The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2888 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad

---

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.
*****

We spent an hour with the judge in chambers. He looked at me smiled and said, “I stopped smoking.”

“I’m glad,” I replied. I also knew he’d make a full recovery and I was glad, he was a good man trying to do a difficult job.

“So you, young lady, what would you like me to do?” Mr Kenyon asked Hannah.

She was so nervous she couldn’t speak for a moment. “I want to stay with Lady Cameron, I want her to be my mummy and I want Trish and Livvie and Mima to be my sisters.”

“Might I ask why you’d prefer to live with Lady Cameron than your birth mother?”

“She needs a mother herself, she’s too busy with her men to worry about me. I’m just in the way, I stop her having fun.”

The judge looked at Social Services. “Our investigations show that the birth mother probably isn’t ideally suited to look after Hannah owing to her lifestyle choices which we consider somewhat hedonist and we have no objections in Hannah remaining with Lady Cameron if she so chooses. If she chooses to leave the Cameron’s house, we would have to find alternative accommodation for her.

“And what does Hannah say to that?” asked Kenyon.

“I wanna stay with Mummy, I mean Lady Cameron.”

“You call her Mummy?” he asked her.

“Yeah, all the others do an’ I don’t wanna feel left out an’ she’s more of a mother to me than the other one ever was. She’s only trying to make trouble so she can ask for money to go away, she don’t really want me back, I get in the way of her tricks.”

Kenyon looked at me. “You’re happy to continue fostering Hannah?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“In which case I think you’d better continue until either the courts or the child herself tells you otherwise. I shall authorise an indefinite foster order.”

“Might I ask a question?”

“Of course, Lady Cameron.”

“As all my other children have been adopted, would this foster order impede adoption for her if she so wished it?”

Kenyon looked at the social worker, “We don’t usually recommend adoption by foster carers but this seems to be a pattern in the Cameron household, so although unusual we would not oppose it if Hannah wanted it as well.”

“What?” Hannah yelled, “you’re gonna adopt me?”

“Only if you wanted us to.”

“Oh yeah. Can she do that Mr Judge?”

“I see no reason why that couldn’t happen after the usual protocols are followed, perhaps this good lady could expedite them for you,” he nodded towards the social worker.

“I’ll speak to my superiors and the adoption team.”

“Good. I shall write to you all confirming my judgement on this and the possible long term arrangements for this young lady.”

He stood up and we were ushered form his chambers.

I shook hands with the social worker. “On behalf of Hannah and my other daughters, thank you.”

“I hear one of them outmanoeuvred a team from the department once before.”

I smiled, “Yes, but we only bring her in for difficult cases these days.”

“You really gonna adopt me, Mummy?”

“That’s the plan. You’ll need to be patient, these things sometimes take time.”

“Wooo oooh, I’m gonna be a Cameron.”

“Only if you want to.”

“I do. Then I’ll be as good as anyone.”

I paused in starting the car. “Hannah, you don’t need to be anyone but yourself and you’re as good as anyone already.”

“Only ’cos you helped me—she’da just let me rot, but now I can be somebody, like Trish and Livvie—like you.”

“Like me? I’m just an ordinary woman, Hannah.”

“No you’re not, you’re a professor an’ you’re rich an’ you’re an angel.”

“I’m no angel, Hannah.”

“Trish an’ Livvie say you are—seen your wings an’ all. Can I see them one day?”

I shall be having words with my middle order daughters before the night is out. “I think they were just pulling your leg, Hannah.”

“Oh, it didn’t seem like it.”

“Anyway, let’s go home and tell everyone the good news.”

“She’s not gonna like it, is she?”

“Who?”

“Her—my old mother.”

“I don’t know but I doubt it. Sometimes we don’t appreciate the value of people until we lose them.”

“She was going to ask you for money for me.”

“You can’t buy and sell children,” I was horrified.

“I heard her talkin’ with one of her men, they thought I was asleep—but I wasn’t an’ I overheard it. She doesn’t love me, she only loves herself.”

“We love you, sweetheart, all of us.” I gave her a hug and drove home. Despite my efforts to reassure her she cried most of the way home and if I’m honest, I wanted to cry with her. It seems disgraceful that someone as young as her should feel so let down by her natural mother. I don’t claim to be good but I have to be better than Ingrid has been for this poor child.

She’d just about recovered her composure by the time we got home and we made through the reception committee and while I distracted them, Hannah dashed upstairs to change and wash her face.

After a cuppa, which I sorely needed, I spoke with Trish. “Why did you tell Hannah about seeing me with wings?”

“You told me to always tell the truth, Mummy.”

Hoist by my own petard yet again. “If I said you were mistaken and only thought you’d seen them...”

“You’d be technically incorrect—besides I got it on my phone.”

“You what? You haven’t have you?”

She giggled and said, “’Course not but it made you think, an’ proved my case.”

I’m going to have to watch this child. She scampered off, adding, “Don’t worry, no one here will tell anyone outside the family—an’ they all know anyway.”

I sat down at my desk. I had been out thought by a ten year old, albeit an exceptional one. What is she going to be like in five years time—a total nightmare. I was totally absorbed in my thoughts when a tap on the door brought me back to the rest of the world.

“Some post for you, Mummy. Is Han okay?” Danielle had posed the question.

“I think so.”

“Oh good—oh the others are having a council of war or coven meeting upstairs.”

“About what?”

“Oh I think Hannah was saying what happened in the court.”

“Right, okay, flower, thanks.”

I opened the large brown envelope and shook out the dozen or more pages of the application form for Bristol University. Did I really want the top job there? I didn’t know anymore.

The phone rang and I answered it, it was Diane asking how we’d got on. While I was telling her Daddy came in looking for the stapler—he meant my stapler, his died some years ago. “Whit’s this?” he said picking up the application form and at which point I began to wish I had the power of invisibility.