The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1783 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The phone rang, David answered it before I could, “For you,” he said and handed it to me. It was hardly surprising the call was for me as I’ve lived here a bit longer than he has. Oh, did I mention Maureen has finished the outhouse conversion and David has moved in?

“Hello?”

“Mrs Cameron?” asked a male voice. It transpired that my caller was a solicitor calling from Kirkbride, Whaller and Pratt, though his name was Paul Rushbridger. “I believe you have custody of one Patrick Watts?”

“What if I have?” I asked defensively.

“He is mentioned in the last will and testament of a James Watts, deceased.”

“There’s a slight complication,” I started and explained to the solicitor who audibly sucked in a breath of air. It took me several minutes to tell the whole story and he got control of himself before I’d finished.

“We’ve been charged with administering the estate and I’d like to get on with it as soon as possible, I presume you have documentary evidence to show Patrick is now Patricia?”

“Yes, change of name, evidence to the Gender Identity Panel and her new birth certificate.”

“Could you bring them in?”

“I could probably drop them in this afternoon, I have some shopping to do.”

“That would be excellent–we’ll photocopy them and you can have the originals back immediately. I must say it’s unusual isn’t it to have a child so young have reassignment surgery?”

“Yes, but Trish is a very unusual young lady.”

Just after I finished the call, Trish wandered into the kitchen in search of a drink. She’d been looking at the photo-album on the NASA site of the pictures from the Hubble telescope and she described several to me with some excitement. I wondered now if she’d tell me she wanted to be an astronaut. She didn’t, so I led my witness a bit, “Don’t tell me you’d like to be an astronaut now?”

“Don’t be silly, Mummy, I’d have to wait about twenty years at least–I think I’d rather be one of the astrophysicists designing the experiments they do in space or designing the spacecraft.”

“I see, a spacecraft engineer?”

“Maybe.”

“I have to go out after lunch, so behave for David and Gramps won’t you?”

“Can’t I come with you?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted her to. I’d be quicker on my own for one thing and I didn’t want her exposed as a curiosity in the solicitors–it would presumably be all over the office by now.

“I won’t be out long.”

“Let me come with you. David will have to look after Catherine, so I’d be better with you.”

“Gramps is taking Catherine out in her buggy later, to feed the ducks, why don’t you go as well?”

“Because I want to come with you?”

“Oh, alright, but I’m not buying you anything.”

“I’ve got my own money,” she said, and walked off, presumably back to her Hubble pictures.

An hour later I collected the file with all Trish’s personal papers and placed them in my document case. Moments after that we set off to town and my ‘appointment’ at the solicitors.

I was tempted to make her wait in the car, then thought better of it. “Why are we going in here?” she asked me as we entered the fairly plush offices of Kirkbride and co.

“Mr Rushbridger wanted me to bring some documents in for you to make copies of them.”

“Okay,” said the receptionist and I laid them out on the desk. “Is that Patricia?” she asked nodding at Trish who was fiddling with her Blackberry.

“Yes.”

“Pretty little thing, isn’t she?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll just go off to the copier room, won’t be long.” She disappeared down the corridor and I was left standing guard over the rest of Trish’s file she didn’t need to copy. I glanced over at my daughter who was still messing with–oh it wasn’t her phone, it was an iPod. She placed the little phones into her ears and began moving her head and tapping her foot to whatever music was probably blasting her auditory receptors to destruction. I had bought them all external earphones but they only used them when I told them off for not using them.

About five minutes later the receptionist returned with a man who turned out to be Rushbridger. “Could you spare me a moment, Mrs Cameron?”

I was about to bring Trish with me. He looked at her eyes closed tapping her foot, “We’ll only be a moment, I think she’ll be safe that long–keep an eye on her will you, Rachel?”

“’Course, Mr Rushbridger.”

I glanced back and Trish hadn’t even noticed we’d gone, she was still tapping her foot with her eyes closed. It could have been anything from the latest pop diva to one or two classics I’d introduced her to–like most kids she liked Rossini’s William Tell and Thieving Magpie overtures, she also liked bits of Mozart and Bach.

I was thinking of this when suddenly we were in Rusbridger’s office. “So that was the erstwhile Patrick?”

“No, that was Patricia or Trish as she likes to be called. I’ve never seen her as Patrick, she was dressed as a girl the first time we met and calling herself Trish, so we indulged her until she told us otherwise. That was three years ago, and not once has she changed her mind.”

“Well she certainly looks like a perfectly normal little girl,” added the lawyer.

“Ah, well that’s where appearances can be deceptive.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, she has the body of an eight year old girl but the mind of a sixteen year old.”

“Really?”

“Yes, her cognitive abilities are close to genius levels.”

“Good gracious, mind you her father, James was a mathematician.”

“That explains a lot.”

“Before he got hooked on cocaine, then booze.”

“You knew him then?”

“Vaguely, we defended him a couple of times for threatening behaviour while drunk. So there isn’t much in the way of money, just a few nick-nacks.”

“I’m sure in time she’ll be glad to have something of her father’s.”

“Quite, well very nice to meet you, Mrs Cameron, I think you’ve done a brilliant job with Trish, she is really well turned out.”

“That’s all her own work,” I said although I had actually supervised it and done her hair in a French plait.

“Remarkable.”

I walked quickly down to the reception cum waiting room, she wasn’t there. My heart started to beat rapidly and my stomach felt sick. I glanced around just to make sure she wasn’t bending down behind a piece of furniture. Then I dashed to the receptionist’s desk. “Where is Trish?”

“She was–oh, now where has she gone?”

Not waiting for an equally stupid reply I dashed outside and looked up and down the street–she wasn’t in view either side.

“Call the police,” I shouted at the dopey receptionist and ran out into the road calling ‘Trish’, there was no sign of her.

By now my panic button had been pressed and the adrenalin coursing through my whole being was ready to kill anyone who obstructed my quest to recover unharmed my child.

“They’re on their way.” The look in her eye suggested that she was very scared of me–I hoped her intuition was better than her observational skills.

“Who’s gone through here while I was with Rushbridger?”

“I can’t tell you–confidentiality.”

“You’ll have to tell the police.”

“You’re not the police.”

“No, I’m your worst nightmare.”

“What?”

Rushbridger came running out to the reception. “I’ve just seen them, across the car park.”

“What Trish?”

“Yes, I’m sure it was her with James Watts widow.”

I didn’t wait for further details I was sprinting round the building towards the car park.