The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3198 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 Angharad

It was a couple of hours since I’d spoken with Sammi and was back in my study repairing two of the girls’ blouses. Apparently both Trish and Hannah were trying to beat the record for racing round the playground, doubtless egged on by their sisters, when they collided and both fell into the rose bushes, tearing their uniforms, muddying themselves and giving themselves several nasty scratches. When they asked me to heal them up, I declined telling them that if it hurt them for a few days they may refrain from repeating their act of stupidity. Then they told me the record was held by their elder sister, who did it the term before.

“She’s older than you, fitter and faster—how on earth did you hope to beat her?”

“I did some calculations, a constant ten miles an hour would have done it,” quipped back Einstein.

“In a crowded playground?”

“Well it would have worked in theory.”

“So does buying a lottery ticket to win the jackpot, it’s a bit different in practice—about one in a hundred and sixty million.”

“I can’t help it if I like a challenge.”

“And end up looking like an escapee from a rag bag.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, no need to keep on about it.”

“It’s not you who will have to either buy new or repair your clothes.”

“Oh come off it, Mummy, you and Dad are hardly short of a bob or two.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“What is then?”

“You and Hannah made the mistake but I’m the one who has to pay for it.”

“That’s the joy of parenthood isn’t it?”

“So they say, but I can only think they never had two little monsters like you and Hannah.”

“You love us really.”

“That’s only until the guarantee runs out.”

“See, you do rea—when’s that gonna happen?”

“I renew it every night when you’re asleep in bed.”

“Eh?”

“You all look angelic when you're asleep because your horns and forked tails don’t show under the bed clothes. It lulls me into thinking I might be able to cope for another day.”

“Oh, Mummy dearest,” she simpered holding onto my arm.

“Go away while your head is still attached to your neck.”

“Oh-oh, I’m going,” she made a dash for the door.

“And tell your co-conspirator next time you two can repair your own uniforms or got to school with the tears in them.”

“Love you,” was called from a safe distance away. That was couple of days ago and here I was trying to sew the tears in the freshly laundered blouses.

“Right, here’s the name of the person the site is owned by and don’t ask any questions but I can guarantee they won’t be breaking into anyone else’s site.”

“What did you do?”

“I told you not to ask any questions.”

“So how will I know it’s been disabled?”

“You don’t want to know but it appears they were hit by a bot emanating from Russia, or that’s how they’ll see it. Their entire software should be in total meltdown by now and it will affect anyone who’s in their address book, as well.”

“What if the addressees are innocent?”

“Tough tit.”

“It’s not going to come back to me is it, I mean your virus?”

“No, I cleared out the university from their address book and any commercial sounding names. Oh I also took down their facebook page too. Did you hear about Turkey?”

“What the one we’ve just eaten?” I wondered if she’d seen something implying we shouldn’t have eaten it.

“No, the country.”

“Something about Syria?”

“Don’t think so, they said on the radio that they’re going to expunge evolution from their school curriculum and teach creationism. They’ve got some US evangelicals to help them.”

“Oh wonderful, how can people be so stupid? Most people accept evolution even if they do believe in some form of deity, so why have the Turks decided to revert to the Nineteenth Century?”

“It’s all part of keep people in ignorance and they won’t challenge you when you want to take away their freedom.”

“Want or actually do it?”

“Does it matter—outcome’s the same,” she said shrugging.

“I suppose if you talk to people’s emotions rather than their intellects, if you manage it properly, they don’t realise you’ve manipulated them into doing exactly what you want. Their idiot president is a fundamentalist and wants to overturn all of Ataturk’s legacy in creating a secular state.”

“And they’re members of NATO.”

“The political situation gets worse by the day. I mean, who in their right mind would put Michael Gove in charge of the Department of the Environment, the man is an idiot?”

“Somebody equally stupid, or someone who doesn’t care.”

“Or someone who was leant on by Roop.”

“Nah, he channels instructions directly from the source.”

“Who Roop?”

“No, the Dacre via his wife, who still wants to be the wife of a Prime Minister.”

“Oh she writes for the Daily Wail, forgot.”

“We need a revolution to clear out all the muck and corruption which seems to infest every aspect of life these days, and the bigger or more preposterous the act, the more chance you have of getting away unscathed.”

“Don’t they say that you’re more likely to get away with stealing a few million than trying to pinch fifty pence?”

“That’s what they say.”

I cut off some more cotton from the reel and rethreaded the needle.

“What’re you sewing, it looks like school uniforms?”

“It is.” I held up the two blouses and showed her the split seams in them.

“How did they do that—on second thoughts don’t tell me.”

“Make us some tea, will you, darling?”

She glanced at her watch, “Yeah, okay.”

“I take it you are staying overnight?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan—I assume that’s okay.”

“Trish and I spent ages making up beds, so you’d better had or I’ll set her on you.”

“What Schrödinger’s cat?”

I laughed, “She hasn’t asked Kelly yet has she?”

“She has and when Kelly gave her a reasonable answer—she did physics and maths at UCL before switching to computers—her eyes nearly popped out. They were both rabbiting when came past.”

“I pay for her to have tutoring in physics and maths, no school would cope with her in a general class, she’d either disrupt or overwhelm it.”

“They still at that convent place?”

“Yes—why?”

“It strikes me as rather incongruent for a rabid Darwinian socialist to send her kids to a Catholic private school.”

“Life is full of paradoxes.”

“Especially where you’re concerned,” she muttered, “I’ll make the tea.” By the time she returned I had the splits in the girls’ blouses tacked and was ready to run them through the sewing machine.

“Crazy isn’t it?” she said looking at me sitting at the Singer.

“What?”

“You can work that machine and not a computer while I can do anything i want on a computer but I couldn’t even set one of those up.”

“Want me to show you?”

“Here’s your tea.”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“D’you want me to show you how to set it up?”

“Want me to show you how to reformat your computer?”