Welding Dear (aka Bike) Part 639 by Angharad

“So what now?” asked Simon, making towards the car.

I held Mima’s hand as we followed him, “Well I’ve forgotten my handbag, and we’ll need to come back to collect her for half twelve, with a picnic.”

“Can I come for a picnic, Mummy?”

“I should think so, if you behave.”

“Mima behave, Mummy.”

“So, home James and don’t spare the horsepower?”

I looked at my watch, it was only just nine. “Could we call by the uni?”

“I suppose so.”

“It won’t take long, just want to see Spike is okay.”

“Shouldn’t she be?” asked Simon, “Or is this feminine intuition?”

“Dunno to both questions.”

“Can I see dormeece, Mummy?”

“I expect so.”

Simon sat in the car while Mima and I went into the department. Pippa was pleased to see us and made a fuss of Mima, who loved it. Then I went down to the labs where Neal was doing some sort of inventory. “Well, well, look who it isn’t?” He gave me a huge hug and made a fuss of Mima. “What can we do for you?”

“I just popped in to see how Spike was.”

“Ah, a guilty conscience–pushes off to make her fortune and collect waifs and strays while abandoning her real children to a laboratory.”

“You not abangoling, Mima, Mummy?” she looked very worried and anxious.

“No, Meems, I’m not abandoning you, I’m taking you home with me, because that’s where you live–with me, Simon and Grampa Tom.”

“Not Uncle Tom, and his cabin, then?” asked Neal sarcastically.

“Well actually, Topsy has just started school.”

“Twish, not Topsy, siwwy Mummy.”

“Twish?” asked Neal.

“Tricia, my other girl has started school today.”

“Blimey, you’re quicker with litters than Spike.”

“Ha, bloody ha, where is the queen of the Muscardini?”

“This way, milady.” Neal bowed and I dropped him a curtsey, Mima bowed and curtseyed. He showed me the refurbished cages which looked exactly the same as I recalled the old ones. They were still built to my specifications as far as I could see.

“They look the same to me,” I said looking in the cages.

“They are, the new ones didn’t pass muster, so they sent ‘em back. These are your ones.”

“I suppose you can’t improve on perfection,” I said blithely.

“Don’t tell me; you say that each morning to the mirror?”

“But of course,” I said trying to be just as cheeky as he was, but my blushing probably gave the game away.

“Ah, here she is,” I went to put my hand in her cage.

“She’s got young, Cathy,” Neal cautioned.

“Give me some brazil nuts,” I said pointing at the container. He held the container while I took two or three nuts.

“Can me give her one, Mummy?”

“Just a minute, precious, let me see if she remembers me first.” I opened the cage and stroked Spike, talking to her. She was asleep initially, then she tensed up as I touched her. Eventually, she seemed to relax and I picked her up, quickly offering the nut to my psycho-dormouse.

I bent down so Mima could see her holding the nut with her tiny hands, which moved the nut around as her razor sharp incisors nibbled off bits. “Can I stwoke her, Mummy?”

“Very gently, darling.” I held onto the dormouse quite firmly but Mima’s touch was very light, and Spike hardly noticed it. Mima giggled, but not as loudly as the first time they met, I think Spike probably still has a nervous twitch from that event.

“Can I get a photo of this?” Neal took his camera out of a cupboard and clicked away, the flash not disturbing Spike, who was still munching. “It’s possibly useful in our brochures about learning biology when young, possibly for sending round schools.”

“What? You’re proposing to use me as an advertising campaign?”

“More a recruitment campaign. Let’s face it, next month when the film goes out, you’ll hardly be anonymous, will you?”

“I might not be, but why should Mima be used, she’s too young to give consent.”

“You have objections to using her?”

“I’d have preferred it if you had asked me first. Send me a mock up before you use it, and I’ll talk it over with Tom and Simon, and Mima. The last thing I need is to be seen to abusing my foster children.”

“She’s only your foster kid?”

“Yes, I thought everyone knew that.”

“So what about the other one, Trish, was it?”

“Another foster child.”

“You haven’t adopted then? I mean if they let gay men adopt kids, why not a woman and a peer?”

“It would probably be better when we’re married, but for the moment I’m not rocking the boat. As far as I’m concerned I treat them like my own, and they reciprocate. In fact, they started it by calling us mummy and daddy.”

Seeing as Spike was seeming relaxed, I let Mima hold her. She giggled a bit, saying it tickled, but she held the dormouse gently while she ate another nut. I was pleased with her, she realised she had to keep quiet and hold quite still to avoid scaring the rodent. Neal also reckoned he had more photos and snapped away. I quickly looked at the image on the back of his camera, and decided one of the images could well be my new Christmas card design for this year.

“Hey, these’d make great Chrimble cards.”

“You read my mind,” I said.

“For the department, I mean.”

“But of course. Send me copies, will you?”

“I might, if you look kindly upon the brochure idea.”

“I won’t if you mess me about, Neal, and Simon gets very heavy at times if he thinks someone is annoying me.”

“Okay, okay, I get the message–consider it done.”

“Damn, you didn’t give me a chance to use Tom as a threat, too.”

“No, I could see that one coming. He’s not as violent as Simon–I remember the stories of when the hunt got into the garden.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” I confessed.

“He laid out the Master of Foxhounds, didn’t he?”

“Dunno if it was the MF, but he laid out a couple of them. Mind you, so did I.”

“For a supposed pacifist, you sure are aggressive.”

“Yeah? Wanna make something of it?” I said smirking.

“Mummy shotted a man with buwwets, and with a bownawwow.”

“Thank you, Mima, what did we ask you not to do?”

“Teww anyone.”

“And have you?”

“No, Mummy.”

I suppose that is what they call seeing things from a different perspective?