Wuthering Dormice (aka Bike) Part 773 by Angharad

The next few days stayed surprisingly fine despite the onset of autumn and the shortening of the days. The girls played outside whenever they could and I encouraged them to do so – it would be dark and wet far too soon.

Trish seemed to settle back into school after the absence of Petunia and whilst I regretted not solving the problem, I was glad she no longer had to deal with it. I was relieved to hear that a significant number of girls at the school are receiving or have received some form of psychotherapy; mostly for marital break ups with the parents, but occasionally for other things as well.

I’d organised a small tea party for Mima’s birthday. The older girls had chosen presents for her, but at only four, I considered an I-phone was inappropriate, we did however, get her an MP3 on the understanding she didn’t use it too long or too loud. Trish had discovered she could download music via my computer, so she was put in charge of putting some music on it.

Livvie continued to lobby for some form of mobile phone. I continued to argue that a four-year-old doesn’t need a mobile. In the end I got her a cheap top up one. Apparently even four-year-olds now have their own mobiles – a situation I considered ridiculous, but who listens to me?

One morning after taking the girls to school, I took Meems to the university with me. Everyone made a fuss of her, and we checked out the dormouse cages. Despite my forebodings, it seemed everything was working well. Neal told me to see it as the ultimate accolade, that it was so well designed it ran without me. Personally, I thought he was talking a load of bull.

The summer had been a good one and they had managed to breed twenty dormice and they were pleased I’d called in to discuss about release sites. Meems seemed quite happy looking at the dormice climbing up the frame we’d made for them – basically a wire mesh with plants growing up it and food left in places for them to find. Also these dormice had not been handled for some weeks so they were less comfortable with humans than imprinted animals like Spike.

I checked on Spike, she was fine and had added a further five to the release pool — she was a regular super mum, if that doesn’t sound too much of a contradiction.

Neal and I went through the distribution of the existing dormice and where to allocate the new ones. We were in total agreement in the matter and he went off to make us a cuppa to celebrate. I turned around to find Meems and she wasn’t there. I had one of those horror moments when the whole of your life flashes before you while your stomach twitches and feels cold.

I started running around the lab calling her frantically, I dashed in and out of the store rooms, had she got herself shut inside one? No; she was nowhere to be seen. I hate to think what my blood pressure and heart rate were doing as the adrenalin began to flow.

I heard Neal call me, and I rushed back in the hope he’d found her. “Is she here?” I gasped rushing back to the lab.

“Is who, here?”

“Meems, my little girl.”

“No, oh Geez, she couldn’t have got out of the building could she?”

“What?” this was unbelievable, the doors are locked during term time and outside it as well, basic security.

“We had a delivery a while ago, not to this lab to the one next door.”

“What the door was open? It’s supposed to be kept locked at all times.”

“The bloke had to bring the stuff in, Cathy. He wasn’t to know we had a child running loose in here, was he?”

“No, it’s my fault, I got so absorbed in the project I forgot she was here.”

“Come on, she can’t have got that far, can she?”

“You’d be surprised how far her little legs can carry her.”

We ran out of the lab and began searching rooms, calling her name and looking everywhere. My anxiety was increasing by the moment, matched only by the intensity of my sense of guilt – I had brought the child with me and had then failed to watch her. I’d always felt a sense of anger at the way that child had been taken from the room in Portugal when her parents had left to enjoy drinks and tapas with their friends instead of staying with the children. Now I was in danger of doing something equally silly and negligent.

Then on top of that, children shouldn’t really be unsupervised in a laboratory, they can be dangerous places full of chemicals and equipment which could cause a tragedy so easily. Why oh why did we come here today? I could feel my eyes filling with tears as my body was running more of emotion than logic, and the strongest one of those was dread coupled with self pity. Where could she be? Each person we met we asked if they’d seen her – no one had. How can a child disappear into thin air? It was impossible but it seemed to have happened and it only takes two seconds.

“When do we call the police?” asked Neal.

“Oh God, I don’t know, she’s got to be here – somewhere.” I felt the tears running down my face, “Oh, Neal, what do we do?”

“I have no bloody idea, kiddo. Let’s go back to the lab and work this out a bit more logically.”

“But we’ve looked everywhere,” I was almost whining I felt so abject.

“If we’d looked everywhere we’d have found her, wouldn’t we?” A statement of masculine logic, not what I really wanted to hear. What I wanted was a strong arm around me to support me until we found her, what I was getting was a detached and relatively objective opinion corresponding with my subjective, emotionally driven disaster scenario. It should have helped me – instead it was making me feel even more inadequate than I usually did.

Then he put his arm around me, “C’mon,” he said, “let’s get back to the lab and sort this mess out.” For a moment he took control and we walked back together and for a moment I felt comforted – someone was taking the responsibility for a moment – enough for me to get my breath back and my brain in gear. ‘Recover my composure’ is the phrase they frequently use. It certainly did need recovery, it had skedaddaled along with Meems, wherever she was. Thinking this made me feel sad again and I started to weep and then sob.

By the time we were back in the lab, I felt even worse. Her little coat was lying on one of the desks and seeing it made me lose control completely. I broke down and howled. Neal had no idea how to deal with me – I had no idea how to deal with me, so I didn’t.

“I’m sure we’ll find her, Cathy, but getting all upset isn’t going to help is it?” He was absolutely right, but that isn’t how female logic works: instead of helping it made me feel patronised and more upset. He rested his hand on my shoulder, “Cathy, come on pull yourself together – we need you to be strong to sort this. Now where was she when you last saw her?”

“I don’t know – I mean, I can’t remember.” I racked the few remaining brain cells I had that were actually working. “Over there, by the dormouse cages, I think.”

“Yes, she was over there – you did look over there, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did,” was he implying I was stupid or something?

“Okay, okay, keep your ‘air on.” He walked back and fore, talking to himself as he thought out loud. “She was over there so she could have gone to ... nah, that door is locked. Hmmm, could she have gone through there?” he wandered up the far end of the lab still musing.

I walked over to the desk and picked up her little coat — I felt almost sick with worry, where on earth could she be? Had she wandered off? Had she been abducted – you hear such awful stories and although I tried not to think about them, they come to the fore when anything untoward happens to a child. Geez, I can’t take much more of this. I held the coat up to my face and sniffed the smells of soap and shampoo that so much constituted the aroma of a little girl. Then I felt completely and utterly helpless and filled with the emptiness – if that’s not an oxymoron – of despair.