The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2644 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

---

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.
@@@@@
Danni came on as substitute, the Dutch were causing them all sorts of trouble and it was decided to throw all into attack and see if it caused a disruption to the Dutch plan. Within minutes, Danni seemed to galvanise the team and she was involved in two attacks which caused the Dutch to scramble a defence to keep the England girls from scoring.

For the next ten minutes England dominated, all because Danni came back to midfield and started to put moves together. Twice she got taken down by a cynical Dutch defender and the referee seemed oblivious of it. Each time should have been a foul and a free kick. Then switching wings she romped away up the left of the field and then cut inside the fullback before the other fullback who’d sliced her down before took her out a third time. I could see it coming and this time Danni was rolling about holding her leg.

I drew down the light and hurled a ball of it at her it hit her and for a moment she seemed surrounded in a cloud of blue light, then she stood up and taking the ball placed it where the referee said the foul was committed. Still glistening in a blue light once the referee blew to play ball, she took the free kick and it swerved out to the right before sluicing back to the left at tremendous pace to zip into the left top corner of the goal. The goal keeper didn’t move. England 1 Holland 0.

The Dutch kicked off but a long pass was intercepted by an English woman who passed it to the general in the centre of the pitch—my Danni. She beat two players and sent the left winger off up the touchline where she beat the defender and crossed into the goal. It was headed away by Danielle’s nemesis but only as far as Danni, who taking it on the volley, blasted it straight back at the goal from thirty yards. On its way it smacked into the face of the dirty Dutch defender and ricocheted into the goal. England were now two goals up, both scored by Danielle.

The Dutchwoman was taken off with concussion and a suspected broken nose. The second half was at times frantic, but Danielle stayed resolute in the midfield, not her normal place of operation, but her football brain as well as her skills helped her to set up movements which had the Dutch defending most of the half. In the last few minutes, they did manage to claw one back although everyone but the referee saw the blatant handball by the Dutch captain which tipped the ball over the goalkeeper’s reach and into the net. Talk about the ‘hand of god’ incident in the World Cup by Diego Maradona, this had to be a close second—maybe the Holy Ghost was involved in this one?

In the final minutes, England, kicked off and a quick through ball from Danni to their right winger caught the Dutch napping and she put over a cross which Danielle ran towards but stepped over leaving it for her colleague. The feint worked and the England number ten hit it just inside the right hand post leaving the keeper stranded. The referee blew for full time before the game could be restarted. Danielle was applauded off the pitch and I felt so proud. An hour later we met up and she simply said. “Thanks for the help, Mum, I know my leg was broken but it healed in a second, can you take this blue light off me now, it’s stopping me from eating chocolate.”

I woke up bathed in sweat, in my dream I’d done as much running as Danni had. I went for a wee. I was two o’clock. Simon was snoring ‘Colonel Bogie’ and I changed my nightdress for a dry one. At seven I got up, washed and dressed in my mousing clothes and roused Danielle. After a quick breakfast we drove out to the university. Delia was astonished to see us, she was so excited, hoping and praying to see a dormouse in the wild. Danni winked at me and we both smiled. We had two other people who came with us to site four. We had forty nest boxes to check and only Danni and I had ever done it before. Oh well, this could be fun.

The other two followed my Jaguar out to the forestry plantation and we parked in a layby. We collected up the stuff we needed, a spring balance, a small plastic bag, a large clear plastic bag, a notebook and pen, my chip-reader—so we could identify already marked mice, and a map of the site showing the location of each box.

We set off at a brisk walk and got to the first box. I carefully showed them how to check them and over the next half hour they each got to do one. Then we had a signal that one with nesting material had been found. It was taken off the tree and the hole on the back plugged with a cloth. Then into the large bag and the lid was taken off. It was a dormouse nest all right. I showed them how to probe the nest with my finger and out popped a dormouse. I checked there were no others or babies. Then removed the nest box so as to avoid squashing the mouse with it.

The next thing is to capture said mouse, which is done by trapping it into a corner and transferring it to the hand. Then it was placed in the small bag and weighed. Once that was done, I checked it with our scanner and we got an identity number. We recorded the box number, the mouse number and its weight after which it was returned to the box, the box returned to the tree and the plug removed.

We repeated it five more times, yes we had six mice and everyone had a chance to handle a dormouse, pictures being taken as they did so. I texted the coordinator to say we’d finished and we returned to the university and dropped Delia off. She was so pleased with herself she went off home with a silly grin on her face.

“Cor, anyone would think she’d just had sex for the first time,” said Danni as we got back into the car.

“How would you know that?” I asked watching her blush like a traffic light.

“I saw it in a film.”

“Not read it in a book then?”

“I saw Julie and Sammi the night they got screwed for the first time. They had this stupid grin on their faces, just like Delia did.”

“I’m thinking of offering her a place to study ecology at the university.”

“What—can you do that?”

“I think so, problem is I need a secretary more than I need students.”

“What if she loses the novelty?”

“I don’t think she will, she’s become increasingly involved with the department, including attending lectures when she wasn’t too busy. I’ve never seen a secretary do that before.”

“She’s keen then?”

“Just a bit,” I smiled. “Oh who are England ladies playing next?”

“Holland, next month, why?”

Did I mention my dream or not?