Amazing Stories: Good Neighbors

There's a limit to how much noise a neighborhood can take. That's what my Dad found out yesterday, anyway.

It started when the people next door turned on their stereo. Usually they kept it inside, with all the windows shut so they were shut in with their own noise, but this time they opened a few windows. All we got for half an hour was thump, thump, thump and yah, yah, yah. Dad put up with it till dinner.

"I wish they'd turn that racket off!" he said angrily buttering some bread. The bread went everywhere and a blob of butter pinged into the air and stuck to his nose.

Mum suggested that he go and ask the neighbors to turn the music down a little.

So he did.

I followed him down the drive, along the street, and up to the neighbor's front door. There was a van parked on the front lawn.

Dad rang the bell three times, and knocked, but no-one answered.

"They're ignoring me!" he said.

We went round to the side gate but a huge dog jumped at it from the other side, barking madly.

"I'll have to call over the fence," said Dad.

We went all the way down the drive, along the street, and back home again. Dad got a box and stood on it so he could see over the fence. He looked around.

"No-one there," he said. "They're all inside."

"What are you going to do now?" I asked.

"If they won't turn that racket off, then I'm going to give them a taste of their own medicine!" said Dad with a grim smile.

He went into the house and lugged his big, heavy 150 watt box speakers to the door. Then he slipped in a CD.

When the music started, it knocked my socks off! Now the racket was twice as bad!

From the other side of the fence you could hear "I believe in rock and roll!" and from our side "Joan Sutherland sings the hits!" The neighbor's singer was gravelly, rough, screaming like a banshee, and my Dad's singer warbled like someone had tied a yoyo to her throat! They made a strange mixture where they collided just above the fence!