The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2738 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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The next morning I was knee deep in paperwork again, this time running some new software that Sammi revised for me and it does all I want plus probably more, but the analysis it does pretty well any two squares on a huge grid can be used to harvest data and because that girl is a genius it can be used in 3D. I can look at a particular species and see what was about on any single day or by recorder or site at the same time. It’s mind blowing stuff, or it is to me and I feel like a kid with a new toy—which it is. When it’s linking in to one and a half million records and doing all this, I can hardly believe it.

So there I am playing with my new toy which she says she wants to link with GPS so I can see almost exactly where something happened, when the phone rang. “Hello?”

“Professor could you take a call from a Dr Samuel Rose?”

“Of course,” a short click followed, “Hello, Sam, to what do I attribute this honour.”

“Were you aware that Trish is coaching Charlotte Murchison?”

“Who’s she when she’s at home?”

“I asked you to speak with her mother last week, mother is called Sue, I believe.”

“Trish asked to come with me even though I suggested that it might imply she was transgender by being there as Sue knew I had a tg daughter. They went off to play in a pub garden while we sat and talked. What has she done?”

“She’s apparently sent her a list of phytogenic plants like soya isoflavones, yams, ginseng and fennel, which Charlotte is insisting her mother buy, oh and she wants only to eat porridge for breakfast. I presume you didn’t know about this?”

“No, I did wonder if they’d swapped mobile numbers—obviously they have.”

“That sounds like the understatement of the year, Cathy. Now, what are we going to do about it?”

“I’ll text Trish telling her not to send anything else to Charlotte until I’ve spoken to her. If you’d like to send her one yourself, I can give you her number.”

“I don’t think I need to do that but I do need to stop her interfering with my patients.”

“She only means well, I’m sure.”

“I hope so, with her brain once she really gets into manipulation Machievelli will look a complete amateur by comparison.”

He already does. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t interfere again, Sam.”

“I have no objection to her treating her own patients but when she’s medically qualified and knows what she’s doing.”

“Message received loud and clear which I will pass on in full. I’m really sorry about this, Sam.”

“What did you think of her and her mother?”

“Apart from clueless not much else springs to mind and I certainly didn’t think Charlotte was anywhere near ready for transitioning.”

“The mother seemed to imply that Trish could turn her into a girl in a matter of weeks.”

Oops. “Ten year olds see things rather simplistically.”

“As a paediatrician I have some inkling of how children think, Cathy.”

“Sorry, Sam,” I wondered if he could feel the heat from my blush over the phone.

“I don’t want to hear anymore about Trish’s finishing school however good it might be. We need to get the diagnosis firmly before such things are useful.”

“She seems to like projects forgetting there might be people involved not just ideas.”

“Okay, sorry to go on, Cathy. I’ll leave you in peace.”

“I’ll speak to her this evening and deal with it.” I immediately sent her a text telling her not to send anymore texts to Charlotte. As I found out later it worked better than I thought because she went to check her message from me and had her phone confiscated for the rest of the day—they were in a maths lesson, as she has special tuition in mathematics, I suspect she might have been a trifle bored.

“Everything all right, professor?” Diane had poked her head round the door. “More tea?”

“Please, it might stop me strangling one of my daughters until tea time.”

She reappeared with two mugs of tea and sat down next to me. “Care to share?”

“I can’t say too much without breaking a confidence but my daughter Trish has an IQ off the scale and she likes to have projects to run.”

“Yes, what’s so wrong with that?”

“The projects are often people, which is fine if she’s coaching them with maths but not if she’s trying to make alterations to someone’s diet or lifestyle.”

“She what? How old is she?”

“Ten, going on twenty five.”

“Precocious?”

“Just a bit.”

“And she’s annoyed you?”

“She’s only—ah, sorry I can’t tell you—confidentiality and all that.”

“As long as you feel better, does it really matter?”

“Yeah, it was just a bit of a surprise to be carpeted by one of the nicest doctors on the planet.”

“The phone call?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t tell me Trish has been treating one of his patients and he didn’t like because she doesn’t have a licence to practice just yet.”

“In a nutshell, yes.”

“So are you going home to confiscate her little doctor set or her chemistry one?”

“Neither, her computer and her phone. Right, thanks for the cuppa, let’s get back to work and we might have the back of it broken by lunch time.”

“Oh, Professor Agnew told you to be ready for lunch at twelve thirty.”

“Oh did he now?”

“Did you want me to cancel?”

“Better not he’s the dean.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

“I’ll introduce you when he comes to claim his pound of flesh.”

“Really?”

“Don’t look so worried, he’s my adopted father but he does tend to pull rank on me in work. I get my own back at home.”

“I’m sorry, I thought you were married?”

“I am, we all live with Tom Agnew—it’s a big old house which we made even bigger a couple or so years ago. This is his chair really, I’m only keeping it warm until he gets fed up playing dean. Then he can have it back and I can go back to my dormice and return to oblivion.”

“I thought you were looking to make a film on pine martens or wild cats? Hardly oblivion?”

“I was speaking metaphorically—you know be seen to make films and your academic career loses credibility.”

“Doesn’t seem to have affected Professor Cox and Bettany Hughes.”

“She’s doesn’t do a full time job with a university, and he’s got a brain bigger than a small planet.”

“They haven’t disappeared into oblivion though, have they?”

“Okay, so I was wrong or lying—sue me...”

“He’ll be by for twelve thirty, your dad the dean,” she smirked and shut the door moments before I flung a book at it. “Missed,” was called through the door.

“I won’t next time,” I shouted back.