“Uh oh,” 16-year-old Tom Stepforth said as his nine-year-old cousin Milton Trent and his equally nine-year-old best friend George Ludlow came running from the Ludlow porch making best speed for the Trent home.
“Melvin – it's an emergency – open up the studio and get inside and hide!” Milton said to his 21-year-old brother Melvin.
“Hide me! Save me!” George said. “The water pressure is down and Edwina is on the rampage again!”
“Everybody get off the lawn,” Col. H.F. Lee came onto the Trent porch and ordered just before Thomas Stepforth Sr. came out to call his grandchildren in, because the water pressure dropping could have been an indication that the local water main had broken yet again.
Eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow, blessed with but not yet quite knowing how to best use her contralto analog to her grandfather's massive basso profondo, was not happy.
“Look, I'm done with these people – Grayson said he would take his Legos over there and fix it because he stands by his work, but noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
“Yeah, she's going to have the same mile-long type of voice and I don't think anyone is ready,” Melvin said.
“Close the door, Melvin!” Milton said.
“You have soundproofing in here for a reason!” George said.
“Pop-Pop, I need you to pray over some bottled water real quick because if the water main doesn't break, I'mma need to apply some holy water to this situation, stat,” Edwina's eight-year-old best friend Gracie Trent said to Mr. Stepforth.
“Wait, what?” Mr. Stepforth said.
“See, because my parents forget that you taught them 'every shut eye ain't sleep' and my older siblings watch real good movies like the Exorcism, I've learned all kind of stuff through quality eavesdropping.”
“Wait, WHAT?” Mr. Stepforth said.
“You're right, Milton – get in here, Tom,” Melvin said. “Between Edwina bellowing and Pop-Pop getting wrecked by the Gracie Trent Experience yet again with us almost at point-blank range – you're right, George, I do have soundproofing for a reason!”
“If these people wash out our celebration, and we have been waiting eight weeks for you and Grandma to get home, I'm going over there – I will break bad – I'm young, I can do the time, and I am not afraid of prison!”
“That poor baby,” Mrs. Velma Stepforth said to days-short-of-18 granddaughter Vanna Trent. “Whoever let that child watch Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul at her age needs to be under the jail for criminal neglect.”
“Oh, they are,” Vanna said. “Dad looked all that up. You think Gustavo Fring is a problem from Breaking Bad until you meet the real life Capt. Robert Edward “Hell to Pay” Ludlow, fresh off 33 years of tanning the hides of the enemies of the United States of America and bringing all that aggression to you and the foster care system that let you do that to his granddaughter – there are so many people under the jail behind that!”
“Wait, wait, wait, Vanna – you mean you already have two people in that family with nicknames?”
“Four, Grandma. George is going to be a lawyer, so you have George 'Taking-All-Your-Money' Ludlow who will be defending Edwina 'Breaking Bad' Ludlow in court legally, provided you even get to court given that Robert Edward 'Hell to Pay' Ludlow is her grandfather and Henry Fitzhugh 'Angel of Death' Lee is her big cousin.”
“How long have y'all been living next door to them – six months?”
“Yep,” Vanna said.
“And this is why Mother Maya Angelou told us that 'when people tell you who they are, believe them,' and why your Jubilee-of-the-mountain grandma is always reminding us, 'love your neighbors, praise the Lord, and keep your equalizers locked and loaded – how long has it been since you went to the family range, baby?'”
“Oh, look, Capt. Ludlow wasn't cool with us being more of a family than his until he got over himself, so Dad and Melvin and I are doing everything Grandma Gladys taught us. Melvin and I walked up to the lower Jubilee ranges last week, and we're going again Wednesday. But I'm going to say this for Capt. Ludlow: he really did repent and has changed entirely.”
Sure enough … that immense bass voice was now the peacemaker.
“Edwina … at ease! I'm home. I got this.”
“OK, Papa, OK,” Edwina said, her voice going down markedly in volume before grandfather and granddaughter appeared on the porch, the granddaughter securely in her grandfather's arms and snuggling hard.
“Now, see here,” the grandfather said gently in his hugely resonant voice. “I know it has been a long eight weeks for you, but no one is going to take away what God is giving us. I've just bled the pipes – it was just an air bubble in the pipes and everything is fine.”
“Really?”
“Really,” he said. “Now listen to me. You know how George and I have promised each other that we are coming out of Crazy Town? You notice that most of the time you and he are friends now because he and I are keeping our promises to each other?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Remember you and I have promised each other that you're going to become the sweet little girl you really want to be, and I'm going to become the kind old man I want to be except when I need to protect you. You already know we both can share the nickname of Robert Edward and Edwina 'I Don't Play About Mine' Ludlow.”
“Yeah!” she said. “Yeah, because you're Problem Papa and I'm Problem Child and I love it!”
“When necessary,” he said, “but most of the time, we want to learn how to keep our promise to each other.”
“Well, yeah, because I'm really too cute to not be gardening,” she said.
“You are such a beautiful girl, Edwina,” he said. “Way too cute for trouble unless it is absolutely necessary!”
She started crying.
“I'm just so glad you're home – I need you, Papa!” she said. “And I need Grandma!”
“I'm just so glad to be home,” he said, “to be here for you, Edwina, and so is Grandma.”
Mrs. Thalia Ludlow came and embraced them both, and after that Edwina calmed down for real and even thought to apologize – and nearly deafened both her grandparents with that huge voice at close range –.
“I'm sorry I got so mad – it was just bubbles in the pipes so it's safe to come eat now!”
“Thanks, Edwina!” Vanna said as Mrs. Stepforth broke out laughing.
“But we still need to stock up for next time because Edwina is trying hard but she needs help,” Gracie said as she hauled a fourth six-pack of eight-ounce water bottles out of the Trent pantry. “I still need you to pray over these, Pop-Pop.”
Gracie is always prepared to help.
Happy New Year's Eve
!LOL
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