He felt resentful at being shamed for his muddy boots, so while urinating in the back alley, out of sight, he was careless enough to splash a little on Mr. Chan's new fence. I'll bet he puts on those white gloves when he comes home, he thought. And runs his fingers along the baseboards. Just to make sure she's been cleaning.

     Mr. and Mrs. Whitaker next door were targeted the following weekend, and Mr. Chan looked out of the bedroom window and regarded their ruined garden with satisfaction. Mr. Whitaker was shouting at Mrs. Whitaker, who was shouting at him for shouting at her. They'd only been gone overnight, but somehow the vandals knew and had scaled the low hedge in the early morning. Mr. Chan had been vaguely aware of the smashing of a pot, but had hardly stirred from his slumber in his complacence. Mrs. Chan had lain awake through the whole thing, wishing her husband wasn't there so she could go to the window and watch.

     The damage had been done, and the neighbors were picking up the pieces. Mrs. Whitaker was attempting to drag the single remaining intact pot to the side, and it had split in two, spilling dirt onto the area her husband was sweeping clean. Mr. Chan disdained Mr. Whitaker for his work as a clerk for the diocese, and thought his neighbors shabby, with their airs and graces and pretenses, and their scarcely veiled prejudices and their filthy yapping collie that chased cars down the street because there were no sheep to herd. Stupid people. He surveyed the cleanup scene and wondered why they bothered. The garden was such a mess before the vandals came, you could hardly tell the difference. Maybe they'd replace the lawn now and do a bit of clean up. Those plastic pots were offensive to the eye, and now they were useless. Good.

     When Mickey's phone trilled, it was the Whitakers.

     "They came in the night!" Mrs. Whitaker removed her apron at the front door. "To us, of all people!" She eyed his muddy boots. "You'll have to go around the back way." The carpenter asked if he could use the bathroom before he got started.

     "No, you'll have to go somewhere else. I'll be late for bible study." She slammed the door, so he navigated the brambles that had invaded the alleyway behind the houses and peed on the compost heap that the vandals had mounted to drop into their garden.

     Mr. Whitaker didn't want to build a new fence, he said, and it hadn't been very charitable of Mr. Ching to put one up without telling him. It blocked the sun and now those ruffians were targeting him, a God-fearing Christian, instead. He asked Mickey to move the compost heap to the woodland side of the alleyway and run a strand of barbed wire along the top of the ivy-strangled hedge.

     "That should keep 'em out," he said. "And, besides, the Lord will protect us." He glanced up at Mr. Chan's towering fence. "Some of us have faith, you know..."

     Mickey the Chippy shoveled the dirt and scratched himself on the wire. Fat lot of good that'll do.

     His mood wasn't lifted until Mrs. Mahmoud from the next house down called out and offered him a mug of sweet tea that hinted faintly of coriander. She eyed the devastation nervously as she approached the newly-wired hedge, but kept a smile on her face.

     "It is terrible…they have no respect at all for people's property." She handed the tea over the barbed wire. "Do you think they will come to us next?"

     The carpenter looked over at the flimsy barrier that separated the neat garden, with its square of grass and carefully tended herbs in blue-glazed ceramic pots, from the alleyway and the woods beyond. Prime target, he thought, but said, "Oh, I'm sure they'll get bored and move on." He scratched himself again on the barbed wire because the dog kept wrapping itself around his legs as he worked, trying in vain to herd him toward the back door.

     The sun was setting through the trees in the woodland when he called over the fence to return the mug and saw Mr. Mahmoud standing at his French doors, staring at the neat row of pots that bordered the lawn. He hastily went around to the road and left it on the front porch.

     Mr. Whitaker haggled over the price they'd already agreed upon, and when Mickey again asked if he might use the lavatory, he looked as if he was about to say no, but seemed to be aware that it might appear un-Christian to say no to a carpenter. So the workman wiped his boots on the already filthy doormat and stepped onto the tired carpet.

