By midmorning the city's porch fern had opened a very slow school of unfurling. The youngest curls, still rolled tight as green croissants, lined up along the lowest frond and practiced saying hello to the top step.
We asked a neighbor by the milk crate. "I used to hurry past with the bottles," she said. "Now I wait. One of them nodded at the banister so carefully I almost nodded back."
The gardener left a note on the watering can: please do not fan the pupils until they have finished greeting the rail. By noon the graduates were wide leaves, and the step looked faintly proud.