He rocked from toe to toe and then launched a spinning back kick straight into the four-by-four cedar post.

The cedar groaned under the blow, shedding flakes of old white paint onto our lawn.

“Is he trying to break our fence on purpose?” Emily asked, her words tripping over each other.

“He knows exactly where that post is,” I said.

I watched his feet set themselves again on the grass.

This wasn’t careless teenage energy.

The angle of his hips, the way he balanced his weight, and where his heel landed were all aimed at the structural joint of our property-line marker.

He was testing the wood to see if it would give, laying the groundwork for a physical claim.