The boy had been tormenting me for weeks — ripping up my flowers, tipping my bins, and toilet-papering my porch. I never got a good look at him until the night my Ring camera finally caught him mid–ding-dong ditch… and I realized he looked exactly like I did at that age. My house is nothing fancy — just a neat little place in a suburb full of plastic flamingos and neighbors who wave from their driveways but never ask questions.
I keep my flowerbeds in award-winning shape and my lawn neat. I apply a fresh coat of paint to my porch every year. My neighbors think I’m obsessive, but this is the one thing in my life that’s perfect, and I want to keep it that way.
But then I ended up in a fierce neighborhood battle that changed my life forever. I was standing at my kitchen window one morning, coffee in hand, watching Mrs. Peterson’s terrier take its morning constitutional on my property line, when I saw a boy, maybe ten years old, crouched near my tulips.
He wore a red hoodie, and he was digging in the dirt… that little punk was stealing my tulip, bulb and all! I slammed my mug down and rushed to my door. “Hey!” I shouted, bursting through the front door.
“What do you think you’re doing? Get away from my tulips, you little thief!”
The kid jumped and took off running. Mrs.
Peterson let out a little shriek. Her dog pulled loose just as I reached the street, and the yappy little idiot started barking around my ankles. “Get off!” I snapped at the dog.
I turned around, but the boy was little more than a flash of red fabric disappearing down the street. “Ray! What on earth are you yelling about?” Mrs.
Peterson said as she picked up her dog. “You almost scared me half to death!”
“That boy was digging up my tulips.” I pointed down the street. Mrs.
Peterson rolled her eyes. “You almost gave me and Muffin a heart attack over flowers?”
I didn’t reply, just turned on my heel and went over to survey the damage. One of my yellow tulips lay on the ground, stem snapped clean.
Just sitting there like evidence. You know what bothered me most? The kid had picked the prettiest one, right from the center of the bed.
He had taste, I’ll give him that. I checked my Ring camera later, scrolling through the footage from that morning. Nothing.
Somehow, the thief had stayed completely out of frame. Like he knew exactly where the blind spots were. “Little punk,” I muttered.
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