Sherlock Holmes, Watson, and Sniffles the Cat

By Leah Budin

"This is definitely where all of the good stuff is," Sherlock said, taking another porn magazine out of the box in Watson’ basement. "Penthouse, early 1990…"

"Look," Watson said, laughing, "at the makeup."

"Who’s looking at their makeup?" Sherlock asked, aghast. "I really thought I had taught you this better."

"Well, um, my dad’s going to come home from work soon – perhaps we should stop going through his basement stash of porn."

Sherlock stuck a few in his bookbag for safekeeping and they went upstairs, where Watson’s mother was tossing a salad, swaying her hips to rap on the radio. Pieces of salad were all over the floor, where their dog, Lucky, and her seven puppies were gobbling it up.

"Man, Watson, with a hot ho like yo mama, I don’t see any reason why your dad would need any of this stuff. Would he mind if it disappeared? All of it? Or if I shagged his…"

"This is my mother you’re talking about," Watson gasped.

"My mother’s fat," Sherlock replied, watching Watson’s mom’s ass. "Yours is full-figured… there’s a difference."

Just then Mr. Watson walked in, shrugging off his coat and twirling his fedora hat on his middle finger. He, too, was looking at her rear end, his mouth open slightly.

"Well, boys," she said, dropping another tomato, "what happened today?"

"We killed time in…" Watson drifted off.

"What were you two doing in the basement?" the mother asked, turning around and flushing slightly.

Mr. Watson glared.

"Nothing!" they both cried.

"How was your day, dear?" she asked, giving her husband a kiss on the lips.

"I’m going to get a stiffy," Sherlock whispered in Watson’s ear.

"You’re crass," Watson replied softly. "Go home."

"Oh, I had to talk to Edna about her missing cat." Mr. Watson said, dropping his hat on the counter.

"Not her again. Did she call the police yet?"

"No; I talked her out of it. I told her the boys would handle it," he replied, still slightly glaring at them.

"What?" they both asked at the same time.

"Go find Edna’s cat."

"After dinner," Sherlock mumbled, walking out of their house and to his own. He was getting T-bone steak that night and didn’t want to miss out. After stashing the dirty magazines under his mattress, he walked downstairs to attempt to have a rational conversation with his parents.

Watson disappeared into the other room to play with the puppies, and his parents bent forward to have a conversation.

"Do you think they found the porn?" Watson’s father asked nervously.

"Yours or mine?" she replied, frowning.

"You have some too?"

"Of course. It’d be unfair otherwise."

"I’ll have to go take a look at it sometime."

Sherlock reappeared later that night with a flashlight. "We’re here to solve the case of Sniffles the Cat. In the end, of course, it will turn out that the cat is in a closet somewhere having kittens."

"How did you reach that conclusion?" Watson asked, as they started to encircle Edna’s house.

"That’s what always happens on TV. The cat is always pregnant."

"Okay, I’ll buy it. So why don’t we search her house first?"

"Would she let us in?"

They looped around to the front, and rang the doorbell. The door was swung open by a little old woman that smelled like cheese and wore a sweatshirt that proclaimed her love of bingo. Her hair had a blue tint.

"Are you boys going to help me find Sniffles?" she asked hopefully, hugging her remote control.

"Sure," Watson replied sweetly, confident that Sherlock wouldn’t’ve been able to ever pull sweetness off. "See, we’re just going to search the house first, make sure she’s not in a closet having kittens."

Edna’s lips twitched, then pinched. "Sniffles is a boy."

Sherlock laughed hysterically, clinging to the doorframe. "So much for that. Unless male cats started…"

Watson smacked him across the backside of his head.

"Well, did you let him out?" Watson asked politely.

"Who?" Edna asked, coming out of an old-lady trance.

"SNIFFLES, the male kitten," Sherlock snapped.

"Oh, Sniffles. No, I didn’t. But, see, if you look down, he has a little in-out door he can use anytime he likes."

They looked down, and yes, indeed, at the bottom of the door was a little pet mini-door.

"I always thought that those were rather cute myself," Watson said to Edna, smiling charmingly.

"Stop talking like a fag," Sherlock muttered.

"Little old ladies like fags," Watson replied in an undertone. "Anyway," he said, speaking louder, "we’ll search the house first if you’d like."

She shook her head. "I can’t feel him in the house. He has left." She waved the remote control out the door for emphasis.

"Well, if that’s what you believe," Sherlock replied snootily. "We’ll search the backyard. Maybe he’s playing in Watson’s swingset."

"She was a little old lady," Watson cried when they got out of earshot.

"You are such a slap-dick. How did you let your father get us into this? He’s probably using this as an excuse to bang your mother – loudly and with gusto."

"I don’t want those mental images."

"Let’s find the cat," he said, waving the flashlight’s beam around the yard. "Or… not. Imagine Edna doing the wild thing. Up against a refrigerator. Ooh, the hoohoodilly and the lalachacha making the baby-babies…"

"I cannot believe I am here," Watson replied, glancing at his glow-in-the-dark watch. Sherlock looked under a bush hopefully, and, finding nothing, moved on to some high grass by his old swingset.

With no forewarning, the flashlight went out.

"Did you, by any chance, bring extra batteries?" Watson asked Sherlock nervously. He was afraid of the dark.

"You’re such a wuss. What are you? Still in the womb? You are so dickless. Follow me."

They walked up the hill to the illuminated street.

"Do you see what I see?" Watson asked, gasping and pointing.

"Don’t share your fantasies with me," Sherlock replied, popping the batteries out of and then into his flashlight. Pointing it at him, he tried turning it back on, successfully blinding himself. He hollered, covering his eyes with his hand, and dropped the flashlight. It shattered into several pieces. "SHIT... WHAT?"

"I think I see Edna’s cat by the side of the road."

Sherlock laughed wickedly and walked over to the side of the road. There, indeed, were the remnants of a dead cat. "It looks pregnant! I told you so!"

"How can you tell? It’s so … squashed and limp," Watson asked, quivering at the sight of it.

"Like your dick. Go find the old woman and tell her that her pussy is no more." He laughed at his own terrible pun.

Watson shook his head and walked away from his annoying neighbor to knock on Edna’s door. She walked out with him as he told her in a whisper what had happened.

"I’ll tell you if it’s my cat or not," she told him as they approached the sidewalk. She looked carefully at the cat, bent down and squinted. Watson cringed in anticipation of tears, of bawling, of perhaps hugging the mangled body.

"Not Sniffles," she replied, beaming.

Denial, Watson thought.

"How would you ever know that?" Sherlock asked.

She bent down, extended one of her pale, flabby arms, and lifted the animal’s leg.

Both boys groaned and grimaced.

"As you can see, this kitten-witten has no penis," she said in a singsong voice. "And besides, I think it was pregnant."

Sherlock nodded. "I thought so too, but sometimes Watson is hard-headed," he said sweetly.

Watson shot him a glare.

She dropped the cat’s leg, rubbed her hands on her pants, and walked back to her house, yelling "Sniffles! SNIFFLER! SNUFFLE SNIFFLE!" as she went.

"I am not here," Watson repeated.

"Shit," Sherlock hollered. Edna turned around in shock.

"Am I going to need to clean your mouth out with soap, young man? Would you like me to call your mother?"

"No," he snapped. "Look in your window, the last one on the right on the second floor."

There, silhouetted in the window, was a cat.

Watson shook his head and began to walk back to his house.

"Hey, man, can I sleep over? I want to hear your parents bang it. My dad can’t get it up anymore!" Sherlock called after him.

Watson locked the door behind him.

The End