The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3299 by Angharad Copyright© 2021 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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"A penny for them," said a voice coming from the doorway of my study.

"Not sure they're worth as much as a penny," I responded.

"Inflation?"

"Perhaps, why?"

"I just wondered, what were you thinking about anyway?" The interrogator was my sister in law, who had returned from work with her two girls and had obviously come looking for me.

"Nothing much, just wondering what happened to an old chap I found lying in his garden."

"What, today?" she gasped.

"No, I was about twelve so it was back in Bristol."

"So what happened?"

"Not a lot, he wasn't responding..."

"So you didn't do your pick up your bed and walk bit, then?"

"Be sensible, Stella, I told you I was twelve."

"Oh okay, so what happened?"

"It's just boring, I went and got some neighbours and they called the ambulance."

"It's never straightforward when you're involved, so what else happened?"

"Nothing really, I was on my way pond-dipping and I spotted him lying part under a bush."

"Yeah, well, most of us probably wouldn't have seen him, so he was lucky it was you."

"Oh come on, Stel, half the world would have done the same as I did."

"I'm not sure, most of them are so wrapped up in their own little lives, they don't see red lights, let alone collapsed old men, and you do seem to be the one who always does something."

I shrugged, "So, I'm not ashamed of it."

"I'm not saying you should, in fact you should be proud of it, you saved someone's life. Not many of us can say that."

"Well you can, you saved mine when I got stabbed if you remember?"

"Uh, I think I just stopped you dying, the paramedics and the trauma guy saved you."

I rolled my eyes, "Well, as far as I am concerned you saved me that day."

"Who did?" asked Danielle poking her nose in to our conversation.

"Your Auntie Stella saved my life when I got stabbed on top of Portsdown hill."

"Yeah, we know, why are you talking about that?" Danielle wasn't impressed or interested in going over ancient history.

"We were talking about how your mum saved the life of some old chap up in Bristol." Stella was now after chapter and verse and was trying to include Danni in the effort.

"She always saving someone," shrugged Danni and was about to walk away uninterested in my early life.

"She was only twelve at the time," Stella continued.

"Oh, so who did you fight off this time, bandits, burglars or rampaging hippos?" Danni can be quite sarcastic, quite? Perhaps I mean, very.

"Don't be silly, she was twelve."

"So, Supergirl can do it." Danni was still not impressed.

"Supergirl is fiction, girl. Your mother is real and she really saved this old chap's life."

"Oh, okay, what happened?" said Danielle almost yawning and looking at her nails.

"That's what she was telling me, so carry on... well carry on," she urged me.

"It's not that interesting, really it isn't," I protested but they insisted I continue. "I was on my way pond-dipping when I spotted this old chap's feet sticking out from under a bush and went to look and discovered the rest of him was there as well. I went and called the neighbours and they called the ambulance. End of story."

"So what injuries did he have?" asked Stella, encouraged by Danni.

"I don't know, he had a wound on the back of his head, so presumably had bumped it when he fell, he was unconscious when I found him so I went to get help."

"Was he living alone?"

"I have no idea but no one answered the door when I knocked it, nor did the house next door."

"I thought you said the neighbours came and helped him?"

"They were the neighbours from the other side of his house."

"Oh, you didn't say that."

I rolled my eyes and Danielle snorted.

"I went to the neighbours and their son answered the door and he just yelled to his mother that there was a girl at the door who'd found a body in the next door's garden."

"Girl? I thought you didn't transition until you were twenty-something?" Danielle challenged me.

"She was always getting mistaken for a girl, remember she had long hair and looked like a girl mainly because she was one."

"Yeah, okay so they thought you were a girl, wearing your pond-dipping dress were you?" I told you Danni could be sarky.

"No, I was wearing a pair of dungarees."

"What girl's ones, I bet."

"Yes. My dad bought them by mistake but I wasn't going to tell him, was I? Besides they were so comfy to wear."

"Told you," said Danni gleefully.

"Not when you need to pee they're not," asserted Stella.

"Yeah, well in those days my arse wasn't as fat as yours, so it wasn't a problem." I shot one back at Stella and Danielle again snorted.

"So they all thought you were a girl, Charlotte, was it?"

"Yes, Stella, I told them my name was Charlie and I suppose because I had long hair and girl's dungarees, they assumed I was a girl called Charlotte."

"So why didn't you correct them?" asked Danielle.

"It's embarrassing," offered Stella, "correcting adults when you're a kid, plus it makes you possibly vulnerable if they think you're a boy wearing girl's clothes."

"Exactly, so I didn't correct them and the police took my name and address and a couple of weeks later, we had a knock on the door and the old man's son arrived with the policewoman who'd attended and they presented me with a book for my help."

"Weren't your parents there?" asked Stella.

"My mother was, why?"

"So she was okay with Charlotte?"

"Not really," I blushed, "but because I'd done the right thing, she went along with it but told me to treat my hair like any other girl did with conditioner and so on if I was growing it."

"I thought she hated you being all femmy?" questioned Danni.

"I don't think she was comfortable with it when it was too overt, and she knew my father hated it, but this time she didn't tell my dad."

"Didn't she teach you to cook and sew and things as well?" said Stella.

"You both know she did."

"So was she a secret supporter?"

"I don't really know, I think both of them were screwed up over gender and sexuality and when I came along and didn't quite fit their pattern it caused them problems."

"So any photos?" asked Stella. I so nearly told her no, but I still hate telling lies even though I seem to have got good at it.

