Before breakfast the strawberry row along the kitchen garden sat very still, as if each berry were waiting for the nearest runner to finish saying good morning. Only after the tendril had nodded back did the smallest one glance toward the cream on the windowsill.
We asked at the kiosk. "I thought they were already ripe," said a woman with a jam jar in her basket. "Then they looked at the cream, nodded, and added one tiny speckle. I said congratulations out loud. It seemed only fair."
The gardener left a card in the straw: please do not pick until the class has placed exactly one polite dot. After that they rest against their own leaves and save the next freckle for whoever brings a spoon after lunch.
The next morning a neighbor claimed the cream had practiced the nod at dusk. By breakfast the berries were back in a tidy row, holding a single speckle for the first polite passerby.