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(aka Bike) Part 1800 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad
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“Mummy?” asked Trish as I tucked her in.
“Yes, poppet.”
“What is the proper age for a girl to start dating boys?”
For a moment, I had some sort of seizure and imagined Trish was asking about the age to start dating boys. I must have misheard her.
“Say again?” I asked feeling vaguely nauseous.
Livvie was giggling and even Meems was smirking. “What is the proper age for a girl to start dating boys?”
“I should think about sixteen, why?”
“See, I told you,” Trish shouted triumphantly at her sister.
“No you never,” was yelled back.
“Quiet please,” I said loudly–loudly enough for it to take effect. “Now, what is all this about?”
“We were just havin’ a discussion, Mummy–honest,” pleaded Trish and I believed not one word of it.
“Why were you having such a discussion?” I demanded.
“Girls do,” came back the impudent answer.
“Teenage girls do, not eight year olds.”
“Yes they do, Mummy, we were talking to three other girls in school about just this matter.” Livvie decided to add her three penneth.
“For goodness sakes, girls, you are eight not eighteen, so let’s not have any more silly talk about dating boys, okay?”
“Is it okay to date girls then?” asked Trish.
“No–not at eight. At eight you shouldn’t be even thinking about it, let alone doing it. Now go to sleep.”
“I’m going to dream about my ideal date,” said Trish and hid under the bedclothes before my stony stare could reach her. Livvie giggled and did the same, then Meems followed suit. I left them to it.
I could understand perhaps if it were early February and Valentine’s Day was almost upon us, but it’s the middle of bloody August. I hoped it was just one of Trish’s wind ups; she seems to like to tease those who are less able than she–today was my turn.
“What’s the matter?" asked Simon as I made my way back into the kitchen.
“The girls are driving me nuts–Sammi is out on her first date against my advice, Julie is out on the razz and that always worries me and Trish just asked about dating boys.”
He snorted a mouthful of beer all over the kitchen table. When he stopped coughing, he asked, “An eight year old wants to know about dating?”
“So it would appear–are you going to clean that up?” I nodded to the beer on the table.
He rose reluctantly, got the cloth and wiped the table top halfheartedly. I took it off him and did it properly, before taking it over to the sink and rinsing it out and hanging it to dry over the taps.
“Why did Trish want to know about dating boys for–I thought she hated them?” Simon brought the matter back to focus.
“How do I know?” I shrugged and filled the kettle.
“You’re her mother,” he said almost accusingly.
“So? You’re her father.”
“Yes, but mothers are closer to their daughters especially about this sort of thing.”
“Are they? Mine wasn’t.” I threw back at him.
“Ha ha, very funny–you nearly had me for a moment.”
Seeing as I married the first boy I dated, I could hardly claim to be an expert on the subject, could I?
“So what did you do?” he finally asked me.
“I told her she had to be sixteen.”
“Oh well done, that’ll give you time to think up some answers by then.”
“Why does it have to be me–why can’t you do it?” I challenged him.
“It’s traditional.”
“What is?”
“The girls have a chat with their mothers and the boys with their dads.”
“The girls outnumber the boys by seven to one.”
“Yeah, it’s tough but that’s statistics.”
“Hardly fair though, is it?” I protested rhetorically.
At least I thought it was rhetorical until he answered me, “Life is always tougher for boys.”
I almost choked on the sip of tea I’d just taken, “Tougher for boys my arse–not in this house.”
“But it is, we’re a minority group, Tom, Danny and I.”
This was actually true, but his use of it was annoying me. “You might be in a minority but you control the majority of decisions in this world. You are also spoiled rotten by eager to please females running themselves into the ground.”
“I don’t see you eager to please very often,” he dropped back on me.
“No, I keep it for special occasions.”
“So special I never see it.” Now he was asking for trouble.
“No, just my lover.”
“If I thought that was true I’d be very upset,” he said sullenly.
“If it were true, I think I’d be even more tired than I am already,” I conceded.
“C’mon, let’s go to bed and be eager to please each other,” he suggested.
All that was missing from his suggestion was ‘nudge nudge, wink wink,’ and he’d sound like Eric Idle from the Monty Python team. “I’m going to wait up until the girls are back home.”
“They could be hours yet,” he protested.
“So? I’ve got a book to read.”
“You’re going to sit down here on your tod waiting for teenage girls to come home?”
“Simon, you are so quick on the uptake sometimes it astonishes me.”
To his great annoyance, then bemusement because he couldn’t make out if I was teasing him or placating him. The former was the correct answer of course.
“All those born above the border are, didn’t you know.” For him that was quite a clever answer.
“I hope Tom doesn’t hear your blasphemy.”
“Hear whit?” Talk about talk of the devil.
“Nothing, Daddy, Simon had just offered one of his unproven statistics, you know, like–only one in seven dwarves is happy.”
“How d’ye ken that?”
“Snow White, seven dwarves...”
“Aye, whit aboot them?”
“One of the seven was called, Happy.”
“Och ye scunner,” he laughed repeating the earlier line to himself and laughing.
“So one must also be Dopey?” calculated Simon.
“Probably.”
“Or is that just in the Disney version? The original is much older.”
“But not as compelling–Disney has destroyed traditional stories wherever it has set its jackboot.”
“Ouch, careful they also sue quite regularly.”
“They turn all of the fairy tales into sentimentalist pap because the box office likes it.”
“They are into marketing their products,” he reminded me.
