The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1464 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

One hundred and twenty two dozen for the dodecaphiles.

Why does it always happen to me? I went to my favourite supermarket and was well into my shopping, when some young kid came careering down the aisle with his trolley, you know balancing on the back of the trolley, and he slammed into some oldish lady who didn’t see him coming. I didn’t until I heard the thud of the trolley into her back and she was catapulted forwards against the shelving unit and buried under and avalanche of tins of beans and other canned veg.

The boy scrambled up and began to run away except he ran straight into one of the security men who’d been following him. There was a quick scuffle and he swung a kick at the security men connecting with his groin. The man bellowed and fell down. However, two men shoppers blocked his escape and he ran towards me. I stepped in front of him, pushing my trolley to obstruct his get away.

“Outta my way, bitch,” he spat at me.

“Make me, arsehole,” I jibed back.

He aimed a punch at me and I sidestepped and back kicked him in the chest, then spun round and caught him again. The first contact stopped him the second knocked him backwards and the two male shoppers grabbed him. By now a second security man had arrived and the boy was taken into custody to await the police.

The old lady looked in a bad way as they excavated her from the tins. A first aider arrived and they tended to her wounds, including a nasty cut on her head. She’d also messed herself–so was losing dignity as well as suffering an injury.

Lots of people stood about watching and about four were helping as paramedics arrived–she looked very poorly. The crowd was shooed away and the professionals left to deal with the injured woman. I wondered if I should have tried to help her more, though at the time it seemed stopping the youth causing more mayhem seemed the better idea. I assumed they had CCTV so that could be used in evidence against him.

I wondered why people did such silly things and in some ways was fortunate that I was looking at stuff on the opposite side of the aisle or I could have taken the impact instead of the old lady. Given I’d just had one head injury, I hate to think what might have happened had I sustained another so soon.

I carried on with my shopping until a policeman approached me and asked if I could go with him. I had to leave my shopping and go to the manager’s office. “I should have known it was you.”

“Why Sergeant Milsom, how nice to see you again.”

“You two know each other?” asked the younger PC.

“Just good friends,” I smiled at him–let him make what he wants from that.

“Statement please, Lady Cameron–is that you in this video?” He played a rather grainy picture of the whole incident, groaning when the security guard was decked by the kick and again when the youth confronted me and got dropped himself. “You shouldn’t get involved, you could have got yourself hurt.”

“I saw the old lady go down, she was really hurt, I couldn’t let him get away now could I?”

“But he’d shown he could be violent.”

“True, but his timing was poor–and I knew the two men coming towards me would help.”

“I see you let him take a poke at you first, what did he say?”

“He called me a bitch and ordered me out of his way. I don’t take orders from pip-squeaks.”

“So he was on borrowed time after that?”

I shrugged.

“Okay, Batgirl, let’s have a statement.”

I sat down and dictated one which I then signed. He thanked me and I went back to my shopping only to be told the old lady had died. That put a downer on the morning and once again I wondered if I should have offered to help her instead of stopping the tearaway.

Part of me wondered if she was dead by the time they dug her out of the tins, or so close to it that I wouldn’t have been able to help much anyway. I wasn’t sure about the blue light–did I possess it still or not? Part of me was frightened to find out and I was filled with self doubts about it.

They closed the shop only those who had shopping could pay for it and leave. There were loads of people being turned away by police as it all became a crime scene and subject to investigation.

I’d only done half my shopping, so like many I went on to a second supermarket to finish it–getting home well after what would normally be lunch time. Thankfully, Jenny and Stella fed the children, who I presumed otherwise would have killed and eaten them–a pack of ravenous girls can be quite dangerous–no chocolate bar is safe.

Trish and Livvie helped me put away the shopping, hoping that I’d got them some sweets–which I had–they all had a small pack of dolly mixtures, and I got my shopping put away quickly, a real quid pro quo.

Stella wanted to know why I was so late and only believed me when she saw a note on the BBC website of the old lady being killed at the supermarket. So then I had to give all the lurid details.

“How old was the youth?”

“I don’t know, about seventeen or eighteen, he was about five foot ten and looked in reasonable fitness.”

“If he was how come you managed to stop him?”

“My timing was better than his?”

“I taught you well, didn’t I?”

“You did indeed.” I humoured her–well, why not, and she had started me off on the kick boxing as she had in womanhood.

“Just as well you weren’t wearing that tight skirt you have,” offered Jenny.

“The red one?” I queried.

“Yeah, you’d have split it.”

“I suspect I’d have kept out of the way or just caught him with my trolley, which was plan B.”

“He’d have pushed past it, wouldn’t he?”

“No, I’d have rammed him from behind, that would have brought him down, but not necessarily stopped him–the kick did stop him, and the police supported that he’d threatened me, so I was acting in self-defence.”

“Oh good, normally it’s the police you’re defending yourself from.”

“Now, now Stella–that’s only half the time and they have been getting better.”

“Did you get my pads?” she asked.

“Pads?” I’d forgotten entirely.

“Yeah, I asked you to get me some bra pads.”

“Oh poo, I forgot. I’ll walk down the chemists and get you some, if you watch Catherine, I’ll take the rest of the brood with me–which is how I came to be walking with five girls and a mad spaniel. Okay, only four of the girls were walking, Puddin’ was in her push chair which Billie pushed most of the way, although Trish and Livvie also had a go and they also took turns with the dog.

The chemist’s shop is about a mile away in a little strip of shops and the walk cost me six ice creams as well as a dog chew, and the bra pads. However, the rain held off until we got home so everyone declared the afternoon stroll a success.

When Danny came home, he asked if he could have an ice cream from the freezer before he went up to change out of his school uniform and settled down to do his homework. This term we’d made an agreement that if he did his homework as soon as he came home every night, I’d give him a fiver on Saturday. He’d earned his first pound–to me it seemed the best way to encourage him to get it done and would hopefully improve his grades.