“You’ve never been there before?”

“No. What made you think I would have?”

“I don’t know. I would’ve thought your old man would’ve taken you sometime.” Morelli paused before showing a nasty smirk. “After all, he’s got to teach you how to pull weeds since you are the Weedpuller. But I guess you get practice pulling your own weed every night when you’re alone.”

Lester tried shoving Morelli but didn’t budge him. “Quit calling me that!”

“You try that again,” Morelli said, “and I’ll shove one of these tomatoes down your throat. Understand?”

Carl Ashworth put an arm around Morelli’s thick frame and guided him to the side. “Come on, man,” Carl said, “this is going to be fucking awesome. Let’s just get to it.”

Morelli glared menacingly at Lester before turning to Carl Ashworth and Sam Parsons. “Stay hidden until the signal, okay?” He hesitated for a moment, and then looked back at Lester, a tenseness momentarily weakening his smirk.

“You’re sure the field’s this way?” Morelli asked.

“That’s the direction my dad heads off every morning,” Lester said.

With that the four of them ran into the woods, moving quickly at first, then slowing down as they crept closer to the field. Lester tried to keep low to the ground and hidden behind trees and rocks. After a while he could see the field and his dad in the middle of it. He tried keeping even closer to the ground as he edged forward, crawling to a thick oak tree sitting on the edge of the field. When he got to the tree he hid behind it, his heart beating like a drum in his chest, pounding so hard it felt like it was going to explode out of him. But the wild panic he felt at first was replaced by humiliation as he watched his dad walking up and down that field pulling weeds. He wanted to run up to his dad and pummel him for making him such a joke to his friends but he stayed where he was, tears flooding his eyes as he watched his dad work his way up and down the field, moving a little closer with each pass.