The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3319 by Angharad Copyright© 2021 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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Merry Christmas to all my readers.

Debbie Matthews met me at the dormouse laboratory, "Any chance of another sewing lesson, sometime?"

"I suppose, what are you doing on Friday?" I said off the top of my head.

"Nothing as far as I know, that would be great."

"Could you do me a favour?" I asked blushing.

"If I can, Cathy, you've done me enough.

I regarded my companion, she'd settled down and become a very lovely young woman who'd been living with John, one of my technicians, for the best part of the year. They were still living in the house they rented from me, which was actually Cate's original home, although she'd only been there a matter of weeks before her mother died, taking her life after her husband and daughter were killed in a car crash. The coroner said suicide, I believed it was a broken heart that killed her and if you recall, she left me a note asking me to take care of Cate for her, a baby girl she had named after me.

"What would you like me to do?" she asked bringing me back from my rather sad memory of when Trish and I found her, Maria Drummond, that is. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, just remembering something a bit sad."

"What did you want me to do?"

"I want you to tutor a young woman so she can pass the first year written paper."

"But that's in three months," she gasped.

"Yes, she has A-level biology so has the wherewithal to pass it, just needs a few tutorials to refresh her and work through a couple of past papers."

"How many tutorials are we talking about?"

"Three or four and no more than ten say," I said smirking.

"Ten, that's one a week."

"What a good idea, she'd pass with flying colours with ten."

"Okay, who is she and why the fuss?"

"She's a young woman who I have offered a place to if she can pass this exam."

"Okay, I'll do it, I owe you loads already, as my surrogate mother cum boss."

"I'll pay you thirty pounds per tutorial."

"Why? I'll do them for nothing, for you, you know that."

"Exactly, you're not doing them for me, you're doing them for Sarah, that's the young woman who's going to be joining my course when she passes the exam after your coaching."

"Why is she special?"

"Once you meet her you'll understand why."

"When will that happen?"

"Come to dinner on Friday and meet her."

"Why aren't you coaching her?"

"She needs to be involved with someone other than me and I won't be marking her paper either."

"Okay, I'll invite her to dinner and also to stay for the sewing bee if she wishes to."

"Right, okay. Can I bring John?"

"Better not this time."

"Fine I'll tell him I'm coming sewing with you so he can go and see his mum. He'll be quite happy with that."

We chatted for a bit longer including dealing with a matter John had raised. I was glad he wasn't in the lab, but then remembered he was working with another lecturer this morning. "Is that all you wanted?" she asked me.

"Yes, I think so." She left a couple of minutes later, she did much of the first-year biology and especially those who hadn't done very much before coming to us, so she'd be ideal for coaching Sarah. She was also developing as a good teacher and that was the reason why I wanted her to do it, besides, I knew she could do with the extra cash as her car was in dock again. I did offer to loan her a bicycle but she just laughed at me. John cycled to work but she wouldn't be seen dead on a bike.

Walking back to my office prior to lunching with Daddy, I had a thought. On Friday, there would almost enough transwomen to form a society. There'd be me, Trish, Danni, Sarah, Debbie and possibly Sammi as well. If I let Danielle invite Cindy too, that would be seven plus David, though none of the non-family members would be aware that David was a transman.

Talk about cluster effect, it's almost off the scale. Oh well, tough. I could invite Julie as well, but she seems happy in her own place these days and I only see her about once a week, when she calls by or rings if she's busy. Danni sometimes goes to see her and Phoebe because they have quite a strong bond as sisters and she wouldn't let anyone else near her hair. Mind you, neither would I these days. She still does Debbie's as well, so I've helped to bring her in a bit of clientele as well.

Diane was busy looking at something that Nikki had typed and shaking her head. "Why did you say yes to her coming here?" I asked her, Diane that is.

"They were going to sack her and I thought that no one could be as useless as they said she was. She isn't..."

"I know, she's worse, but she is cheap," I said smirking, "I'm sure you'll eventually knock her into shape."

