By midmorning the toy shop window was doing a quiet kind of traffic. Each yo-yo received a staircase no bigger than a matchstick, and the string treated the empty air as if it had steps.
We asked at the counter. "It is not a trick," said the seller, winding a yellow one as gently as a scarf. "The string will not come home until it has nodded to your palm. One flight down is a full visit." A woman with a paper bag agreed. She had come for marbles and stayed because leaving in the middle of a greeting felt rude.
The stairs, such as they are, are only a courtesy. The string feels for the first invisible tread, greets the hand waiting below, and only then winds itself back up, exactly once.
A day later a boy came back with the same yo-yo. He waited, the string nodded, and the shop cat on the sill blinked as if taking attendance.