The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2502 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

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“They’ve told her they’re going to send her to a training camp to see if she’s good enough to play for England?”

“That’s what the man said.”

“Goodness, our little girl in an England jersey.”

“Before you have her replacing Wayne Rooney, there is the little matter of her being transgendered and a medical.”

“A medical what?”

“What?”

“You said she was transgendered and a medical. I asked medical what?”

“If we don’t declare it, they’ll pick it up at a medical.”

“Why?”

“If they do blood tests.”

“Only if they test for sex chromosomes.”

“I have no idea what they test for, but they could for all I know.”

“But she looks as female as any other thirteen year old.”

“Her hips and breasts are probably slightly smaller but within the realms of normal. What were you thinking?”

“Why don’t we just let her attend the camp and if they want her to have a medical we can tell them before or after. If they don’t pick up on it—well perhaps we stay shtum.”

“And then it will hit the air conditioning and she could get very hurt. There will be others who know her history, how would you feel if she got all the way to a full cap and they blew her up in the tabloids—look what happened to that lesbian girl, they gave her hell. A transsexual in the team would be right up the Daily Mail’s alley or a foreign newspaper if she was playing another country. It would destroy her.”

“But if she isn’t good enough, or would they drop her if they knew her history?”

“Si, I don’t know, but I’m sure even if she got no further, she’d enjoy the camp and she could tell her children she nearly got picked for England.”

“Her children? Doesn’t she have a similar problem in that area to her mother?”

“Yeah, but she could adopt.”

“Okay, I guess it might have been done before.”

“Ha ha, I’m going to speak to Jason tomorrow, see what the legal position is.”

“Yeah, if she has a chance of playing, let’s go for it.”

“Okay. I suspect that if they do find out she’ll probably be found to be not quite good enough—but at least we gave her a shot at it.”

“I’ve got a busy day tomorrow, babes, so if we’re going to you know what, can we get on with it?” He was so romantic when the mood took him. However, his direct approach sometimes meant he got what he wanted, and I got what I wanted—he’d foot the bill for Jason’s time; not a cheap undertaking.

Despite being tired I was too wound up to sleep—not a situation to affect Simon, who lay comatose and snoring in the bed after I got back from my little lavage. I did sleep, or must have done because I woke up in an empty bed aware that Sarah Montague was picking a fight with some woman from Ukip or some other bunch of loonies, who wanted to keep Britain in the EU but kick out everyone else because they were dirty, rotten foreigners. I suspect the concept of European Union has somehow passed her by completely.

I showered and roused the rest of the rabble for another day of mind expansion, though if Trish’s expands any more it might cover the entire globe. I chuckled to myself as I dried their hair and judging by the little looks and hand gestures, they decided I had flipped this time. If so, I reckon I caught it from the Ukip woman on the radio.

I took them to school and told Danni and the others to keep quiet about it until we knew more. “Know more about what?” they all except Danni, asked, so we had to explain. Trish was especially cock-a-hoop, saying she’d devise an exercise routine and diet for our star player. I’ll sort that out afterwards, Danni is not a guinea pig for her to test to destruction.

I called Jason from my office at the university and managed to speak with him. He needed to do some research and would get back to me. I wondered when, but at least I didn’t have any meetings today other than looking over someone’s project with them, using data from the survey. They were looking to acquire a PhD from it, if I recalled it correctly, their process was a bit vague and would need tightening up somewhat.

The aforementioned post grad student disagreed with my opinion. I did try to point out I already had a PhD so knew something of the requirements, only to have thrown back in my face that I got it because my father was the supervising professor. I told him to withdraw the comment and think on my advice because if he submitted and it was rejected he wouldn’t have time to re-present without more funding, and I wouldn’t sanction it for poor research.

“You can’t,” he shouted at me.

“I control the budgets in this department, including the research grants. Your paper is substandard, it needs a deal of work on it and as it isn’t meeting the objectives of the grant, I won’t agree to fund it any further.”

“You’ll be sorry, you—you old hag.”

“Connor, how old are you?”

“Twenty six, why?”

“I’m thirty one next week, that makes me five years older than you, hardly an old hag—but that is somewhat typical of the loose descriptions in your paper.”

“All right then, you young hag.”

“Keep thinking like that, Connor, and rewrite your paper and you might just pass.” I couldn’t help but laugh and when he left he was laughing as well.

“It all hinges on whether Danni was having hormones before or after puberty.”

“You mean if he wasn’t pulling Percy twice a night he might be considered as pre-pubertal when he went on them?”

“That would be one way of describing it, but I think a note from a doctor supporting it would be more successful in putting her case.”

“I feel it’s all going to end in tears anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because the FA is inherently conservative.”

“If they are we can sue them.”

“How come?”

“They’ve signed up for the same anti-discrimination laws as the IOC. She’s post op, we need to fast track her for legal reassignment.”

“I think we started that a while back in case there was ever any question at school or elsewhere.”

“Okay, check how far that’s gone, because if we can get her legal status and prove she was pre-pubertal, she’s no different under anti-discrimination laws than any other thirteen year old girl.”

“Crikey, whodathunkit?”

“You are so endearingly old fashioned, Cathy.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Exactly. Go and chase up her gender panel thing.”

I sent a text to Si, as his legal department sorted mine for me and were assisting with Danielle’s, they’d already got Julie, Trish and Sammi through it, so knew what to do. He said he’d speak to them. I texted Stephanie and she called me back.

“What?” she said as I picked up the phone.

No, Watts, there’s an S on the end.”

“No, what singular, as in what d’ya want this time?”

I explained what Jason had said. “He was taking pills a year or so ago so it would probably have interrupted his puberty, since when he’s been surgically reassigned and experiencing a female puberty.”

“If we needed it in writing, could you oblige?”

“I thought you were all Scots, how come you’re supporting England?”

“We’re unionists.”

“Fair enough, what’s f’dinner, in return for this ’ere epistle to the FA.”

“How do I know, speak to my chef.”

“I’ll do just that you ’ard-boiled aristocrat.”

“Do, you demented doctor.”

She rang off chuckling as she went.