The household holds two hundred and six words of proven retention. Against the current rate of two hundred and forty, the shortfall is thirty-four. Against the coming rate of three hundred, it becomes ninety-four. Those are calculations from the stated totals. They do not reveal how the household's words are distributed between its two adults and one child, or supply a separate balance for each person.
Words taught, words saved and words spoken belong to different accounts. The dog story uses words the mother can afford to lose. The tin holds nine saved words; a tenth remains conditional. Her private utterance under the running tap leaves the count at nine. The school's vocabulary note counts dear words taught, without giving the reader its figure. Putting the note in the tin does not establish that more words have been saved.
The aging block also shapes the child's experience of stories. It drops the last word of anything longer than a sentence. His mother accommodates it by keeping her sentences short, and the boy takes that form for the way stories go. The block is nine years old; the boy's age and a total of removed words are not supplied.