“But Grandma, it's so much easier to do with this new feature – everybody has this on their phones now.”
“Baby, I know it is a smartphone, and it has all these new features, but if you don't keep making your brain smarter and not outsource it to these machines, this smartphone is just going to help you to get dumber faster. You're in college for a reason, baby.”
Very few people were strong enough to put almost-18-year-old Vanna Trent in complete check, but Gladys Jubilee Trent, her father's mother, was that person.
Vanna's younger siblings Velma (11), Milton (9), and Gracie Trent heard that and just left the house.
“We don't want none of that,” Milton said.
“I'm turning off my phone right now,” Velma said, “and finding some homework!”
“Ain't it the truth,” Gracie said. “We are going to get our lives and our brains together to the Jubilee standard now.”
“Does she have to move in next week?” Milton said.
“Well, she and Mom and Dad have been talking about it for a minute,” Velma said. “Mom's mental health treatment means she can use more support, and Grandma Gladys is tired of Trents that don't have their lives together, and of course Dad and we are not among them.”
“Of course not,” Gracie said. “We ain't allowed to go there.”
“Hey, George – George,” Milton said to his best friend nine-year-old George Ludlow next door. “Look, when your grandfather and my Jubilee-of-the-mountain grandmother are both here to stay next week, it's over, man. Take the helicopter stuff we were going to try out of the garage and just get rid of it – I'm just going to put the hand crank and the jump cables back where they belong too!”
“What the –.” Col. H.F. Lee said before he went running into the garage from inside the Ludlow house.
“Now Grandma Jubilee – that's power, right there!” Mrs. Maggie Lee said.
“Yeah!” eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow said. “I'm just going to get with Gracie and get shared lap time with her, because when you can break good so hard you don't even have to break bad, that's power!”
“I feel like it's going to get even safer around here,” Amanda said, “as soon as Cousin Harry is done finding out and saying what he has to say about what George did with the fan belt of Papa's car.”
“What the –.” ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow said before he and his eleven-year-old sister Eleanor went running outside. “George, just come in here and write down your confession before Cousin Harry gets back from the garage!”
“They shoulda just come to me and Robert,” six-year-old Grayson Ludlow said while sitting in the Lego pile with his five-year-old brother Lil' Robert. “We would have built them one without all this drama.”
“I don't get it,” Lil' Robert said, “but, it's good to be five, sometimes, because, see, I don't want it and, see, I ain't gotta get it!”
That left sisters Velma and Gracie in the yard, looking like their grandmothers in miniature, hands on hips, shaking their little heads.
“When you don't figure out your do right until your done wrong is all over you,” Velma said, sounding just like Mrs. Velma Stepforth.
“Ain't it the truth, Velma, ain't it the truth,” Gracie said, sounding just like Mrs. Gladys Jubilee Trent.
