The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1779 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I held the sobbing eight year old for a few minutes before we finally stepped out of the unit and into the hospital corridor. A woman of perhaps thirty walked towards us, Trish was still wiping her eyes with the tissue I’d given her.

The woman stopped and regarded us very carefully, Trish finally saw her and immediately clung to me, “Don’t let her take me away, Mummy,” she gasped and began to weep again.

The action of this child wasn’t lost to either of us. “Patrick?” gasped the woman, then she looked at me and her eyes narrowed, “What sort of weirdo are you to encourage a child to pretend to be something he’s not? You should be arrested, you pervert.”

I felt Trish clinging tighter to me.

“I’m desperately trying not to judge someone who it seems abandoned their child and is now trying to control a life they didn’t want to share. I think you gave up any rights to an opinion the day you dumped this child in an institution because your small mindedness couldn’t cope with her being different.”

“How dare you?” the woman snapped back at me.

“I could ask you the same question, and add, hypocrite, but that would be judgemental.”

“At least I didn’t encourage his delusions.”

“Neither have I, I’ve simply allowed her to become who she was meant to be.”

“So putting him in a dress, is who he was meant to be, is it?”

“I have never forced Trish to be anything other than she felt she was–she has been a happy little girl for the past two or three years, once she was allowed to be true to herself.”

“True to herself–this is my son you’re talking about,” she snapped.

“Mummy, take me away from this horrid woman,” said a clear voice, as she clung to my waist.

“Mummy? I’m your mother, you stupid little brat.” She stepped towards Trish and I raised my hand to push her away if necessary.

“Is there a problem, ladies?” asked a burly young man who strolled down the corridor obviously attracted by the noise and the small crowd of people who were standing and watching.

“Yes,” said Trish’s biological mother. “This woman has taken my son and turned him into this.” With that she snatched at Trish, who screamed and tried to step backwards away from the thrusting arm. In two quick movements I pushed away the arm and then the body attached to it.

“Get your hands off me,” she screamed at me. I’d already stepped back and had my arms around my sobbing child.

“Now, now,” said the security man, as she screeched at him. Then she turned and hit him in the face and he reeled backwards against the wall and banged his head, falling heavily. The small crowd gasped.

An older man came running down the corridor, then I felt a slap on my face which stunned me and Trish was ripped from my grasp and dragged screaming away by her mother.

I wiped the tears from my eyes and was about to set off after her when the older man rushed past and called, “Look after him, I’ll deal with her,” the voice belonged to Sam Rose.

I was still shaking as I bent over the groaning security man, there was a smear of blood down the wall where he’d cut his head, and bloodstains spreading on the collar of his white shirt. I grabbed a couple of tissues from my bag and held them against his head.

“Ouch, that hurts,” he groaned.

“Sorry,” I poured energy into him.

“I feel quite strange,” he said and passed out. Some porters were now rushing down the corridor with a gurney. I helped them lift him onto the trolley as Sam Rose reappeared with Trish. I turned and Trish rushed to me sobbing as I enveloped her in my arms.

“Come with me,” said Sam quietly as the crowd dispersed.

“He’ll be okay in a couple of hours,” I whispered nodding at the security guard as they wheeled him off to A&E.

A few minutes later we sat in Sam’s office, Trish on my lap now snoozing, her head on my shoulder. “Once I saw what was happening, I knew if you gave chase you might end up on an assault charge, besides, I suspected you’d work your magic on the injured security chap.”

“How did you get her to let go of Trish?”

“Another security man blocked her escape and he and one of his colleagues detained her. She let Trish go while ranting about her being her son who’d been taken by this strange woman. They’ve taken her off to talk with the police. I suggest you take this lovely young lady home and I’ll talk to the police. If they need to talk to you, they can come and take a statement from you later. It’s all on CCTV anyway.”

“You can tell them I don’t wish to press charges, she was obviously mistaken.”

Sam gave me one of his warm smiles, “You can be too nice at times, Lady Cameron, though I suspect if you’d caught her, your generosity might not have been quite so magnanimous.”

“I don’t know, I didn’t want to punish her, just protect this ’un. She’s dealing with her grief as she loses her man. I don’t want to compound that.”

“I’ll tell the police.”

“Thank you, Sam, and thanks again for returning my lost property.”

“My pleasure, here, let me carry her to the car for you.” Fortunately, that wasn’t too far and he gently placed her in the back of the car where I belted her into her seat. She stirred slightly but went back off to sleep. I stroked her head and hoped the energy I could feel flowing into her would reduce some of the trauma she’d just experienced.

I was still cuddling with her an hour or two later when a young WPC arrived to take a statement. She wrote it down and read it back to me and I signed it. I repeated to her that I didn’t want to press charges.

“You realise that in taking your child like that she is guilty of unlawful taking and keeping of a child.”

“She’s very distressed in dealing with the serious illness of her partner.”

“Oh he’s not her partner–least not any more, they split up about seven or eight years ago.”

“She is Trish’s biological mother.”

“Yeah, but the courts gave her into your keeping and you adopted her–she’s your child now. If she wants to dispute that, she has to go through the courts, who will consider her case, but usually they see where the child’s happiest, and to me that seems with you.”

“What I don’t want is Trish’s gender change to become a feature of lurid tabloid headlines.”

“If she went to court–it would all be in chambers–there’d be no press.”

“I wanna stay with my mummy,” said Trish putting her arm round me.

“Well, young lady, I think that’s quite unequivocal, isn’t it?” offered the young copper.

“Wassat mean?” Trish challenged.

“It’s without doubt that you see Lady Cameron as your mother now.”

“Yeah, she’s the best mummy in the world,” I received a huge hug and we all smiled.