Easy As Falling In A Like.
by Angharad
part: 360.

After my shower, I felt a little better tempered. It still rankled me that spurious accusations are taken so seriously, just my luck to call the cops 'cos someone is trying to kill me, and I get an ansafone because they're all out chasing wild geese! .

Tom arrived home about half past six, "I spoke with the Dean, who told me you'd been suspended. I played merry hell."

"Why, I thought it was the protocol when a complaint has been made?"

"That is discretionary, especially as the wretched student left anyway, it's hardly as if you'll be able to threaten or intimidate him."

"I didn't the first time. I don't know what was going on in his head, but it sure wasn't rational thought."

"Of course it wasn't, he's a student. What do you think this is, Oxford?"

"I like to believe the degrees we do here are legitimate and as good as anywhere. If I didn't, is there any point in me returning to work, just to make up the numbers and turn out inferior graduates?"

"I'm getting old and cynical and I need a drink. What's for dinner?"

"Shepherd's pie, I used up the lamb from the other night."

"Fine, I think it will taste better with a Cabernet, don't you?"

"Yeah, why not? It's not as if I have to get up to go to work tomorrow, is it?"

"Erm, the outcome of my little Hie'land fling, was to get you reinstated. I pointed out that I am your boss and thus will be the one who hires, fires, suspends, hang, draws and quarters you et cetera."

"Which means?"

"I want you back there tomorrow dealing with more mammal sighting records."

"But one of the students could do that."

"Not with your aplomb."

"Get that wine opened, I'm going to drown my aplomb."

I did too, which wasn't a very clever thing to do. Perhaps, Tom is right, and I'm not very bright, unlike the sunshine which is pouring through the windows and giving me a headache.

My brain was so tender, combing my hair hurt. I dressed simply - simply couldn't be bothered. I should have cycled, but the thought made me feel sick, all that fresh air - urgh!

Tom, who actually imbibed more el vino than I did, seemed unaffected by the aldehydes which form after alcohol is metabolised. In my case, I began to wonder if it metabolised into formaldehyde, which means I should be around for a long time, just very dead. I have jars of deceased Muscardinus avellanarius pickled in formalin or formaldehyde, I also have drawers of nibbled hazel nuts and other food items, all labelled and stored. The most gruesome are some tawny owl pellets with dormice bones in them, or should I say, dormice bones extracted from owl pellets.

For those not in the know, owls swallow their prey whole, so the indigestible bits - fur, bones and so on, get compressed into pellets which the owl throws up. I actually witnessed a tawny owl do that from about fifty metres away and thought I'd marked the spot. I wasted an hour looking for it. Went back the next day too, still didn't find it. What a subject to be thinking about when in the terminal stages of Ethanol overindulgencius.

I had a very light breakfast, two cups of tea and piece of toast, the buttering of which, nearly shattered my sensitive auditory nerves. By the time I'd actually eaten it, the crunching in my own mouth, I thought I'd be deaf forever more. No such luck, the drive to work was awful and to cap it all, some one was hammering and drilling in the lab next door. I tossed a coin at one stage to see which I would do, commit murder or suicide. Then it stopped for an hour and the paracetamol began to work.

Tom wasn't kidding about reports of mammals. Had I felt less fragile, I might have allowed myself to laugh occasionally, but the thought of the noise it would have created meant, at best I snorted now and again.

There were two reports of Orcas, or killer whales to you, yes they do occur around the coast, but in a reservoir? The next best to that was of a bottlenosed dolphin in someone's garden on Portland, they sent a photo. As it was some distance from the sea and would have had to swim up a cliff, I think we can discount that as a hoax. A crocodile in Dumfries - possible, but it's a reptile, so doesn't get included unless we count the dogs and cats it eats.

Oh yes, polar bears - in Norfolk, I suppose they get penguins at bird tables there too. Who are these people? Here we go, the first of the big cat sightings - the beast of Brompton? Unlikely, to say the least. But the armadillo in Nottingham, could be an exotic pet escape. We have armadillos in Portsmouth, they're made by Specialized and I have them on my mountain bike - a type of puncture resistant(bullet proof?) tyre for bikes.

The records were the result of BBC Wildlife Magazine publishing my article on the coming survey. What none of the contributors to the pile of litter I was sifting through, seemed to understand was, we are only counting indigenous species and those which may have arrived by themselves. In the case of mammals,it's rather unlikely unless they are bats or rats. Sadly we don't have too many lions swimming across the Straits of Gibraltar and up the Bay of Biscay, so accounts of them are dubious at best.

I gave up at lunch time and took Pippa to lunch in the university cafeteria, for some reason I was hungry. "Why did Tom give you that stupid job to do?"

"Dunno, maybe he thinks I did try to kill young Sunderland."

"Yeah, but wouldn't you have used a bow and arrow or something more creative."

"I would have fed him to the polar bears in Norfolk," I said with a flourish.

"They don't have polar bears in Norfolk, do they?"

"As far as I know, only in zoos or on Foxes' Glacier mints."

"You'd think they'd have a fox, wouldn't you?" said Pippa.

Lacking the will to live, let alone argue, I nodded my agreement hoping this futile discussion would end. Sadly it didn't.

"So why don't they have a fox not a bear?"

I sighed inwardly, "I think it's about the glacier bit in the name, Glacier mints."

"Oh yeah," she chuckled, "silly me."

I could have agreed with her but didn't, at least not audibly and I hoped the nodding of my head would be seen as a post hangover twitch rather than confirmation.

I felt better for the food, a burger and chips, and the fresh air of the walk there and back. I should have brought the bike, although I suspect I'd be accused of starting World War Three.

Simon emailed, to say he'd be home at the weekend and would bring Stella and the bike with him. A month ago, I'd have treated that as suspiciously as reports of rhinos on the banks of the Thames or crossing the savannas of Surrey.

By mid afternoon, I'd finally finished the trawl of sightings. I came to the conclusion that most of these were sent by either: batty old ladies who knitted things to sell for the RSPCA - which is a fine cause and laudable way to raise money; or school children who regularly see orang utans in Savernake Forest, and wild asses in the New Forest. Even with global warming, I don't think we'll have tropical rainforest in Essex or desert in Hampshire. In the latter case, there is the odd donkey and loads of ponies in the New Forest, so that one is understandable. But the others- most of the observers couldn't tell a dormouse from a doorpost- so, if I was looking to write a book of absurdities, they'd be a good start.

On the way back to Tom's office, I passed our truculent security guard who was talking to a colleague. "Look out, stand to attention, it's Lady Muck." He was obviously talking at me and as obvious as an aside in a Shakespeare play. I walked past, giving him the finger behind my back. Judging by the sniggers I heard from students, it must have been visible.