was home alone one Saturday when the doorbell rang. “Oh, great,” I thought,“Here come the JW’s!” It wasn’t the JW’s. It was worse. It was our next-door neighbor.
I
“Hi, Mr. Winter. Are you okay?” “Hi. Is your dad here?” “No. He went to the hardware store. He should be back pretty soon. Is something wrong?” “Well . . . maybe I’ll wait out here for your dad.” We don’t see much of Mr. Winter. He is an old bachelor and none too fond of kids. When we were little, he was always calling my mom to complain. He was especially fussy about his grass. He got
really mad if we rode our bikes across his lawn. He yelled at us one time because we had drawn a hopscotch grid with colored chalk on the walk in front of his house. He said it would wash off and poison his grass. It didn’t. Another time, after two inches of snow in November, my brothers shoveled off his entire front lawn to get enough snow for their fort. It looked pretty awful, but from his reaction you would have thought they’d filled his mailbox with
by Kathy Luder
Love Thy Neighbor
rancid meat! Okay, so they did that once. But he was mean. That Saturday Mr. Winter was standing on our front porch, looking at the ground and trembling. My mind was racing as Dad pulled into the driveway. What was going on? I’d just gotten my license. Did it have something to do with my driving? I had driven over a few curbs that I hadn’t told my parents about and illegally given Susan a ride home from the game last night. Had Mr. Winter seen me? Mr. Winter and I walked over to Dad’s car.Then, Mr. Winter started sobbing and saying,“Mr. Luder, I am so terribly sorry. It
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