By eight the kitchen window already had a street. Gingerbread houses stood in a polite row along the sill, each waiting for a tiny scarf for the chimney. Icing nodded first. The kettle nodded next. Only then did a sugar cloud count as a wave.
We asked at the kiosk by the bakery. "I thought they were borrowing wool," said the woman who sells jam. "It is only a greeting. A chimney without a scarf looks unfinished, and then the whole morning looks a little unsaid."
A notice appeared on the window frame in a careful icing print. Scarves are issued one at a time. Clouds that are still deciding should not be hurried off the roof. A house that waits finds the wave that matches.
The next day a neighbor came back with a teacup. The same little house was still there, brushing the scarf against the steam as if to check the hello. The jam seller left a saucer of crumbs and wrote in the little book of thanks: the windowsill looks properly neighborly now.