There was a break.

Juhyun took her cup, drank a little and put it carefully back to the saucer.

She waited for the hostess to say something but she remained silent.

"The parrot there..." she finally said. "when I first saw it through the window I actually got fooled. 
I thought it was alive."

"Unfortunately not anymore."

"An excellent work", Juhyun noticed. "Really, it doesn't look dead at all. Who stuffed it?"

"Me."

"You?"

"Of course", she confirmed. "Have you seen my little dog already?"

With a head movement she pointed to the dog that laid comfortably in front of the fireplace.

Juhyun looked at it and suddenly she understood that the animal didn't move the whole time.

She held her hand out and touched the dog.

It was cold and stiff.

"Good heavens", she exclaimed, "that's fantastic!"

She turned away from the dog and looked at Ms Im with admiration.

"That must've been unbelievably difficult."

"Not at all", she replied. "I stuff all my little pets when they die. Would you like another cup of tea?"

"No, thanks", Juhyun said. The tea tasted a bit like bitter almonds and she didn't like that.

"You wrote your name into the book, right?"

"Yes, of course."

"That's good then. Because later if I forget your name, I can always come down here and look in the book. I do that almost daily with Ms Jung and Ms... Ms..."

"Park", Juhyun completed. "Park Sandara. Excuse me but didn't you have any other guests in the last two, three years?"

The hostess tilted her head to the left, looked up to Juhyun and smiled friendly:

"No, dear. Only you."