Mrs. Thalia Ludlow picked up her husband's phone and noted the number.
“That's a county office,” she said.
Capt. Ludlow looked.
“Oh, I know who this is – my little wordless performance at the meeting that destroyed so many of his friends has him upset. Hold that for a moment – hey, Tom!”
Young newspaperman Tom Stepforth III was coming in from work two doors down.
“George Hyde is on the phone, and is about to say some very unwise things about things he should really keep quiet about – want some background for your next scoop?”
“Sure!” Tom said, and came right over.
Tom's eleven-year-old cousin Velma just shook her head from the porch.
“Well,” she said to her baby sister eight-year-old Gracie, “whoever Mr. Hyde is, he just got invited to the frog ballet.”
“Ain't it the truth,” Gracie said.
“What even is that?” Capt. Ludlow's seven-year-old granddaughter Amanda Ludlow said. “I mean, I know about frogs, and ballet, and even toy ballet, but frog ballet?”
Velma sighed.
“Gracie knows at under two digits old because she can't help it: Grandma Jubilee is our grandmother. I'm not sure you want to know, Amanda.”
“Do the frogs get hurt?” Amanda said.
“No frogs were hurt in the making of the statement,” Velma said, “because frogs don't do ballet.”
“OK, that's all I really wanted to know!” Amanda said, and the three girls went about their day as Velma and Gracie's father, Sgt. Vincent Trent, looked on them with deep love and pity before shaking his head at what was doing on two doors down. Capt. Ludlow had put the phone on speaker, and Tom was just taking notes and enjoying the carnage as Capt. Ludlow used his colossal bass voice in quiet, controlled power to goad Mr. Hyde into a fit of rage, a fit in which he accidentally told Tom where a lot of Lofton County skeletons were buried while trying to bring Capt. Ludlow and his father's legacy down a peg.
“Instead, he is just starring today in the frog ballet,” Sgt. Trent said.
“OK, I'm with Amanda – what does that mean, and I'm older than you, so, old enough to know,” Mrs. Trent said.
Sgt. Trent laughed gently.
“That's an old Jubilee saying for mixed company,” he said. “Velma and Gracie aren't supposed to know what it means, but Velma figured it out, and Gracie majors on quality eavesdropping – get out from behind that door, Gracie!”
“Aw, man!” Gracie said as she went on about her business. “How did you even know I was there?”
“You forget sometimes,” he said gently. “You know me, and I also know you. There is the window. Be in my sight line, twenty feet from it outside – go on!”
“Aw, man!” Gracie said, but was obedient, and only when she and her father made eye contact through the window did he continue what he was saying.
“What's the most notable thing about ballet dancers, Melissa?” he said his wife.
“Their legs and feet – just amazing what their bodies can do,” she said.
“What's the most edible part of a frog?” Sgt. Trent said.
“Their legs – oh,” Mrs. Trent said. “I see why they would say it like that, because, sheesh!”
“Yep,” Sgt. Trent said. “If ever a Jubilee-of-the-mountain says to you, 'You 'bout to be part of the frog ballet,' just know that's the last warning you're going to get before you are eaten up – 'bout to get eat up, in the terms of the art – like frog legs. Your destruction will be relished and enjoyed and passed around to feed the whole crew.”
Mrs. Trent looked over at the Ludlow porch, and at Capt. Ludlow sitting impassively, just stirring the pot of George Hyde's rage periodically while Tom took notes.
“Yep,” she said. “That's a frog ballet, Ludlow-style.”
“Except that Capt. Ludlow is a Virginian blue blood – he is not even bothering to eat the meal,” Sgt. Trent said. “He's going to let the public feast through the Lofton County Free Voice, and when you understand that George Hyde hates Black folks with a passion, and this is how he is going down … .”
“Wow,” Mrs. Trent said. “That's a level of contempt you don't see every day!”
“Nope,” Sgt. Trent said. “See, Jubilee-of-the-mountain folks don't need to look down on you until we have shot you dead. But that going on over there? That's some old Virginian Ludlow-on-father's-side-Lee-on-mother's-side type of slow-motion putdown pressure-cooked frog ballet right there.”
“Probably couldn't have happened to a finer public servant,” Mrs. Trent said.
“Ain't it the truth,” Sgt. Trent said.