I sighed and picked the book off the shelf and picked out the cutting. They both crowded together to read it. "So this photo is before Lady Macbeth?" asked Danni.

"Yes, a couple of years or so, I was almost flying under Murray's radar until things like this happened.

"Oh god, it gives your school, no wonder your Head was interested. What happened?"

I'd forgotten the aftershocks. "Until then I was basically one of the insignificant kids who weren't sport oriented, who did quite well at academic subjects and kept out of trouble. Remember, it happened in the school holidays so it was old news when I went back to school."

"Yeah, but he was such an asshole, Mum, there's more isn't there?"

"Let's have a cuppa and I'll see if I can remember." Sadly there were no distractions and the audience got bigger as the clipping got passed around as were the clamours for the story. I told them the early part and the presentation of the book, then seated in the kitchen, with even David listening in I related the story of my being sent for on the first day of return to school, some three weeks after the event.

"I was sent for after the morning break. I'd forgotten all about the whole thing being more interested in life generally and getting all the books I needed for my various classes. This was double chemistry, so they'd already issued the books. I was wearing my hair in a ponytail and probably had the longest hair of a any student in the boy's school, except possibly a Sikh kid in the fifth form, but he wore a turban and it was allowed as a religious concession."

"Couldn't you tell them yours was a religious thing too?" asked Trish, "tell them you worshipped Pantene." They all laughed at this and it was a moment before I could continue.

"I went to the headmaster's office and was told to knock and enter by the secretary, which I did. He looked up from his desk and looked at me. It wasn't quite the first time we'd met, when I'd just have been seen as one of the weedy kids, but it was the first time my gender issue had been exposed." There were clamours for more as I stopped my narrative to take a sip of my tea.

"He had the clipping on the desk in front of him. 'Is this you, Watts?' he said turning it around so it was right way up to me. I blushed like an atomic pile and sort of stuttered a response. 'Like pretending you're a girl do you?' he said in a very derogatory tone."
I stopped and sipped my tea again, I could feel the anger and embarrassment I suffered under that man's hand. I told them that I hadn't pretended to be a girl and that they had probably mistaken me for one because I was smaller than most boys and my voice hadn't broken. He challenged why I hadn't corrected their misapprehension, and I replied that it was less embarrassing all round if I didn't as I hadn't expected the incident to go any further other than a short police report of their call-out.

He asked me why neither I nor my mother had corrected it when they presented the book to me and why did we allow them to take a photo which was incorrect? I was dreadfully embarrassed and a bit tongue-tied so I just shrugged. He told me to get my hair cut and that he would be speaking to my parents about my deception.

At this point something in me rebelled against his bullying. "Sir, the rules say nothing about length of hair, only that it has to be kept clean and tidy and safe from any machinery or apparatus by being kept tied back. Mine is clean and tidy and tied back."

"Oh a clever dick, or is Dora? I do like them, so your girl hair is going to stay long, is it?"

"I prefer it that way, Sir."

"Well, I don't so get it cut."

"No, Sir, I won't and you can't make me according to the school rules."

"Can't I now? Well the rules also say that one of the options for the uniform is a skirt and blouse, are you going to wear those too, to go with your girly hair, Charlotte?"

"No, Sir, of course not."

"We'll see won't we? And don't you ever dare tell me you won't do something that I tell you to do, now get your sissy arse out of my office, you make me sick, you fucking faggot."

"Did he actually say that to you?" asked David.

"More or less as I remember it, why?"

"That was worse than bullying, that was abuse."

"It probably was but it was a long time ago and I survived it."

"He should have been reported to the police or at least the school governors."

"In those days they'd have listened to him not me. I suspect I've probably come out of the series of battles we fought on the winning side, but I accept some of them were close run things and he did win one or two of them, including the Macbeth thing."

"Isn't he the guy I dumped the pudding on his head?"

"Well, in a previous life, you did," I replied to Danielle who was still a boy then at Mr Whitehead's funeral.

"Oh yeah," she said and looked wistfully at me. I smiled at her and she smiled back.

"If Daddy had known about all this abuse, he'd have done something about it, why didn't yours?" asked Livvie whose questions were always searching and usually more mature than Trish's.

"I suppose he was tricked into supporting Murray who invented all sorts of stories about how morally corrupt I was, trying to seduce the ordinary boys to my depraved sexual needs."

"That was dreadful," said Danielle, "That was like what I went through after France." She began to cry and I stopped the group experience and took her off to the study with me. "Happy now?" I asked Stella as I walked past, if she hadn't persisted with her stupid questions none of this would have happened.

It took me two hours to calm Danni down, it had all come rushing back as PTSD does. I asked her if she wanted me to get Stephanie, but she shook her head and we just cuddled together for most of the two hours, during which she nodded off to sleep and that enabled me to do some healing on her and she awoke looking a bit dishevelled, which is not our Danielle at all. When I suggested she might like to go and clean herself up, she took one look in the mirror, squealed and ran up to her room. She came down half an hour later looking and sounding much more like her usual self. Stella stayed out of my way for the rest of the day and we discussed it the next day. She admitted seeing my side of things but also felt she hadn't done anything wrong except insisting I tell the tale. I didn't quite agree and almost felt like asking her if it was okay if we all discussed her kidnap experiences with the Russian mafia but knew it would cause her pain so said nothing.

All of this reappeared because of a report of my assistance to an elderly man, perhaps the old adage, that no good deed goes unpunished, is correct?