SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE TRANSGENDER PUPIL
THE ORDEAL OF MISS SPINDELLA DAVENTRY
Habituated as I was to Holmes waking me in the early hours, I nevertheless voiced my displeasure as he peered into my bleary eyes.
'Surely not again, Holmes?'
'The game's afoot, Watson. Dress quickly – I have need of a medical man.'
Slumped in our fireside armchair, a lady of dubious appearance slurped brandy and enthusiastically inhaled on a cigar. 'Watson, may I introduce Miss Spindella Daventry, late of the Northamptonshire Skinhead Dancing Troupe?' I nodded at this outlandish figure, who rose uncertainly to her feet and made an exaggerated curtsy. 
'Delighted, Dr Watson. Mr Holmes feels you may need your medical bag for some surgical intervention.'
My mind spun back to the case of The Engineer's Thumb. Had our visitor similarly suffered horrific mutilation, now desperately in need of urgent treatment after staggering through a miasma of pain and blood loss?
'Perhaps you might fetch it,' Holmes drawled, gently pushing Miss Daventry back into her seat.
'Now tell all, neglecting not even the smallest of details.'
'Mr Holmes, I am a child of Northamptonshire, that county of spires and squires,' sighed Miss Daventry. 'My people have owned a hardware store in Brackley for generations past.'
'A fine town – solid – yet not without its understated attractions,' I noted, discretely placing my bag by the table.
'You would not say so if you had suffered the indignities visited on me,'
'Just recount the facts, Miss Daventry. Watson is versed in the horrors of warfare; nothing can shock him,'
'Ever since childhood, I have questioned my identity...now this quest has brought me here. My parents are Brackley Brethren, a stricter offshoot of the Plymouth variety. Yet I yearned always for the bright lights, away from the Brethren's nightly prayers, cold-water bottles and non-existent Christmas presents.'
'As any young lady would,' I reassured her.
'I managed to persuade my aging parents to send me for schooling in the neighbouring town of Bicester, a place feared and loathed by honest Brackley folk.'
'It is indeed a town of ill-repute, beset by perverts and drug dealers, avoided by the sturdy Shiremen of Oxon,' I remarked.
'Watson, pray stick to facts and refrain from such splenetic prejudice!'
'I apologise, Holmes...my cherished niece attended school there and is now living on benefits in Ambrosden, besieged by Afghan asylum seekers.'
'Dr Watson merely confirms the horrific reality,' affirmed Miss Daventry.
'Mr Holmes, I was a pupil at Bicester Neighbourhood College!'
Silence descended. Even in Baker Street, that terrifying establishment was a byword for loutish behaviour and threadbare teaching staff.
'Yet the problems actualised in my hometown. Mr Holmes, are you familiar with gay bars?'
Holmes's aquiline features registered a flicker of uncertainty before he confidently asserted:
'Whilst at the University, I heard vague rumour of an establishment known as "The Jolly Farmers". From what I understood, the activities there were far from joyful and had little to do with agriculture, even in its basest forms.'
I stared with incredulity at my friend.
'Fisting, golden showers, gloryholes?' I murmured in horror, without realising that Miss Daventry had anticipated my every word.
'Oh God, save me from such memories,' she wailed. ‘"Ma Transom's" was Brackley's only rainbow-flagged public house. A fearsome place, wherein were practised certain unspeakable midnight rites.’
To what heart of darkness was this leading? I looked closely at our visitor. Something about her jawline, Adam's apple and thick wrists gave me pause.
'Certain unspeakable midnight rites?' pressed Holmes.
'In Bicester, we were taught how gender identity is fluid and a matter of personal choice, dependent on whether one enjoys showtunes and the music of Jimmy Sommerville.'
'Poppycock!' I exploded.
'Maybe that as well,' she replied.
'Are we to assume you have undergone radical gender realignment?' asked Holmes.
'My mutton and two sprouts were torn off during a rowdy lock-in at Ma Transom's, then rushed to Hassim's kebab van.'
'Watson! A quick examination of her nether regions – on with the marigolds!'
It was a sight worthy of a Lahore butcher's shop, staffed by myopic lunatics. I whistled at the savagery inflicted on this epicene Northamptonshire youth. Nothing in my medicine bag – short of a magic wand – could reverse such emasculation.
'Was there no offer of conversion therapy?' I demanded.
'Our head of PSHE said that would be transphobic.'
Something remained unexplained.
'What is this "Northamptonshire Skinhead Dancing Troupe"?' Holmes interjected.
'I think that requires a trip to somewhere you both fear, followed by a more pleasant visit to nearby Brackley. The train journey at least will provide Watson some peace, after his rude awakening.'
The terrified look on Miss Daventry's face subsided into one of fixed determination. 'I am in your hands, Mr Holmes. A train from Marylebone to Bicester at 07:50 serves us well.'
