The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2831 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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James arrived the following day. I ordered piles of stuff on the click and collect basis, so theoretically I only had to queue not fight my way through crowds as well in choosing various presents. He had one of his friends check over all the cars, none had been interfered with in any way nor were they carrying trackers.

We’d had a bit of worry with the story being that of, ‘Woman helps police prevent murder on the Enfield Express.’ Fortunately the police didn’t give my identity, just saying that a public spirited member of the public had foreseen what was going to happen and intervened to save the man’s life. The perpetrator was arrested by a Special Branch officer moments after the attack.

Otherwise the story was so ill reported with all sorts of inaccuracies it was verging on farcical and thankfully the film clip from somebody’s iPhone was rather blurry in the action, so my face wasn’t seen clearly. I suppose if the local press had thought about it they might have put two and two together but then I suspect their maths is worse than mine.

I took Danielle with me to collect the shopping. James was watching at home and I half asked who was going to protect him from Amanda? The rest of them just laughed. It was obviously going to be the cabaret, though neither of them knew it.

Most of the shopping was in John Lewis, who are so helpful. I’d managed to park fairly close and they had someone help me carry the presents to the car, there were just too many for Danni and I to cope with on our own. I’d paid a little extra to have everything gift wrapped, so apart from the list of stuff I’d printed off from my computer, none of them would know what I’d bought. Mind you the bill probably paid for most of their staff wages for the week.

Next, we did the same in Marks and Spencer plus a few things from their food hall and then proceeded to House of Fraser. Danielle was very good and amazingly uncomplaining, so when she admired some fancy tights I bought them for her. I must admit I loathe the things as my feet get cold and the rest of me stews. If you wear them with boots you need something to stop them ending up round your knees and your crotch gets even hotter and sweatier. I prefer longer skirts with boots and just socks, my feet stay warm and my legs are comfortable as is the bit where they bifurcate.

Waitrose was crazy, rephrase that, Waitrose was filled with shoppers who were crazy. I only needed a few things but fighting my way round the shop and then to the checkout made me wonder if it was all worth it. Danielle was brilliant as we split up and she did one side and she did the other, we met at the checkout and it took us far less time than it would have done had we been together. It still took too long and at this stage I was buying food for tomorrow not Christmas. It was Wednesday, tomorrow, Christmas eve, I’d be doing that—the bits we needed that we hadn’t ordered on line.

I left Danielle to unload the car of presents while I took the food into the kitchen, David switched on the kettle as I dumped the food on the worktop. Then it was back to help Danni finish with the presents which we secreted around the Christmas tree. As we were doing this I asked if she remembered her first Christmas with us at this house.

“Cor, was I really a boy back then? Had to be my best Christmas ever well until this one.”

“D’you wish you were still a boy?”

“Sometimes, but gotta make the best of things, so bein’ a vixen ain’t too bad.”

I shook my head, she really was turning into quite a stunner, mind you all of my girls were, even those who didn’t necessarily start off as one. People kept saying they could see the resemblance whenever I was out with one or more of them—apart from the usual numbers of arms, legs and heads, we looked nothing like each other—did we?

Danni and I were waiting at the counter in John Lewis, well she’d gone to look at something and I was talking to the assistant at the counter. I explained that my daughter would help me carry it. She looked up as Danni came towards us and said, “Here she is, I can see the family resemblance.”

I have red/blonde hair with various highlights, Danni has ash blonde hair with pink streaks in it. I had on very little makeup, she looked as if she was going clubbing with enough paint on her face to do a full size portrait. Do people just say these things or was she just searching for a bored looking teenage girl?

Back in the kitchen and David was killing himself laughing telling us about Amanda practically throwing herself at James. “Well he is pretty good lookin’,” observed my foxy daughter. That set David off again and he nearly choked on his tea. I glowered at Danielle who asked, “What’d I do?”

Trish was helping Sammi with the computers, Hannah and Livvie were playing tennis on the Wii and Meems was supervising the little ones who were all playing with their dolls. After my cuppa I went to check the list of clothing Julie and Phoebe were taking away with them. It took me an hour but I managed to find it all and it was all clean and ironed; they only had to pack it. I also left them two hundred euros each as their Christmas presents. Simon had got it for me through the bank. Tomorrow, as soon as they closed the shop they were off on holiday. I don’t especially like snow but I think I might have liked skiing, so I was perhaps a little envious of them.

James was apparently looking for me. The bedroom would have been private but hardly the place for us to talk, so we went down to my study where I closed the door, we wouldn’t be disturbed.

“It’s beginning to look as if Brown was the target not you.”

After a huge sigh of relief, I asked how he knew. “His team have been tracking this outfit for a couple of years and usually manage to thwart anything major they do. I reckon they thought he caused the attack to go wrong last week and decided to kill him.”

“Nice friends he has.”

“You should see his enemies.”

“I think I’ll pass on that.”

“Wise move.”

“How is he?”

“He’s up at the embassy waiting to go home for Christmas.”

“But he so nearly died.”

“Nah, not with the queen of self raising bodies around.”

“Self raising bodies?”

“Yeah it’s like flour only more miraculous.”

“So is the worry over?”

“For here, I think so. For everywhere else, it’s high alert as the terrorists play games with the security services.”

“What about this team of killers lose in this country?”

“Are they?”

“They’ve been caught?” I said almost gleefully.

“Uh not quite.”

“What d’you mean?”

“Shall we say they’ve been intercepted.”

“Killed you mean?”

He shrugged, “If it works don’t knock it.”