"I wish," she said, pretending to tear out her hair.

"Don't do that, you'll get dandruff on the carpet," I said quietly as I ran into my office before she could process what I'd said.

It appeared Nikki had been sent to get a pint of milk from the cafeteria, we'd run out mainly because she'd knocked it off the work top as Diane was making some teas. Apparently, she came back with the wrong type of milk, and this was now the third attempt to get a pint of semi-skimmed milk. At times I wondered if she had some sort of learning difficulty, but not according to personnel, she was just thick and we were her last chance before they sacked her.

I mentioned it to Stephanie who suggested from the symptoms I gave her that she could be ADHD or even mildly autistic and that her opinion was that she would improve if we kept her working to a very rigid programme. So far we hadn't managed to run the programme two days in succession, she always did something or something happened which prevented it. I'm sure she was good at something, apart from breaking things, including my dormouse mug, but I took it on the chin, hoping she'd eventually be able to do something useful, but I didn't really believe it.

The rest of the day was spent doing what I always did in the office, paperwork and yet more paperwork. I thought someone had declared we'd all be paper-free in offices by 2020, well it's nearly 2022 and we still have reams of dead trees floating about the place, and personally, I'd rather have it on a sheet of paper than a computer screen, or in a book rather than an ebook, but when it came to finding things quickly, nothing can beat a computer and I can do a literature search of the library or several libraries via Athens in seconds, which before would have taken weeks by hand or not been possible before, so in their place computers make a definite contribution. I can also get BBC iPlayer on it and you tube and a few other things, that would have been impossible before, so as long as the blessed things do what I want them to do, I'm happy to have machines helping make my life easier, except they don't because we spend the time, we could have been relaxing or recovering, doing extra things, usually the next thing on the list.

There was a crash outside and I heard Diane yell. I poked my head out of my office door and Nikki had dropped the full cartridge of photocopier toner all over the carpet and she was half-covered in it as well. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry and Diane was running around like a headless chicken. The cleaners are going to love us.

"Go outside and shake your clothing," I instructed Nikki, who looked at me as if she was going to burst into tears but on a second prompting she went off trailing fine black dust behind her. "Phone the estates department and see if they can send someone over with a vacuum cleaner," I instructed Diane who stopped running around in circles and did as I bid her. She replaced the handset a couple of minutes later. "Send her home, she needs to get that stuff off her and to avoid breathing it in. How does she come?" Answering my own question with, 'with difficulty'.

"Okay, professor, I'll make some more tea in a minute."

"Shut the door to the kitchenette, to keep the dust down." I decided I needed to do something and that would mean telling personnel we can no longer tolerate her here as she does too much damage. It was sad and all that but, we had a busy office to run and she was creating havoc.

"How does she come to work?" I asked Diane.

"By bus, I think."

"Here's ten pounds, tell her to get a cab home or better still call one for her, and tell her to take the rest of the day off. I'll speak to personnel later when I've had a cuppa to fortify me."

"You're going to sack her?" asked Diane looking alarmed.

"We can't afford to keep her, I mean look at the mayhem she's caused today, we haven't got time to babysit her, we're a university department not a nursery."

"Okay, I'll tell her we don't want her anymore."

"Leave it for one more day, but another one like today and I shall probably just be looking for help to dispose of the body."

She took the money and went in search of our office gremlin. She'd send her over to reception and send the cab there to collect her. While she was out one of the domestic staff appeared with a vacuum cleaner and a face mask and began sucking up the very fine powder that constitutes the toner in photocopiers and laser printers. I shut my door to try and keep the dust out and went back to my paperwork.

While I was reading something as an email attachment, I had a sudden thought and clicked on Google and looked up dyspraxia in adults, I called personnel or HR as they term themselves today.

"How can I help you, professor?" said the bland female voice.

"I'd like to see the full personal file on Nikki Fulbrite."

"Oh, can I ask why?"

"Yes you can, but I still want to see it."