     "Mind the coats!" Mr. Whitaker called from the kitchen, and the carpenter half ducked, half crawled under the mass of coats that hung from a rail in the tiny bathroom.

     Mickey the Chippy sat on the toilet, head sandwiched between old overcoats that smelled like mothballs. He hadn't really minded Mr. Chan with his white gloves, even if the house was off limits to dirty boots. At least you knew where you were with him. The dog was scratching at the bathroom door.

     He'd thrown the tools in his van and driven a block and a half from the house before he saw the head of a yipping dog bouncing alongside, attracted by the rattling hubcaps and trying to herd him home, and thought for a moment about running it over by mistake. But turned around and ran the dog back home instead.

     Mrs. Mahmoud called a week later. Could he please come round? The vandals have struck!

     She was thrilled to see him, and disregarding his muddy boots insisted on inviting him into a home that smelled of curry. She didn't mind him using the loo at all, she said, and thrust a mug of tea in his hand and pointed through the glass doors.

     They came in the night, she said. It was terrifying for her husband and son, but she herself had not been afraid. Those hooligans had flung the pots clear across the garden, and tipped the tubs of herbs she used for cooking over the lawn. Everything she had planted and tended so carefully had been lost. She had asked her husband to call the police, she said, but he had insisted that they wouldn't come. They wouldn't think it was important enough. Besides, their son had been so upset when those nasty Whitaker people next door had called the police on them last summer for vandalizing their rosebush.

     Nobody had vandalized the rosebush, she assured him. It had grown so big and so heavy across the garage, and they had been so horrible to her husband when he had knocked on their door and politely asked them to trim it. They'd told him, roses grow wherever they want to in England! When a storm blew the bush onto their front porch and smashed a light while they were away on the Isle of Wight, they thought we had done it, she said. Called us shady immigrants, and called the police! No, calling the police was not a good idea.

     Mr. Mahmoud shook the carpenter's hand, and nodded at what his wife was saying. "We watched through the curtains for an hour last night," he said. "And it was indeed very terrifying. It was not enough to upturn and smash every pot and tear to bits every plant. They ran about, screaming at the top of their lungs! They defecated on the lawn and broke the fence. They have no respect! They are nothing more than cheap terrorists!"

     Mickey the Chippy repaired the Mahmouds' fence, but knew he'd be back. Before he left for the day, he knocked at the front door, and Mrs. Mahmoud immediately invited him in and led him up the stairs to the front bedroom. Mr. Mahmoud rolled up a mat and stood up.

     "I am wondering, if they come on my property, is it allowed that I should kill them?"

     The carpenter didn't like the idea of killing. "No, I think that's against the law."

     "But who should know? I would simply bury them in the garden. Or perhaps over in the woods."

     "I am not afraid!" enthused Mrs. Mahmoud. "I could hit them on the head with a brick!"

     "I still don't think that's allowed." Mickey the Chippy shifted in his dirty boots and felt it was time to go.

     "Well, what are we to do?" pleaded her husband.

     The carpenter shook his head. "They're protected by law, Mr. Mahmoud, sir. You can't just kill 'em. They got kicked out of their homes. And as far as they're concerned, they're just havin' a bit of fun."

     "Protected? The terrorists that are bouncing off my fence for fun?"

     "They're hungry, Mr. Mahmoud. You can't really blame 'em." Mickey the Chippy twisted an empty tea mug in grimy fingers. "Couldn't Mrs. Mahmoud just throw your dinner scraps over the fence? Till the building of the tram line through the wood's finished and they can go back?" A chunk of dirt fell to the carpet. He stooped to pick it up. The Mahmouds pretended not to notice.

     "That is an excellent idea!" Mrs. Mahmoud nodded eagerly and swept past, disappearing down the steep stairs in a rustle of colorful silks. There was a clatter of pans from the kitchen as her voice wafted up with the scent of ginger and cinnamon.

     "Mr. Chippy! Can you please tell me, do you think those badgers would like curry?"