I am a hedge. My job is to mark a boundary and create privacy. I am small now, which is why this boy is able to see over me. I tell him he must not look over me, but he doesn’t understand twigwiggle. He stands watching the family on my other side. As a fast-growing hedge, soon he cannot see over me. My relief doesn’t last. Instead, he squirms through me to play with the girl next door. My best growths don’t stop him.

After two summers, he shoots up like a bamboo and he can see over me again! I reach up, but to no avail. He spends hours talking with a girl over my growths, mocking me.

More summers pass, and he stops growing. But I don’t, and soon I again block his sight. He just finds another gap in my growths, and he sits there with the neighbor, talking. No doubt mocking my failure.

But I continue to grow and thicken, and soon I am sure no one can see over me or crawl through me.The boy acknowledges my victory; he drives away with the girl, in a car that clanks with cans tied to it.