The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1039 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

As we ate, I tried to learn a little more about Billie’s original home life–when I thought about it I felt guilty, I tended to think more in terms of getting Danny and her into our routine, rather than understanding what hers had been. Maybe I wasn’t such a wonderful mother after all?

“When did you go into the home, sweetheart?”

“When I was four I think, they put me into nursery class.”

“And your father did this?”

“He said I was a bad influence on my younger brother.”

“And you were four?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“So you were at the children’s home longer than you were with your dad?”

She counted on her fingers, “Yes.”

“Did you like it at the home?”

“My dad’s home? I can’t remember–the other place was okay, they like looked after you, but not as well as you and Daddy do.”

“So you’d still like us to adopt you?”

“Oh yes, please, Mummy–I want to be your daughter, like Trish and Livvie and Mima are.”

“I see. For the moment, I think we’ll have to keep the daughter bit our little secret, so you’ll still have to go to school as a boy. Then if you still want to be a girl, we’ll see about things after the summer holiday. Dr Stephanie will have had a better chance to assess your needs as well, so we’ll all know what to do a bit more by then.”

“I don’t want to go back to being a boy, Mummy.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but we don’t have a choice. We need to handle this very carefully or the social services people will be trying to take you away–thinking I’m trying to corrupt you or something equally nasty.”

She pouted at me, but I thought I needed to set some firm boundaries about how we were going to do this. I still felt that the girly stuff was based more on need for attention and affection than an identity thing, in which case it would soon fade.

I thought I’d better have a chat with Nora Cunningham, see if there’s any history of this with Billie–I wondered if she was in today. Billie and I roused the others, and I helped the girls shower each other and dry their hair. I left them to dress themselves.

Billie grumbled about having to be a boy again, and I agreed she could stay home today–but only today. I asked Simon to call the school while we took the girls in to their school. On the drive there, I had to tell Trish and Livvie to stop the hard sell to Billie.

“And who is this young lady?” asked Sister Maria, probably fully aware of the truth of the matter.

“This is my sister, Billie,” gushed Trish.

“And would you like to show her over the school?”

Before I could say anything, Trish and Livvie had dragged her off and Sister Maria had invited me to her office. “I’m not sure how to ask this, but wasn’t Billie, Trish’s brother, when I last saw her?”

“Um–yes, a few things have happened since then.”

“So I see.”

I explained what had happened in a quick précis, and Sister Maria looked aghast and shook her head. “So that little darlin’ has had to cope with rejection from her dad, and blaming herself with killing her mother, and was abused by her uncle–bejabers, Lady Cameron, you do know how to pick ‘em.”

“I was horrified when she said she wanted to be a girl. I mean, what are social services going to say if they find out? They’re going to think I’m some sort of pervert who feminises boys.”

“Surely with Dr Cauldwell’s help you can prove that you’re doing what is required of a caring and compassionate foster mum?”

“If it comes to that, I hope so too. I did contact her as soon as I heard what Billie wanted to do.”

The phone rang on the desk and the headmistress picked it up, mouthing, ‘excuse me’. I pointed at the door and she shook her head. “Hold on, I’ll ask her.” The headmistress covered the phone and said, “Billie is apparently in the year five classroom, and she’s been offered the chance to sit in with the girls of her own age to see how she likes our lessons–she says she’d like to.”

“She’s only been doing this for a couple of days;” I said in a horrified voice, “Is it wise to expose her to this? What happens if she’s rumbled–nine year old girls can be quite cruel?”

“How about if we leave her for one lesson and see how she copes. If you phone in we’ll say if you should come and get her or if she could stay longer.”

“I don’t know, Sister Maria. I think it’s too soon, and I’m concerned that she’ll be discovered, and then what do we do if she does transition and needs a new school?”

“Well just let her stay for the first lesson, and then take her off home.”

“What is it?” I was concerned it was religious education.

The headmistress looked at her timetables, “Year five — history.”

“That should be innocuous enough,” I said, sighing and wondering how Billie and history interacted.

“Um–perhaps: we’ve been looking at what history is in relation to us as individuals.”

“What do you mean?”

“The girls have been working in groups, sharing their personal histories and writing up a project.”

“Maybe I should collect her now?”

“Let’s see what happens, shall we–if she’s going to live as a girl, she’ll have to learn to be as tough and adaptable as her younger sister.”

“Trish is a very special girl in all senses of the word.”

“Oh I think we already know that–did I tell you she corrected her teacher again, who made the mistake of mentioning dormice and not knowing as much about them as a certain young lady. It certainly made her check her facts, and she found she was in error.”

“What did she say about dormice?” I was intrigued.

“She got their longevity confused, she thought they only lived about two years and it’s actually...”

“About five, of which they will have probably slept half to two thirds,” I finished for her.

“Of course–it’s your subject, isn’t it?”

“I know a bit about them.”

“Enough to make a wonderful film about them–look; why don’t you go and take a little walk and see how she is in half an hour’s time. I’ll make sure the teacher doesn’t let anything untoward happen.”

I accepted her invitation to take a short walk against my better judgement. Part of me felt, cynically, that they were recruiting another, that Billie had been tricked into staying and was possibly even now trying to escape a fate worse than death as a class of nine year old girls tore her to pieces–emotionally, anyway.

I didn’t walk any further than the car, where I sat and called Simon. He’d seen Stephanie off to work and given her a reasonable breakfast with decent coffee–not that disgusting stuff, Tom drinks. I explained why I was late coming home and he was concerned for Billie.

“How could you let that happen?”

“Teachers are trained to recognise child abuse. Because she was challenging me over Billie’s change of appearance, I had to let her continue or risk someone saying something in official circles.”

“How do you know that isn’t what they’re doing now–strip searching her or whatever? They’re Catholics–it could be the Spanish Inquisition for all you know.”

What I did know, was that if he’d started the Monty Python sketch, I’d have become mysteriously disconnected.

At half past nine, I went back into the school and Sister Maria led me to the year five class. “Good morning girls,” she said and they all replied, “Good morning, Sister Maria.” She continued, “This lovely lady is a real lady, Lady Cameron, who will be presenting the prizes on speech day. How do we address guests?”

“Good morning, Lady Cameron.”

“Good morning, girls.” I smiled back all the time my knees felt like jelly.

“Now girls, who would like to give Lady Cameron an example of the personal history exercise, we’ve been doing? Yes, Genevieve, you’ll start us off.”

“Thank you, Sister Maria, Lady Cameron. My family originates in France, where my grandfather worked with the resistance to the Nazi invasion. He later escaped to England where he worked with General De Gaulle and met my grandmother. After the end of the war, he came to live in England, where they had three daughters; my mother, Anne-Marie, is the youngest....”

Billie seemed genuinely disappointed to leave the class, and hugged with the other girls in her group. However, I felt safer to have got her out of a potentially risky situation before she blew her cover, especially if she ended up there next term.