13 November 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2920: minority

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, October 28, 2025

“See? See? I told y'all! I told y'all – and no, Andy, I'm not going for the sausages in the skip-a-few! This is the warp drive of math – Gracie understood me! I told y'all this was important! I told y'all, but y'all thought I was too small!”

Thomas Stepforth Sr. had only been off the floor an hour from laughing at grandchildren Milton (9) and Gracie Trent (8) discuss the warp drive and how it would take zillion-octane fuel to get a rocket engine to warp speed when the bomb the analogy Gracie had made to help Milton understand warp drive wasn't going to happen went off just as Mr. Stepforth had predicted it would.

“Told that boy his 'one, two, skip a few' way of counting to big numbers was the warp drive of math and sent him home to tell the Ludlows and everyone else in the neighborhood!” Mrs. Stepforth was saying to her Trent grandchildren's other grandmother, Gladys Jubilee Trent, on the phone. “Tom is back on the floor rolling and Vanna is popping popcorn because Lil' Robert has his red crayons, red construction paper, nature magazines, and drawing paper, and is designing the future of space travel on the lawn right now!”

“So, all we gotta do is figure out what planets we want to go to, aim, and put the skip-a-few drive on – just skip over the planets we don't need and get there! I told y'all! I told y'all this was important!”

“Well, I mean, if we could get physics to cooperate, it could work,” nine-year-old George said to Milton. “I mean, we have maps of the galaxy and stuff, and we know some of the names of the planets – hey, Grayson!”

“Gottagobye,” six-year-old Grayson Ludlow said as he retreated into the home of his cousins the Lees.

“Because, no,” ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow said as she went with him.

“All y'all need is fashionable spacesuits with spiritual purple and I will make those for y'all as soon as somebody around here lets me back into my glitter cabinet!” eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow said.

“Yeah, but, um, we're talking about warp drive and skip-a-few drive and none of us can drive and this just doesn't sound safe to me,” seven-year-old Amanda Ludlow said.

“You gonna try it with him again, Andy?” eleven-year-old Eleanor Ludlow said to ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow.

“I gotta come up with a better analogy than sausages and I'm kinda stumped right now,” Andrew said. “How did we even get here?”

“I don't even know – sometimes I feel like we don't even know what we are doing on Earth enough to be out there trying to get to space, but I know that's a minority opinion in the country,” Eleanor said.

“But it's a good point – I mean, if you are Rob, or George, not even a whole decade old, you ain't gotta understand that, but people at big double digits don't get it so, maybe Rob doesn't have to either, at just five."

Meanwhile, the Ludlow grandparents just turned on the speakers, having decided to go a different route to address the situation ... it was a good time for "Fly Me to the Moon"!

“Now, see, that we can work with,” Andrew said to Eleanor as their younger siblings all started dancing around and singing with their Trent and Stepforth friends.

“Love in a big family is maybe the biggest journey we'll ever be on,” Eleanor said as Capt. and Mrs. Ludlow came out to join their grandchildren enjoying the music and the day. “Inner space, I think, is more important than outer space.”

“That's definitely a minority position in the world,” Andrew said as he took her into his arms in imitation of their grandparents, “but I still think you are right, Eleanor.”