Chapter One

Do Not Walk On Grass!

On the last day of summer before third grade, Kaline Klattermaster, who was small for his age, sat on the top step of his front porch and looked around Hoppadoppalous Court. He made a grand waving gesture, since there was no one to see him do it. All of this, as far as the eye could see, had once been the domain of the noble warrior. OR, or maybe AND, it had once been so thick with trees that a squirrel could travel for miles from branch to branch without touching the ground. And there he was, the noble warrior heading down the road on a very friendly white horse -- well, it was pony-sized and NOT scary, and the warrior was bringing Kaline gifts of feathers and...the other stuff they brought, like corn and beads! And there were squirrels, swinging from tree to tree, and they looked slightly like monkeys!

A car drove past and it was a loud car, and the warrior and the squirrels disappeared. TOO BADLY. Kaline squinted. And THEN sometime much later but he didn't know HOW MUCH later, all of this land, as far as Kaline's other eye could see, had been farmland, thousands of acres. And then TIME PASSED and all of the farms were sold, and these houses were built, including Kaline's own -- EXCEPT for the house next door, the home of a certain someone. Kaline looked up and down the street, which was straight as a stick, at each square house on each square of land. He remembered for certain that all of his neighbors had acre of grass, or perhaps, or even ths.

He was getting better with fractions. For instance, he understood that the slashy line in the middle went this way: -- . Kaline hummed, scratched the top of his head, waved his arms above his h