4 February 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3004: weak bond

When six-year-old Grayson Ludlow was not in the Lego pile, he enjoyed reading over his big siblings' shoulders as they read high school level things while none of them was over eleven years old. Sometimes, because of the way his mind worked, he could understand things that were complicated to them … although because he was six, one ran into his creative improvisations to express what he understood while making what he didn't quite understand sound right.

“I mean, I truly do not get the difference between a strong bond and a weak bond in chemistry,” ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow was saying to ten-year-old Andrew Ludlow. “I mean, I get that molecules are atoms hanging out, and that the electrons they have in their layers they have makes a difference, but I don't get it.”

“I kinda get it – every atom would like to fill its atom shells up with electrons, and if two get together that can fill out a whole shell, they tend to have a strong bond,” Andrew said, “but the thing is, what does that really look like?”

“That's the issue,” eleven-year-old Eleanor Ludlow said. “We need a visual.”

“I got this,” Grayson said, and went and got his Legos. “See, each of these has a number of holes and a number of plugs, so, if you get all the holes onto all the plugs between two pieces, it's harder to take them apart. That's a strong bond. But if you have like eight holes here and eight plugs, but you put it on the edge so you only plug in two plugs, that's a weak bond, and it leaves room to add another Lego.”

“Which is how you build complex molecules … right,” Glendella said.

“Wait here,” Grayson said, “because it's also like this – wait here.”

He went and got their grandparents, Capt. R.E. and Mrs. Thalia Ludlow.

“See, it's like holding hands – my hand is really small, so, Papa can hold my hand and Grandma's at the same time, and I also can't really grip his hand, so, that's a weak bond. But if Papa and Grandma interlace their fingers, that's a strong bond – and also they love each other, so, yeah.”

“It's all starting to make perfect sense now,” Eleanor said.

“Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww,” Mrs. Ludlow said. “This isn't exactly how we do chemistry, but, awwwwwwwwwwwwwww!”

“What you all are talking about are types of covalent bonds,” Capt. Ludlow said, “in which electrons are shared. All of those are actually strong bonds between atoms … but that was a wonderful attempt to understand. Weak bonds are actually much, much weirder.”

So the grandparents took the book and sat down with their grandchildren for an hour.

“OK, so, I still don't get it, but I know this: there are no weak bonds in this family,” Glendella said afterwards.

“And really, that's all we need for few more years – let's just leave the high school science until we at least get to middle school!” Eleanor said.

“Yeah, because then there are stocks and bonds, and who knows what their electrons are doing,” Andrew said.

“I'd rather be Legoing,” Grayson said as he returned to the Lego pile.