The chalk shop keeps a row of tiny cases behind the counter, each lined with a scrap of felt so a stick can rest without rolling. Before anyone draws, a stick greets the board, nods to the first letter it means to write, and only then is allowed one good morning. The keeper says the cases are not for storage. They are for waiting.
We asked at the stall by the school fence. A teacher with a satchel said she used to write whole poems before breakfast. "The board got tired," she added. "Now it answers with one word, and it is always kind." In the thank-you notebook a neighbor had written: "Please do not hurry the yellow stick. It likes to pause on the letter O."
By the next afternoon the same teacher came back. The board still held yesterday's greeting, a little paler, and one case on the shelf stood open as if another good morning might yet be due.