THE LONDON TRUMPET
One is redesigning alien freight, another wrestles him for fun, and apparently the adults think this is perfectly ordinary
May 16, 2440 8:00 AM
We have a question for the people of central Missouri.
What, precisely, are you feeding your children?
Because over here, a perfectly respectable fourteen-year-old is generally expected to complain about school, avoid tidying their room, become emotionally devastated by somebody failing to answer a message, and perhaps develop an alarming interest in hair products.
In Missouri, they are apparently being allowed near extraterrestrial cargo spacecraft.
The latest offender is Jerry Marmaduke, fourteen, of Columbia, whose summer internship at Marmaduke Logistics appears to have gone somewhat beyond fetching coffee.
Jerry was supposed to be learning freight under his father, Paul, an eighteen-year veteran of the company.
Instead, he became fascinated with the engineering required to fit four 53-foot cargo containers into a V’ren shuttle, remembered learning about Doctors Without Borders in civics class, read an article while waiting for freight to arrive, and casually produced a proposal for transporting medical teams aboard alien spacecraft.
Management listened.
This is the part where Britain would normally expect someone to say, “That’s very clever, Jerry,” pin his drawing to a refrigerator, and send him back to algebra.
Marmaduke Logistics instead invited him into strategy meetings.
He will now be riding along on some of the resulting flights.
Naturally.
Jerry has also taken the V’ren pilot-training assessment because apparently nobody in Missouri has informed him that fourteen-year-olds are traditionally forbidden from having a more interesting résumé than senior members of Parliament.
He passed the hand-eye coordination portion.
His V’ren language ability still needs work.
Thank God.
For approximately thirty seconds, we had evidence he might actually be human.
Jerry recently rode a freight mission to the V’ren flagship, spent the night aboard, then returned to Earth carrying passengers and Amazon returns.
Amazon returns.
Humanity has known extraterrestrial civilization for nine days, and a fourteen-year-old from Columbia has already participated in interplanetary reverse logistics.
He is reportedly more interested in the shuttle-loading engineering.
Of course he is.
His ordinary life provides little reassurance.
Jerry wrestles in roughly the same weight class as Krieger Littleton and Nyla Chakrobarty, both themselves apparently products of Missouri’s ongoing experiment to determine whether childhood is strictly necessary.
He also knows Krieger through debate.
So when the children are not attempting to fold one another into the gymnasium floor, they argue competitively.
Jerry knows the Chakrobarty family socially as well and told television host Doug Meyers that the sisters are all pretty, before adding that anyone who understands clipboards the way Claudia Chakrobarty does has his “respect and attention.”
At last.
A normal fourteen-year-old thought.
He fancies a girl.
Unfortunately, even his flirting sounds like a procurement review.
Meyers immediately accused him of flirting through administrative competence.
Jerry denied the charge.
Nobody believed him.
After presenting his medical-transport proposal, meeting Matthew Johnathan Boone Marmaduke, sitting through strategy sessions and becoming briefly famous, Jerry did what any normal boy would do.
He went to the Pleasure Park with Krieger and Sira.
They brought another girl.
Jerry and the girl have been chatting.
We strongly recommend that every adult on Earth now leave this part alone.
The boy has already helped launch a humanitarian shuttle program. Allow him one adolescent conversation without forming a multinational committee.
The larger problem remains.
Jerry is fourteen.
Nyla Chakrobarty is fourteen.
Krieger Littleton is still fourteen for another few days.
And central Missouri continues producing children who discuss freight, politics, agriculture, languages, wrestling, civic obligations and first contact with the casual confidence British teenagers traditionally reserve for explaining why their parents are wrong.
Perhaps there are ordinary fourteen-year-olds somewhere in Missouri.
Presumably they have been hidden for their own protection.
Or perhaps this is simply what happens when a society routinely gives young people real work, expects them to know their neighbors, allows them around competent adults, and then foolishly listens when one of them has an idea.
Whatever the explanation, we would like Missouri to stop.
The rest of us are beginning to look bad.
Curated Social Media
- @MissouriStan: I’m sorry, but Jerry reading about Doctors Without Borders and immediately asking why the alien shuttles can’t move doctors is exactly why I love these kids.
- @JerryMarmaduke: I mostly wanted to look at the shuttle loading diagrams.
- @BritMumOfThree: My fourteen-year-old currently believes putting a plate beside the sink counts as washing it. Missouri, explain yourselves.
- @PaulMarmaduke: Jerry’s room remains evidence that he is fourteen.
