The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2951 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.
*****

I sent Diane a text and she brought my laptop through to me so I was able to do some work apart from answering queries from exam candidates wanting extra paper and so on. This was Year One Ecology, and the only suspicious character was a lad who’d messed up part of a question and asked for extra paper so he could extract the bits he wanted from the mess. Glancing at his mistakes, it looked as if he’d done a better job the second time around though he’d be pushed to finish the paper.

One of the emails I received was asking if I could help with a dormouse count on the coming Saturday—is the pope a catholic? I replied in the affirmative. I think I’m the only one with the class 2 dormouse licence which enables me to mark, clip or chip dormice, the class 1 simply permits handling for surveying or conservation, such as sexing or weighing. The licences are quite definite in what they will allow but they’re not as complicated as the bat licences which involve quite a bit more. Clipping is cutting off little bits of fur to try and identify mice and while less traumatic than chipping—the insertion through the skin of a small microchip as used in dog and cat identifying—it’s not as accurate as the microchip, which is 100% accurate as long as your scanner is charged. Once the dormouse has been chipped the only trauma is being trapped in a plastic bag while it’s being read—takes seconds and doesn’t harm the animal—though chipping it can.

I’m reminded of a story I heard about someone who’d just chipped an edible dormouse up near Tring and it croaked as they finished—embarrassing to say the least. Glis glis, the edible dormouse is bigger and nastier than our Hazel variety and requires wearing heavy protective gloves to handle them and they’re introduced to the country by way of escaping from Rothschild’s collection near Tring. They’re more squirrel like and a bit of a pest if they get into a house, but they require a licence to handle them separate from the Hazel dormouse one.

While it’s regrettable if any dormouse dies during or after micro-chipping them, the data we can collect about individual animals is greater and much more accurate. So it’s probably worth the risk after all, the greatest weapon we have in protecting species or habitats is data, particularly that used in educating people. Wild life doesn’t have the vote but those we try to educate do. I hope they vote to stay in the EU because quite a bit of protection for people and creatures has originated there and hopefully they’ll drive through the banning of neo-nicontinoids which are wiping out bee populations, which the UK government has been loath to enact by themselves, although even they have suspended some use of them as the evidence mounts.

As the soccer season has practically ended I decided I’d ask Danielle if she’d like to come mousing and possibly invite Livvie and Trish as well—they all three enjoy it. The reward for wading through damp or overgrown woodland, is the chance to handle a truly wild, but extremely cute, animal. They usually think it’s worthwhile. I know I do. Sometimes I think I might have been happier still doing that than running a department.

Licence holders have to submit records of dormice to PTES (People’s Trust for Endangered Species) who coordinate it for Natural England, we also get it because of our survey project.

The morning seemed to pass a little quicker once I saw the invite about the dormouse survey and after collecting the papers, I was soon back on my way to my office and Diane.

“The police phoned while you were invigilating.”

“Oh?”

“Can you call this number to make an appointment to go and see them?”

“Okay,” I sighed.

“What happened—or is it too personal?”

“The school had warned us of some weirdo seen hanging around the place and I’d just dropped the girls off when something made me look again and some bloke had snatched at Trish who stepped away and kicked him in the goolies. By this time I was racing towards him and managed to arrest him until the police arrived.”

“Let’s hope he was the pervert then and not an Offsted inspector.”

“Why would an inspector try to grab her?”

She shrugged, “How would I know?”

“He didn’t say he was at any rate just yelled at me to let him go.”

“Did you?”

“Only to police custody.”

“Better go and ring them, then. I’ll make some tea.”

“Good idea,” well the Rosie lee was. I picked up the slip of paper with the number on, retired to my room and dialled. “Hello, it’s Cathy Cameron, I was asked to call to make an appointment.”

“Regarding what, Ms Cameron?”

“I helped detain a suspect at St Claire’s Convent this morning.”

“Oh, we had you down as Professor Watts.”

“Watts is my maiden name, I still use it for work.”

“And you’re a professor?”

“At the university.”

“Which one?”

I was tempted to say Hogwarts but kept it simple and truthful. I could go anytime that afternoon. I decided I’d go after lunch. Diane appeared with the teas and I told her what had transpired with the police.

While we chatted I texted Trish to see how she was. She said she was fine, so I double checked by calling the headmistress who supported Trish’s opinion. I told Diane I’d be leaving early to make my statement but worked through my lunch to make up for it, hoping not to get too many crumbs in my keyboard.

At two I left for the cop-shop and was parked there ten minutes later despite the heavy traffic. Once they understood why I was there, I was taken to an interview room to wait for someone to take my statement. I hated this building having had some untoward experiences here. It was my hope that some of them may have made the people working here less likely to make similar ones as the damages we received were designed to make the pips squeak. I donated them to charity.

“Ah, Lady Cameron, good to meet you,” said cheery voice emitted from a young woman probably my own age but a bit broader in the beam. The statement was quite straightforward and she typed it up while I waited. I then signed it. “So Trish had escaped by kicking him?”

“She stepped away from his attempt to grab her and kicked him.”

“And you raced in and knocked him down?”

“Yes, I just wanted to stop him grabbing her or another child.”

“Well he won’t for the moment, he’s still in custody as we were waiting for your statement to charge him.”

I almost smirked for a moment when I thought about charging him—wasn’t that pretty well what I did to him?

“Have you taken a statement from Trish?”

“Your daughter?”

“Yes,” duh?

“Yes one of our special officers went to speak with her in the presence of the headmistress.”

“Okay. Right I’d better go and collect her and her sisters.”

“How many has she got?”

“At St Claire’s?” I asked and she nodded. “Three.”

“And none of them saw anything?”

“I don’t know, all I know is what I saw.”

“Of course.”

I left and went to get the girls from school. I still didn’t know who he was or what he was—his reason for being there other than predatory.