My muse has deserted me on my Curtain Call stories, and these random little snippets jumped into my head. They all promise to be very random, so we will just have to see where this goes.

"Watson, I need your assistance with a project of mine. Would you be so kind as to join me in a few minutes?" Holmes asked politely, standing outside of my bedroom door.

"Sure, Holmes." I more or less waved him off as I was busily engrossed in a medical journal.

Ten minutes later, I pulled my mind from the pages and turned it towards a peculiar sound coming from the sitting room. Was that girlish laughter?

Rising from my bed, I followed the noise into the room. The picture made me stop short.

I have known Sherlock Holmes for many years. I have seen him do many remarkable and peculiar things. I have put up with his peculiar habits and endured his mood swings. I have never in all my days seen a sight that compared with this one.

"Ah, Watson." Holmes greeted me. "You've arrived. Now if you would just take a seat, over here on the floor, I will instruct you on what we are to do."

I eyed him carefully while slowly taking a seat; checking for obvious signs of brain damage or other injuries. "You called me out here for a play date?"

"Oh, hush." Holmes said, straightening in his cross-legged position on the floor. "This is not a game. This is a very serious method of observation that may help me solve an important case. As trivial as it may seem, this is really an extraordinarily modern technique of crime solving."

I eyed the dolls with suspicion. "It seems a bit childish and not to mention feminine if you ask me."

"Well, I'm not asking, so here, this is your doll." He thrust the miniature mannequin into my hands. "Her name is Mrs. Mapleton. We have reason to believe that she was aiding a Mr. Staples, that's him, over there tied to a chair, in several bank robberies. Now, my doll's name is Mr. Jensen, he was the teller at the most recent robbery, but was murdered last night. We are going to go step by step through the eyes of these dolls to see if we can solve the case."

I blinked. "You must be joking."

"I've never been more serious. Now are you ready? Very well, let's begin."

I watched as Holmes walked the doll down a remarkably accurate London street made up of boxes and various clutter he had found and into the bank. "There." He said. "We know that Mr. Jensen arrived at work at exactly eight A.M. His day proceeded as normal until lunch time when a woman, that's your doll, entered the bank and approached Jensen."

"And?"

"That's your job. Go ahead."

I gritted my teeth and moved the doll into the bank. "Hello, Mr. Jensen."

"Mrs. Mapleton has a woman's voice! Not some miserable man's attempt at acting! This has to be accurate! Try again."

"Holmes, this is outrageous! I refuse to be part of this!" I dropped the doll and stood up angrily.

"You're just angry you can't be the murder victim!" Holmes shot back. "The victim is key and you are spiteful because you can't have the spotlight!"

"Of all the absurd… you know what? Keep your dolls; I'm not playing with you anymore."

I stormed out of the room and slammed the door.

A few minutes later the sound of talking again floated up to my room.

"Why, yes, Mr. Jensen," Holmes high cast voice scratched dreadfully in my ears. "I would love to make a deposit."

Have any of you watched your siblings play dolls? One minute they can be happily playing and then 2 seconds later yelling at each other because they didn't get to be such and such.

At least that's how it is at my house.