- @OzarkProud: “The rest of us are beginning to look bad” sounds like a you problem.
- @MattMarmaduke: Missouri accepts your surrender.
- @LondonDad: I refuse to believe a fourteen-year-old voluntarily reads freight engineering documents.
- @JerryMarmaduke: They had diagrams.
- @ContainerStan: FOUR 53-FOOT CONTAINERS. Jerry is correct. That is objectively more interesting than counting seal numbers.
- @PaulMarmaduke: Seal numbers become very interesting when one is wrong.
- @TeenGirl2440: So everyone is going to ignore the mystery Pleasure Park girl???
- @JerryMarmaduke: Yes.
- @TeenGirl2440: No.
- @JerryMarmaduke: Still yes.
- @ClaudiaChakrobarty: I would like it officially recorded that clipboards are useful.
- @JerryMarmaduke: THANK YOU.
- @DougMeyers: Still flirting through administrative competence.
- @JerryMarmaduke: You are never letting this go, are you?
- @KriegerLittleton: He talks a lot for someone I can take down in under a minute.
- @JerryMarmaduke: Debate me about it.
- @NylaChakrobarty: Please do not. Nobody wants another forty-minute argument about takedown points.
- @KriegerLittleton: Cowardice.
- @NylaChakrobarty: Please do not. Nobody wants another forty-minute argument about takedown points.
- @JerryMarmaduke: Debate me about it.
- @BritishEducationWatch: Serious question, why are Missouri children apparently being exposed to adult institutions this young?
- @MattMarmaduke: Because adulthood is considerably less surprising when you have been allowed to watch competent adults work.
- @YouthRightsNow: “Allowed to watch competent adults work” is doing a lot of work there.
- @MattMarmaduke: Yes. That is generally what education is supposed to involve.
- @ConcernedLondoner: A fourteen-year-old rode aboard an alien spacecraft overnight and everyone is acting like this is normal.
- @PaulMarmaduke: Qualified crew, approved itinerary, known destination, supervised intern. The alien part is new. The rest is not.
- @OrbitalStan: HE SPENT THE NIGHT ON THE FLAGSHIP AND CAME HOME WITH AMAZON RETURNS. I’m never getting over this.
- @JerryMarmaduke: The returns were less exciting than the flagship.
- @AmazonReturnsHell: Somewhere out there an alien is returning shoes.
- @AmazonAlienAffairs: Mostly sizing issues so far.
- @TrollAccount8891: Nepotism kid gets alien field trip because daddy works for Marmaduke. Shocking.
- @JerryMarmaduke: Dad got me the internship. I got myself stuck doing inventory.
- @PaulMarmaduke: And tomorrow there is more inventory.
- @JerryMarmaduke: I regret replying.
- @PaulMarmaduke: And tomorrow there is more inventory.
- @JerryMarmaduke: Dad got me the internship. I got myself stuck doing inventory.
- @AntiMarmaduke: Every story out of Missouri somehow ends with Matt being amazing. Convenient.
- @MattMarmaduke: This story is about Jerry.
- @AntiMarmaduke: You still inserted yourself into it.
- @MattMarmaduke: I am literally his employer and you tagged me.
- @AntiMarmaduke: You still inserted yourself into it.
- @MattMarmaduke: This story is about Jerry.
- @MidlandsTeacher: The bit everyone is skipping is that he remembered something from civics class and applied it later. That is the dream.
- @JerryMarmaduke: Please tell my civics teacher I was paying attention.
- @ColumbiaTeacherWatch: Your civics teacher already knows.
- @JerryMarmaduke: This has become threatening.
- @ColumbiaTeacherWatch: Your civics teacher already knows.
- @JerryMarmaduke: Please tell my civics teacher I was paying attention.
- @OldQuartermaster: Kid sees lift capacity, remembers a mobility problem, proposes matching the two. That is quartermaster brain whether he likes it or not.
- @PaulMarmaduke: I’ve been telling him.
- @JerryMarmaduke: I still think I’m going into engineering.
- @MattMarmaduke: Every logistics organization needs engineers who understand freight. You have not escaped.
- @JerryMarmaduke: I still think I’m going into engineering.
- @PaulMarmaduke: I’ve been telling him.
- @TheRealBritishTeen: As an actual fourteen-year-old in Britain, I would like Missouri to know some of us also wrestle, debate, read technical articles and have internships.
- @LondonTrumpet: Thank God. We found one.
- @MattMarmaduke: Get that kid a clipboard.
- @LondonTrumpet: Thank God. We found one.
