The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2653 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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“Hi, Mummy,” said Livvie giving me a huge hug. “I see England won, then.”

“Course,” beamed Trish.

“Danni did one of her specials, then?”

“Two, actually,” corrected Trish.

“Yeah but only one is one Youtube.”

“It’s not is it?”

“Yeah, someone had a camcorder and filmed it, posted it as goal of the century.”

“Oops,” I said when Trish looked round.

Livvie looked accusingly at me. “’Arry Potter, ’ere, mighta ’elped it a little,” said Trish smirking.

“I swear I didn’t, I was just trying to heal her leg after that bloody woman clattered her again.”

The two siblings looked at each other and roared with laughter. I glared at them. “It’s not on Youtube, is it—you pair of scunners.”

“It is, it swerves all over the place, goalkeeper musta been asleep.”

“Oh poo.” I blushed and they started to giggle only stopping when Daddy appeared.

“Och, whaur’s thae Hammer o’ thae Scots?”

“What, Danni?”

“Aye, thae scunner. I’ll skelp her lug when I see her.”

“Why?” said Trish and Livvie rather louder than they needed.

“Because she beat ma team on her ain.”

“I think there were some others playing too, Gramps,” asserted Trish.

“Especially one large Scotswoman who fouled her every time she got the ball,” I snapped.

“Aye, a’richt, she wis fu’ o’ porridge, but yon lassie got her ain back.”

“Yeah, eat this porridge stuffer,” said Trish before my glower stopped the smirk.

“How did she do those kicks, swervin’ a’ o’er thae place?”

“She practices all the time, Gramps, said Livvie.

“It’s to do with variable spin, Gramps—like they do in tennis...” Trish then gave her grandfather a lesson in applied physics all of which I suspected he knew anyway. Livvie took my hand and led me to her computer in the dining room.

“Here, watch this, Mummy,” she said clicking on the Youtube video. It was an entirely different perspective to the side of the stand we were in and when Danielle struck the ball with the side of her foot, it curved one way and then the other at sufficient speed and height to make it almost impossible to intercept—David Beckham could not have done any better—before dropping into the goal.

We watched it two or three times and I was relieved to see there was no blue light visible, least not to me. I asked Livvie and she said she couldn’t see any either. Hopefully that meant all the magic was in Danielle’s skilful kick rather than my sending her the energy.

It was an hour later that Simon brought home our own international heroine. I was talking with David who’d done us a huge cottage pie—would that constitute a mansion pie?—when Simon’s car drove up. They walked in—they had to the door into the kitchen is too narrow for a car—and were engulfed by a flurry of girls who wanted to hug our goal scorer. Even Julie and Phoebe hugged her and they’re not that interested in sport unless in involves nice young male bums in tight shorts, can’t understand why they don’t like cycling for that reason alone, shorts don’t come much tighter than cyclist’s ones.

Over dinner we had umpteen reports of the match and then had to watch the goals on Livvie’s laptop. Julie was suitably impressed but ignored Trish trying to explain the swerve in terms of physics. “I don’t need to know the ins and outs of a cat’s backside. As long as Danielle knows what she’s doing and they go in the net, who cares what bloody Einstein thinks. It’s not as if he was playing in bloody goal is it?”

“I was only trying to explain how it happens, the difference between centrifugal and centripetal forces in gyroscopic...”

“Yeah, who cares as long as Gareth Bale here, knocks ’em in.”

“Gareth Bale is a man, Danielle is a girl and plays for a women’s team, so there.”

“I think I know Danielle is a girl, I cut her hair and tinted her eyelashes.”

Trish marched off to brush off her ego followed quickly by Livvie. Neither were impressed by the dismissal of their more analytical approach to everything. In everyday terms, intellectually they are very bright, possibly the only one in their league is Daddy but he either doesn’t have the skills or desire to talk seriously to either. His grasp of physics and maths is far deeper than mine, I win out on history and religion, especially Christian dogma plus assorted other bits; though I’m almost ashamed to say I use it mostly in a destructive way—my little revenge on the Sunday school teachers and my parents for shoving it down my neck.

I left the conquering heroine and her acolytes and went in search of the two self excluders, hoping they weren’t plotting revenge of some sort. They might be very clever but only have a nine year old’s appreciation of consequences—a bit like the British electorate.

I found them up in their bedroom lying on their beds with Bramble. They were talking, the girls, that is. If the cat was as well, I was unaware of it, but nothing would surprise me with the capabilities of cats, the natural Machiavellis of the world.

I let them know I was there and went into to sit with them. Trish complained that she was only trying to explain the physics involved. I told I knew what she was trying to do but she had to appreciate that not everyone needs to know how things work, possibly because they don’t have the education to understand it or the interest.

“But they should.”

“Why should they? I have a diesel car, I’m trained to drive it but I have no idea what goes on under the bonnet.”

“What if it breaks down?”

“I call the garage or the RAC, they can fix it.”

“But understanding it would mean you could diagnose and repair minor faults.”

“For most cars you need a special computer to do that. I do some of my own repairs with the bikes, the car can go to the garage to be serviced or fixed. I have better things to do. I mean if I wanted to build a new house or the extension on this one, we employed an architect who not only understood what was possible regarding the structure but also how the law worked. It wouldn’t be feasible to do all that myself plus supervise the builders. Patrick the architect saw to all of that and we have a nice home to live in because of his help.”

“Was he the architect?” asked Livvie.

“Yes, Mr Patrick Fuller from the Yeoman and Sidcott practice.”

“We could have done the drawings with a computer, once you got the measurements.”

“You have to know what the law says regarding the measurements. You can only extend by a certain percentage of the floor space or something like that.”

“Should find that on the internet,” said Trish almost dismissively.

“I just told you I had better things to do.”

“Like what?” she challenged.

“That isn’t any of your business, but I’ll have you know despite your rudeness, being a mother to you lot was one of them. Next time you need me for something, I might just be designing an extension for my laboratories. Good night.”

I got up in a huff and walked out. “Now look what you’ve gone an’ done,” said Livvie’s voice as I went down the stairs. I didn’t hear the reply but I doubt it was very happy.