There must have been something wrong with the way we carefully
cultivated our carrots. We went over our extensive notes again, but
we couldn’t tell where we went wrong. Then I remembered Mean Mr
Allen who lived down the street. He had a bigger garden than us, and
he had a lot of plants growing there. We begged Father to call Mean
Mr Allen to help us with our little garden.
Mean Mr Allen was mean. He was the meanest meany in all the
land. He refused, and told my father that he did not have the time to
waste on kids. My father explained that we weren’t trying to grow kids,
but it didn’t work. Then Muncho had an idea. He suggested that if I
went over to Mean Mr Allen’s and showed him my innocent face (by
now the most innocent in the greater Guildford area), maybe he would
reconsider. So we went to Mean Mr Allen’s house and I knocked on
the door nervously. The door sprung open and a hefty Mr Allen with an
angry face looked at us.
“Who are you?” he barked meanly.
I was surprised with the question. I had known Mean Mr Allen for as
long as I could remember. He had seen me around when I was
younger. So why would he ask me such a question?
“It’s Josh, sir.”
“Josh who?”
“Josh Daryl Carrot. Surrey’s most charming toddler, 1991.”
Mean Mr Allen said really mean words to me and I cried all the way
home. My father got mad and went over to confront him, but Mr Allen
was so mean even my father and his fire hose couldn’t reason with
him. That closed the chapter on having our garden, which was this
chapter.