The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 2067 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

For the moment, peace had returned to St Claires and I went home and wrote the letter requesting that my children be excused or exempted religious education. I delivered it myself the next day to the school secretary and awaited the response of the school. Of course the letter didn’t contain the threat that failure to achieve this exemption would result in my withdrawal of the girls and my withdrawal as a fund raiser.

I thought about how happy I had been when the school agreed to take Trish who was then transitioning. I think I’ve paid them back for their acceptance with all the things I’ve done for them, and indirectly for kids like Cindy, who although older haven’t moved as quickly as Trish did in completing the job–not that I’d want them to. Trish was very fortunate to survive what she did to herself and to find a sympathetic surgeon who tidied her up in female fashion. Perhaps an amazing coincidence that he’d previously operated on her adopted mother. Were this fiction, would that be contrived? I suppose that would depend upon the author.

I got my response from the school a few days later. It had been handed to Trish, presumably to save the cost of a stamp, to bring home to me, although I got it when I collected her that day. For the moment I’d forgotten about it, being blown away by the facts that black holes weren’t the demons of the universe we’d thought them to be, where if you were sucked in, you’d be squashed to a nothing in no time.

While that could still happen at the event horizon, a euphemism for being sucked inside, we now learn that black holes actually determine the size and shape of a galaxy, and that there’s one in the centre of each galaxy. We also learned that quasars–or these enormous outpourings of energy–three trillion times the power of the sun–were caused by ‘feeding’ black holes. So, contrary to the belief the black holes emitted nothing, they cause huge amounts of energy to be released into the stars and dust clouds around them as they suck in matter.

Yeah, how can you tell I saw a programme about black holes? The final speculation that we have a black hole to thank for our existence because it caused us to be in just the right place to form life caused me to wince. That’s as poor science as blaming a god for our existence. Surely the assertion should be, that because of where we are in the galaxy the circumstances which enabled life, as we know it, to begin and to be so far continued. But it may or may not include other events like strikes by asteroids and comets, the latter possibly being the reason we have water on the planet or possibly even acting as a source of life supplying not just water but perhaps amino acids or proteins which kick started life here all those millions of years ago.

What it didn’t tell us was how vulnerable we are on this floating rock to radiation and asteroids–we’re apparently overdue another strike, and have been for a thousand years or so. We’re also due some big volcano eruption any time now as well. Given the rotten weather we’ve had recently, neither would be welcome as it tends to make it even worse.

Trish handed me the letter once we entered the car. I opened and read it.

“What’s it say, Mummy?”

CannI’ve a look?”

“No, the letter is addressed to me.” There were groans. “However, I can tell you that you are excused religious lessons and the services at assembly or other times.”

“Yippee,” shouted Trish.

“Before you start to celebrate too much, it asks that I instruct you not to argue the toss with the nuns about matters religious or philosophical, however convinced you are that they might be in error.”

“Does that mean I can’t argue about geography or history or maths?”

“It doesn’t say you can’t, but I would strongly urge you to consider carefully the consequences of such arguments. Next time you verbally chew up one of your teachers, simply because you can, they might not allow the appeal and just expel you.”

“They can’t do that–can they?” Trish looked very worried and I decided I wasn’t going to relieve her stress.

“They can.”

“They can expel us?” said Livvie, perhaps not believing what Trish had just said.

“Yes, sweetheart, they can. It’s usually reserved for the worst cases but can also apply to younger children who cause them problems. It is a religious school and when I enrolled Trish I had huge qualms about it being something I suffered as a child.”

“How was that, Mummy?”

“I went to a church school to start things.”

“Did you cause trouble like Trish does?”

“I don’t cause trouble,” Trish protested.

“No I didn’t, I was a very compliant child.”

“Wassat mean, Mummy?” asked Mima.

“Basically, Meems, it means I did as I was told most of the time, unlike you three.” Naturally they protested their innocence, but it was true, I rarely caused anything to happen, as far as I know. Sadly it wasn’t true of high school, and simply because I looked and acted girly, it caused me loads of problems worsened by that idiot Murray, the headmaster. He didn’t like me, saw me as effeminate and tried to cause me to leave, but my desire to comply–typical girl response–meant he could never get enough grounds to expel me. Consequently, he tried to cause me to leave by forcing me into skirts at any excuse, including the Lady Macbeth part in the school play. I’m only glad that I managed to prove him wrong in all kinds of ways–including being probably the first boy graduate of the school to become the wife of an aristocrat and adopted mother to several children. That’s got to be a first, hasn’t it?”

“What do we do when the others are having services or religious instruction, Mummy?” asked Livvie looking a bit daunted by doing something different or being seen as different.

“You’ll have to go and sit in the library and read a book.”

“Oh good,” she replied to my answer. Like Trish and Meems, Livvie is a devourer of books. I was too at her age, and it’s only shortage of time that means I’m not now, in fact I’d love to have more time to read, especially for pleasure, but it seems that won’t be something that’s likely to happen in the foreseeable future.

“I wike weading, too,” added Meems. For some reason I seem to overlook her when dealing with the three mouseketeers, though she’s just as much a part as her two sisters, she’s just less demanding and quieter on the whole so gets passed by.

“I know you do, Meems, and this weekend I shall buy each of you a new book or take you to the library to borrow one.” This was received noisily with yells and shrieks, almost deafening me–I never seem to learn, do I?