The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1291 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I felt on quite a high after my workshop and the reception it received, and I walked round to the door of the school with the headmistress. I was laden with my handbag, my laptop bag and the bouquet of flowers.

“You’re late,” observed our home grown genius and the others agreed.

“I came as quickly as I could, I’ve been teaching.”

“You’re still late,” she persisted.

“I don’t see what difference a few minutes makes–it’s only five minutes.”

“You are always telling us we must be punctuate–doesn’t she?” Trish continued and the others agreed.

“I think you mean punctual, young lady, and it’s not very good manners to refer to your mother as, she,” the headmistress took my side and they hadn’t seen her approaching.

“Sorry, Sister Maria, I didn’t see you.”

“I think that’s quite obvious, but I think it’s your mother to whom you need apologise, not me.”

Trish turned a very delicate shade of pink and her eyes moistened a little, “Sorry, Mummy, for being cheeky.”

“That’s okay, I accept your apology.” I bleeped the central locking and the children clambered into the Porsche.

“Didn’t you have a sports car last time you addressed us?”

“Did I–oh yes, it was a borrowed one–this one’s mine.”

The headmistress walked around it–“Very nice, a Porsche Cayenne; does it have a bit of spice to it?”

“Quite a bit, Sister Maria. It’s obviously not as speedy as the Boxster was, but it’s hopefully more serviceable and certainly more comfortable.” I placed my bags and the flowers in the boot and after my goodbyes to the headmistress, climbed in and set off for home.

“Were you teaching here, Mummy?” asked Livvie.

“Yes, you all knew I was.”

“I didn’t,” she replied and the others agreed. “We saw the car and wondered where you were.”

“I was doing a workshop on presentation skills with your senior girls.”

“Pwesents?” gasped Mima–“Was you showin’ ‘em how to wap vem for Chwistmas?”

“Something like that.”

“I wanna learn, too,” said Billie, “I’m hopeless at wrapping things.”

“I’ll show you nearer Christmas, after you’ve bought each other presents.”

“I know what I’s buyin’ you, Mummy–fwowers.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mima, but we don’t usually wrap flowers, just put a bow round them.”

“Vose was nice fwowers, Mummy.”

“Yes, they gave them to me for running the workshop.”

“Don’t they pay you, Mummy?” asked Livvie.

“No, I did it as a favour to Sister Maria.”

“That’s a swizz, Mummy,” declared Trish, showing she’d learned a new word.

“It would be if I hadn’t agreed to do it for nothing, but I had, so it wasn’t.”

I watched in the mirror while Trish worked that one out, then she folded her arms and pouted. “We done geography, done Japan where the sudden army was.”

“You did, not done, geography, and the word you mangled was tsunami, which is, I believe, a Japanese word for a tidal wave.”

“The earthquake was eight point nine of the Vicar scale,” offered Billie excited by the disaster.

“Richter scale, I think it’s called,” I suggested.

“They use it for measuring scientific waves,” she continued.

“Um–seismic waves, Billie.”

“Yeah, whatever, it’s the biggest quake for a hundred years, it’s killed loads of people.”

“According to the news at lunch time, it was suggesting hundreds perhaps even a thousand or more could have been drowned.”

“We’d be okay,” said Trish, “We can all swim.”

“Not with a car on top of you, or a house. According to Sister Paulinus, she’s named after one of the apostates, the water carries away cars and people and smashes down houses–it’s so strong, it’s God showing His power.”

As Billie said this I nearly ran an old lady over on a zebra crossing. I was seething. “It’s the power of nature, Billie, whether or not there’s a God, no one can do that, it’s just the power of nature. A movement in one of...”

“The earth’s technical plates, isn’t it Mummy?” offered Trish.

“Tectonic plates, yes, darling, and the energy liberated is so powerful it can throw huge waves of seawater thousands of miles, which if they hit land can do tremendous damage.”

“Can’t we stop them, Mummy?” asked Livvie, “I mean we can do all sorts of things these days.”

“No, sweetheart, we can’t, all we can do is give warnings which way the wave is heading.”

“Could we have a big wave?” she continued with a note of concern in her voice.

“We could but it’s not as likely as somewhere like Japan, it sits on the ring of fire–an area of volcanoes and tectonic plate boundaries.”

“Japan has a volcano, Mount Fuji.” Trish actually said something without mincing it.

“I believe it probably has more than one, but certainly Mt Fuji is in Japan.”

“Hoo–bloody–ray, I finally got something right,” said Trish.

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t swear, young lady, it’s most unbecoming.”

“Well Daddy said it,” she protested.

“Daddy’s not a wady, stoopid,”

“I’m not stupid, and I can say lady, properly–so now who’s stupid?” Trish retaliated.

“Mummy, she’s making fun of me,” whined Mima.

“Oh shut up, wittle wady,” called Trish.

“Both of you, please be quiet, I can’t hear myself think.”

They both sat back and sulked the rest of the way home and I had to watch they didn’t actually start again when we got home. They didn’t, Trish went off to play with her computer and Mima changed and went out in the garden with her dolls and the pram.

I was busy doing the vegetables for a veggie lasagne when Trish came out to me. “Mummy?”

“Yes, darling?”

“Look, I found this place on the computer, it’s called Big Closet–‘it’s a friendly place to read transgender fiction’–is that about people like us?”

“Sorry, kiddo, you’re not old enough to visit sites like that–have you taken the child protection thing off again?”

She blushed, “It was stopping me looking up things for homework.”

“What things?”

“The teacher said Henry VIII died from gout, according to the internet he died from sniffilus one of the venerable diseases you get from...”

“Having sex with an archdeacon,” popped out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“No, Mummy, havin’ sex with a prosecute. Mary Magdalene was one of those, wasn’t she–Oh no–Jesus didn’t die from sniffilus–did he?”

“Um–no dear, he died from crucifixion.” I had to turn away--sniffilus sounds like symptoms from a bad cold.

“Phew–I thought I’d have to tell Sister Maria.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea anyway, darling, it could cause her a crisis of conscience–"on the other hand, she might have read The Da Vinci Code.

“Is that a book about codes, I like codes.”

“No, it’s a thriller based on a load of hokum, but the film was quite good.”

“Oh, can I read it?”

“When you’re a bit older, it’s a bit grisly in places.”

“Is it about bears, then?”

“No, not as far as I know, it’s about a theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had children.”

“Wow, does Sister Maria know?”

“It’s a fiction, Trish, just a story.”

“Like the Gaby stories you read to us?”

“Sort of, only they’re usually happy stories, aren’t they.”

“Not when Gaby’s mum got cancer, or the ones the lady with the funny name writes, her stories are scary.”

“It’s not funny, it’s Welsh, and the only scary thing is her punctuation–now, would you lay the table please?”