The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3145 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 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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The rest of the day went by much as every other, everyone looking at me to start, finish or do bits in between practically everything that gets done, except Danni, Julie and Phoebe. Danni went off to see Cindy and meet up with some other girls. It seems Cindy is more accepted than she once was by the pupils at St Claire’s. If you remember Trish rescued her at their first meeting. I have to admit that Danielle for all her football is far prettier than Cindy, who, while she doesn’t look like a boy, the hormones have helped with that, isn’t exactly very girl looking either.

Julie and Phoebe were at their flat apparently cleaning walls ready for them being painted next week. They decided they’d have plain emulsioned walls and then they could hang pictures and other wall decorations. I actually agreed with them and we were going looking for carpets next week and hopefully suitable curtains as well.

The walls will be magnolia—a bit institutional but light and just about a match for anything. I told Simon while they were out as soon as they chose the soft furnishings, we’d buy them a suite for their sitting room.

He swallowed hard, muttered something incomprehensible but agreed. I was happy to pay half of it and if he hadn’t agreed, the whole lot. Tom overheard me and offered to buy them a bed each. They were very lucky young women compared to many who hardly have anything when they move into a home.

When I told them the good news, they hugged me and squealed with pleasure, the two girls that is and asked if we could look next week with the carpets and curtains. I could hardly refuse but suggested they might like to look online to get some ideas of what they wanted and how much they were. They decided they wanted leather and rushed off to a computer to start looking. They both had come in looking tired and dirty after their wall washing activities. However, their good news had reinvigorated them more than a little.

Danielle cadged a lift back from Brenda and arrived just before the girls got back. She had homework to finish. Had I known that, I’d have insisted she did it before she went out. She shrugged and said it was only reading.

“How much reading and what sort?”

“History, a chapter.” Teenagers are either neurotic about things or so disinterested they don’t even make an apathy score. I suspect she was in the latter category and I nearly fell into the trap of asking her about it, the history they were doing, when I realised I needed to let her take a few more responsibilities for herself. When I checked on her an hour later, the book was open in her lap but her eyes were closed. She was sitting upright in bed but was fast asleep. Taking the book off her I helped her lie flat and tidied the bed around her putting the book on the chair by her bed. I’d glanced at the title and it was about political history in the Tudor period. Riveting if you’re a historian but to the average teenage girl, BORING.

I’d enjoyed history in school and the Tudor period was fascinating with Henry VII taking the throne off Richard III at Bosworth Field, near Leicester. They found the body of the loser in Leicester last year, under a car park. Henry was a paranoid psycho with a secret service to rival the Stasi, if I recall it correctly. Then his successor, Henry VIII, who shouldn’t have been king at all but his elder brother died soon after marrying Catherine of Aragon, who Henry then married only to divorce a while later.

The intrigues with Henry’s six marriages, his dissolution of the monasteries and creation of the Church of England made his reign quite eventful. His son Edward VI died young and was replaced with Mary Tudor who was Roman Catholic and the troubles that caused was awful, burning protestants who refused to recant.

Then along came Elizabeth, who was protestant and the boot was on the other foot and she terminated quite a few Catholics which led up to the Armada, an attempted invasion by Spain which failed thanks to the likes of Drake and Raleigh and the North Sea. The invasion was wrecked by a storm and those Spanish sailors who were washed up alive on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, both still Catholic countries, were murdered by the natives and robbed.

Mind you, it’s said that the English sailors, for the most part didn’t do much better. Most of them were left to starve aboard their ships at Tilbury, because there wasn’t enough money in the exchequer to feed them. Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh are believed to have paid for food for their men out of their own pockets. The gratitude of the crown to its subjects is at times underwhelming.

Elizabeth was the last of the Tudors dying in 1603 and her crown going to the son of her cousin and rival Mary Queen of Scots, who as James VI of Scotland became, James I of England and thus began the dynasty of the Stuarts. James was described as the wisest fool in Christendom, but it was under his rule that the Authorised version of the Bible was commissioned and published, though much of it apparently was written by William Tyndale some years before. Much of the magical poetry in the King James’ version is due to Tyndale, who is regarded as second only to Shakespeare in his contribution to the English language. He was martyred in 1536 being burnt at the stake as a protestant after being captured at Antwerp.

I enjoyed my history and still do and unlike many school kids, did when I was in school. We had one teacher who used to make us read aloud from the text book and for some reason he asked me to read most weeks—perhaps he liked my girly voice. For some reason I was also asked to read the lesson in school a few times and in junior school, I went to a church school, we went to church on Ascension day and in my final year at junior school, was asked to read the lesson in church, which mean ascending the pulpit and then trying not to fall while descending the steps. Had i done so, it would have made a number of the riff-raff’s day. Yeah, I was bullied there as well for being girly, although that was a mixed school, but many of the girls were more butch than I was.

I kissed Danielle on the cheek and bid her sleep well, closing her door gently as I left. While I was upstairs I checked on the girls’ dormitory and they were all fast asleep, Bramble, tucked into Trish’s side as they both zzzzed away together—the four legged psychopath and her protector.

“Everything okay?” asked Simon coming up the stairs. I nodded my response. “I’m off to bed, completely shattered.” He had done a little bit of gardening with Tom, I’d done a couple of hours housework and been up since it got light and he was shattered—duh.

By the time I’d cleaned my teeth and slipped into my nightdress he was in the land of nod. I sighed in relief and snuggled in behind him and was soon asleep myself.