The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3205 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 Angharad

It felt rather quiet without Trish in the house. Cambridge isn’t that far away but it felt like it was a different continent. I wished I’d gone now, I mean how will she cope without her mum there? I would find out an hour or so later.

We’d just finished dinner and I was still on the post-prandial mellowness that follows a much enjoyed meal, when the white tornado swept in. I was sure she’d grown since she left home that morning. “Mummy, it was brill, they gave me this exam paper to do and I finished it in half an hour—well the bits I could do. I was supposed to take two hours but I wanted to look around and ask lots of questions.”

“Sounds like you enjoyed yourself, sweetheart.”

“Oh yes, Mummy, it was great, what’s for dinner, I’m starvin’?”

I fed our two intrepid travellers and as soon as she’d eaten, she went off to show the others her pictures of Cambridge, a very beautiful city. I had Simon alone. “What did they think of her?”

“They want her, but at twelve she’s just a little too young. They’ll take her in October next year to read physics and maths. They’ll also send her some problems to solve each week via the internet—she showed them she was capable of using the net to do them and she’s looking forward to seeing them.”

“How did she do in her exam paper?”

“There were six questions, I couldn’t even understand them let alone answer them. She answered five in half an hour and got them right, the other one was a something she’d never seen before, the guy she saw was very impressed but he said she was just too young to attend a university designed for students six or seven years older than she is.”

“So how are we going to work this, neither of us can babysit her and the university can’t, she’s very naïve trusting and thus very vulnerable. She’ll have very little social life because she’s so young, so perhaps we’d be better waiting for a couple of years.”

“They want her.”

“You mean they don’t want Oxford to get her—that would be more manageable but still beyond easy.”

“Perhaps—look, have we the right to prevent her reaching her full potential?”

“We have an obligation to protect her until she’s able to do it herself and that’s years away. It would only take one paedophile...”

“The university would have some obligation surely?”

“To educate her, the rest would be up us, as her parents. Why couldn’t she have been an ordinary kid?”

“You promised her to get her into any university at which she wanted to study.”

“I know, but little did I think that would be at age thirteen. We can’t let her go, it’s too dangerous.”

“You can tell her then.”

“Couldn’t we employ someone like a nanny, you know rent a house for them both, she could take her to college and collect her in the afternoon.”

“It would need to be someone very trustworthy who was prepared to become very bored most of the time. In fact we’d probably need a team of people who spent a couple of weeks with her and then went off for a rest.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“It probably would be—but she’s so young.”

“I thought you’d be pleased.”

“I am on one level but I keep seeing the pit fall and practicalities.”

“I know, I just thought it would eb such an achievement.”

“Si, it would be but there are as many dangers as there are advantages.”

“You’re right, we’ll have to tell her no.”

“Tell me what? Are you saying I can’t go to Cambridge?”

“We have some things to sort out before we can say yes,” I said feeling myself glowing with embarrassment.

“Well you’d better do it soon, because I’m going to Cambridge whether you like it or not.”

“Not with that attitude you’re not. Remember, you still need parental consent and I’m not prepared to give that unless I know you’re safe there.”

“It’s university, Mummy, like the one you run only better. You go to work every day without a body guard.”

“I’m a fully grown woman, Trish, you are still a child, like it or not. I can take care of myself.”

“For god’s sake, I’ll be thirteen going on fourteen by then—practically an adult.”

“Before I am prepared to say yes I need to know you are completely safe.”

“Oh for god’s sake—you’re only jealous because I’m cleverer than you.” With that she stormed out of the room and ran up the stairs.

“I’ve had a very trying day, a full blown Trish tantrum is not helping my headache.”

“They were very keen to have her, the guy said she was the brightest one he’d seen for a decade.”

“It’s not her cleverness that’s in dispute, it’s her age and maturity.”

“I know, I know. Where are you going?”

“To get an aspirin then to try and talk her genius ship into a state of calmness in case she decides to murder us in our beds so she can become an orphan to stop us stopping her from what she wants to do.”

He roared with laughter.

“I wasn’t joking.”

“Oh.”

After taking an aspirin and a drink of water I went upstairs and heard Trish telling the others that she had a bit of time to figure out how to get to Cambridge by herself.

“But you’d have to find somewhere to live,” cautioned Livvie.

“That costs money,” said Hannah.

“I think you-ah being siwwy not wistening to Mummy and Daddy.” It was interesting how Mima was getting round part of her speech impediment.

“What’s the point of listening to them, I’m cleverer than both of them put together.”

“Why does everybody call me bighead?” trilled Livvie.

“You’re only jealous, just like them,” Trish hurled at her sister before charging out of the bedroom and straight into me. She frowned at me and spat, “You’re always in my way,” before running down the stairs. For the first time in my life I was beginning to think I might have been better off not adopting them. Then came to my senses and went down stairs to look for my affronted offspring.

When I did find her she was sitting talking to Daddy, mine not hers. They were in deep conversation, I slipped back out of the room and went to the kitchen and filled the kettle. Simon came along soon afterwards and we both had a cup of tea.

Half an hour later Trish came up to us and apologised. We hugged and she said Gramps had helped her see things in a new perspective and I wasn’t to worry, she wouldn’t leave me until I was ready. She went off to bed and I was left speechless.

“Just what did you tell her?” I asked Daddy as he came through the kitchen on his way to his study.

“Och, naething, I jest telt her ye wasnae ready to cope on yer ain withoot her support f’ a few more years yet.”