57. Pernilla Ågren
In which a crate is delivered…
The card in Pernilla Ågren’s window had been turned round. It read STÄNGT, and in smaller letters below, Closed.
Gosie knocked anyway. Pernilla opened the door and looked at Gosie and then at @EmpressaurusKitty.
“The people with the cat,” said Pernilla. “Where is the cat?”
“Working,” said Empressaurus.
Pernilla seemed to find this a reasonable answer and stood aside to let them in.
The studio was cooler without visitors in it and lit only by the lights in the display cases. Gosie said they were expecting a crate to be delivered to the studio from England and asked whether they might wait for it here.
“Of course, but you know I won’t be able to give it to you if the delivery label is for somewhere else,” said Pernilla. “Sit. I will make coffee.” She went to the kitchenette off the studio.
Empressaurus went over to the blue slab the height of a door and stood in front of it again with her hands behind her back. Gosie sat on the end of the bench where she could see the street.
A grey van drove past the studio and did not stop. Pernilla brought them both cups of coffee. Some time later a second van drove past in the other direction.
Gosie finished her coffee and held the empty cup. At the far end of the studio Pernilla picked up the pot and brought it over to Gosie.
“You are very still,” said Pernilla, as she poured.
“I’m waiting,” said Gosie.
“Yes. But most people fidget while they wait.”
“I was trained not to.”
At that point the third grey van arrived.
The courier opened the back doors, slid the crate onto a sack barrow, and wheeled it down the sloped runners and into the studio. She set the sack barrow down and eased it out from under the crate. There was a sticker saying Fragile on the lid, and a docket in a plastic sleeve on the side.
Gosie read the docket without getting up. Consignee 3859. Empressaurus came over to the bench.
The courier held out a clipboard. Pernilla signed and took the offered sheet, folded it along the perforation and tore it in two, handing one half back to the courier. The other half Pernilla put on the bench next to the scales. The courier left.
“This is a big crate,” said Pernilla, as she opened the drawer of labels.
Gosie went to the crate and put one paw flat on the lid. Then she knocked, three times.
“Griffin,” she said. “Gimbal. Graphic. It’s Gosie.”
There was no reply.
“Let me try,” said Empressaurus, and she knocked much harder with her knuckles. “Hello in there,” she said, loudly.
There was no reply to that either.
Pernilla had selected a label and was waiting to stick it to the top of the crate. “Who are you talking to?”
“Three friends of ours,” said Gosie. “They’re inside.”
Pernilla looked at the crate. Then she looked at Gosie, and then at Empressaurus, who nodded once. “They must be tiny friends if they are in a crate,” said Pernilla.
“They’re gerbils,” said Gosie. “They didn’t mean to be shut into a crate.”
Pernilla knelt down beside the crate, turned her head and laid her ear against the side. “I hear nothing,” said Pernilla. “Perhaps they sleep?”
“Not through Empressaurus’ knocking,” said Gosie and she walked round the crate. At one of the corners the wood was freshly bare, and the edges of it were rough. The two slats at the corner did not quite meet. Strands of straw and wool had caught in the gap between them and were sticking out.
Gosie put her paw on the corner. The slat moved.
“I do not open parcels,” said Pernilla, standing up behind her. “That is the whole point of the network.” She went to the far end of the studio and came back with a claw hammer. “But I also do not post gerbils,” she said.
Pernilla did not need the hammer. She took hold of the corner slat, and it came away in her hand at the first pull, nails and all, the nails sliding out of their holes as though nothing had been holding them for some time. The lid lifted with it. Pernilla raised it, looked inside, and leaned it against the bench.
The crate was full of wool and straw. Under the packaging something square, flat and heavy was carefully wrapped in padding, laid on more straw and wool.
In the middle of the soft material was a hollow, still holding its shape, about the size of three gerbils lying very close together.
On top of the wool, next to the hollow, was a small brown paper packet with its top folded over.
Gosie picked it up. She unfolded the top of the packet and turned it upside down over her other paw.
It was empty.
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/57-pernilla-agren