Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 2726

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The Daily Dormouse.
(aka Bike, est. 2007)
Part 2726
by Angharad

Copyright© 2015 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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“What makes you think you knew her?” asked Pippa.

“It’s very possible, she went to the same school as I did.”

“She’s thirty two, Cathy.”

“So will I in December.”

“Yes but she was born in March, so she’d be the year above you.”

“She might still have known me.”

“I didn’t know half the kids in the year below me, did you?”

“Only if they were bigger and tried to bully me.”

“I must have been lucky, I never got bullied; did you Delia?”

“Not physically, though some were pretty nasty on the internet and mobile phones, casting all sorts of aspersions.”

“Thank goodness such things weren’t available when I was a school kid.” I think they’ve all forgotten I went to a boys’ school.

“So what was it like then?” asked Delia, who is quite a bit younger than Pippa and I.

“Whispering campaigns, name calling, occasional physical stuff,” said Pippa, “And that was just the nuns.”

“Oh God, you didn’t go to a convent too?” gasped Delia.

They compared notes and discovered they attended the same school but ten years apart. “You didn’t go to a convent as well, did you, Cathy?”

“No, a grammar.”

“Of course, Bristol Grammar, like Diane King.”

“Yes.” It was partly true, we both went to Bristol Grammar but she went to the girls and I went to the boys. The reasons she might remember me were two-fold, first I was a sort of celebrity freak, being small, girlish and so called ‘pretty’. I was also the oldest boy treble in the school choir, plus of course some of the girls were miffed that we did Macbeth without using any of their pupils for the female parts, as had been the usual practice. Sometimes I think, Murray only did it to try and embarrass me enough to leave his school; which just made me even more determined to stay and annoy him. I couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding in a fight, but neither did I run away from adverse events. I still don’t which some may consider to be the sign of a slow learner.

I eventually saw a thing about total fighting, which is where the practitioners use any and everything as weapons, including bits of your opponent, like clothing or anything they may be carrying. Nothing is out and there is a danger of inflicting serious if not fatal injuries, so it needs to be used with caution; but if someone is intent on hurting you, you give it back to them before they get you a sort of pre-emptive strike. Much of it is about state of mind, instead of accepting a beating or kicking which might eventually do serious damage you grab them by their bags and swing them head first into walls and things. It’s not about fighting ethically, it’s survival stuff using surprise and whatever you can turn into weapons, the end point being to attempt to disable opponents before they hurt you, so kicking knees, punching throats or grabbing weapons is fair play. It’s not pretty but it has saved my skin a few times, especially when used with kickboxing.

However, I don’t suggest everyone should even think about it unless they feel their lives are at risk or they are expecting serious injury themselves, in which case hurting your opponents is surely acceptable, if somewhat unusual for a girl. Then we had a girl round the corner from us who was a junior English champion at karate. I’ll bet no one teased or bullied her afterwards and probably not for some time before. Much of it is timing and knowing what you’re going to do, which is thought out milliseconds before you do it. Then you do it fast and furiously. If they’re still standing after two blows, start running.

“So how do you find out if she knows you?” Pippa brought me back to the here and now.

“Ask her I suppose or wait until she says something.”

“I think it might be better to wait for the latter, Cathy. I mean it’s not like declaring a conflict of interest, is it. So you may have known her or she you, but you didn’t realise it until after the interviews were concluded.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, besides she could simply recognise me from my two films or that bloody youtube clip.”

“It does tend to haunt you, doesn’t it,” she smirked and I felt like cringing.

Then I suddenly thought, if she did recognise me and put two and two together, so what? I’m fireproof. I’m legally female, a married one with legally adopted children and a senior position in the university which supports me and my changeover. All those who need to know, do and support my reassignment. So why should I feel like a criminal? On the other hand I’m not out and proud because I don’t think that’s appropriate for me, what others choose to do is up to them and as long as they respect my choices, I’ll reciprocate.

“Oh well whatever, tell her she’s got the job and sort out when she can start will you?” I asked Pippa. “Preferably before Delia leaves, and I hope she’s going to get some form of holiday between that and starting as an undergrad.”

“All sorted. Diane is a free agent, this is her first attempt at a job since moving here a couple of months ago, she can start when we want her.”

“How about shadowing Delia for a week or two?”

“We considered that too, but wondered if we could afford it, given the cutbacks.”

“They don’t apply to crotchety old professors,” I said trying to keep a straight face.

“Ah, the Agnew school of thought,” quipped Pippa.

“And there’s me thinking it was some form of Neoplatonic Confucionistic Calvinism.”

“Ah, the old fashioned school of bullshit which is said to baffle brains, especially when laid on not so much with a trowel but with a dirty great shovel.” Pippa sounded unconvinced by my attempt at muddying the issue—just for fun.

“You know me, Pippa, I try to...”

“Scatter red herrings like it was shoal time.” She smiled wickedly at me as I groaned at her pun.

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Comments

Scattering red herrings…

Rhona McCloud's picture

Is it two sides of the same herring? Cathy's love of stirring things up is paralleled by her regularly seeing red herrings to trip over. She reaps as she sows while we have fun following her story.

Rhona McCloud

Cathy's not known...

...for herring on the side of caution.

Nothing ever goes smoothly

I wonder what sort of mischeif she will get up to?

A

Finally it seems, Cathy has

Finally it seems, Cathy has figured it out that she is her own worst enemy when it comes to her past life where she was impersonating a boy. Hopefully this will now get her past all that and she can gain some much needed peace with herself. As she said in not so many words, "in the long run who the heck cares?"