Ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow, being of quiet, thoughtful habits, spent quite a bit of time doing quieter things, and was very much attached to his quiet cousin, Col. H.F. Lee, and very much appreciative of the room the colonel and his wife kept for quiet things … working on a 100,000 piece jigsaw puzzle … playing chess or checkers, sometimes with the colonel himself if he had the day off and was chilling in there … sometimes Andrew's even quieter little brother, six-year-old Grayson, liked to bring his Legos over there to be out of the press of their household of ten, and sometimes those two would do builds or sit and read, the little brother cherishing his big brother just taking the time to read to him with no other noise around. Sometimes, the colonel or Mrs. Maggie Lee would read to them both.
This also meant that Andrew sometimes missed drama incidents in the Ludlow home, but he knew all the different species of drama that tended to happen and who to talk to when he got back: his big sister, eleven-year-old Eleanor.
The drama indicating the missed drama: eight-year-old Edwina was rolling on the floor laughing, and ten-year-old Glendella was saying, “Well, I didn't think it was that funny, but, yeah, it was funny!”
“OK, so who called Papa and got their head handed to them this time?” Andrew said.
“Oh, Cousin Robespierre actually came by,” Eleanor said, “and I've been telling Papa that we need to move back to the Veteran's Lodge after they are finished rolling all that heavy equipment back up and down our road because the access of stupidity to us while we are living out here in the civilian wild is just too much.”
“Wait a minute – we have a Ludlow cousin named Robespierre?” Andrew said. “Now I'm just ten and I know better than that!”
“Well, you know, some people want power and they don't care how they get it, and are also glad they have a real French wife and maybe read The Three Musketeers one too many times, and so they do stuff like name their sons Robespierre, Napoleon, and Richelieu,” Eleanor said. “And then they forget to tell their sons, 'You may be named Robespierre, but the person to watch out for in this family is named Robert!'”
“I don't know how they are not getting it after what happened to Grumps my biological grandfather,” Glendella said, “but my whole biological branch of the Ludlow family really needs to get it together.”
“Or keep getting gotten together!” Edwina said before rolling over laughing again.
“So, um, Cousin Robespierre knows somebody who is working in the office of the lawyer drafting the structure documents for the workers of the Ludlow Bubbly,” Eleanor said. “I think they are forming an ESOP to be worker-owners – and so this person was just complimenting Cousin Robespierre on how forward-thinking the Ludlows were in exiting the company this way. Well, instead of just throwing out his chest and taking the credit – that would have been bad enough since he has nothing to do with it – he decided he needed to start meddling because he knows the workforce of the Ludlow Bubbly is very diverse. It's cool, you know, if people in other demographics work for Ludlows, but we are not supposed to be sharing the capital with them.”
Andrew put his head in his hands.
“Will somebody please tell our older cousins it's 2020 and it's OK now to be good to everybody fairly?” he said.
“Cousin Robespierre is 65 and not trying to hear it,” Eleanor said, “which really meant he should have stayed away from here but anyway, he went on and found out that Papa has split up the ownership already with the Trents, the Gonzalezes, the Duboises, and the Miyamotos, and that it's not just folks who look like us who are about to get rich – and that Thomas Stepforth is actually backing it, meaning nobody gets rich without a Black billionaire backing it.”
Andrew sat down on the floor and put his head back in his hands.
“See, if people could just learn to mind their own business, they would be happier and could learn how to get rich and get credit for stuff on their own!” he said.
“This is true, because all Cousin Robespierre has to show for being in everybody's business is two failed marriages and lots of trust fund gone straight to alimony and child support,” Glendella said.
“Just throw the whole busybody away!” Edwina said as she rolled again.
“So, anyway, he gets good and drunk to try to comprehend the magnitude of Papa's betrayal of the family principles – never mind that we're out of Tancred's line of Ludlows and Tancred Ludlow didn't care who else got rich if he did too, and was never a slave owner like Tarquin and his line,” Eleanor said. “But you know, you can't be up on detail if you are driving drunk rolling up on this address to see Papa and tell him 'This is your constitutional crisis – you can't do this sale, Robert – there are principles at stake here!'
“Papa was in the front yard watering just in case Hurricane Mneme decides to stay a Category 4 but either keep dancing around where she is or go back out to sea when Cousin Robespierre pulled up and basically fell out of the car like that, so Papa said 'Robespierre? What are you going on about?' And so Cousin Robespierre explained, with plenty of slurs and curse words, that no Ludlow worth the name could be taking money from a man like Thomas Stepforth in order to put capital into the hands of all these inferior people, blah curse word slur blah slur curse word blah … it was awful.
“So then Papa just said, 'You can go on being racist and broke while I go on being fair and rich, Robespierre. I promise I won't interfere, just like you won't.'”
“Ooop,” Andrew said.
“I love the way Upgrade Papa gets to the point!” Glendella said.
“But get to the good part!” Edwina said as she sat up.
“So then Cousin Robespierre had the dumb idea of charging Papa,” Eleanor said, and Edwina fell over laughing again. “Y'all ever seen anybody just destroy somebody's whole career with a stream of water? I have, and it wasn't cute at all.”
“Yes, it was!” Edwina said. “It was beautiful!”
“It was better than he deserved,” Glendella said.
“You know how some people still think wearing underclothes that shrink when wet is more fashionable than not, and you know how some people's cousins remember every way possible to take you down and already have the whole strategy worked out the moment you pull up?” Eleanor said. “Yeah. It was really bad.”
“The civilian wild is not really ready for Papa's advanced strategies, especially if he has decades of reconnaissance,” Andrew said.
“We gotta move back to a protected address,” Eleanor said. “These other Ludlows ain't gonna make it if they keep thinking they can just come over here, I'm telling you.”
“Or they can keep learning the hard way!” Edwina said as she rolled laughing again. “Problem Papa handled! Problem Child approved!”
“Yeah, no,” Andrew said. “I need to get our 9-2-2-Where-We-Call-You-Before-the-Emergency upgraded for drive-by self destruction quick, fast, and in a hurry, because just no. We cannot just be letting family members go out like this.”
“Andy, I hear you,” Eleanor said, “but remember: this isn't a job for you to take on. If any adult in the Ludlow family does not get by now that you do not mess with Robert Edward 'Hell to Pay' Ludlow, that just means they don't know the Lord Jesus at all because He would never have them in a situation like that, and if they at their big ages don't want to be saved by Him, just what are you going to do?”
Andrew considered this.
“I'm going back to play chess with Cousin Harry is what I'm going to do,” he said. “When you put it that way, Ellie – yeah, I'm good on all that. Let me mind my ten-year-old business.”