“Look how Bambi set back the course of...”
“Hunters?” he suggested.
“No, deer, treating them all in such an anthropomorphic manner.”
“If I knew what you were talking about, I might agree.”
“Like they were human or had human characteristics.”
“You mean they don’t?” he gasped, and I really did choke on my tea. I was coughing for several minutes and left red eyed and breathless, especially given my recent chest infection.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I shook my head, I felt awful and my chest felt on fire. My breathing began to grow rather ragged, almost as if my lungs were full of fluid and I could hear it almost frothing as I sucked in air and coughed again. I had to get rid of this awful stuff that was coming up into my mouth and excused myself on wobbly legs to go to the cloak room. I spat out the gunk and saw it was mainly blood. I was bleeding into my lungs.
Suddenly I could hardly breathe at all. I almost fell out of the cloakroom into his arms. “Get an ambulance,” I said spraying him with a fine bloody mist, before collapsing.
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Comments
Oh 'Eck
1800 and all's far from well.
S.
150 dozen bikes and a cliffhanger
I knew that this episode wouldn't end without a cliffhanger ;)
So again we have to wait till tomorrow to see/read what happens...
Martina
Not only a cliffhanger,
But a very nasty one, too, bleeding from the lungs is a very major issue; she could die, but we all know that she's the main character in the story, so it is far more likely that she will be very close to death but eventually recover, as she does in the next chapter.
I've gotten this far, Angharad, still enjoying the story even though the ending here shocked me quite a bit. Great story, thanks.
Oh Oh
Last time I coughed up blood like that I had Pulmonary Tuberculosis in the lower left ventricle.
Hope Cathy hasn't got that. The broad spectrum antibiotics make you feel groggy after a few months and the Pasinah Iodide 302 sachets taste absolutely revolting. I takes flipping months in isolation hospital to get over it.
There's also the problem of daughters out on the razzle. I see Trish and Julie working the blue light to help Cathy recover.
Rake in the grass surprise.
Just moseying along reading a normal exchange between two loving people and an old Scottish Goat and in the nicely trimmed lawn my foot found a fu@#$*& rake. Smacked me in the face hard so hard I thought I read that Catherin is bleeding into her lungs. Ow bother I did read that!!!!! Who is mad at Catherin now she really does not deserve this.
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
Still bleeding after all these years
Introduced to the Cameron family by being extruded through a thorn bush at the sharp end of Stella's speeding coupe, poor Watts is still sprouting it red for our entertainment. What next? The important question is whether we can all persuade/support Angharad to keep it up for another 1900! What a pleasure! Such imagination! Can we do Hip! Hip! Hooray! over the internet? Angharad we love your story. Please stay with it!
Jeannie
jmacaulay
1800 Chapters!
Congratulations, Angharad! Eighteen hundred chapters, and you've given us another cliff-hanger. Atta Girl!
I love it! :-D
Red MacDonald
Oh, dear, not another crisis
Oh, dear, not another crisis for poor Cathy! Of course I should have expected chapter 1800 to be another cliffhanger.
I blame it on that devious cat, Bonzi. Give the Bonz and Iz a scratch behind the ears from me.
Thank you so much for continuing this saga, Ang.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Bleeding in the lungs
Cathy did the right thing by asking for an ambulance, as this is probably very serious. And wasn't one lung involved in the stabbing way back in the first 500 episodes or so? Or is this related to the recent chest infection? Or both?
Maybe another contact with the good Goddess?
And I concur, Bonzi and Iz deserve an ear scratch from me, also.
And if you are up to it, another 1800 episodes will be welcome.
Don't let someone else talk you out of your dreams. How can we have dreams come true, if we have no dreams?
Katrina Gayle "Stormy" Storm
I see everyone else is joking about this but
Cathy must have some residual injury in her lungs that choking aggravated. Hope it isn't too serious but if she's having trouble breathing it doesn't sound good.
Simon - call ambulance then call Trish!
What tha....
What is happening now? Things were going so nicely, now she spews blood? Not a good thing, this.
As to the rest. Yeah, I've heard 8 yr olds asking about dating. One of mine did, 'cause there was a girl in her class who claimed she was dating one of the guys... (and they were - sorta)... Luckily that problem didn't hit us. Whew... And, at almost 16, she's dating (3rd guy, but this one has lasted far longer than we expected... Luckily he's nice.)
Parenting is NOT required to be easy.
Thank you for more "bike"... I think. :-)
Annette
One of the God's wanting a visit?
Well poor Cathy is in it again. I wonder who is wanting to talk to her now?
K
Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 1800
Hope the tykes don't feel guilty over Cathy's RED ALERT!
Same for the teens out dating, but worried that they maybe in trouble.
May Your Light Forever Shine
Ahhhh, Man
What next. And we know the blue light doesn't do much for Cathy. Maybe the Goddess was too quick to burn out that infection and caused this to crop up now.
my guess would be that cathy
my guess would be that cathy will find either julie or sammi at the hospital in need of some healing. and maybe someone else on top of it.
wonder who it will be
I thought it
was too good to be true, A landmark episode and no cliffhanger seeming to be on the horizon.... Little did i know was awaiting in the last two paragraphs.. You would have to say it does not sound good, But surely the goddess has too much invested in Cathy to let anything happen too her now ?
Kirri
Annnnd, there it is
this is not the cliffhanger I was expecting, but it is the cliffhanger we got. Like clockwork, every 200 episodes.