“Jack Elliot Cornell! I hate to say this, but I have to. I’ve had enough of you!” he thundered. “Or to be more precise, of your stupid childish antics !”

My father was pacing the office as he talked, wearing a facial expression of impeding trouble typically reserved for dealing with the employees of the so-called

“construction company” he managed. It was clear he was making every conceivable and inconceivable effort not to give me the magical ‘boot’. I just stared at him from under lowered brows. My right eye was bruised because a couple of days ago, I had got into a fight with my best friend Eric over who could jump furthest off a rope swung into the Mississippi. At the time, it seemed an incredibly cool activity.

“So, my useless son. We’ve decided that it will do you good… to live separately.”

My heart skipped a beat, and I wondered if I would be able catch it if it accidentally jumped out of my chest. Finally! I've achieved my goal! Just a little more, and I’ll be free! I held my breath and stared at my fuming father.

“You’re already sixteen, old enough to be responsible for your actions,” he thundered, and judging by the sound of his voice, there was a storm brewing ahead.

“We’ve decided to send you to Jacksonville,” my father said briskly, staring at me expectantly. And me… I felt sick. I don’t have anything against Florida, and I could easily adapt there, knowing that someone from the order would always be nearby. But the fact that I would have to part with my friends and with Grandpa, who, strangely enough, had always supported me, was a nasty reality check.

“Anything but Florida,” I whispered, looking pleadingly at my father, who raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“If possible, I would like to stay in New Orleans, or at least in its suburbs,” my father still looked suspiciously at me.

“I want to live here,” Florida definitely wasn’t fitting into my plans, and I stood my ground.

“I’m not going to cater to your whims,” my father snapped.

“And Mom?” I exclaimed in anger.

“What? What’s this about? What are you talking about?” My father looked at me in bewilderment.

“You built her that greenhouse! Or whatever you built for her to ‘develop her gardening talent ’… as you put it,” I looked at my father, and my right eye, which was starting to swell, twitched painfully. I knew my father didn’t approve of Mom’s “gardening hobby”, as he called it. And I often had to witness them argue over this.

My father was one of the Order’s most valuable researchers of a phenomenon known as “poltergeist”, and he was highly respected for it. And he, in turn, wanted his wife to spend more time with him, trying to find the causes of the poltergeist from a biological or any other point of view. Instead of wasting time on incomprehensible plants, which she managed to successfully grow wherever she found a spot of land.

Father kept boring into me until a smile lit up his face, one that was promising nothing good.

“Excellent! It seems I’ve just found the solution to all our problems,” he said thoughtfully and, grabbing me by the collar, dragged me out of the stuffy office.

“No! I absolutely oppose this!” my mother screamed in horror, clutching her head when my father informed her that he was going to convert her greenhouse into my new home.

After two weeks of emotional torment, turmoil, and excruciating anguish, she agreed.

Out of respect for my mother’s feelings and her weeds, I asked my father to keep the greenhouse in its place and instead build a small extension out of the back wall.

So now, to get to my living room, you have to navigate through my personal mini jungle. And over time, I learned to understand biology myself and now grow my own “weeds”. As for my mother, she found solace in teaching chemistry and biology at the University of New Orleans, where she was invited to work immediately after my father’s “construction company” had signed a contract with the university to build and fully equip a new laboratory in building ‘A’, naturally at the company’s expense.

As for me, after finishing high school, I enrolled in the Department of Psychology at the University of New Orleans. But due to my parents’ constant complaints that I at any cost, should remain near our witch, I was transferred to the Department of Language and Literature a year later. Nobody had consulted me on this, of course. When I, in a fit of rage, burst into my father’s downtown office to express my thoughts on this matter, he, flashing a self-satisfied smile, handed me car keys. My car keys! A latest model, brand-new black Chevrolet Camaro. A gift from the Order as a token of appreciation for my “sacrifice”. I, like anyone else in my shoes, took the keys and instantly became the most ardent fan of literature. It wasn’t difficult, I had always enjoyed reading.

I remember how proudly Grandpa looked at me when I first pulled up at his house in the new luxurious car, to give Eric and this little devil a ride to the university.

My friend whistled, only managing one simple yet succinct remark.

“Well, well, well!”

Grandpa chuckled and turned to Eric.

“Good work is always appreciated, isn’t it, Jack?” he said, more with his eyes, and gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder.

Eric pursed his lips and scanned the interior as he settled into the passenger seat.