52. The Crate
In which the courier is early…
Griffin tried the storeroom handle a second time, as though it might have changed its mind. It hadn’t.
“Perhaps it’s stuck,” said Gimbal.
“It’s definitely locked,” said Griffin.
Graphic knocked on the door, politely at first and then harder. Griffin joined in, and then Gimbal, and then all three of them were banging and shouting, “Hello,” and “We’re in here,” and once, from Griffin, with some reluctance, “Fenella.” Beyond the door the extractor fan over the kiln went on roaring the way it did every afternoon. Nobody came.
They stopped when their paws hurt and sat on the floor with their backs to the door.
“Somebody will come,” said Gimbal. “Halcyon comes in here for tape at least twice a day. Three times on Thursdays.”
“It isn’t Thursday,” said Griffin. “And it’s gone half past five, she’ll have gone home.”
Some time later the fan stopped. The workshop was so quiet without it that they shouted again, all three together, and then listened hard. Nothing answered. A little after that all the lights went out.
“Well,” said Griffin, in the dark. “That’s that, then.”
A thin grey line showed under the door from a window somewhere in the workshop, and once their eyes got used to it there was enough light to make out the shelves and the crate and the straw and wool that was left over from packing the crate.
At some point Gimbal raised the practical matter. They agreed without much discussion that the far corner at the back would do, and they could use the leftover straw and cover it over properly afterwards. They were not the sort of gerbils who left things for other people to find.
The evening went slowly in the dark, and nobody came.
It was Graphic who found the seeds. On the second shelf was a cardboard box full of the same packets they took home every Friday.
“Our wages,” said Griffin.
“It isn’t ours until Friday,” said Gimbal.
“Then it’s an advance,” said Griffin.
They opened one packet. Gimbal counted out four seeds each, looked at her own four for a moment, and put one back. Then she folded the top of the packet over and put it in her pocket.
The storeroom had grown cold as the heat drained from the day and after a while they were sitting pressed together on the concrete floor for warmth.
“The crate,” said Graphic. It was the first thing she had said in an hour.
The lid had only been pressed down at the corners, and the three of them lifted it off easily. Graphic would not let anyone climb in until she had felt through the wool with her paw and made sure there was enough of it between them and the glass. Then they got in, burrowed down into the wool and straw, and Griffin and Gimbal slid the lid back over the top.
It was warm almost at once. Gimbal counted the seeds in her pocket by touch and there were nine, then counted them again to be sure, and there were still nine. Somewhere in the middle of the third count she joined the others in sleep.
A little later, on the other side of the back wall, something began to scratch at the brick. None of them woke.
At twenty to nine the following morning, @Hedgehogforshort and @EdithStourton were outside the workshop again. Neither of them had slept much, and both had stopped pretending otherwise at around five. Hedgehog had said the three gerbils would be at their benches when they arrived, embarrassed by all the fuss, and Edith had agreed. Neither of them believed it.
There was a small blue car in the yard and the front door was unlocked. Edith left the dogs outside the workshop. “Glass,” she said. “Batshit and glass do not make a great combination.”
Halcyon was inside, switching on the lights and the extractor fan. She looked at them with polite surprise.
“We don’t really have visitors,” she said.
“We’re from the Bluestocking,” said Hedgehog. “Are Griffin, Gimbal and Graphic here?”
“Not yet. I’ve been in since half eight and there’s been nobody.” Halcyon hung her coat on its hook. “Fenella isn’t in either, which is unusual. She’s normally here before me.”
Before Hedgehog could say anything else, a van turned into the yard.
“That’ll be the courier,” Halcyon said. “Would you mind waiting a moment?”
Hedgehog minded, but the courier was already out of the van and walking towards the door with a sack barrow, so she stepped aside.
“Morning,” said the courier. “The A14’s solid past Cambridge so I came across country instead. Quicker, as it turns out.”
“It’s the crate in the storeroom,” said Halcyon. “It might not be quite ready.”
“That’s fine,” said the courier, “I know I’m early. I’m happy to wait.”
Hedgehog and Edith stood by the door, from where they could see the whole length of the workshop, past the benches and the kiln. Halcyon went to the storeroom and tried the handle. It didn’t open. Without any pause at all she took a key from the hook beside the door, unlocked it and went in.
Through the open doorway they could see the crate on the floor, its lid on and a docket in the sleeve on top. Halcyon pressed down each corner in turn. Then she went to the nearest bench, came back with a hammer and a tin of nails, and nailed the lid shut, working her way round the edge with steady, even strokes. The noise rang through the building. Edith winced.
The courier tipped the crate back onto the sack barrow and wheeled it out past them, bumping it over the step into the yard. Halcyon signed the screen the courier held out, took her copy of the receipt, and the van was gone.
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/52-the-crate