Image by Ri Butov from Pixabay
“I feel like, because we live here and all love each other, I could write a short story every day that people would enjoy reading while also being a vegetarian and helping you save the animals and stuff.”
This was seven-year-old Amanda Ludlow, all snuggled up with her best friend from next door, eight-year-old Gracie Trent.
“Ain't it the truth,” Gracie said, “You're seven and I'm eight, so, why not?”
“Yeah, why not, and all that stuff!” Amanda said. “We got time … although I don't know if we want to write down maybe everything that happens.”
“Well, what would you leave out, Mandie?”
Amanda just gave her friend that “hide me” look as her brother nine-year-old brother George and Gracie's nine-year-old brother Milton ran for their lives from the Trent home with 66-year-old Thomas Stepforth Sr. in hot pursuit and gaining, for the old athlete was still in good condition and had much longer legs.
“I told you to sweep the back porch, Milton – and who told you to tell him, George, to turn the vacuum cleaner into a blower!”
“I'm trying to figure out how they reverse-engineered a whole vacuum cleaner without getting electrocuted,” Gracie's 21-year-old brother Melvin said.
“They didn't,” Gracie's almost-18-year-old sister Vanna said. “They just blew up the vacuum cleaner on the porch.”
“He's going to kill them,” Amanda said.
“No,” Gracie said, “because the porch needs sweeping, still.”
“Oh – so we don't have to do a rescue?”
“No, Mandie, we're still going to have to do a rescue, but just not the same kind.”
“They shoulda talked to me,” Amanda's six-year-old brother and Lego master Grayson Ludlow said. “I was just listening over Cousin Harry's shoulder about building a better mousetrap, but I woulda used that to build a better broom.”
“You can build a broom with Legos?” Gracie said.
“You build the top with Legos, and the bottom with old blueprints for the broomy part,” Grayson said.
“Oh,” Gracie and Amanda said.
“I'm glad you're not trying to build a better mousetrap, because I'm really not into all the killing and stuff,” Amanda said.
“I would never do that because I love both you and Gracie, and I'm a builder, not a killer,” Grayson said. “See, Rob and I have talked about this … .”
Lil' Robert Ludlow, Grayson's younger brother, was five.
“ … And although we know Papa is a soldier type of person and needs to keep us safe, we're going into engineering. Military people need places to live, so Rob is still going to West Point, and y'all need places to live, so I'm staying here to build them.”
“Well, y'all have everybody covered, and that's real good,” Gracie said. “Where is Rob?”
“He's trying to see if he can build the Taj Mahal model I built today in just red Legos, and he's actually doing real good,” Grayson said.
“I didn't know they had a Lego set for that,” Gracie said.
“They don't, but, I just need a picture, so when your cousin showed me the video we did screenshots and then I made my blueprint. Rob did a redprint though, because you know he is building his in red ones.”
“Is he using red construction paper and red crayons?” Amanda said.
“Yep,” Grayson said.
“That boy has some eyesight – but he's real young and all,” Gracie said. “Young eyes.”
“He said it needed to be really red, like the way you can feel the crayon on the page when you can't see it real good, you can feel the redness when you look at it,” Grayson said.
Gracie looked both ways.
“Had to check for bulls real quick, because y'all know how they start acting when they see red at a bull fight.”
“The only thing I hear that's not safe is your grandfather,” Amanda said, “uh, no, actually, Milton and George aren't safe either because that's the sound George makes when someone has him by the ear.”
Milton and George had been shocked that the old athlete had gotten in front of them – they had plowed right into him and he had both by the ear.
“Colonel Lee!”
“I told y'all we were gon' have to do a rescue because George and therefore y'all's cousin the Angel of Death is involved,” Gracie said.
“Look, there will be no killing around here as long as I have anything to say about it!” Amanda bellowed from the porch, and everything stopped because Col. H.F. Lee was stopped in his tracks coming out of the Ludlow house as much as Mr. Stepforth, Milton, and George were stopped coming between the two houses.
“If I kill them, how are they going to sweep and mop the porch?” Mr. Stepforth said.
“Agreed,” Col. Lee said. “I already know about the vacuum cleaner, George, and when I come to inspect that porch, it had better be spotless.”
Milton and George had a completely different attitude about this.
“We're saved,” George said. “We're saved!”
“Jesus did it and used Amanda!” Milton said. “It's a miracle!”
“And that's what that back porch had better look like when y'all are done – get to it!” Mr. Stepforth said as he let the boys go and they ran for the broom and the mop and the bucket.
“Well,” Grayson said, “Jesus saved and used Amanda.”
“Yeah, because, the Lord isn't into unnecessary hurting and killing folks, and I'm with Him on that, Amanda said.
“Me and Rob ought to build you a special room in a bigger Taj Mahal, and we'll make it so you can come too, Gracie,” Grayson said.
“And we'll all live happily ever after – if Milton and George get that porch clean and stuff,” Amanda said.
“Ain't it the truth,” Gracie said. “We'll pray on our way to our room in the Taj Mahal.
