By late afternoon the balloon shop had only a few bright globes left, each with a tiny card clipped to its string. The cards named a porch, a house number, and sometimes a note about soup. Shoppers did not tug them away at once. They asked which balloon already knew the way.
We stopped at the kiosk and asked a woman with a paper bag of bread. "Mine came back last night during potatoes," she said. "It tapped the railing twice, waited, then settled by the step as if it had been invited." A boy in line added that his had paused at the neighbor's geranium first, to be polite.
The keeper explained the arrangement without any fuss. You choose a balloon, it receives a visiting card, and you walk it home in the usual way. At supper it slips the knot, takes a tour of the quieter streets, and knocks with the tail of the string. Nobody has to chase it. The porch does the greeting.
The next evening the same boy returned with a second card, already filled in. The balloon had asked, by hovering, whether Thursday soup counted as dinner. The keeper said yes, and tied the card a little tighter so it would not lose the address on the way.