Morning arrived with a soft 1–2–3 that didn't try to be music. The Session Bell pealed from the rafters of the School Line, and the small square beside it—fenced in clear, polite light—woke as the Play Yard.
Bench halos lowered themselves to child height. The fence showed everything and forbade nothing; it simply reminded hands where practice ends and city begins. On the inner wall, three thin circles blinked into being—Growth Rings—dim as pencil lines waiting for use.
Soluva stood at the gate holding nothing but attention. "Small hands, small laws, big care," she said. The phrase warmed the post and cooled again—approved.
She lifted a brass plaque no wider than her forearm and pinned it at eye level for a seven-year-old. Child Guild Charter. She read it aloud, not slow, not fast—just clear.
Scope: inside Play Yard or a marked spot only.Time:one Session Bell—eighteen breaths—per task.Budget: under Quiet and Comfort caps; never tug Count.Witness: a Keeper, Gardener, or Listener shadows; no grab unless asked.Sentence: use one child sentence (≤ eight words).End: log what/why in the Play Ledger; no names.
The Comprehension Glow warmed at each line, then softened to matte. Soluva added two invisible stitches to the Yard itself: Play Debounce—Count ignores kid ripples for two breaths—and a Show-off Cap that would trim any child-raised halo to calendar minus one.
From five Tool Nests along the fence, tokens slid like polite birds: a leaf for Glowbuds (Keeper-kids), a sprig for Leaflings (Gardener-kids), a stripe for Line-Walkers (Paver-kids), an ear for Hushlings (Listener-kids), and a page for Pagelets (Archivist-kids). Each chimed once in a child's palm, then went shy.
A dozen children gathered with the look all beginnings wear—serious about the fun.
"Read your line," Soluva said.
The tokens warmed when each child spoke, and the Growth Rings lit their first meter—Clear Read.
Glowbuds: "Light kind, never brag." (ring: ping)
Leaflings: "Share shade; keep letters clear." (ring: ping)
Line-Walkers: "Feet follow lines; lines follow maps." (ring: ping)
Hushlings: "Hush first; then help." (ring: ping)
Pagelets: "Write what/why, not who." (ring: ping)
"Today's practice is small and worth doing," Soluva said, pointing south where the Reading Way curved past a shade rib. A thin misgrowth sprout leaned into the lane at a hopeful angle that turned letters into waver.
"Goal: nudge the leaf from wish to fit," she said. "Use Leaf Guide—'Leaf, share shade; don't block letters'—with Even Share. Adults shadow. No grabbing unless asked."
The kid Role Chorus glowed in a thin ribbon above the gate—Hushling → Line-Walker → Leafling → Glowbud → Pagelet—and the Quiet Budget pin slid to green.
"Begin," Soluva said, and stepped back far enough that her shadow could not lead.
The small fix
The Hushling walked first, palms open, and touched the Room Tone Lines with the sort of care you give sleeping birds. The air cooled half a word. "Hush first; then help," she breathed. The tone obeyed.
The Line-Walker arrived next, checked the map posted on the fence, then chalked a tiny Inhale ring at the sprout's root in chalk-light that appears only if read: "Feet follow lines; lines follow maps." The ring glowed true; the second Growth Ring—Kind Pace—lit as he didn't hurry.
The Leafling knelt, thumb under the leaf's main vein. "Leaf, share shade; don't block letters," she said, and the script recognized both Leaf Guide and the child's willingness to be steady. She added Even Share—shade to benches first, not to letters. The leaf listened. It rotated a finger-width, and the letters behind it steadied the way a horse settles under the right rider.
The Glowbud watched the nearby halo's throat, hand hovering but not bossing. "Light kind, never brag," he whispered to the niche before it could swell with helpfulness. The Show-off Cap was ready but didn't need to be strict.
The Pagelet stood last, not writing yet, only looking. "Write what/why, not who," she reminded her own fingers.
The sprout reached the angle plants keep when they've learned manners. The third Growth Ring—Small Fix—lit with a clear bell the size of pleasure.
The Reading Way letters stopped swaying. The Quiet Budget didn't blink. Count stayed weather because Play Debounce kept it kind. A child in the back with no token started to clap—once—and then remembered the hush and enjoyed the restraint.
Soluva put both hands behind her back and attempted the difficult act of patience. The city did not need a queen; it needed capacity.
Chain-law
"Should we add a little law," the Line-Walker said, excited but careful, "like 'stay straight later' so it never leans again?"