'There's little else we can do but seek out your educators, to teach them the meaning of that word I once saw scrawled in red on a Brixton wall.'
Holmes's reference to A Study in Scarlet gave me hope of just retribution, yet a sense of ominous foreboding troubled my thoughts.
As Holmes had promised, our journey from London brought some relief from the horrors I'd seen. Confusingly, the train carried signs in two Chinese languages and numbers of jabbering Orientals, clutching empty bags.
Miss Daventry explained.
'Bicester Village is their goal. A vast retail outlet meeting their insatiable need for remaindered designer goods.'
We arrived at Miss Daventry's former school during its first lesson. Holmes wasted no time in finding a classroom where PSHE was being taught, employing his indefatigable nose for the egregious and inexplicable. As ever, his confident manner and commanding presence deterred any questions, though his deer-stalker and Ulster cape attracted many startled glances.
Those were as nothing when set against our incredulous stares, as Holmes emerged from a toilet cubicle in the N-block corridor. He was now dressed as a fully-fledged 'council-estate-gangster' ladette, loudly masticating on gum and flicking hair from a convincing blonde wig.
'I am, as self-defined, a troubled young lady: one Melissa Bartlett – Tik-Tok superstar and the scourge of Year Nine. No one can gainsay me that identity, however ridiculous it certainly is.'
With those parting words, he opened the door to N10 and strode in.
***
II. THE SCANDAL OF HAZEL NUTS AND OLIVER FIST
The door to N10 flew open and a class trooped out, Holmes lurking in the throng, flicking his blonde locks.
‘Hazel Nuts, Northampton's Foremost Drag Queen’ was due to perform a fully-inclusive Dickensian interpretation of Oliver Fist, for the whole-school assembly. All apparently were welcome: Lesbian; Bi; Gay; Trans; Queer; Intersex; Asexual; Plus.
Plus what? Trepanned, presumably.
I'd noticed posters for this event, on our arrival in Bicester Neighbourhood College. One glance at the cast list had me shaking with righteous fury:
Oliver Fist: Hazel Nuts
Nancy Boy: Hazel Nuts
Fagin the Fag: Hazel Nuts
The Artful Dogger: Hazel Nuts
Bill 'Bull-Dyke' Sykes: Hazel Nuts
Mr Brownlove: Hazel Nuts
Spunks: Hazel Nuts
As we trooped across to the dilapidated Lower School Hall, a diminutive figure of disreputable appearance sped over to join us.
'Good Morning, Dr Watson! We are indeed honoured to entertain such an illustrious figure, from England's foremost comedy act.'
It was none other than Professor Moriarty, resurfaced in another of his deadly incarnations as the school’s Headteacher. Dressed in a cheap crumpled suit, speckled with dandruff from his loathsome, greasy locks.
'Might I ask if we shall also be seeing the organ grinder; or is it just the monkey who's made his way out to Bicester, doubtless attracted by Hazel's missing nuts?'
My last sighting of this disgraced figure was in London's dingy Regent Palace Hotel, engaged in the sordid act of blackmailing myself and Holmes over some photographs of youthful indiscretions, recounted in The Scandal of the Brown Parcels. At the time, Moriarty was a pornographer; his alarming change in occupation was unsurprising, given Ms Daventry's shocking educational experiences.
Before the assembly started, the whole school was led by Moriarty in two minutes' silence for the recently deceased victims of a submarine accident when diving to explore the Titanic’s wreck. Hazel Nuts then performed a version of the Karoake classic My Heart Will Go On, gustily accompanied by the entire hall.
Holmes threw himself into this nightmare with abandon, his screeching soprano falsetto attracting the Professor's amused glances.
'As I suspected, the Baker Street bungler has made an appearance!' he chortled into my ear.
If anything, the ensuing performance of Oliver Fist was even more revolting. To what depths have we sunk?
Ms Nuts sang a series of torch anthems and then dry-humped a delighted Professor Moriarty, to the roars of the entire school. Fagin's Faggots was an especially inappropriate number, during which Ms Nuts enrolled volunteers for 'urgent gender realignment'.
Half the school rushed towards the stage, including Holmes. Moriarty produced a sheaf of forms to be completed, which was done without a single pupil reading what they were signing. No doubt their most delicate of regions were being promised to Hassam's Kebab van, or some other purveyor of egregious street comestibles.
As Holmes reached the front, he tore off his wig and leapt on Moriarty.
'Watson, I have need of your trusty service revolver! Quick man, I can't hold the bastard much longer.'
I rushed forward, Webley revolver at the ready. Holmes grabbed it and turned to address the hall.
'I will now teach you a proper history lesson. Edward the Second suffered an earlier version of this.'
