Grizelda by Margaret Taylor

door as fast as he had come. Grizelda returned to her
work.
     
     

Chapter 8
     
    Nothing else disastrous happened for the rest
of the day. Though Grizelda still didn’t understand a thing about
how the sewing machine operated, she managed to struggle along.
Finally, some time in the afternoon, the second whistle blew. The
day was over. She guessed the goblins had these precious few hours
in the evenings to do with what they wanted.
    She folded up the last of her clothes and
left the building as fast as she could. Outside, the air was still
damp and machine-smelling. She started walking, taking care to
avoid eye contact with the goblins this time. What was the matter
with them, anyway? They seemed to hate her just because she was
human. She kept her head down and moved quickly.
    Even so, it took her a while to find the
address. The directions Lenk had given her led her to an older part
of town, where most of the buildings were abandoned. It had seemed
to her, with the little she knew of the city, that there were
plenty of normal places for the goblins to live, nice, respectable
apartment-like things. But Lenk had chosen to make his home on the
first floor of an abandoned factory. When she finally found it, she
stood a while just outside the gate, looking at it doubtfully. He
had told her in their hurried conference on the work floor that he
lived there for the peace and quiet. But it was so old . The
factory sagged like an old coat that had seen better days. The
walls were cracked and it looked like part of the roof in the back
was caved in. She went up to the door anyway, and when she knocked,
Mechanic Lenk must have been waiting for her, because he opened the
door right away.
    He welcomed her into a room that had once
been a manufacturing floor. Everything of value had long ago been
stripped from it, leaving only the bare concrete. One end, back in
the shadows, showed signs of a jumble of wreckage from the
collapsed roof. The other end had been colonized by Lenk. There was
a table and bed, some handmade shelves, and a sink, spared somehow
from the stripping that had gone on everywhere else. There was a
stove set up, with some copper wires leading out of its back to
another room. He had done his best to cheer up the place, but she
still didn’t see why anybody would want to live here.
    Lenk started by apologizing for the lack of
chairs. He disappeared into the other room for a few minutes,
leaving her to wait, then came back with a big armchair that he
pushed up to the table. He invited Grizelda to sit down, then went
to go get his kettle.
    “They do allow some private property around
here, thank goodness,” he said.
    As for private property, Lenk seemed to have
a little. There was a handful of books on the shelves, maps tacked
up to the walls, a half-polished gear and its greasing cloth left
lying on the table. There was also a teacup on the table, with a
dark liquid inside. She picked it up and sniffed it.
    At that moment Lenk turned around and saw
her. With a look of terror, he made frantic motions for her to
stop. She lowered the cup, confused.
    “That’s battery acid!”
    Grizelda jerked the cup down onto the table,
fast. Lenk took it gingerly and set it on the shelf.
    “If you see anything weird lying around in a
cup down here, please, don’t touch it!”
    “But why do you leave battery acid lying
around in a teacup?” she said.
    “That’s only when I’m trying a new
formulation. Hold on.” He scraped something out of the kettle and
set it aside. Then he filled the kettle with water from the tap and
set it on the stove. Once the water was safely heating, he
continued.
    “I don’t have enough actual jars for the
acid,” he said. “I scrounge around for whatever I can find, pots,
pans…”
    “And teacups,” Grizelda added.
    “They’re small, they’re good for holding
samples. I’m sorry. I usually keep them in the workroom, I just got
careless this time…”
    “I didn’t drink it,” she