Soluva shook her head with the softness people reserve for good ideas that are too large. "One line, one place," she said. "Practice makes habits; laws make walls. Start with habits."
The chalk-light he had almost written dissolved on its own, relieved to have been spared adulthood. The Pagelet wrote the why on the Play Ledger: chain-law proposed → dissolved; reason: one line, one place; habits before walls. No names.
Show-off glow
On the fence, a different Glowbud—small, sincere, wanting to gift the city—tapped a halo up a notch "to help." The Show-off Cap trimmed it mid-rise to calendar-1; the niche learned humility fast. The Hushling leaned close and spoke the Keeper-kid line back to him as a courtesy, not a scold.
"Light kind, never brag."
He flushed, nodded, and—because practice is mercy—tried again by not trying. The halo behaved.
Rings and smiles
The three Growth Rings held steady: Clear Read, Kind Pace, Small Fix. Inside the Yard, the Session Bell counted the cadence to the tidy note. Kids put tools away with the gravitas of people allowed to matter.
Soluva led them to the Story Stone Corner—a waist-high oval that prefers facts to faces. "Two lines only," she said.
The Pagelet spoke for the group:"We moved a leaf so letters could read.We used Leaf Guide and Even Share."
The stone accepted the summary by warming once and not sticking to any voice.
"Again," Soluva said, pointing at the Charter. They read the six rails as a chorus; the Comprehension Glow warmed and cooled like a good teacher's nod.
Addendum in the wild
Back in the Script-House, the Handbook Press felt the Play Yard's small day through the lattice and coughed out a thin strip—v0.1 addendum. It walked itself to the pocket stacks and tucked under each with friendly corners:
Child SectionPick one place. One sentence (≤8). One Session Bell.Adult shadows; no grab unless asked.Log what/why; no names.If confused, follow the child sentence.
Guide Tag and Count Ignore stamped the corners. The strip refused to out-voice the hush.
A second practice (because joy)
A small hand—different child, same tone—tugged Soluva's sleeve. "Can we fix one more small thing?"
"Two breaths," Soluva said. "Find it; ask it."
They found a puddle echo under the shade rib, a dish of sound that liked to keep other people's footsteps as souvenirs. The Hushling lowered the tone one thumb; the Leafling bent a soft baffle leaf down like a gentle ear; the Line-Walker marked a chalk-light Inhale ring and waited—actually waited, the way patience is a game you win by not playing fast. The echo dispersed, happier for having been treated like weather rather than a crime.
The third Growth Ring chimed again. The ring is not greedy; it simply affirms the thing done was not noise.
The moment that mattered more
On the bench just outside the fence, a mother from Breath Hall watched with the relaxed posture of people who understand the world owes them safety and has decided to pay. The child beside her—older than morning, younger than responsibility—held a page token he was not using yet and asked the question that civilizes countries.
"Can I go next time?" he said.
"Not because you want to fix," Soluva said, kneeling so her voice could use less air. "Because you want people to feel steadier."
He considered this long enough for two Session Bells and then nodded like someone who had found a pocket big enough to carry a rule.
Review, but kind
They circled for debrief. Adults stood behind them like parentheses.
"What surprised you?" Soluva asked.
"That the leaf listened," the Leafling said, astonished still. "I didn't push."
"That the halo wanted to help too loudly," the Glowbud admitted without shame. "I didn't know lights had feelings."
"That not adding a rule felt like a fix," the Line-Walker said, wrinkling his brow at the newness.
Soluva touched the Growth Rings—one, two, three. "You read right; you kept pace; you did small. That's the city you're building."
She pinned a tiny plaque above the rings where children would see it tomorrow and every day after.
Practice is peace.
The Session Bell gave its tidy note. Tokens went back to nests, each chiming once and then cooling, delighted to belong to places more than to people. The Play Ledger grew a page thicker with what/why entries that looked like they could be taught by anyone to anyone.
On the fence, the kid Role Chorus dimmed from Hushling → Line-Walker → Leafling → Glowbud → Pagelet to a memory you could lift without using hands.
Soluva looked up into the Sun's corona. It combed her hair with a warmth that did not show off.
"Tomorrow," she said, "we practice hush together."
Far off, polite as a cough, the Rift Net at the seam registered the smallest murmur it had felt in weeks. Not an alarm. Not a threat. Just a seam remembering it was an edge, and edges remembering they need friends.
The kids did not hear it. Good. The city did.
The pen did not vanish. It waited, patient as a promise.