The Terms
In which the unsettled isn’t settled…
The three contracts had spent the night on the big table, weighted flat at the corners with a sugar bowl and two coasters, and by the time breakfast had been cleared, Gingerbread had said the number out loud again, “Twenty seeds a week.”
“Twenty,” agreed Gasket.
“A week,” said Geometry.
“That’s a lot,” said Gingerbread. “How many do we normally have?”
Nobody answered, and then everybody did at once.
“Seven,” said Garnet. “Yesterday. I had seven.”
“Eight,” said Gasket. “Before breakfast. On Tuesday.”
“I had some on Sunday and I had some after, when the barrels came,” said Ganges. “And then I had some more when the barrels were finished.”
“How many is some?” asked Geometry.
“Some,” said Ganges. “And then some more.”
Governance, realising a comparison was in progress, opened a fresh notebook and headed it Bluestocking Arrangements: For Comparison. Galliard fetched the blackboard, on the grounds that a blackboard was always useful.
More numbers arrived. Geometry had three, and then remembered four more that had been on her way somewhere else, and Garnet revised her seven upward on the grounds that she had not been counting the ones from the case by the door. Galliard wrote them as they came, and they came faster than she could write.
“Are they luxury seeds?” asked Garnet.
Griffin looked at her contract. She turned it over and looked at the back of it, which was blank. “It says sunflower seeds. It doesn’t say which.”
The gerbils considered this. The luxury seeds lived behind the bar in the box with the hinged lid, and MyrtleLion brought them out for special occasions, and there had been one special occasion, on the night they all came home safely after catching the smugglers in Maine. Since then there had been applications. Ganges had submitted a regatta. Greengage had submitted the Summer Festival, twice, on the grounds that it was coming anyway. Geode had submitted a change in the weather. All of them had been received, politely considered, and declined.
“Twenty luxury seeds a week,” said Gingerbread. “Every Friday.”
“That’s more than I’ve had in my whole life,” said Garnet.
Nobody spoke for a moment.
“It can’t be luxury seeds,” said Ganges. “Nobody gets that many.”
“No,” agreed Gingerbread. “It can’t be luxury.”
Relief tinged with wistfulness went round the room.
“Seed arrangements,” said Governance, and wrote it down, followed by, As many as are wanted, when they are wanted.
“There’s the birthdays,” said Galliard. “I haven’t listed the birthdays.”
Governance wrote the heading Birthdays in the notebook and Galliard turned to the board again and began a list of gerbils, so that their birthdays could be written down. By the fifteenth column her arm was aching and she had only got as far as the gerbils working the day shifts that week. Garnet pointed out that the board would never be big enough.
“But that isn’t how birthdays work,” said Gasket. “When somebody decides it’s her birthday, it’s everybody’s birthday. We all have one that day with cake and presents for everyone.”
“There were two last month,” said Ganges.
“There’s another on Thursday,” said Geometry. “Gadget’s arranging it.”
Galliard stood with her arm raised, holding the chalk, then immediately put it down again because her arm still ached.
Governance added, Whenever they are wanted.
Griffin was going through her contract the way she went through a map before trusting it, feature by feature, against the ground. “One day designated rest,” she read, “to be agreed in advance and not substituted without notice. So the rest day has a fixed position, and once it’s placed it can’t be moved.”
“What if Griffin needs a rest and it isn’t a rest day?” asked Geometry.
Governance held the notebook flat with one paw and wrote a new heading Rest Days, and next to it, Whenever one is wanted.
“Holiday,” Griffin went on. “Ten days a year, outside restoration season, of which none is currently stated. A season with no stated dates could be at any time. Which means the ten days could be at any time. Which means the ten days could be problematic.”
“Restoration season is two months in the autumn,” said Grisaille. “September and October.”
“Wouldn’t that get in the way of the Harvest Festival?” asked Geometry.
“They manage,” said Grisaille. “Lincoln did one Harvest Festival in front of a tarpaulin, photograph of the window printed on it, life size, sheaves, pumpkins and tinned food stacked up the bottom third so nobody looked too closely. Somebody said the tarpaulin caught the candlelight rather nicely, and the flower guild asked whether they could keep it up for the Christmas Fair as well.”
“That isn’t managing,” said Geometry. “That’s a tarpaulin.”
“Every year, near enough,” said Grisaille.
Griffin read the clause again and did not answer.
“Holidays,” Governance wrote in the notebook, Whenever one is wanted. She wrote another heading, Breaks, before looking up to see Greengage asleep in the window in a pool of sunshine. She had been there since the sun rose and gave every appearance of remaining there for the rest of the day.
Governance wrote, Whenever they are wanted.
“Hours,” she said, writing down the heading.
“Four today,” said Geometry.
“Twelve yesterday,” said Gasket. “Two the day before.”
“I worked last Thursday,” said Gondola, “a week ago.”
“I worked some today, then I worked some more, and I will work some again later,” said Ganges.
Governance wrote, Whenever they are wanted, and then sat looking at what she had written, which was essentially the same answer occupying five separate categories under five separate headings.
Girdle had been sitting with her paws together for some time, one of the three contracts held flat in front of her, which nobody had noticed her pick up. “Most isn’t in it,” she said. “I checked. I went through the whole thing twice. The word most isn’t anywhere in it.”
“Why would an employment contract say most?” asked @AngleofRepose, genuinely baffled.
“Because twenty is the most seeds. And ten days is the most holiday. And thirty minutes at one o’clock is the most lunch. AND one is the most birthdays. Every number on that sheet is the most of something and not one of them says so.”
She put her paw flat on the table. “Nobody at the Bluestocking has said I can only have a most of anything. The contract looks like a lot because it’s written down. But written down means a most of something, and we don’t have a most. Ever.”
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/17-the-terms