The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3002 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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On the Monday morning I got up with Simon and Sammi and made them both scrambled eggs on toast for their breakfast. “What are you doing up, Mummy?” asked Sammi.

“I couldn’t sleep any longer and I hoped that if i went and did my shopping now I’d be back before the press arrive to pester Danielle.”

“You don’t know that they will, do you?” she asked.

“No, but I suspect some will. You saw the goal and the comments on the internet and Twitter. She is worthy of the praise but not the intrusion.”

“Don’t the two go together these days? If you do something in the public domain, everyone thinks they own you. Everyone wants to be your friend on Facebook and everyone thinks they have some friendship with you. Isn’t it how some stalking goes on?”

“Quite possibly. Anyway I’ll get a trawl of the papers and bring them home and we can review them at leisure, I’ll also close the gates so don’t forget your key.”

“I can’t,” said Simon, “It’s in the car. Don’t forget to remind Tom.”

“Remind me of whit?” asked our resident Grampa Broon impersonator.

“I’m going to close the gates in case we have any press harassment of Danni.”

“Aye, okay, guid idea,” with that he went off to walk Kiki.

“He’ll have forgotten by tea time,” said Simon dismissively.

“Possibly.”

“Well I’m not paying for them to repaired again.” He was referring to an episode some while ago when we closed the gates and Daddy forgot and did about a thousand pounds worth of damage to the gates and his car.

There is just about enough room for a car or van up to Ford Transit size to park in front of the gates and to operate either the electronic key or press the speaker button to ask for entry. The post can be put though a letterbox in the gate which has a box to collect it on our side of the gate. It’s a nuisance to have to go and collect it but such is life.

I drove down to Asda which is open from six o’clock bought a selection of papers including the local one. That had a picture of her on the back cover and a lurid headline. ‘Roll over Rooney, England women’s schoolgirl star saves the day with spectacular goal.’

I decided I wouldn’t look at anything else until I got home, it was too depressing. I bought a few other things as well and paid for everything, filled my car with diesel and drove home. It was only just seven and Kiki had finished taking Daddy for a walk.

Over tea and coffee respectively we looked through the papers and found most of them had a photo of Danni’s spectacular overhead bicycle kick. Several had two photos, one of the acrobatic kick and the other of the ball going into the goal. Several had similar comments as headlines to that of the Echo. It appeared Danielle was a celebrity whether she wanted it or not.

I left instructions on the fridge about not letting in anyone from the press. I had my doubts that anyone would read them. At seven thirty Julie and Phoebe came down to go to work. They had a very brief breakfast and drove off, Phoebe calling from her mobile a few minutes later to tell me there was a strange car near the gate.

At eight, Henry rang to congratulate his granddaughter’s skill and daring. He also told her if things got too hot she could always go up to Hampstead. I thanked him and rang off. Minutes later the phone rang and the head coach of Pompey women’s team asked if he could help. I thanked him and rang off. He rang me back and asked if we wanted him to set up a press conference. I thanked him and rang off again. The phone immediately began to ring and I picked it up and swore down it. Turned out it was Simon asking how we were coping. Bless his cotton socks. I told him we were coping and he asked me why I was swearing down the phone at him. I told him because he’d just got me going into the shower.

Tom decided he would stay home to support me. That old man was a wonderful adopted father to me. When I told him so he complained that he was ‘daein’ it f’ his granddochter.’ Silly old fool.

We should be used to sieges by now, I’d lost count of how many we’d had. At least these days all we had to cope with were journalists and the paparazzi. So weren’t expecting catapults firing diseased corpses of horses or flaming arrows. However, when a drone began buzzing about over the drive and garden I called the police because it sure as hell wasn’t Amazon delivering a book.

The thing was flying at probably about a hundred feet with at least two cameras. That it was violating our privacy seemed as good a reason as any to complain and the police were sympathetic. When I asked if Tom could shoot it down with his shotgun, they seemed unsure of an answer and asked us to wait before destroying someone else’s property. I did wonder if I could hit it with an arrow but wasn’t sure it would bring it down like a shotgun.

What happened in the end was that Danni flew her own remote device, her little helicopter to which she’d attached a large plastic bag. The drone was too busy watching us, as I went out to hang washing on the line to deliberately attract its attention and Danni’s chopper flew up behind it and the bag fouled the propellers on the drone which then crashed rather spectacularly. Unfortunately it also brought Danni’s chopper down but I promised to buy her a new one if necessary. I suspect photos of drone wars would appear in the papers tomorrow. At least they can’t accuse us of being boring.

Danni asked if she could have a remote control drone which fired real rockets or bullets. I told her to ask her dad, he did vehicle provision. When the police arrived, we handed over the drone after removing the camera memory cards although they were probably transmitting them elsewhere. Looking at the cameras, Trish suggested they wouldn’t have very good resolution on wi-fi but that the main images would be on the cards. She quickly downloaded them and then wiped the cards which we replaced before the police arrived. She also did something with the wi-fi control so it would just fly off once it got above fifty feet, ignoring the controls of the operator. She reckoned it would either hit a building or fly out into the sea.

Apparently, it got stuck on the roof of Portsmouth cathedral much to the bishop’s annoyance. When Danni said she wanted a drone, Trish told her to wait until Sammi got home to discuss it with her.