The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3378 by Angharad Copyright© 2023 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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When I went to bed I thought of Dr Ericson's disparaging remarks to Danni and Trish. I'd let him off quite lightly. I suppose if positions were reversed I might have done something the same and I wondered if people thought that about me, that I was only a professor because Tom was my adopted father. I think there had been murmurings and rumours at first but they seemed to have disappeared into the woodwork again. I like to think I had proved my credentials and my worth and wasn't just some bimbo who made films about loveable small mammals which usually resulted in deluges of applications from young women who thought they'd rather like to make films about dormice or harvest mice, not realising that they ought to know about them beforehand, I mean who needs to know about handling dormice, if you squeeze too hard just pretend it was still dormant and quietly sling it back in the nest box and try the next one.

There's actually a knack to handling small mammals, dormice are wriggly but when you have a reasonable hold on them they stay put, woodmice continue to wriggle and nip and I've seen someone take a pygmy shrew and it died in their hand, probably because they held it too tightly. The poor things have to be able to breathe and sometimes they succumb to shock, I mean how would you feel being handled, something so small, about 15 g and if a human is 80 kg, they are over five thousand times heavier. No wonder I haven't lost a fight with a dormouse. The harvest mouse is even smaller, is it any wonder that they die of shock when held by humans, we must look like giants to them.

I fell asleep thinking about dormice and how we appeared to them. As if they were awaiting execution and we don't do it, we whip them out of their cosy nest boxes and then shove them in a small plastic bag to weigh them and examine their private bits to determine sex and possibly insert a pit tag in their scruffs and then shove them back in the nest box they have just been taken from. 'What a waste of time,' I can hear them squeaking, though much of it beyond our hearing, and might be just as well because who knows what they are actually shrieking. I doubt it's, 'You big bully, come back and fight like a dormouse.'

I awoke back in school. Once again I was waiting outside Murray's door. What had I done this time? "Ah Watts, I have spoken to your parents, you are to go home at half past two as you have an appointment, your mother will tell you about it. That's all."

I stood my ground, so when he asked what I was waiting for, I replied, "I'd like to know what the appointment is for."

"I told you, your mother was organizing it."

"Yes you did, but I would like to know what it's all about."

"Oh, would you?"

"Yes, sir,"

"Too bad, speak to your mother this afternoon."

I was so frustrated that I could have hit him. I'm glad I didn't because young women don't do that unless really provoked. I was close to it but not quite there yet. I was on a steady simmer not quite boiling, I left his office in a state of irritation and anxiety, I mean what if he was thinking of expelling me? Where would I be going this afters? I mean who would I be seeing? I hadn't a clue.

I had to get through lunch yet. Yesterday, Sweeny and Michaels took my sandwiches off my tray and threw them back and fore until I was supposed to beg for them, I got fed up with the game and belted Sweeny in the guts with my tray., whereupon Michaels ran off with them. I mean tuna and cucumber sandwiches in wholemeal bread, they don't come any better and are made for me by my mum. I was livid. I gave chase of Michaels and lost him and when I came back Sweeny had also made his escape.. I ended up with a plate of chips because that was all I had the money for. They were okay but compared to my wonderful sarnies, they were second-rate.

Just before I was due to leave for the unknown appointment, Michaels happened to whisper, "Lovely sarnies, Watts, How about cheese tomorrow?" It just so happened my tennis racket was hanging out of my Care Bears backpack and as I swung it quite violently onto my shoulder, happened to make firm contact with a small part of his anatomy, and didn't he shout?

I told the teacher I had to go somewhere and had no idea what Michaels was shouting about, perhaps it was the sandwiches he stole from me, the female hormones they we laced with didn't agree with him. He was last seen dashing off to the toilets, Michaels not Mr Hurst.

I amble home, I was in no mood to fight any more battles. "Where have you been?" asked my mother, hurry up." I apparently had to wash and change, when I saw what was going on, I asked Mum to explain. I was expected to wear the dress on my bed and the bar shoes and I wanted to know what it was all about.

"What finished last week?" she asked.

"I don't know, some serial or other? My library book, um, Lent? I don't know do I?"

"What have you been doing every night for the past month?"

"Macbeth, so what's this about?"

The Echo is coming to make some award to Charlotte as best actress and we have to get your hair done so you look tidy."

"Let me get this straight, no pun intended, but they have given me time off school to get my hair cut and you're going to take me to the salon?"

"At last, now hurry up we have to be there in just over ten minutes."

"What does Dad say?"

"I don't know and don't care what he thinks, but no daughter of mine is going to an award ceremony with unkempt hair, so move it missy."

