacher himself was absorbed in something on his laptop, a stereotypical old man teacher, with a balding spot on his head and a nice jacket on for the first day. There was a clump of students in the front, some talking to each other and some simply sitting there, watching the door anxiously for possible friends to arrive. So John sat in the middle, a good two seats away from the nearest person, but close enough to not look antisocial. No one made a move to recognize he was new or welcome him to the new school, they just continued talking. John sighed, digging through his backpack to find the book he had packed and reading that for the time being.
"Hey!" whispered a kid from behind him, who had been reading as well. John turned around to see a boy with blonde hair and a big, goofy smile sitting behind him.
"Hello." John said with a smile.
"Hey, are you a new kid?" the boy asked, his eyes alight with interest.
"Ya, I moved in two days ago." John agreed.
"Awesome! Finally, some fresh meat around here." the kid decided, grabbing his backpack and moving up to sit next to John. "I'm Greg by the way, Greg Lestrade." He said, plopping down in the seat and holding out a hand to shake.
"John Watson." John muttered, shaking his hand sort of awkwardly.
"Where'd you move to? I didn't see any for sale signs around, at least not where I live." Greg asked.
"Over on Apple Street." John muttered, sort of embarrassed of the place he called home.
"In that house next to the orchard?" Greg asked, looking fascinated.
"I think so. My dad's obsessed with fixing it up and all of that, claims it'll be really nice when he's done." John assured, feeling like he needed to explain their reasoning.
"If you can stay that long." Greg muttered.
"What do you mean?" John asked.
"Oh, ya I forgot, you're new. Well, no one's lived there since World War two or something like that, but some kids camped out there one time, as a joke you know? But around one o'clock at night, one of the kids felt something grab him, and when he turned on the light, no one was there. And they claimed there was a person, or at least an outline of a person, standing in the corner of the room." Greg said, looking extremely excited to share the story.
"You're saying it's haunted?" John laughed.
"Don't laugh. People claim it's haunted all the time, when they drive past it they've seen shapes in the windows, heard screams, I even heard some guy got attacked in there." Greg whispered, as if he didn't want anyone else to hear.
"Oh come on, that's rubbish! It's just an old house; it doesn't mean it's haunted." John insisted.
"It's your funeral." Greg muttered, but before John could respond the class started, and he was forced to pay attention. The teacher was extremely boring and dull, but John was sure that was only because it was the first day of school, so they had to go over the class rules and all of that jazz before they could actually get some studying in. John hated first days, even in his old school, but when you knew nothing of the teacher or the students, it was even worse. When the bell rang over the loud speaker, everyone got up from their seats, packing their bags and grabbing their books from under the tables.
"Where do you live then?" John asked as he zipped up his backpack.
"Over in the apartment buildings, down on Main. It's small, but we don't have a big family and it's pretty close to everything." Greg shrugged.
"Better than my stupid house. My dad's never fixed anything in his life, and now he's all determined and stuff to fix the whole house, make it modern and beautiful." John sighed.
"I'm sure it'll be fine. It's not the renovations you have to worry about." He laughed.
"Not more on that ghost stuff." John groaned.
"You haven't noticed anything unnatural?" Greg asked uncertainly.
"Of course not!" John insisted. He didn't really want to mention anything about the footsteps, or that weird feeling he had gotten. "Where were those kids attacked?" he asked.
"Up in one of the bedrooms I heard." Greg shrugged, leading the way out into the hallway.
"Oh, brilliant." John muttered.
"Where's your locker?" Greg asked.
"I have no idea, it's 363." John sighed.
"Brilliant! Mine is in that same hallway, a bit farther up though, since the last names don't really fit." Greg shrugged. The rest of the day was the same really, John figured out that he had two out of four classes with Greg, but since he had already made one friend the people didn't seem too intimidating. Most of the kids were nice, there were the select few that simply glared at him in confusion and (to his excitement) there was a gaggle of girls towards the back of his English class that were whispering and stealing glances at him. Maybe it's not every day they had new kids come to their school, even if John was quite average looking. Lunch was the hardest part, just because he had no idea where to sit or what to do really. Thankfully though, Greg was waiting for him at the entrance to the cafeteria, and the two of them bought lunch and sat at one of the round tables together. There John met a bunch of Greg's friends, all looking very happy to meet someone new. The last period, science, John sat in the middle of the classroom next to Sara, someone he had just recently met at lunch with Greg. She was a pretty blonde, quite smart too, or at least John could assume by the way she had color coordinated her binder. John was just doodling on the side of the fourth class rules sheet, all of them pretty much the same, staring at the clock. Finally, there was a minute to leave. He watched the second hand tick away, thirty seconds, twenty seconds, ten, five....                   

                 September 1st, 1940: The bell finally rang, and Sherlock Holmes grabbed his backpack, sighing with relief as he escaped the tsunami of kids rushing to the door. The dull tile hallways were just starting to fill up as he led the crowd, his long legs carrying him to his locker before he was caught in the stampede. All of the kids were in good moods, which was surprising considering it was the first day of school. Sherlock could only imagine their excitement was based on the war. He didn't know what was so great about the war with Germany; they all seemed thrilled about the massive catastrophe that was certainly going to be sparked.But all lot of the kids had already gone through basic training, waiting to be deployed to go over to Germany and fight, which seemed to be a big deal. They had obviously gotten their uniforms already, because most of the able bodied men were all dressed up in their uniforms, showing off their country pride or something like that. Sherlock thought that was sick, they shouldn't be happy that there was a war going on, they shouldn't be happy that innocent people were losing their lives, that a tyrannical over lord was ruling and killing as he pleased. Sherlock sighed, grabbing all of the books he had checked out of the library from his locker and kicking the door shut. Since it was the first day his book load was considerably larger, he hadn't had access to a library all summer, and since then there were a lot of fascinating topics he had recently been interested in. So he had at least five juggled in his arms, just able to place his chin over top of the stack to keep it from toppling. Thankfully he didn't live all that far away, so he didn't have to take one of the bloody school buses. He had done that all through elementary school, and looking back he didn't know how he had survived. It smelled bad, the kids were annoying, and they housed the bullies in their most fearless time. For some reason it always seemed to Sherlock that he had a kick me sign on his back wherever he went, or a bulls eye on the back of his head for spit balls. Kids were just cruel, and they loved to pick on the inferior lifeforms, the ones who couldn't fight back and didn't have anyone to defend them. Sherlock, unfortunately, was one of those people. Not like he cared, he now only had exactly two years in this hell hole, and then he could go become a millionaire somewhere, maybe stop the war or something, while all of the bullies got shot and buried in some mass grave. He started the hike back to his house, his little noodle arms already struggling under the weight of knowledge.Obviously it wasn't power now.