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“So, Dad, with all that reading Velma, Andrew, and Eleanor do, do they just have piles of books in their heads now?”
Milton's sister Velma was 11, and so was Eleanor Ludlow next door, while Eleanor's brother Andrew was 10. All of them were relaxing and reading at the very moment.
“The mind doesn't work quite like that, Milton,” Sgt. Trent said. “Nothing stays in the mind unless it has something to connect with there.”
“OK, so, are there shelves, or do books go on hangers in the brain?” Milton said, and his father and elder brother chuckled.
“Now there is an idea for a good beat title, Dad – Bookshelves On the Brain,” Melvin said as he wrote it down.
Milton's little chest puffed up.
“I keep telling you I put my work in with Team No-Sleep, Dad – all kinds of ideas!”
Team No-Sleep was Melvin and Milton's family nickname for Melvin's beatmaking business … the elder brother stayed up late by Milton's standards, and sometimes the younger brother would “sneak in” to keep him company and learn the business.
“You are almost right, Milton, about the brain,” Sgt. Trent said. “The brain is organized, and sorts information and attaches to what it fits with that is already there, and at your age, Milton, and still with you too at the end of the process, Melvin, the brain is getting its foundational realities together.
“This is why it is so important that you only take in what is good and true, because a strong foundation is important, and, the clean up later is really hard if you have a lot of nonsense and a lot of stuff connected to the nonsense. Imagine being by yourself and having to clean out your mother and sisters' clothes closets –.”
Melvin just turned around in his chair, shaking his head before his father added, “and having Vanna yelling at you the whole time.”
“Hide me, Melvin,” Milton said as he got under his brother's work desk. “Hide me!”
“That's what it is like at mature age to have to clean up after a lifetime of believing and collecting nonsense,” Sgt. Trent said.
“Oh, nooooooooooooooo,” Milton said. “None of that for me, thanks!”
“That's about five million pounds of NOPE in a five-pound bag,” Melvin said, “and all of that is what is messing up the world, right now.”
“It surely is,” Sgt. Trent said. “This is why, from all the piles of books in the world, Mom and I are careful to sort them to give you the very best.”