The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 2082 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“I like staying with you, Auntie Cathy,” said Cindy as we disembarked the car. I smiled in response but part of me shuddered. The last thing I needed was extra children, it was bad enough having Alan here doing his filming. He, with help from Tom and Simon had had to use some plastic sheets to try and reduce the temperature in the greenhouse, as it was well over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit and he worried for both his health and that of the harvest mice. We had however, managed to find a group who were captive breeding them for release and who could if necessary provide us with a couple of pairs for filming, or they invited him to film at their breeding centre–a large shed.

As with a lot of these places the difficulties are keeping out predators and disease, like fungal infections, which if it’s too warm and moist will suddenly rampage through the place and either kill or make ill your animals. The major predator on small furry things is the brown rat. They regularly kill hibernating dormice and will kill and eat any they meet, though in the upper branches of trees and bushes is unlikely, in nest boxes it’s more so.

We possibly don’t think of rats as predatory, seeing them more as disease ridden opportunist omnivores; but most omnivores from pigs to people will also actively kill and eat animal flesh–it’s high protein, so you need less of it, plus it’s packed with all sorts of useful vitamins and minerals, and rats are clever little critters so keeping them out is a real problem. To avoid this we had the greenhouse built carefully, the base all fixed into concrete and the doors close fitting.

David had prepared a roast meal for dinner, a large lump of beef complete with Yorkshire pudding, horse radish sauce and the most amazing gravy. For desert, which I dipped out on–I was so full I could barely manage a cuppa–he did a homemade ice cream with fresh strawberries. I asked him to save me a bit for later but Simon ate it for me–he’s kind like that.

Cindy went off to bed with the others and must have been talking about what happened in the hospital. I had just climbed the stairs when I heard her say to Trish, “So it’s not just rumours then, you’re the girl who does healing?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I thought I was the only one.”

“Nah, none of us are unique,” said Trish dismissively.

“I’ll bet I am,” said Cindy.

“You mean in the combination of biology and psychology stuff?”

“Yeah that as well.”

“As well as what?” asked Livvie joining the discussion.

“I’m not a real girl,” said Cindy.

“What are you then–a cardboard cut out?” joked Trish.

“Not quite,” replied Cindy, “but I was born a boy.”

“So?” said Trish.

“Well, that makes me unique, doesn’t it?”

“Not according to a prog we watched on telly the other week, it said they did so many hundred sex change operations in this country every year.”

“I can’t have one of them until I’m eighteen, but they let me take hormones now and testosterone blockers.”

“So you’re a girl with an outie?” said Livvie rhetorically.

“I suppose so, that sounds better than a boy in a dress.”

“Yeah, a girl with a plumbing problem,” said Trish matter of fact.

“That sounds even better, I like that. Thank you.” It sounded like Cindy needed to get out more or read a bit more about her condition on things like the internet.

Something that I found in everything she did was this courtesy or politeness which was so pleasant to see. My lot weren’t too bad, but most teenage girls can be vulgar, especially in groups. I’ve passed through packs of them in the shopping areas where they ‘hang out’ and get in everybody’s way. I was going to say, and where they spend all day trying things on without buying, except fast food or drinks.

I wasn’t sure if encouraging Trish to keep quiet about her original status was a good or a bad thing. Part of me felt it was bad because it lacked a degree of honesty, but part of me also recognised the risks of disclosure to someone we didn’t yet know that well. The problem being that if we do get to know her well, she might feel offended with it not being disclosed in the beginning, or when she told them.

“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” she swore the others to secrecy, which they happily agreed. Trish could have told her then, but I counselled against it, in that Cindy could unwittingly disclose it in school.

I would have liked to trust her but we just didn’t know her well enough for that, and while technically, Trish and the two older girls are biologically male, they’re all officially female, well Sammi isn’t yet, she doesn’t qualify on the time basis but as soon as she does we’ll help her get in the application to the gender panel with or without sex reassignment surgery.

“How long have you lived as a girl?” asked Livvie.

“Since last summer, so about a year.”

“I’ve only done it for seven years more,” she said teasingly.

“What you mean you’re not a...”

“Yes I am, but I’m only eight.”

“Of course,” said Cindy, “you certainly caught me there.”

“Are you enjoying it?”

“Oh yeah, I think it’s great–dunno how I ever managed as a boy.”

“People have to sometimes, until they get a chance to alter things. Have you changed your name–properly, I mean?” Livvie was now in cross examination mode and I decided I would intervene very shortly.

“Yeah, did a statutory declaration at a solicitors, cost Mum a fiver.”

“That was good–I mean the price was.” Livvie was leading the conversation.

“The school needed to have my official name, but that only happens properly when you can change your birth certificate.”

“I was going to change my name,” said Trish and my stomach flipped.

“What for?” asked Cindy.

“Well, we’re all adopted.”

“What Aunty Cathy isn’t your real mother?”

“She is now, but she wasn’t our birth mother–she’s been a brill mother ever since, better than the original one.” Trish was now talking her way out of things. "I was going to change my surname to Cameron from Watts, then found that Mummy’s original surname was Watts–so I didn’t bother.”

“She adopted all of you?” asked Cindy incredulously.

“Yeah, she can’t have babies.”

“No I won’t be able to either and that’s bad enough, but Auntie Cathy as a real girl, that must be a real bummer.”

“Well, it’s such a complex system there’s plenty to go wrong and loadsa women can’t have babies.”

“I can’t believe your real–sorry, birth mothers–let you go for adoption, that is so sad.”

“It was at the time, now we think Mummy is so good, it was worth all the rubbish to find such a fabulous mother, even if we didn’t pop out of her fanny.” The last word made Cindy giggle, which was when I intervened and told them it was time for lights out. Thankfully, Trish didn’t do the candles out joke.