Chapter

3.

Larry's Story

When the rest of the kids arrived, Lisa said to Larry, “Where have you been? We didn’t see you at the playground. I was about to go home and tell Mom and Dad to check to see if you were in the hospital. I thought you got hit by a car or something.”
Larry exclaimed, “What? That’s crazy. I’ve been here with Grandpa, and helping him with the shrubs, and helping him write the story for today.”

Henry said, “Of course. You’re always trying to do something special, like getting a big head or something.”

Grandpa said, “Don’t be so hard on Larry. He has been helping me, and he’s going to tell the story today. Are you ready, Larry?”

Larry responded, “Sure.”

Larry started telling the story.

——

Mr. Smith-burger was outside in his front yard, trimming his hedges. Mr. Smith-burger doesn’t take very long because he cuts his shrubs like a crazy man. But it always looks good when he’s done.

——

Charlie interrupted, “This sounds like a fun story, Larry.”

Larry said, “Thanks, Charlie.” Larry continued with the story.

——

Franco, the kid down the street is always coming down to Mr. Smith-burger’s yard and making comments about what he’s doing.

Franco said, “Hey, Mr. Smith-burger. Looks like you’re doing your hedges, again. Didn’t you do them a couple weeks ago?”

Mr. Smith-burger was a nice guy, but he was starting to get kind of irritated with Franco, so he said, “Well, Franco, you can watch if you want to, but don’t comment, please.”

Franco decided he was just gonna chill and watch him for a little while.

So, as Mr. Smith-burger was working on his hedges, he finished the hedges right in front of the house, in like about two minutes. Then, he decided it was time to go work on the bush that was in the middle of the front yard. The bush in the middle of the yard is artistic, like one of those bushes that are done by the Japanese, or somebody like that.

As Mr. Smith-burger was working on the bush in the middle of the yard, there was a strange sound. It was coming out of the middle of the bush. About ten billion bees, or wasps, or whatever they were, came flying out of the bush and were going after Mr. … Mr. Smith-burger and his trimming machine.

Mr. Smith-burger dropped his trimming machine on the ground. About half of the wasps went after the trimming machine, and the other half started chasing Mr. Smith-burger all around the yard as he ran around the side of the house and into the backyard. They kept flying after him at about a million miles an hour.

After about ten minutes, Franco was still standing there, and he kept laughing his head off.

Then Mr. Smith-burger came back into the front yard to see what was going on. He realized that the wasps had completely covered his whole trimming machine. You couldn’t even tell it was a trimming machine, or what color it was, because the wasps had completely covered it.

So, Franco is still out there by the street, watching this whole thing going on.

Franco says to Mr. Smith-burger, “Hey, Mr. Smith-burger, what’s up over there? Didn’t you know there were wasps in the bush? Why didn’t you check for them first? Well, that was a really stupid thing to do. If I was doing the shrubs, I certainly would look for a wasp before I started, because there’s wasps like all over the whole neighborhood.”

Well, Mr. Smith-burger was still a nice guy, but he says, “Gee, Franco, that was super observant. I appreciate the input. I guess I’m just gonna have to be more careful next time before I start.”

Franco said, “Yeah, man, you’re gonna have to do that. If you need me to help you come down and check it out next time to get ready to do your shrubs, let me know.”

So, Franco kept on going down to the next house to see if he could help somebody else with their shrubs.