Val woke up early, and after breakfast got to work on unloading the contents of the boxes in her basement office. After 4 hours of boring cataloging and stocking shelves she headed upstairs. "Time for a little outside work Luna."
The property of the home had been untouched for several months and was looking overgrown and unkept. Val tried her best with her old lawn mower, but it wasn't cooperating with her. She tried a little weeding and raking up, but the yard just wasn't looking much better. Val sat on her porch and was thinking about her landscaping options, when the Postman drove up. "Oh wow, our first mail delivery Luna." Val walked over to retrieve the contents of her mailbox, and pulled out a few letters and flyers. One of the letters was from the township addressed to "new resident." Val opened it, it contained a notice of fines from the town beautification committee. The letter went on to describe all the areas of her yard and property that needed attention "IMMEDIATELY" or fine would be assessed.
"Well, isn't this a fine welcome to the neighborhood." Val thought. "Looks like we've picked another fine town to move to Luna" Val sighed. "I guess were going to need some more local High School help." Luna. With that, Val sat on her porch made herself a sandwich and waited for the daily parade of Teenagers. The beginning of the full moon week had started, so Val could sense the thoughts of the passing students fairly clearly. After watching a few girls and nerdish guys pass by, she focused on the tall handsome boy now passing in front of her house.
"Excuse me young man." She called.
"Yeah" he responded.
"Can I speak with you for a minute please." Val asked.
He walked over, and responded "what's up?" in a rather boorish tone of voice.
"Well, I'm new here, and I am looking to hire some help to get my yard into shape. Is that something you are interested in"? "I pay quite fairly, and in cash." Val added.
"How much?" the boy questioned rudely.
"I think 15 dollars and hour is a fair wage." Answered Val.
"Yeah, ok, I guess so." He responded.
"You see I'm about to get fined from something called the "Town Beautification Committee."
"Yes, I know about them, my mother is the chairperson of that committee." He stated.
"Can you start on Saturday?" asked Val
"Yeah, I guess so." He replied.
"Ok, great. What's your name son?
"Charles, most people call me Chip." he answered.
"Ok, Chip, see you on Saturday."
With that, he walked off in the direction of town without another word. "Personable kid, don't ya think Luna?" The whole time Val spoke with the boy, she sensed he was not a very nice person. Someone that probably did not have a lot of close friends. If the kid wasn't such a stud, Val probably would have told him to take a hike, but she didn't care, she didn't want a new friend, just her yard cleaned up. But Saturday was 5 days away.
The next day Val completed her office set up, was filling orders, and business was back to normal. As she sat out on her porch that afternoon, she watched a group of women walk by, stop, huddle up, and point at Val's house. One of the even took pictures with her phone.
"What's up with that?" thought Val.
The next day, she received another notice in the mail from the committee of beautification. This one was marked "SECOND NOTICE" in bold letters. This time it listed the fines imposed on her.
"These people have got to be kidding!" thought Val. The notice also listed the day and time of the next committee meeting. "Maybe I need to attend one of these meetings Luna." she said to her pet.
"MEOW, MEOW." Luna answered back.
On the Wednesday evening of the meeting, Valerie walked down to the High School, (the site of the meeting) and waited on a bench just outside. She wanted to get a look at the type of people that were attending. All the attendees were women. All of them in their late 20's to early 30's. Most were dressed in expensive clothes, that they clearly wore to impress each other. When it was time for the meeting, Val used her power of invisibility, and walked inside unseen. She picked a desk in the rear of the room, sat down, and waited for the meeting to start. The chairperson stood, announced her name as Madeline, and called the meeting to order.
"Hmm. This must be Chip's mother." Val thought.
Val got a mental flash from Madeline's mind of her family of rich privileged people. All of them self-centered, mean hearted people. Madeline's two children both bully's, picking on other kids that were smaller, or not in the same social circle as they were. The husband, a dishonest business man, a cheating husband who preyed on barely legal teen girls.