Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
No matter how much you try as a parent, you will sometimes overlook something, and Sgt. Trent knew what he had overlooked as the evening wore down and he found his three youngest children Velma (11), Milton (9), and Gracie (8) sitting in the middle of the day's newspapers with their Ludlow friends Eleanor (11), Andrew (10), George (9), Edwina (8), and Amanda (7).
But leave it to Gracie Trent to misdirect everybody with her knowledge of just enough things to save the day, sitting between the very different accountings of world events from the Big Loft Bulletin, the Veteran's Lodge newsletter, and the Lofton County Free Voice.
“See, the reason it's all so different is copyright – I was listening to my cousin Vertran the thousandaire talking to my Stepforth grandfather the billionaire and Pop-Pop was teaching Vertran about all that. See, what you gotta do is change everything you do 21 percent so it doesn't copy, and all these articles are so short there's so much they gotta leave out about things that it's easy to talk about the same thing over and over but include stuff someone else left out.”
Col. H.F. Lee was watching with his near-perfect composure, but the last of the sunlight was shining very brightly in his eyes...
“That does kinda make sense,” Eleanor said. “Sometimes it really does look like white people and black people really hate each other, the way they cover the same issues and ignore the viewpoints of each other, but then the Veteran's Lodge newsletter tries to be fair but doesn't have enough space – but then maybe none of them have enough space.”
“Newspapers are kind of limited, though,” Velma said. “I mean, if I really needed to tell you the story of the day, or a week, and really get into all the things I was thinking and feeling, I couldn't do it in one of these articles.”
“It's like me and Andrew trying to write about what happens all week for Papa and Grandma,” Amanda said. “We've already killed some of our purple markers, and Andrew gives up a whole notebook every week and it's still not enough.”
“Maybe that's really what's going on with all of this,” Milton said. “There are so many ways to take a picture of the same thing – Dad and my big brother Melvin have taught me that – so maybe a newspaper can only have so many pictures and so many ways to tell a story, but there are always more, so it takes a bunch of newspapers.”
“I'm so glad Dad reads all three of these,” Gracie said, “because that means he is getting more of the whole story!”
“Col. Lee our Cousin Harry reads in nine languages and reads ever so many newspapers online every morning,” Andrew said. “I guess you have to keep up with all that as the Angel of Death so you get the right people on time.”
“If you are an angel, why do you need to even read the newspapers?” Edwina said.
“Because only God is omniscient,” Andrew said. “Angels don't know everything, so they gotta keep up, just like us.”
“Maybe not just like us,” Velma said. “You figure angels are real speed-readers in the spirit!”
“Oh, yeah, all this here would be light work,” Gracie said as she gathered up all the newspapers to take them where she knew they belonged: the shredder pile. “Speaking of light work: anybody wanna get some jump rope in before we have to go to bed?”
Thank you for your interesting story, I really appreciated it.
You are very welcome, and thank you for reading!
😜