Hello again, Story Club members.

I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most and keeper of the strangest, spookiest tales on

earth.

Today is another Ivy's chilling tale.

This tangled yarn story club members might make you never want to do yard

work again, if you ever did. It's one I call weed him out. Tyler, if you weed my backyard before my

Sunday party, I'll pay you $100. That's what Mrs. Elmhurst, the woman who

lived down the street in the big fancy house, said. Tyler Dawson was out mowing his lawn,

which was part of his weekly chores, when the elderly woman who was walking her toy poodle

Roxy asked to employ him. Wow, $100? Tyler agreed on the spot without

seeing her backyard, because, come on, $100 is $100. And then he saw the backyard. It was infested

by some strange weeds he'd never quite seen before. They were tall and spiky

with broad leaves, much like a Canada thistle. And they had these prongy violet flowers, which were

actually kind of pretty. Some of them stood as high as Tyler, who was actually one of the

tallest students in his sixth grade class. Wow, he thought, I should be getting at least $200 for this job.

Tyler had brought a weeding implement and a hoe, thinking that was all he needed.

But he was actually going to require some kind of scythe or machete to get these down,

or a weed whacker with a saw blade. He wished he had the

ladder, but all he had that was close was an old rusty machete that his dad had in the garage.

Tyler went and got it. Then he started getting to work. The August son was already getting pretty high,

and it was going to be another scorcher today. He wished he'd gotten out of bed earlier.

Now he was gonna be stuck out here most of his Saturday.

...