The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2397 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I think I mentioned previously that the format for the quiz was like University Challenge. Basically, they had two teams of four, with buzzers. They were offered a starter question which they had to answer on their own, then they had a set of questions for so many points for which they could confer.

St Clare’s destroyed their first round opponents by two hundred points to forty. Then I had to wait while two other schools fought it out, and that was a bit one sided as well. Next the two winners would fight out the semi-final, and the winner would play the winner of the other half of the pool. It was getting serious.

It was a much bigger contest than I had understood it to be. Two schools from Portsmouth, and two each from Southampton, Salisbury and Bournemouth provided the teams and a team from each town made up each pool. In theory, it was possible that two teams from one town could contest the final, but it didn’t happen. Each round took half an hour, so an hour and a half of quizzing for each pool. That was three hours plus the final and five or ten minute breaks between rounds for a loo visit, though the contests which didn’t involve St Clares meant I could see my two girls and have a bite to eat with a cuppa. The girls had their packed meals and ate better than the Chelsea bun I had for my snack.

St Clare’s won their semi-final, though it was a close run thing. I’d love to say one of my two got the winning answer but they didn’t, one of the sixth formers answered a question on Macbeth—I thought she looked familiar, she played my lady in waiting.

Then we had a gap while Pool B fought it out in their semi. I watched that one, the winners looked very good, better than our team in their breadth of knowledge. They swept in by fifty odd points. I was nervous about the final. To give the two teams time to unwind, we had a period of another half an hour before they were called back to the hall to take their positions for the final.

The opposition were St Winifred’s College from Southampton and they were good, but then they were all sixth formers or year twelve students. That didn’t seem fair and the first three questions were all religious ones. I knew the answers but it seemed St Clare’s didn’t, but they were significantly younger.

The subject switched to science and Cameron, St Clare’s answered it. Livvie had struck and Trish helped get three of the four questions in the bonus answered correctly. I felt really proud.

A question on history and St Clare’s pulled level until another religious one sent St Winnie’s off ahead. What was going on with all these religious questions, it began to look very suspect to my suspicious mind. Sitting next to Sister Maria, I aired my suspicions and she nodded, she could hardly answer any of them, neither could St Clare’s who only stayed in the hunt because Trish answered one on calculus and another on Sir Isaac Newton.

Then came one which nearly caused me a heart attack. The question mistress asked the two teams what was the common name of Muscardinus avellanarius? Trish hit the buzzer so quickly it fell off the table they were seated behind.

“Cameron T, St Clare’s,” was announced.

“Hazel or common dormouse, my mum studies them,” she added which made me blush and Sister Maria snort.

They conferred or guessed two other Latin names right and missed one. They were now within twenty points. A question on the Bible and one of St Clare’s buzzed and got correct. The gap was ten points and they answered two of the four questions correctly for another ten. With a minute to go they asked a question on Quantum Theory and the question mistress was astonished when a nine year old answered it and all four of the bonus questions. The gong went and St Clare’s had won it in the final minutes. Sister Maria and I stood up whooped and hugged, we both had tears in our eyes as the team was presented with a silver tray as a prize.

By the time the local paper had photographed the winners and asked them questions about themselves, Sister Maria and I had calmed down. “It’s the first time we’ve won anything like this because St Winfred’s is a sixth form college and they usually win because their students are older.

“You’ve got a sixth form too,” I challenged.

“We have a hundred sixth form girls, they have four hundred.”

“Ah, I see your problem.”

“It was a problem but not anymore, even if we never win it again, at least the others will know we exist and can win things, I have high hopes that your two soccer aces will get us noticed there too.”

“I’m not sure that would be my wish.”

“I can see why you might think that, but they’re both girls and that’s all there is about it.” Sister Maria was more confident than I felt. In a quiz, both sexes are equal unless it’s about sport or cars when boys would probably win. In a sporting contest boys would normally win except in something like netball, because they don’t usually play it. But soccer or rugby, tennis, hockey and most other games the boys would have an edge because after about age ten or eleven they start to be bigger, stronger and faster. How much gender surgery and hormones would make is uncertain, but I presume they’d be allowed to compete. However, if Danni does one of her overhead kicks she might be remembered from her previous incarnation, whereas Trish shouldn’t because she didn’t play soccer as a boy. With transgender folk it seems nothing is straightforward from school to getting married. I suppose in time, these things will be sorted.

I collected our pair of heroines who were both very excited. Sister Maria said she’d ask them to come forward in assembly to show the rest of the school tomorrow. My two were very excited, they’d never done that before. I had, but I was dressed as a girl and the experience was anything but enjoyable in front of fifteen hundred boys.

The drive home was dominated by two excited nine year olds who I hoped would fade by bedtime or my evening was going to be rather fraught. “What did you say to the paper?” I asked as we headed back down the motorway.

“Oh, you know,” said Trish casually, “That I used to be a boy, like my mum…”