By midmorning the wind-up shop had set out a saucer of paper slips no larger than postage stamps. Each slip was a roster of turns, written so small that the keys had to lean in.
We asked at the kiosk next door. "They only go once around," said the man selling pencils. "The mouse waits for a nod, otherwise she looks hurried in the glass."
Mrs. Quinn, who winds the toys, explained it simply: a key reads its schedule, turns once in a whisper, and tips toward the little mouse on the cushion. Then the mouse makes exactly one circle of the window and sits down again, as if the display had asked her to stay for tea.
The next day a child came back and watched without tapping the glass. The geranium on the sill leaned in, checking that the key had remembered to say hello first.