The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2252 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I spoke briefly to Simon who was gobsmacked. “They took Danni?”

“Yes, according to Stella.”

“I’ll get Jason straight on to it. Why didn’t they take the others as well?”

“That’s a question I asked myself, unless it was because she was the one who was assaulted by Pia and her little knife.”

“You’d better make plans for a tactical withdrawal of the rest of them.”

“D’you think they’d try again?”

“They could become emboldened by their temporary success.”

“If they try again, I’ll send them back in body bags.”

“Cathy, while it might be enjoyable it would only be short lived and you’d miss them growing up in prison.”

“Okay, no bodies,” I said seething with anger as realisation of what had happened set in.

“I’ll ask Jason to keep you informed.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll try and get home a little earlier.”

“That would be good.”

I rang off and waited for Jason to contact me.

“What happened exactly?” I asked a now calmer Stella.

“Jacquie was out with Trish, Livvie and Meems, they had Cate in the pushchair and went out to feed the ducks or something. About twenty minutes after they went the doorbell rang and that woman was here again with a court order and a police officer. They asked to see Danielle and then told her she was being taken into care for her own protection, she screamed the place down but they took her away all the same.”

“That’s tantamount to kidnapping.”

“Not with this,” she handed me the court order.

“I’ll fax a copy of this to Jason.” I scanned a copy into my laptop and sent it as an attachment to Jason. Two minutes later I had an acknowledgement from one of his underlings.

I made us a cuppa and asked Jacquie to make sure they kept the others inside and all doors locked. No one was to be allowed to enter without my say so–except family members of course. “It seems a particularly brutal abduction.”

“I thought so.” Stella sipped her tea.

“Mind you, I’ve never seen a child taken into care–the method I mean. The order only names Danielle, and that in her previous name, and I told that cow she’d changed her name to Danielle Cameron some weeks ago.”

“Maybe that’s what did it?”

“The change of name?”

“Yeah, we were making the changes official.”

“But the surgery was the important thing, surely? Names can be changed back and fore as much as you wish, but you can’t replace a bit that’s been surgically removed.”

“Could this have been drawn up before they knew about that?” Stella scanned the court order again. “The date is, twenty eighth of December.”

“Last week. It tends to suggest this morning’s visit was a reconnaissance.”

She nodded an agreement.

“If I meet her again, I’ll knock her block off,” I said in exasperation.

“I get first go,” said Stella and we both smiled at each other.

Jason phoned back and told me he was going to see a judge to get the court order rescinded by a higher court and a full hearing organised. I thanked him and asked him what the chances were of getting her back tonight.

“Reasonable, we’ll have to serve the rescission on the council and insist they return her.”

“What if they’re making her dress and act like a boy?”

“She used to a short while ago, Cathy.”

“If they’ve harmed her, I shall sue them into bankruptcy.”

“The whole council?”

“If necessary.”

“Who’s going to empty your bin if you do that?”

“I’ll offer the chief exec a job as a refuse collector.”

“Enjoy your fantasy, Cathy, I’m off to court.”

“Good luck,” I said but I think he’d already rung off. Now I had to wait, maintain some sort of patience and trust to the justness of our cause and perhaps more importantly, the skills of our barrister.

To start with, time was running out for the day. It was becoming early evening. If only I hadn’t gone to see Neal, I’d have been home and would have fought like mad to stop them taking my daughter. I wondered what she was feeling now, was she scared? I’ll bet she was–not knowing when or if she’d ever be allowed home again to us.

Would they have allowed her to remain dressed as a girl, would they have made her remove her makeup and nail varnish? Did they realise she now was a girl, would they examine her? I felt myself go cold at these thoughts. I didn’t know where she was so I couldn’t go to her, all I could do was send her my love and hope she’d realise we were doing all we could to get her back. This was nearly as frightening as if she’d been abducted by a stranger. If I got a chance I’d make them pay and dearly.

The phone rang, it was Tom to say he’d be late he had to go to a meeting. I told him what had happened and he wanted to come straight home. I told him he couldn’t do anything and to go to his meeting, we were doing all we could and would tell him of any progress when he got home. He wished us luck and rang off.

When Phoebe and Julie came home they were horrified. Phoebe was doubly so when I told her we’d been to see Neal and how he seemed to have regressed rather than improved. She hugged me and said, “He will get better, won’t he, Mummy?”

I could only say that I hoped so, but things were looking bleak all round. A very harried looking Simon got home at six, a good hour earlier than he usually does. We’d not heard of any progress.

I asked if Hannah had come over and no one had seen her. I phoned Ingrid and she said she saw the social services and they stayed at home locking the door firmly. It transpired she’d had issues with the social worker who came to see me. She’d wanted to take Hannah into care the year before they came to me. She had no belief in them at all other than as family breakers.

Logic told me that social workers did an impossible job and probably did it well most of the time. I’d got off to a bad start with them because of my gender issue and their homophobic tendencies. When I started acquiring gender dysphoric children, they couldn’t understand how or why and saw me as some monster who liked turning susceptible boys into girls. No matter how I tried to explain what was actually happening, they couldn’t or wouldn’t understand and set out to stop me. I’d managed to win each skirmish up until this one, but it appeared I had implacable foes in the department. Simon had tried to set up a meeting with the director, but so far they weren’t playing.

They banked with us but we couldn’t hit them there because they would just move their accounts to somewhere else and we’d lose a good income from them. Life just gets more and more complicated, or seemed so to my little brain.

The younger girls, especially Trish, sought reassurance that they wouldn’t be next to be taken. In the end the only way I could get her to sleep was to lie beside her with my arm around her. I cursed that bloody woman for all the upset she’d caused. I was tempted to ask James to do some digging on her and if he found anything to send it to the Echo. However, despite my anxieties and the discomfort in sharing Trish’s bed, I fell asleep.