Easy As Calling For A Mate.
by Angharad
part:368

The next several days were spent partly sleeping, having the odd test and pill or receiving visitors. Apart from Simon, Stella and Tom, I had one or two from uni come in to say hello, including Pippa and Neal, the latter bringing me in a framed photo of Spike for me to keep on my locker.

This of course drew oohs and aahs from the various nurses whenever they saw it. “Is that your hamster?” asked Trish.

“No it’s my dormouse.”

“A dormouse? Is that a wild animal?”

“Only if you try to touch her babies, then she goes wild.” I smirked as that remarked passed clean over Trish’s head. “She is captive bred but she comes from wild stock, which we’ve been trying to supplement by breeding them and releasing them into the wild.”

“Do you actually breed them then?”

“I set up the programme, so yes I’m involved in it.”

“I've got a vague memory of a clip on u-tube of someone juggling a dormouse and it ends up down her jumper. It was quite funny.”

“Oh really,” I said blushing, “I’ll have to keep a look out for that one.”

“Yeah, I’ll have to have another look at it sometime.”

“They get thousands of clips every day, so there’s probably better ones by now.”

“That was a classic I think, very popular at the time. Come to think of it, she looked a bit like you, Cathy.”

“Who me? Do I look like a dormouse juggler? I can’t even catch a ball.”

“Anyway, I’m off to lunch, see you in an hour.” She left and I sighed with relief, I have a horrible feeling, they’ll be playing that clip at my funeral.

I ate my lunch, a rather uninspiring cottage pie. I could tell it was cottage pie because of the thatched roof. The tea was okay and I had a cake with it, so seeing as I wasn’t moving around, I didn’t need too much food.

I glanced down at my legs swathed in the rather ugly greeny-blue elastic stockings they make everyone wear. I suppose they’d go with a pair of navy blue or bottle green bloomers they used to make schoolgirls wear. But hardly with the pink nightdress I was wearing.

I was indulging in my postprandial snooze when I became aware of someone watching me. I opened an eye and Trish was stood looking at me and at my picture of Spike.

“This is the dormouse on the u-tube thing, isn’t it?”

“Is it? I never know what the little bugger’s up to.” I tried to laugh it off.

“And this is you, isn’t it?” She had printed off a picture of me with a look of horror on my face with Spike’s tail poking out of my jumper. “It said it was filmed at Portsmouth Uni. So that’s your lot isn’t it?”

I knew when I’d been rumbled. “Okay, it’s me, so what?”

“Can you sign my picture, it’s been hit on over ten million times.”

“Haven’t people got anything better to do?”

“It is so funny.”

“It wasn’t at the time, she peed while she was down there, she was so frightened.”

Instead of pity I got a raucous laugh out of the nurse. “That is just, like, so funny. Wait till I tell all the girls we have the dormouse juggler in here.”

“Aw come on, Trish, give me a break.”

She took the picture I’d signed and left, laughing as she went.

The following week, as my body began to heal itself and the machines were removed one by one, they began to talk about moving me to an ordinary ward.

Neal came in to see me again with more pictures of my dormice. Trish happened to be on duty and came to see them as well.

“Have you seen the clip of her with Spike on the internet?” she asked Neal.

“Erm, have I, Cathy?”

“Seeing as you and Dan were responsible for posting it, I suppose I’d be inclined to say yes, if I were you.”

“I guess that gives you your answer then,” he said to Trish.

“Are all these your babies?” Trish asked while looking through the photos.

“They are, except their Granny isn’t there to look after them.” Neal gave me a wink as he spoke.

“Why, what happened to her?” asked a bemused Trish.

“She’s in here.”

Trish looked at him for a moment, then began to laugh. “Hee hee, Granny Cathy, hee hee.”

“It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it,” I said in my lousy John Wayne impression.

“If that was Jimmy Stewart, it was, waal it seemed dreadful,” said Neal in a passable copy of the actor’s voice.

“It was John Wayne, pilgrim,” I replied in my unimproved imitation of the movie star.

“Hey, I didn’t know you did impressions of Reece Witherspoon,” said Trish, laughing.

“I don’t, y’all.” My reply only damned me further as unable to do accents, especially American ones, but it gave Trish and Neal a chance to fall about laughing.

Neal is a nice looking bloke and Trish is a very pretty, blue eyed blonde and I was quite sure some chemistry was happening between them. It was certainly more interesting to me than talking about that film clip.

“So does Cathy know much about dormice, then?”

“No,” I said loudly.

“She is the foremost expert on them in this country. The government consults her, and she gets enquiries from abroad. She knows more than anyone else does.” Neal beamed and I blushed as he told Trish my secrets.

“I’ve never ever seen one and I have two experts here, wow.”

“Would you like to see them?” asked Neal, he smiled at me and I inwardly groaned.

“Oh yeah, wouldn’t I just,” said Trish with enthusiasm.

“I suppose we ought to seek the agreement of their Granny, don’t you?” Neal, said to placate me; giving me a silly grin.

“Just be careful with Spike while she has her babies with her.” I cautioned him, “You remember what happened last time.”

“I do.” He looked at his finger.

“What happened?” asked Trish.

“He discovered that some dormeece are partly carnivorous,” I said smirking.

“She tried to eat my finger,” he said holding the injured digit aloft.

“Aw,” said Trish, “let me kiss it better for you.”

Neal smiled and blushed. He left a little while later with Trish escorting him to the door as they set up a date.

Young love, I thought to myself, which was ridiculous as I was about the same age as both of them, maybe a year older than Trish.

“So when are they going to move me to an ordinary ward?” I asked our love sick nurse.

“Probably not for a day or two,” she replied smirking