The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2126 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“Better?” Danni did a very girly thing, arms out in front of her, hands flexed downwards with fingers extended and wiggling.

“Much better,” I commented as required and she smirked and went off smiling to herself, her pink tipped fingers glistening. I hoped someone wasn’t going to have a hard time reverting in a week or two.

It would only take one such gesture or action when back at school to make him a laughing stock and a potential victim, and while he got into several fights over his sister, I suspect being called a girl or a sissy would disempower him, making it hard for him to fight back. Sometimes it’s easier to defend someone else than yourself.

Having experienced some of this myself, I know how the baying for blood by the pack almost paralyses you, how it saps the strength and confuses the mind meaning even simple reflexes like running for it may be compromised as you wait for them to close in with the inevitable outcome.

In theory, I was a reasonable runner, perhaps not a fast enough sprinter to outrun the rugby wing threequarters who also tended to take the sprint prizes in the athletics sports day we had each year at school, but I could outrun most of the other bullyboys. So when then hunted me down, why didn’t I run away–I don’t know. It would certainly have saved me several hidings. Sometimes it felt as if, they’re going to get me anyway, why get hot and sweaty as well? I shook myself, this was not a trip down memory lane I wanted to take, but I feared for Danni.

Pia’s mother phoned. I couldn’t get used to calling Peter, Pia, though in some horrible thick Portsmouth accents, it would sound much the same. I don’t know if Pia or her parents had seen the irony here, probably not.

When Simon came home he was more interested in what Paul was doing with Alice’s dad than what his own kids were up to. I left him talking to Paul and went back to my study and the mammal survey. How could anyone mistake a dormouse for anything else? They have a hairy tail for god’s sake?

I reread the record. ‘Small rufous brown mammal, climbing in tree, white tip to tail. Overall length, 10-12cm’. It was hardly a bloody red squirrel was it, or a pine marten, and woodmice don’t have white tipped tails. Gee whizz. Where was it? Bristol–oh well, that explains a lot. I looked at the name of the informant–Michael Tizzard. Oh no, I remember a Michael Tizzard from school, he was a total arsehole, and I’m surprised I don’t have permanent brain damage from the kicking he once gave me.

Old Whitehead saved me that day and I ended up down the BRI having a brain scan–can’t remember if they found one or not.

I don’t want that to happen to Danni but how do I prevent it? I can’t. Even if I point out what could cause it, he’d either deny such behaviour or become so conscious of it, he’d do it by accident. I don’t mind him sitting with his knees together rather than sprawled with legs apart, but if he smoothes down a skirt he isn’t wearing and it’s spotted, he’s dead meat.

I wasn’t sure whether to include the record for this dormouse or not. It wasn’t sure to the recorder what he’d seen. I’m surprised he saw anything, unless he was near a nest box and scared one out of it by being too noisy. I’ve seen that happen. I checked the grid reference, there were dormice there, three records approved, one of which was mine.

The phone peeped but didn’t ring–could be someone is using it elsewhere in the house. It reminded me of Pia’s mother calling. ‘Did I think Pia was ready to attend a girl’s school?’ I didn’t but for the life of me, I couldn’t find the nastiness to say no. Instead I answered it with a question–What did she think? Was Pia in favour of it? What were the options? Okay, I lied there were at least three questions, probably more, but those were the only ones I could recall.

Essentially, what she said was that: ‘She wasn’t having a boy girl thing, a boy one minute a girl the next.’ I knew exactly what she was saying, but I recognised the prejudice in her case if not in my own. She as good as declared she and her husband had decided for Pia who was going to live as a girl exclusively for a whole year with no reversion to Peter and then re-evaluate in one year’s time. I said nothing except a year is a long time if you made a mistake.

But then surgery is a mistake for life if you got it wrong, as Peter might have done. I didn’t know what to say, except I suspected Peter was gay but didn’t have the insight to see it or perhaps the courage to admit it to himself or anyone else. If she’d said she thought he was gay, I’d have had an entry point–I um, will just rephrase that. If she’d said it, I could have agreed with her which would make her feel more positive about her decision, but she didn’t and therefore I could hardly say anything, could I–oh by the way, Peter is a poofter. I wouldn’t have said it like that, but you know what I mean.

“Mummy, they’re starting the badger cull tonight.” Livvie was upset. I gave her a hug. I was aware of it but somehow more pressing matters had prevented me from thinking about it. “Can’t we stop it?”

“I’m afraid not. I sympathise with the dairy farmers, it must be awful to have a cow destroyed because it has TB, but there is no point in culling badgers, it will only make things worse. Oh that reminded me, I had the local radio phone asking me if I’d take part in a debate on the radio on the badger cull. I told them I wasn’t an expert on badgers. I also made the mistake of saying I thought the cull was wrong. They have since quoted me as an expert saying it was wrong.

I sent them an email complaining that I wasn’t a badger expert, I was the coordinator of the mammal survey. They referred to me as a mammal expert–why don’t they listen?

Simon came in saying he’d just heard the news on the radio and Livvie had told him that they’d been mislabelling me all day and he was champing at the bit to call in the lawyers. Why is everyone so aggressive and violent today–it makes me want to slap them.

I managed to persuade him to calm down and when Livvie had gone back to the television, I asked him if he’d thought about Danni’s dilemma.

“I leave that sort of thing to you, babes, you have a far greater understanding than I do.”

“Why is that?”

“Well you have had experience of being transgendered, even though you’re not anymore.”

I felt like saying I’d had experience of being a girl that no one recognised until I got into my teens when lots of people were genuinely unsure of what I was until I took steps to dispel the ambiguity. Instead I said, “Simon, my life experience is different to anyone else’s, so my take on being in the wrong gender role will be different to Trish’s or Julie’s or anyone else’s.”

“You’d still have more idea than I would.”

That I would agree upon, the average house brick probably has more idea than he does.