He shoved the weapon up Moriarty's arse and pulled the trigger. Before any of us could react, he withdrew it then levelled the barrel at Hazel Nuts.
'Lead us away from this scene, on pain of your life.'
A stunned silence descended. Myself, Holmes and Ms Daventry left the building, proceeded by a shaken Hazel Nuts…
III. THE BEASTS OF OTMOOR
Between Oxford and the degraded market town of Bicester stretches a lonely countryside of sodden fields and sporadic villages, populated by thatched Shiremen and their dangerous offspring. A chilling miasma cloaks the desultory waterways and occasional spires.
It was to here that we fled. Holmes's indefatigable sense of direction led us into its watery depths, away from our pursuers and the distant sirens.
'This is Otmoor, Watson. A place famed for its bestiality, inbreeding and feral beasts – some of them animals.'
'Surviving the worst of Dartmoor, we can have little to fear in rural Oxfordshire?' I queried, my mind racing back to the phosphorescent Hound.
The look on Miss Daventry's face suggested otherwise.
'Mr Holmes is surely right to warn us, doctor. Entire villages here have undergone gender realignment. Others still maintain their skinhead dancing troupes, in a tradition dating back to Edward the Confessor – born in nearby Islip.'
'Gentlemen, I require immediate transportation back to Northampton!' screeched Hazel Nuts. A mere mention of those shaven-haired ruffians had terrified the drag queen.
We had by now stumbled into the village of Charlton-on-Otmoor and its single deserted street, empty save for a drunk staggering towards us. To my astonishment, a collection of lanyards swung lazily from his sweaty neck. On each could be seen a gurning mugshot image of this wretch, alongside meaningless job descriptions from his days in the education sector:
Geoff Lanyard, Senior Facilitating Director (Equity and Diversity), Acumen Educational Trust.
Geoff Lanyard, Director for End-User Platform Development, Acumen Educational Trust.
Geoff Lanyard, Lead Practitioner for Best Practice Benchmarking of Teaching and Learning, Acumen Educational Trust.
Geoff Lanyard, Net Zero Business Development Director, Acumen Educational Trust.
Geoff Lanyard, Lecturer in Applied Methodological Pupil Attainment Analysis, Acumen Educational Trust.
Geoff Lanyard, Director for Curriculum Planning and Outreach Coordination, Acumen Educational Trust.
Geoff Lanyard, Safeguarding Lead Coordinator for Multidisciplinary Teams, Acumen Educational Trust.
Geoff Lanyard, Director for Implementation of End-User Facing Learning Technology, Acumen Educational Trust.
Geoff Lanyard, Strategic Coordinator for Pupil-Oriented Outcomes, Acumen Educational Trust.
Geoff Lanyard, Director for Gender Realignment Counselling/Genital Mutilation, Acumen Educational Trust.
The lanyards dangled from rainbow-coloured necklaces, all jostling for position on Geoff's soiled and striped shirt.
'One of the truly legendary Otmoor beasts!' Holmes pronounced, not attempting to lower his voice.
'Ms Daventry, may I suggest you finish this sod off?' he added peremptorily, handing her my pistol.
She needed no prompting. Before I could intervene, we saw a repeat of the summary execution suffered by Moriarty. The door to an adjacent public house swung open, just as my trusty service revolver was fired up Lanyard's rectum.
'One less managerial shithead!' chortled a purple-faced Shireman, head heavily thatched.
Holmes slapped him on the back and led us into The Crown. A more cheering sight – after our flight across Oxfordshire's desolate moorland – could hardly be imagined. I wasted no time in filling my boots with several pints of the local ale, served brown and foaming in traditional porcelain mugs, bedecked with images of Charlton's delightful dancing skinheads.
I was excited to overhear a conversation between two leathery old puffins, informing me that the boot-boys were appearing at The Crown, that very evening! I wondered whether we could combine this fortuitous event with permanent disposal of the egregious Hazel Nuts? Her company was fast becoming intolerable. One look at Holmes's aquiline face showed me his thoughts ran in the same direction…
An hour later, the pub’s doors were flung open and the steaming skinheads arrived. I spare my readers the more gruesome details. Even today, many a lonely traveller claims to hear – tossed on a wild wind – the agonised and plaintive cries of some Jimmy Somerville showtune number, coming from deep beneath the forgetful waters of Otmoor's RSPB Reserve.
As Holmes had promised, we obtained revenge for Miss Daventry: ‘Rache’ was indelibly and bloodily carved into the fearsome local folklore. We safely returned the wronged lady to Brackley, where her family sheltered us from ongoing police enquiries.
Alas, it was beyond the limits of my own battlefield surgical experiences – or even those of the foremost experts in the kingdom – to remedy the carnage inflicted on her nether regions by the trans-movement.