*      *      *

Hovering unseen over the centre shelves, Dryadia watched the man lead his wife outside.   Popping another Tim Tam into her mouth, she sucked the sweet chocolate off, before chewing the wafer as she puzzled over the way the electronic door knew to open for the couple.

After the man and woman left, Dryadia flew across and hovered in front of the door.   But it remained closed.   She hovered higher and lower, to the left and to the right, even backing back and coming forward again.   But nothing she tried would make the door open for her.

Seeing a yellow Toyota pull into the service station, Dryadia flew backwards, to hover invisibly above the centre shelves again.

Through the window she watched a stocky man fill his car with petrol, then start toward the service station shop to pay.   As he approached, she watched with great interest, determined to discover how he made the door slide into the wall.

By the time the man had paid for his petrol and was leaving, Dryadia had finished the box of Tim Tams.   Without thinking, she popped open the box of Chocolate Royals and stared at the small round biscuits with a funny swirl on top.

“What was that?” demanded the stocky man, looking back startled.

“Sorry, just dropped some chocolate,” lied Robbie Pavlidis.

“Oh,” said the man, reassured.

Picking up the first Chocolate Royal, Dryadia licked the chocolate off the swirl, as she watched the man leave.   She let the strawberry marshmallow melt in her mouth, before crunching away the biscuit base.

“You’ll be the ruination of us all at this rate,” said Robbie, staring in the general direction that the chewing was coming from.

Throughout the night Dryadia ate Chocolate Royals and Tim Tams and carefully studied every customer as he or she entered then left the store.   By the time Bernie Ling came back on duty that morning, she had almost decided that the door opened automatically when you stepped onto the welcome mat on either side of it.

Looking through the glass door, she watched Bernie step onto the mat and squealed in delight as the door opened on cue, confirming her theory.