The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 2075 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

The rest of the week flew by, or it seemed that way as I spent long hours marking or countermarking papers. At times I did wonder if they paid me enough for this. Then that Friday morning, I got a letter from the bank reminding me of the forthcoming board meeting and that the minutes would be delivered by courier, as the content was confidential.

The girls went off to school in party mood, it was their last day in school for eight weeks. I was finishing at the university that afternoon as well, though I had to do my share of the dormice feeding.

David had made the girls a whole bag of goodies for each of their class parties and they each had a bottle of fruit juice as well. We weren’t the only ones arriving with armloads of food, and at one point I thought they could probably solve the famine in Africa by transferring the various class parties there and sharing the surplus with the starving. So, just a normal end of year party, or was it?

Cindy Highsmith saw me helping my three with their food bags recognised Trish and Livvie from the episode with the bullies and presumably me from the meeting with her mother and grandmother.

She stopped us as we emerged from the Jaguar. “Aren’t you the girl who bashed the bullies?” she addressed Trish.

“I might be,” blushed an embarrassed eight year old.

“Well, thanks for doing that. They were always picking on me.”

“Why?” asked Trish feigning eight year old innocence.

“’Cos I’m different.”

Trish handed me her food bag and walked around muttering, “One head, two arms, two legs, nope you’re as normal as most of them.”

Cindy blushed. “They accuse me of being a lezzie because I’m a bit boyish.”

“So, they think I’m a robot, because I can add things up faster than the teacher, and because I like maths and physics,” Trish offered, telling a few exaggerations about herself.

“Are you really good at maths?”

“Mummy, am I good at maths?”

“No.” I answered.

She gave me a dirty look, “Waddya mean, I got ninety eight in my last exam.”

“You’re not good at maths, you’re very good at maths.” I smirked and she sighed.

“See what I have to put up with?” she said to Cindy, who sniggered.

“I’m not very good, any chance if you had some time over the hols to give me some pointers?”

“Mummy?” Trish said, throwing the ball in my court. Did I want another transgendered girl about the place? Not really, and would Trish be able to help her? I wasn’t sure–I knew Sammi would, but that would mean it would have to be on a Saturday and I’d have to sweet talk Sammi into helping. It all gets so complicated, doesn’t it?

“Get Cindy’s number and give her a ring during the holidays and you can set something up, perhaps do it when Sammi is there.”

“Oh wow, you’ll like Sammi, she’s a whizz with computers and she is so pretty. They wanted her to be a model, didn’t they, Mummy?”

“Yes, dear, now come along I have to get to work, I still have exam papers to mark.” I didn’t, but she didn’t know that.

“I thought you had to feed the dormice?” challenged Livvie.

“That as well, darling.”

“Dormice, wow! I’ve never seen a dormouse in real life,” said Cindy with eyes as big as dinner plates.

“Oh, we help Mummy with them from time to time. I’m sure Mummy would let you see them sometime, wouldn’t you, Mummy?”

Trish Watts if you drop me in any more shite this morning, I’ll empty this trifle over your head. “Possibly, the university has made it harder to take strangers in.”

“But you’re a senior person, Mummy, I’m sure they’d let you do it.”

“University? you’re the lady who met my Mum and Gran, aren’t you?”

“My mummy is a real lady, aren’t you, Mummy?”

“Yes I think I did meet your mum and gran; Trish stop exaggerating.”

“I’m not, you’re Lady Cameron, aren’t you?”

“You know jolly well I am, so why all the fuss?”

“Wow, your mum’s a lady?”

“And we have a castle up in Scotland, don’t we, Mummy?”

“Trish you’re going to be late–c’mon into school.”

“You have a castle? Is that for real?”

“Course, it’s called Stanebury.”

“Oops look at the time, I’ll speak to you at morning break.”

“Okay, see ya, Cindy.”

“Trish, a word,” I said pulling her closer to me. “You know Cindy is transgender, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, while it’s noble to want to help her, be aware if you get too friendly they might see you as the same.”

“I doubt it,” she swaggered back.

“Oh?”

“I’ll just flash my fanny at them, should take away any doubt.”

“Don’t you dare do any such thing–they really would suspend you.”

She smirked at me, “Calm down, Mummy, I am eight you know.” How I didn’t kill her with an avalanche of trifle and sausages on sticks, I’ll never know. I walked them into school and handed over the food to various teachers. Then while they were otherwise distracted I went and saw Sister Maria.

“Trish has been recognised as her rescuer by Cindy.”

“Well, that was always likely to happen.”

“She also recognised me as meeting her mum and grandmother.”

The headmistress just shrugged, “She did see you here.”

“And she discovered that Trish is good at maths and asked her(Trish) to coach her during the summer.”

“What a good idea, Trish is excellent at maths, she should have had one hundred percent for her paper.”

“She said she got ninety eight.”

“Yes, she finished it in less than half the time and only missed out on full marks because she miswrote her class number.”

“How was that?”

“She bet someone that she could do the paper in half the time and she was in too big a hurry–so carelessness.”

“What if Cindy works out Trish is also transgender?”

“But she isn’t, is she? She’s an almost perfect girl, so if Trish doesn’t tell her, she shouldn’t ever know, and Trish is legally female like her mother, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, she is no longer transgender, is she?”

“Okay, I have to go, marking to finish.”

“Wait until you have three hundred to do.”

“I lecture to that number twice most weeks.”

“You are popular.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Did you run a trip out towards Petersfield yesterday?”

“I didn’t run it, I helped lead it.”

“I thought it had to be you.”

“What?”

“My aunt told me a lovely young woman took them to see some dormice and all sorts of other things, like a dead polecat. It was you, wasn’t it?”

“Guilty as charged. You can’t do anything in this place, can you?”

“Not without my school stasi finding out, no.”

“Hell, look at the time–no assembly this morning?”

“We have a service to finish, to bless those who leave and those who will come to us next year.”

“What about the ones already here?”

“Oh they have at least another year of purgatory.” If she hadn’t smiled I might have believed her.