Chapter 3-003

It was twisted and gnarledand bent, and I kept expecting the thing to blow over in the wind. Oneday last year I'd finally had enough of her yakking aboutthat stupid tree. I came right out and told her that it was not a magnificentsycamore, it was, in reality, the ugliest tree known to man. And you know whatshe said? She said I was visually challenged. Visually challenged! This fromthe girl who lives in a house that's the scourge ofthe neighborhood. They've got bushes growing over windows, weeds sticking outall over the place, and a barnyard's worth of animals running wild. I'm talkingdogs, cats, chickens, even snakes. I swear to God, her brothers have a boa constrictor in their room. They dragged me inthere when I was about ten and made me watch it eat a rat. A live, beady-eyed rat. They held that rodent up by its tail and gulp, theboa swallowed it whole. That snake gave me nightmares for a month. Anyway,normally I wouldn't care about someone's yard, but the Bakers' mess bugged mydad big-time, and he channeled his frustrationinto our yard. He said it was our neighborly duty to show them what a yard'ssupposed to look like. So while Mike and Matt are busy plumpingup their boa, I'm having to mow and edge our yard, then sweep thewalkways and gutter, which is going a little overboard,if you ask me.