My Enemy, the Birch.

In tenth grade, my English Honors project team and I videotaped a stuffed-animal rendition of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. We lined up animals along the fence in my backyard, behind which was a row of bushy poplar trees, their long trunks standing at attention as young King Arthur--a stuffed bear? a giraffe? (I no longer remember)--pulled his sword ou…