The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1930 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The next day Danny came home from school asking if his friend, Pete, could come over at the weekend. “For the day?” I asked in clarification.

“Oh yeah, don’t wanna do sleepover things like girls do.”

“So you don’t want to paint your nails and watch DVDs or play spin the bottle?” I smirked as I teased him.

“Not bloody likely.”

“Please don’t swear.”

“Sorry, Mum,” he blushed, “but I wanted to emphasise the fact.”

“Okay, I’ll let you off this time. Is Pete going to stay for lunch?”

“Dunno, just thought we’d have a hang out, play some computer games on the Play station–ya know.”

“I didn’t know, which was why I asked you, but let me know in advance if you can, because David is off this weekend and I have to do the cooking. Which day did you think he’ll come?”

“Sattadee,” was what he said, Saturday is the correct spelling, but then all of them but Livvie and Meems (for obvious reasons) borrow books from the ‘li-bree’ and this remains the same however many times I tell them it’s library. Only Livvie says it properly. Language has got so slovenly in recent years, so much so that half the time you can’t understand what people are saying on the television or radio, because they have such strong accents.

“Right, I’ll expect to feed another mouth on Saturday. Let me know if there’s anything he doesn’t eat.”

“Yeah, ’kay.” He sloped off to his room.

So this is the boy whose sister he wants to date, or has done so a couple of times. I suppose they meet with their friends or find somewhere private and have a little fumble–young love. I found myself smirking at how embarrassed adolescents can get because they’re so self conscious. Then I remembered that I was even less experienced than he was.

At his age I was supposedly a boy, but didn’t feel like one and was so confused in where I thought life would go, I didn’t have time to think about boy or girl friends. In reality, I only had one friend in school and that was Siá¢n Griffiths. She, if you remember, was such a support during the days when Murray tried to get me either to leave or expelled for being a feminine boy. It didn’t conform with his map of the universe, but in those days–only fifteen or so years ago–if they’d sent me to the girl’s school, even as a punishment, there’d have been ructions of enormous proportions. They did send me once, and I had to play netball, at which I was a total disaster unlike Trish and Livvie.

So Siá¢n was my only friend, and she was a misfit as well, trying to sort out her sexuality but seeing my true gender. I don’t think she had many friends, although she was a very pretty girl and very intelligent–but that puts some people off. I was fairly bright, but had to work to get reasonable grades. She didn’t, it came easily to her, which was probably just as well if she was trying to work out what life was all about. For me, school work and then university was a way of avoiding thinking about such fundamentals and in the end I suppose we each arrived where we wanted to be, but by our own routes.

After dinner, I did some more work on the conference for Tom, which he approved. It was slowly coming together. A little bit more and I could go back to sorting my teaching schedules and lesson plans. Part of me wanted to get back to doing ecology again–my reputation for weirdness came from that teaching and my methods, which were sometimes unconventional. The first years who came in and were challenged to produce a process for the ecology of humans, went out I hope, feeling much more confident in understanding what ecology is. Some of the girls were upset I didn’t pull a dormouse out of the hat–but then I wasn’t wearing one.

The week went by, snow, rain and even some sunshine appeared and disappeared. It was worse elsewhere so I shouldn’t complain, except that wouldn’t be me, would it? I got wind of a series narrated by Professor Brian Cox, the particle physicist from Manchester University about the origins of life. He’s very anti creationist, so that should prove interesting–all I’ve heard so far is, ‘It’s all about the second law of thermodynamics.’ I’ll have to let Trish watch it so she can explain it to me.

On ‘Sattadee’, Pete, Danny’s pal turned up and he was a bit overawed by the house and the fact that I had two titles. Once the girls had given him the once over, a bean pole with freckles, they left him alone. He was polite and after we decided he’d call me, Dr Watts, he went off to play on Danny’s PS2.

“Is your mother a doctor then, I thought she worked at the university?”

“She does, she’s a scientific doctor–has a PhD.”

“Oh, she’s clever then, my mother works in Tesco–in the office,” he hastily added before they went out of earshot. I’m not a snob in that regard, people do what they can and there are plenty with degrees working at stacking shelves in supermarkets because there aren’t enough jobs to go round. I remember one of my mother’s friends who had a degree in ancient Hittite–hardly something which would get you a walk-in job. If anything, times are far harder now than they were for my parents–especially with this government setting it all up for a triple dip recession. Oh well we’ll have something to remember them for–all of it bad.

For lunch I did jacket potatoes and cheese with a salad garnish. There were one or two grumbles but it all disappeared, as did the egg custard tart I made for dessert. The boys finally went off for a bike ride and the girls I had doing some more sewing. Only Meems was really interested, although I know they have to do some needlework in school.

“I’m gonna be a scientist, why do I need to learn how to sew?” complained Trish.

“Because even rocket scientists need to know how to replace a button or stop their knicker elastic breaking.” The latter got a fit of giggles and it broke down the resentment Livvie and Trish had brought with them. “Also, I had to learn how to sew, so I think you should, too.”

“Who taught you, Mummy?”

“My mother,” I replied to Livvie’s question.

“Even though she thought you were a boy?”

“Mummy was nevva a boy,” declaimed Mima.

“I think she knew what I was really, and although my dad would have stopped her indulging it, she did so surreptitiously.”

“Wossat mean, Mummy?”

“Slyly, so my dad didn’t realise what she was doing. She pretended to be showing me bits of mending I might have to do at university, but when would that have involved making curtains or cutting out material to a pattern, or using a sewing machine?”

“She was teaching you how to be a girl, Mummy,” declared Trish.

“Not directly, because my dad would have intervened.”

“No, surrey-tipously,” she mangled the Queen’s English yet again.