21 November 2025, @mariannewest's Freewrite Writing Prompt Day 2928: deserve

Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews

Five-year-old Mr. Robert Edward Ludlow III did not know he was Lil' Robert. Having invented the warp drive of math with figuring out how to get to every number or place with the “one, two, skip-a-few” method was not even needed for his self-image and confidence. Having re-directed elder siblings out of space travel by reminding them there were no snack spots between Earth and Venus was just a day's work.

“Because, see, Papa takes care of the Robert Edward Ludlowness at his size and takes care of the family, and I take care of the Robert Edward Ludlowness and take care of the family at our size,” he had recently explained to his cousin/new adopted sibling, ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow.

The baby of the Ludlow grandchildren knew nothing about his status as the baby, just like his friend eight-year-old Gracie Trent was pretty much running her house. Both of them just did what it came to mind to do, and everyone else just had to figure out what they were going to do.

Gracie came to Lil' Robert with something on her mind, and they put a plan together.

“I think Grayson is kinda down right now because adults are messing up the buildings around here,” Gracie said, “and so I'd like to cheer him up, but he really needs those of you in the Ludlow man-training unit to get in there with him.”

“Right on – I got this,” Lil' Robert said.

So he went and found six-year-old Grayson looking sad in the Lego pile, looking at how the buildings of Bayard Heights would have been built if their great-grandfather had been listened to. He had gotten the center page out of the newspaper, having heard that the diagram was in there.

“I mean, it was so easy to do it right, Lord,” he said as he was praying. “Why are people like this?”

Lil' Robert waited until Grayson folded up the center page and put it where he kept his blueprints made of white crayon on blue construction paper, and then hug-tackled him on the way back to the Lego pile.

“Come look in the mirror with me, Grayson – come on!” he said, and off they ran.

“OK, there we are,” Grayson said.

“We're blonds,” Lil' Robert said. “Remember, we have more fun.”

“Oh yeah,” Grayson said. “I forgot!”

“Listen, when we mess up our room, we clean it up,” Lil' Robert said. “We don't clean up George and Andrew's room when they mess it up.”

“OK, yeah,” Grayson said.

“You gotta let these adults clean up adult world,” Lil' Robert said. “They deserve to have to clean it up. We deserve to have more fun.”

“You know what?” Grayson said. “That makes sense.”

Lil' Robert grinned and swatted his slightly bigger brother on the arm.

“Tag! You're it!” he said, and the two took off laughing through the house and outside into the joys of childhood.

Much later before going to bed, Lil' Robert came back to Gracie.

“I told you I got this,” he said.

“Good job, Rob!” she said, and gave him a hug and a kiss on his forehead.

“I need one!” Grayson said, and grinned just as hard getting a hug and a kiss.

“I think I'm going to marry her if you don't,” Grayson said to Lil' Robert as they went onto their porch.

“I thought about it,” Lil' Robert said, “and it's not like she's too old for me, but, see, I'm not ready to settle down yet. Y'all go ahead; I'm good as a bachelor for now!”

“I probably will ask her – next month, though,” Grayson said.

Mrs. Thalia Ludlow, grandmother and adopted mother to those little boys, just smiled as she overheard this, and Capt. Robert Edward Ludlow Sr., the boys' grandfather and adoptive father, put his head in his hands for a moment when she told him.

“I understand them being interested in the girls next door, and they are precocious, so, OK, five and six – but what kills me is how they have already picked up how men talk about this stuff! How does Robert even know what a bachelor is?”

“I don't think they know that they are not grown men, in their heart of hearts,” Mrs. Ludlow said.

“I know – I hear myself talking with my father as a friend when I hear Robert and Grayson do this. Grayson is more cerebral, and Robert is always pulling him out of that mode except when he gets cerebral, and then they are really going to get somewhere.

“Next month, though,” Mrs. Ludlow said.

“Yeah,” Capt. Ludlow said. “Ludlow boys will plan out your whole life before telling you anything about it – some Ludlow men learn the hard way that this that ain't what you do, and thank God that He grants them a second chance at a family after while!”

“Thank God you are their grandfather and can help them out,” Mrs. Ludlow said.

“Thank God you are the grandmother who stepped in and stepped up,” he said, “so that they can see there's a point to doing things right!”