The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2499 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

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I sat paralysed in my study. I was glad Simon wasn’t there, Danni or is it Danny, would have had such a dressing down, she’d have had no skin left. I looked at the time—soccer training. I ran upstairs, Danni was lying on her bed curled up in a foetal position. I wasn’t sure what to do. Risking more opprobrium, I sat beside her on the bed. If she felt as tired as I did, the last thing she’d want to do was play football.

“Sweetheart,” I said stroking her shoulder, “You need to get ready for soccer training.”

“I’m not going.”

“Would you like to phone them then and tell them.”

“No.”

“You could explain that you were really a boy and that your adoptive mother had screwed you up so much you thought you were a girl. Perhaps they could transfer you to the boy’s team? Though you’d have to be careful in the showers.”

“I’m sorry, Mummy.”

“Sorry for what?” The list was longer than usual.

“For saying you’d messed me up, you didn’t. I did that myself.”

“I think Pia or Peter played a significant part in that, don’t you?”

“An’ those French blokes who messed with us.”

“Life is rarely simple or straightforward, we have memories and experiences and sometimes they’re triggered or misremembered and we project the whole mess onto something which may or may not be related. The problem is we remember the mess rather than the facts and it grows more powerful than it really was. This is what I believe they say happens with phobias.”

“I don’t think I understand what you’re saying, Mummy.”

“I wonder if I can put it more simply—um...” I desperately tried to think of an example. “When I was in school...”

“Was that a girls’ school like mine?”

“No such luck, I was in a boys’ school, which you already know.”

“Sorry, I’d forgotten.”

“Okay, I told you that I had long girlish hair which I grew because...”

“You were a girl.”

“Partly, but also because it annoyed my dad and the headmaster.”

“Was that the guy I was gonna hit at the funeral?”

“Mr Whitehead’s, yes it was. I’d forgotten all about that.”

“I hadn’t—it’s not every day you get to threaten a teacher.”

“I hope not.”

She chuckled quietly, “Old Whitehead was okay, really.”

“He was a very good man.”

“’Cos he left you that old Jag?”

“No, he tried to help me without me knowing it, without the others knowing it.”

“Like Professor Snape in the last Harry Potter film? He was secretly on Harry’s side and Voldemort killed him.” Obviously the film or book had had more effect on her than it did me.

“Yes, in a way but not quite so dramatically.” Then I thought about the way Mr Whitehead was stabbed by the thug in front of Danny and I. How, he’d pushed us to safety or tried to. I also reflected how Danny, had driven my car at the thug who was trying to kill me. That had taken some courage. I thought I’d remind her of that.

“Do you remember that afternoon when he died, those two scumbags who tried to kill me as well?”

“Yeah, scumbag is about right for them, they were real bags of scum.”

“D’you remember who saved me from being stabbed that afternoon?”

“Mr Whitehead.”

“Mr Whitehead was already mortally wounded by then, remember I put one of them down and the other came at me with the knife. Do you remember who saved me?”

“The car did, didn’t it?”

“Only because some very plucky child of mine drove it into him.”

“Oh,” I’m sure she blushed.

“I owe you my life, young lady.”

“Nah, you’d have taken him out.”

“I don’t think I would have been able to. No, you saved my life. Thank you.”

She sat up on the bed, streaks of mascara or eyeliner down her cheeks. “That’s okay, Mummy, glad I could help.”

I hugged her, “You silly goose,” I said squeezing her tightly to me.

“You took me an’ Billie in when no one else was interested. You showed us love. No one had ever given me a bike for Christmas before. If we’d gone to that home in Wantage, I dunno what woulda happened, ’specially if Billie had like died.”

“That would have happened at some point I’m afraid.”

“An’ she’d have had to stay as a boy, she’da been so unhappy.”

I didn’t know if this was true or not, the girls had seen Billie since she’d died and they’d said her days as a girl with me were the happiest of her life. I wanted to believe it, I really did.

“As unhappy as you if you have to stay as a girl?”

“Yeah, I’m so unhappy.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah, I wanna be your daughter but I’m like your adopted son.”

“What?”

She shrugged.

“It wasn’t you who messed me up, it was me. I was jealous of the girls, they seemed to be loved more than I was. Part of me liked the idea of sexy clothes and wearing makeup.”

“Sexy clothes? I don’t have any.”

“Julie does.”

“You fancied her when you first came here, didn’t you?”

“I dunno if I actually fancied her or wanted to wear her clothes an’ her makeup, paint my nails an’ wear high heels. She was sex on legs an’ I wanted to be wanted like she was.”

“Oh, Danni, “ I said hugging her tight again, tears were streaming down my face. “Why couldn’t I see that?”

“’Cos I like hid it. I did tell Billie that if I were a girl I’d wanna look like Julie. I still would.”

“Have you told Stephanie how you felt, about looking like Julie?”

“Don’t think so, why?”

“You must.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know if I’ve compounded a huge mistake.”

“What?”

“I wonder if encouraging you to cross dress with Peter was a great mistake compounded when I agreed they should do a vaginoplasy.”

“Wasn’t much else they could do, was there?”

“We all assumed it was for the better, now I see it was a mistake. I’ll try and find a surgeon to reconstruct as much as he or she can. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“What for? I wanna be your daughter, it’s okay, it was only a bit of skin anyway, I can live without it—I mean you do, so I can too.”

Now I felt really confused. “Hang on, you just told me you didn’t want to be a girl now you’re saying you do?”

“Well, a girl can change her mind, can’t she—besides, as a girl I can borrow Julie’s clothes, can’t do that as a boy.”

“You could have done, but you’d have needed some sort of breast prosthesis.”

“Ugh no, they’ve gotta be my boobs, like Julie.”

I looked at this child, was she confused or was it me? Did she really want to be female or was she an unfortunate cross dresser who’d been mutilated by her friend and the surgeons? I think I was further away from knowing the answer than I was yesterday.