We got there and Mum explained I was there for a tidy-up, I added that I didn't want much off the length and the hairdresser assured me she would cut off more than the split ends. Apparently, wearing the extra hairpiece had done some damage to my own hair. That made me cross. I let Cheryl do her stuff and she shampooed and then dried my hair and conditioned it. It was lovely, I always liked having my hair done once I stopped going to that barbarous barber that my father used. My hair felt beautiful, silky and smooth and hung beautifully below my shoulders, to about mid back.

"I don't know how you girls can wear it so long, but it's in good condition, so enjoy it while it lasts."

We did a little shopping for new tights for me and I think my mother quite enjoyed the experience of shopping for her daughter, I know I did, even if all I got was the tights.

"You realise I have to wear the girl's uniform to school tomorrow, I suppose I could come home and change at lunchtime."

"The headmaster told me to expect you to be in the girl's uniform all day."

"Why didn't he ask me, I'm the one who has to put up with all the jeers and suggestive remarks, perhaps I'd have preferred having an ordinary day tomorrow? I certainly don't fancy dressing up, the play was bad enough."

"I thought you enjoyed your girly side?"

I blushed, we were about to have an adult conversation about my transsexualism.

"I do, but not in front of the whole school."

"Are you gay, Charlie?"

"Why, do you think I am."

"I don't know, but I don't think you are."

"I'm not, I'm transgender, I'm a girl in a boy's body."

"What one of those sex-change types, like April Ashley? Marry a Scottish nobleman?"

"I have no idea, I might marry no one the way I feel. I have been abused by that monster Murray ever since he found out I was different. I have been bullied and abused by the staff and the boys at my school, I was coerced into doing that bloody play and now, they want to celebrate my humiliation."

"Stay home then, I'll tell them you have a bug."

"If I did, Murray would probably send me to vivisection, certainly, he'd make my life hell."

"Humiliation, I think you were very good in the play and I had to keep reminding myself that you were my son because you convinced me you really were Lady Macbeth."

"I did my best, Mum, and thank you, but Murray's intention was to embarrass me and hope I'd leave. I'm not going to, Mum, I'm going to stare him down, I am going to get good grades and I am going to go to uni and do biology."

"I know so... I mean Charlotte, and I hope to see you with a good degree. I don't know what is to become of you if you go ahead with this sex-change business, I'm sure it won't do you any good."

"Maybe not, but at least my mind and body will be singing from the same hymn sheet."

"I can't stop you but I urge you to think very carefully."

"It's all I have been thinking about for years."

"Sounds more like an obsession than reality."

"I knew you wouldn't understand."

"May be it's you who doesn't, anyway, come to me at bedtime and I'll tie your hair up so it will look better tomorrow. Oh, will you need help with your makeup tomorrow?"

"I think I can manage, I was doing it every day for the past month."

"Did you enjoy doing the play and playing up your dad?"

"Playing up Dad, what do you think I am."

"I don't know what you are Charlotte but I know you had some fun winding up Derek."

"Thanks for the tights," I said and dashed up to my room.

She tied my hair up in ribbons, about seven, all the way down my back and it certainly looked better in the morning. I hadn't slept much because I knew what was coming. I dressed in my girl's uniform, Mum had made me press it the night before and did my makeup, just a light bit to make me look slightly different and like the girl I was. I was told to make myself available after assembly when Murray did his spiel about me attending for the day and to be accorded every courtesy. In other words, don't get caught.

The paper duly arrived and the presentation was made and then a buffet lunch, into which the rest of the school was allowed access and it disappeared very quickly after that. Because they were all on a high from the free feed, most of the boys were kindly disposed to me, except Michaels, he chased me into the staff toilets, I came out carrying my Care Bears backpack, "Huh, no tennis racket today Watts."

"I 'm not playing today," I said and swung my bag, which has a biology textbook in it, into his groin and he collapsed squealing and holding his pride and joy, as he succumbed to an attack of 'Vines and Rees, volume one, and I sauntered up the corridor, funnily enough, neither tried to take my sandwiches again.

Some noise woke me and I had a clear recollection of what happened in my dream, it didn't quite happen like that and I didn't get taken to the hairdresser by my mother, nor did we have that little chat. Perhaps my mind was trying to say it was how it could have been.

Instead, she just lost the paper that night so my dad didn't see it, with me gracing the front page for the one and only time. However, a copy of the paper arrived in my bedroom the next day and I put it into my scrapbook. My father subsequently destroyed it but I discovered they had their own one when he sent it to Tom and I found it one day in my office at the bottom of a drawer. My old school still holds the award I won, but as I'm no longer Charlotte, they can keep it.