The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 2056 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The girls were surprised when I appeared with the headmistress. “Are we in trouble?” asked Trish when we drove off and were thus a safe distance from the school.

“Why what have you done?”

“Nuthin’ ’onest.”

The guilty look she gave me tended to make me feel that wasn’t the entire picture but the edited highlights or airbrushed version.

“Trish Watts, what are you holding back from me?”

She looked very sheepish and said, “How d’you always know?”

“Because I’ve been around a bit longer than you–now spill.”

“Um–okay, I intervened when one of the nuns was telling off Cindy Highsmith.” How I didn’t bash the car I’ll never know. Could this be the same Cindy whose grandmother I’d been talking to earlier.

I stopped the car and turned round to face her. “I think you’d better tell me the whole story.”

“Okay. We have some girls who are scholarship girls, their families can’t afford to send them to the school without help.”

“Yes I know, that’s one of the reasons we did the play to raise funds for the hardship fund, and I did a talk as well.”

“Of course you did, Mummy, well Cindy is one of the scholarship girls and the nun was calling her names, saying she didn’t deserve their charity and so on.”

Very Christian, not, I thought. “So what did you do?”

“I asked her what she thought Jesus would have said in such circumstances.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said he’d have agreed with her because she and Jesus thought alike.”

“Interesting,” I said while thinking, is hubris a cardinal sin?

“I told her she was being arrogant as well as blaspheming.”

“Oh yeah and what happened next?”

“She stuck her in detention, Mummy,” added Livvie before Trish could say anything.

“I wasn’t aware you were late,” I wondered how long I’d spoken to the headmistress.

“No, Sister Maria cancelled it, agreeing with me; I wondered if she was telling you about it.”

“No, she didn’t mention it.”

“Who’s this girl Cindy?”

“Oh she’s in year nine.”

“So she’s about thirteen is she?”

“Yeah–I suppose she must be.”

“So is she often in trouble?”

“Some of the girls think the scholarship girls are inferior because they’re poor.”

“And what d’you think?”

“I think she’s okay, but not Sister Ruth.”

“That was the teacher who was criticising her?”

“Yes.”

“I think you need to be very careful what you say to any of the staff, remember they are older and have more experience of life than you do.”

“Not Sister Ruth, we all think she’s a zombie, anyway.”

“Please show her a little respect.”

“Why? She didn’t show me any.”

“Trish, it doesn’t work like that. She’s a teacher, so regardless of how good or bad you think she is, you must show her respect and some courtesy.”

“I did,” she said her eyes welling up. “It was her that was dissing us.”

“Yeah but you did sorta rub her nose in it, didn’t you?” Livvie was adding a new dimension to the scene.

“What does that mean?” I asked, “You rubbed her nose in it?”

Trish started to snivel and Livvie supplied the rest of the commentary. “She told Sister Ruth that she shouldn’t pick on Cindy for being poor, because compared to our daddy, most people were poor; and it was our mummy who got funds for the scholarships playing Lady Macbeth–what had she done to raise funds for it?”

“I see. That was hardly what I’d consider remaining courteous–what d’you think?”

Trish began to sob and her two sisters consoled her. While I sympathised I couldn’t condone disrespect towards her teacher, even if some of them seem undeserving of it.

“I’m sorry, Mummy,” Trish eventually got out in between sobs and sniffles.

“Okay, providing you don’t do it again, I won’t say any more about this.”

“Thank you, Mummy.”

“I appreciate it’s difficult and I agree that bullying someone because they’re poor is wrong and perhaps should be reported or even interrupted. I almost approve of the way you turned her bullying back on her by asking what Jesus would have done, that was clever of you. However, by then bragging about how rich Daddy is, made it rather lose its message. D’you understand?”

“Yes, Mummy.”

“Okay, let’s go home and have a drink and a biscuit.” I had her book in my shopping bag but I thought I’d make her wait until the morning before I gave it to her so as to avoid sending mixed messages, if I wasn’t doing so already. Morality is such a difficult area anyway, but at least they now knew how I felt about flaunting wealth.

While we were having our biscuit and drink in the kitchen with Stella and Jacquie, Livvie suddenly said, “Did you know nuns take a vow of poverty, chastity and obedience?”

“And what d’you think that means?”

“It probably means they’re too poor to buy a spare key for their chastity belts.”

For a moment I thought we were going to have to call an ambulance as Stella inhaled a mouthful of tea and couldn’t stop coughing, but she finally managed to get her breath back, blaming Livvie’s interpretation for nearly killing her.

It was a classic by any standard and when I told Simon that night as we cuddled down in bed, he nearly fell out of it he was laughing so hard. “Maybe you could do a fund raiser for that?” he said when he’d stopped crying with laughter. “Could the first one be called an opener–and do they need keys or a can opener?” He lay there roaring with laughter and in the end he had to get up and go to the loo because he was in danger of wetting himself through laughing. And there’s me thinking it was only women who do such things–obviously not.