Storeyvale

Storeyvale is a pastel seaside town that has run out of room, so it grows upward. Every block is a small square of empty lots, and each lot takes one house of one to seven storeys, never the same height twice in a row or a column. Around the kerb stand the lookouts. A sign reading 3 means that person, looking down the street, sees exactly three rooftops, because a taller house hides every shorter one behind it. Hold a sign and the roofs its lookout can see light up. Further up the hill the building codes change. Canal Walk adds up the storeys it sees instead of counting roofs, Orchard Close keeps one garden in every row, and on Harbour Steps arrows painted on the paving show which neighbour stands taller. When every lookout agrees, Ridgely, the pigeon foreman in the yellow hard hat, stamps the permit.