The Great Mouse Detective And His Little Apprentice

Chapter 1: A niece

It was a typical cloudy day in London in 1897. A carriage stops close to the famous Baker Street, home of the world's greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes.

From the carriage step, a young mouse jumps off with her luggage and violin case and rushes to flower beds before humans could see her.

Elizabeth, the young mouse, had sand-colored fur, a brown nose, and eyes. Her hair is in a braid that hangs over her right shoulder. She was wearing a raspberry-purple Victorian dress and a blue locket.

Like any other mouse, Elizabeth walks through flowers, so humans won't see her. She soon arrived at the staircase, where she spotted a smaller door with the number 221 ½ B.

Before she could even knock on the door, there was a massive thud behind the door. Surprisingly, she had a good guess of what it was from the smoke clouds from the other side of the window. She knocked on the door and soon the door opened letting out a strong scent and a mousekeeper who had spectacles on her eyes and wore a blue dress with a white apron and she wore an aqua-colored bonnet on her head.

"Hello, Mrs. Judson," Elizabeth said, smiling. The mouse maid immediately recognizes her.

"Miss Elizabeth! You came back already?" Mrs. Judson said happily. "I'm sorry about this, but your uncle is at it again."

"Another chemistry experiment, I assume," Elizabeth suggests before entering. "Allow me to help," she said and went to open a window to air out the place.

There's a living room where one mouse was coughing because of the smell, while the other was near a table with a chemistry set, looking slightly disappointed because the chemical reaction wasn't what he wished for. 

The one coughing is a plumper, short mouse with light brown fur, a dark brown nose, thick blond eyebrows, and a mustache. He was wearing a white shirt with a high collar, a red waistcoat, a blue bowtie, and a grey jacket with matching pants.

Meanwhile, the one near the chemistry set was tall and slender. He has light brown fur, a sand-like color on the muzzle, a maroon nose, and sharp eyes. He was wearing a white dress shirt with a high collar, a red-brown waistcoat, a bottle-green necktie, grayish-brown pants, and black shoes with white spats. He was also wearing a dark magenta robe with midnight purple accents.

The one who is coughing notices her first before Mrs. Judson speaks in a clear voice. "Your niece arrived, Mister Basil."

The one near the chemistry set froze still before turning to look at the little mouse girl who simply smiled at him. 

The other mouse was surprised by what he had just heard. Niece? Basil the Baker Street, the great mouse detective has a niece?

"Hello, uncle!" Elizabeth cheers before running to hug her uncle, who is still surprised.

"What brings you here?"

"You really thought I would stay with my grandparents when I could stay with my favorite uncle?" Elizabeth asks sarcastically. "They say "Hi" by the way."

Basil looks a bit disappointed. It's not that he didn't want her, but they would have informed him that she was coming.

"Um… Basil?" Another mouse tries to ask.

"Oh yes. Dawson, allow me to introduce you to Elizabeth, my niece. Elizabeth, this is Dr. David Q. Dawson, my new associate."

"Please to meet you," Elizabeth said politely.

"Likewise," Dawson said while greeting her. "I didn't know you have a niece, Basil. Or siblings, for that matter."

"Oh, well, I haven't had a chance to tell since the Queen's Jubilee case," Basil said as he sat on his armchair near the fireplace.

It has been two weeks since the case when little mouse girl Olivia Flaversham came and asked Basil's help to find her father, who was taken by Professor Ratigan to build a life-size doll that looks like Queen Mousetoria so Ratigan could take over the Mousedom. Luckily, Basil managed to stop it with Dawson's help. The last moments of the case happened on Big Ben's clock tower. In the final moments, both Basil and Ratigan fell from the tower. Basil managed to save himself thanks to the propeller from Ratigan's blimp. Ratigan, however, didn't seem to make it.

"You see, dear doctor, I have exactly three siblings. Elizabeth's mother, Cynthia, is the youngest of us." Basil explained. "When she got married, they both started to travel together before they had Elizabeth. She has learned mostly everything during their travels, but at one point, Elizabeth was getting tired of traveling and… there was something about an incident in India that left her father in trauma."

"I was a toddler! How long is he going to use that?" Elizabeth complained.

"I assume then that they have stopped by once in a while," Dawson said.

"Yes. The first time they arrived with Elizabeth was when she was five years old. And it seems she has started to like me ever since." Basil said a bit annoyingly. "And about a year ago, her mother sent her to stay with me."

"That was until you sent me to stay with my grandparents."

"I didn't want you to get into trouble, and I needed to focus on capturing Professor Ratigan."

"You were always after Professor Ratigan even after I came." Elizabeth reminds.

"I wanted to make sure he won't use you against me after the 'Tower Bridge' case in early spring," Basil said. "Besides, mom and pops enjoy your company."

"Yeah. Still not knowing who the cookie thief was back then." Elizabeth said while smirking.

Basil looks annoyedly at her. "We promised not to talk about it."

Dawson holds his chuckles. He never knew this side of Basil. But the way Elizabeth is with him, he could tell she truly cares for him. Basil seems to respond to it in his own way. Now, would that be because of young Olivia Flaversham, or has he been like that to her ever since?