Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 725 by Angharad

The meal was excellent and much to my surprise and relief, the three girls behaved – if not impeccably – then well. I wasn’t that hungry – got to keep my weight down if I’m going to be flying soon. What a joke the whole of that stuff is – I mean, I think I am the only sane one. At the same time I can’t quite explain what happens, it must be something to do with electromagnetics. I must act as a conductor of some sort –yeah, that has to be it. Quite how it knows what to do? Okay, so that’s a bit trickier, but then nerve impulses know where to go. I know, it obviously flows along some sort of power gradient, from high to low. That’s it;, people who are very sick are very low powered and I come along like a battery charger and boost them, and it coincidentally makes them better, and death being the ultimate in low charges –providing things aren’t too far gone, with autolysis and so on happening, the energy starts it up again. Problem solved. About as divine as a bar magnet.

“What are you looking so smug about?” asked Stella as we walked back to the suite.

“I’ve figured out how this healing thing works….” I set about explaining it to her.

“So why can’t everyone do it, then?” she asked.

“They probably can, they just don’t know it,” I responded.

“I think the average doctor saying to patients, “You’re okay now, pick up yer bed and walk, is going to go down well. It’ll certainly save the NHS billions on more conventional treatments. You’ll probably get a knighthood.”

“Gee thanks.”

“Yeah Dame Lady Catherine, or would it be Dame Catherine, Lady Cameron?”

“I’m not marrying a bloody dame, with my luck it’d be Widow Twanky.” Simon always managed to add intellectual lift to our discussions.

“Si, Dame is the equivalent of a knighthood for a woman. I mean look at Helen Mirren and Judi Dench, or even Ellen McArthur the yachtswoman,” suggested Stella.

“Or Dame Edna,” Simon beamed back.

“If you want to go out with a drag queen that’s fine,” snapped Stella.

“Can we change the subject?” I felt it was getting too close to something I was happier to forget.

“Hang on, she’s not getting away with that,” argued Simon, “I’m not some sort of poofter, you know, fancying trannies.”

“Erm,” I coughed, “little piggies…” I nodded at the girls. Simon gave me a quizzical look then the penny dropped.

“Oh yeah, sorry about that. I forget, about you, I mean; besides, you’re different.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem.” I took Mima’s hand and we walked on with Trish and Livvie skipping along ahead of us.

“See what you’ve done now?” hissed Stella at her brother.

“Me? You started it,” he snapped back. We left them bickering in the corridor.

As we got through the door of the lift, Mima said, “Mummy, what’s a pooter?”

“A what?”

“Daddy said he’s not a pooter?” she asked innocently.

“Oh it’s a device for catching small insects and spiders,” I answered quickly, “it’s like a tube with a chamber in the middle with a piece of gauze or something across it, and you suck the insect into the tube, the gauze stopping it being sucked into your mouth and probably swallowed.”

“Eeeeewch,” was her reply agreed by the other two if their faces were to be believed.

“That is gross, Mummy, you suck up insects with your mouth–yuck.” Trish made a disgusted face and pretended to be sick.

“Do you mind, Trish, I’ve just eaten,” I chided her and all three of them giggled. It seems girls can be just as disgusting as boys – at times anyway. When we got back to the suite, I switched on my laptop and showed them a pooter on the internet and how it worked.

“I want one of them,” joked Trish, “I can catch fleas with it.”

“Cooties,” laughed Livvie.

“What’s cooties, Mummy?” asked Mima.

“Head lice.” More eeewwwchs accompanied my definition.

“What’s a wice?” asked Mima ignorant of the term.

“A head louse, Pediculus humanus capitis is an insect which infests part of your body and sucks your blood. It lays eggs which are usually attached to hair, and those are called nits. More than one louse are called lice. Head lice obviously live in your head hair.”

Three squealing children ran into Stella’s rooms and when Anna asked them what was the matter, they replied they were running away from cooties.

“What are cooties, Lady Catherine?” she asked as I came in. I sighed and hoped she had a good sense of humour. I left her scratching her head – it tends to have that effect – and called the children back to our rooms. Simon and Stella had finished their argument and were talking about something else.

My mobile rang and I picked it up, expecting it to be Tom or possibly Henry, but it was Sam. I went into the bedroom to escape the noise from the kids and squabbling siblings. “Hello, Sam, I hope this is a social call.”

“Hi, Cathy, yes and no.”

“What d’you mean, yes and no? I’m not saving anyone else, I told you that was the last one, and I’m not doing any tests either.”

“It’s not about that, Cathy, well not directly.”

“So what’s it about?”

“I’ll come straight to the point, it looks like someone has blabbed to a tabloid.”

“What about?” My mind, or what passes for one, had gone completely blank.

“What d’you think, your healing. We think they told them who you were as well.”

“What? Who was it?”

“A porter, we think.”

“Can you discipline him?”

“He’s resigned–walked out, so we think he’s been paid a large sum of money.”

“What do we do now?”

“Stay well away from here,” Sam suggested the obvious.

“I was going to, don’t worry. I’m not staying at home but I’ll call Tom and warn him. Thanks for telling me.”

“Sorry it’s not better news,” apologised Sam.

I called Tom and advised him of the new development. He sighed and simply said, “It’s a sair fecht, aye, a sair fecht.” Simon when I told him said something more rude and I was rather glad the children were talking to Stella at the time.

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day.