After supper the chalk squares on Maple Walk lit a waiting lamp no bigger than a bottle cap. Pebbles lined up at square one, hopped when the chalk said so, and only then asked the last cell, the one marked Home, if it was ready to receive guests for the night.
We asked at the kiosk. "I thought someone had left a game unfinished," said a man with a loaf under his arm. "Then a pebble nodded, and the square nodded back. I did not pick it up."
A polite card from the park keeper asked walkers not to sweep until morning. The Home square, it said, takes reservations after dusk, and Tuesday's stones were still practicing the skip from five to six.