The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2145 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I needed a good talk with Danni to try and understand what she wanted and how to make it happen. If she stayed in role much longer, it would prove quite hard to extract the boy from all the makeup and frillies. The problem was I could understand part of what she felt, if my mother had said to me, ‘Charlie, if you want to be a girl, let’s get you some skirts and dresses and see how you get on,’ I’d have thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

I think she knew what was going on inside me, but my father’s opposition would have been so great she would never have dared allow me to become girlish, so she taught me how to housekeep. How many boys are shown how to sew curtains and use a machine? How many are taught how to cook, when their mothers are there all day–so it wasn’t like I needed to because she was absent. My dad was useless in the kitchen, claiming he could burn water. I was fairly competent.

My dad approved of what he saw me do, but most of the things he wouldn’t have liked happened surreptitiously–why did she teach me how to bake cakes and then ice them–it wasn’t as if I was going into catering. Why did she make me clean out the kitchen with her, choose new curtains and carpets for her bedroom and then for mine, making me understand the matching of colours. She did the same with clothing, all my things matched or could make reasonable pairings–no wonder they all thought I was a girl at university.

I looked at the curtains in the sitting room, if I had to replace them at least I knew how to measure them, or net curtains–making sure you have enough width to enable some folds which are what keep prying eyes out. How many boys are taught how to do that, compared to the number of girls.

Could my mother have had a premonition about her own death and was thus preparing me to keep house for my father? I can’t believe she had, I’m sure she’d have told me and she didn’t tell me how my father liked things especially though I suppose I knew quite a bit of that already from sitting at the same table with him for so many years.

It was true that some of what she taught me would enable me to cook for myself at university, soups and stews which I could do in the slow-cooker, but she taught me so much more. How to launder delicates and iron them after they were dry, boys don’t wear them as far as I knew, even today. Why did she show me how to wash her lingerie and dry it. How many boys know how to iron a bra? Yeah, I know how, I rarely do it as to me it seems like it’s looking for work.

Why did she teach me skin care and buy me cleansers and moisturisers, and she insisted my hair was properly shampooed and conditioned–‘If you’re going to have hair like a girl, you can jolly well look after it like a girl.’ All those years, when I enjoyed what she was teaching me, I didn’t take on board she was training me as a wife–my goodness, how did I miss it? How did Dad miss it? He’d have killed the pair of us if he’d found out–or was he in on it as well? Nothing would surprise me anymore.

“Mummy, shall I put some more wood on the fire?”

“If you like, sweetheart, but do be careful and watch out for sparks they can burn.”

I watched Danni place two further logs on the fire. It was done with greater precision than I’d have expected from a boy, or was it just because I was watching her? I patted the seat alongside mine. “Would you like me to teach you to knit?”

“I don’t know, Mummy, will I have time to knit anything before I go back to being a boy?”

“You can knit as a boy as well you know.”

“I hadn’t thought of that, I thought it was only girls who knitted things.”

“The vast majority of them probably are, but some men also do it, like they do embroidery and other sewing.”

“Yeah, but I bet they get teased to hell about it.”

“Some people are strong enough to cope with such things.” But was Danni one of them?

“I don’t know, Mummy–will the girls laugh at me?”

“Why should they, they’ve enjoyed having another sister for a week or two.”

“I s’pose.”

“Have you enjoyed your feminine side this past couple of weeks?”

“Oh yes, it’s been great fun.”

“Are you ready to turn back into a caterpillar?”

“Eh?”

“Well you’ve been a real butterfly, so I just saw it as back to the drab colours of a caterpillar.”

“Some caterpillars are pretty too.”

“Yes I know, but others are designed to merge into the background to hide from predators.”

“Are the pretty ones poisonous?”

“Possibly, certainly some of them are and others mimic it, it’s called Batesian mimicry, so they look poisonous and copy the way the poisonous ones flaunt themselves.”

“Does it save them?”

“It certainly could if a would be predator ate one of the really poisonous ones and was sick or had a bad experience, then it would avoid anything like that again. It’s called negative feedback.”

“You sound like my science teacher, except what you say is much more interesting.” She paused, “If I’m pretty and using Bateswhatever mimicry, dos that make me less likely to be eaten?”

“In humans I’m afraid it often has the opposite effect, beautiful things and people are often destroyed by those with ugly intentions, perhaps out of jealousy or a desire to possess them.”

“Possess them–like in a horror movie?”

“No, sweetie, some people become obsessed with another, sometimes because they think them so beautiful they can’t stand to share them with anyone else.”

“Ugh, that is an ugly thought.”

“It is, but there are some funny people out there.”

“And they think I’m weird because I like to look like a girl sometimes.”

“So you wouldn’t like to do it all the time?”

“Do what?”

“Be a girl.”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you ready to go back to being a boy?”

“Not really.”

“Okay, stay as a girl as long as you like. Right off to bed with you.”

She sat there looking at me for a moment. A tear welled up in hr eyes and dripped down her face and she suddenly threw herself at me hugging me and crying all over me. I put my arms around her as much as a reflex as anything else being as surprised by her action as she possibly was by mine.

“You’re serious, I can stay as a girl for a bit longer?” she mumbled in between sobs.

“If that’s what you want, yeah, why not?”

“But what about school, Mummy?”

“You’ll either have to go to the convent or I’ll have you home schooled.”

“I love you, Mummy.”

“I love you too, sweetheart. Now off to bed with you and I’ll be along in a short time to tuck you in.”

She kissed me on the cheek and went towards the door.

“Don’t forget to use your cleanser and moisturiser–and take your makeup off properly won’t you?”

“Yes, Mummy, I will.”

I poked the fire and asked Mrs Cuddy for a cup of tea–I know I could make my own but it’s more than my life’s worth to go near her kitchen. I drank it and went to tuck Danni in. She was lying very still and for a moment I wondered if she was asleep or even dead. When I looked closely she was crying, silently weeping holding a teddy bear Trish had given her.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know, Mummy. Part of me wants to stay as a girl and part of me wonders what’s going to happen to me if I do?”

“I’ll do my best not to allow anything bad to happen, but that’s all I can try to do. Look why don’t you sleep on it and see how you feel in the morning.” I kissed her goodnight and switched off the bedroom light.