"I'm sorry?" said the voice not so bland anymore and I decided teaching them how to speak was probably not the best thing to do at this moment.

"I want to see the file because I believe the girl has got something like dyspraxia and we need to see what we can do to help her."

"I can't reveal what might be in her personal details."

"Look, she's a nice kid but about as useful as a chocolate teapot and as clumsy as a rhinoceros in a china shop, I believe we need a proper diagnosis and some sort of programme put together to see if we can help her."

"We still can't reveal that sort of information, professor."

"I appreciate the data protection stuff but I feel we are not doing as much as we could for the girl and as her manager, I am acting on that responsibility. I shall speak to staff health."

"They won't be able to tell you anything either."

"No, but they may help me by seeing her and getting some sort of diagnosis sorted and then appropriate treatment." I put the phone down, the vacuum cleaner stopped outside and I went to look at the damage. The carpet was ruined and I wasn't sure if that could be sorted or needed replacing. I also wanted to speak to Diane about Nikki before I spoke to staff health who are probably all working from home.

The cleaner left toting their Henry* with them and at least the carpet no longer had a thick layer of black powder on it. "D'you think she could have dyspraxia?" I said to Diane who was washing mugs and plates in the kitchenette.

"What Nikki?" she asked rinsing off a mug under the tap.

"Yes, you know this uncoordinated movement thing?"

"Could do, shouldn't they have told us?"

"No, remember no one can reveal anything about anyone anymore, even if they've been a convicted mass murderer on parole."

"I don't think she's done that, Prof, unless it was by accident, you know pushed the wrong button or something."

"I'm going to ask staff health for some help, I assume they do other things as well as stick pins in people."

"They don't do acupuncture, do they?"

"I have no idea, but I meant Covid bashing."

"Oh, that sort of pin-sticking?"

I rolled my eyes and she smirked. "Just make the bloody tea," I said went back to my office.

"Did you call a cab for Nikki?"

"Just about to."

"Don't bother, I'll take her home."

"Eh?" she looked at me as if I'd just said something outlandish. I grabbed my coat and walked round to the front of the university and found Nikki standing around looking desolate.

"I'm really sorry, Professor, you won't sack me, will you?"

"No, I'm taking you home, just let me put a cloth on the seat will you?" I clicked open the boot and the old curtain I use if I have the dog in the car and laid it over the front passenger seat. Cream leather covered in toner dust didn't bear thinking about.

She eventually got into the car and took ages to get the seatbelt buckled. This girl had some sort of motor problem or coordinating motor skills. Having ascertained where she lived, I set off in that direction and she directed me to her house at Leigh Park, which is a huge housing estate.

I'd elicited from her that she lived with her mother, her father having left them a year or so after she was born. She tried to dissuade me from following her into the house, but I wanted to speak with her mother. The house was more or less as they'd been built back in the 1960s and could probably do with modernising. It was clean and tidy but in need of some redecoration.

Before Nikki could say anything, I introduced myself to Nikki's mum and said she'd had a bit of bad luck with a copier toner and needed to wash and change. Her mother understood and invited me into the lounge while she sent Nikki upstairs and told her to put her clothes into a plastic bag before getting into the shower.

She told me Nikki was a prem baby and had several problems and as she grew she'd got rather clumsy and was bullied through her schooldays because she was a bit slow and uncoordinated. The doctor had referred her for help but Nikki didn't like the person she was referred to and refused to go. She'd left school and had a number of jobs before ending up at the university on a special scheme for long term jobless.

"I suppose you're going to sack her as well, are you?"

"At first that was my initial reaction to the mayhem she seems to cause, but she's a nice enough kid and actually, I can see she has a problem and I want to see how we can help improve her life and turn her from a liability to an asset. I am therefore going to ask staff health to assist with a firm diagnosis or send her to someone who can do it for us and what we need to do to help her, as I'm sure it's possible."

With tears running down her face her mother looked at me and said, "You're the first one who's said anything like that, most just offer her money to go away. Thank you, Professor, thank you so much."