The Next Level

by Jackson Pearce

  “We thought that today, Mrs. Curran, you might like to hold a hammer.” Ellie said this as dramatically as possible, like she was saying, “You might like to have a billion dollars!” or “You might like to have this boat full of puppies!”

  “I’m sorry?” Mrs. Curran asked, scrunching her brows.

  “When we were here last time, you said you’d never held a hammer, and I think that’s a real shame—hammering is easy! And fun! So I thought maybe you’d like it if we taught you how to hammer. Or maybe use a screwdriver? That way you don’t have to wait around for someone to come fix things in your house, unless you just want to wait . . .” Ellie drifted off and went back to smiling so hard her cheeks hurt.

  “Too much teeth,” Kit muttered, and Ellie toned her smile down a notch.

  Mrs. Curran tilted her head at Ellie. “Er—I don’t think so, sweetheart. It’s very nice that Toby has taught you and Kit to use a hammer, but I’m afraid I’d just wallop my fingers with it!”

  Toby cleared his throat. “Actually, Mrs. Curran, Ellie taught me to use a hammer. She’s an engineer. Kit and I just help out a lot.”

  Mrs. Curran’s head tilted even more at that, like Toby was speaking a language she didn’t understand. “Goodness, isn’t that just . . . ​a girl engineer! Curious.”

  “Anyone can be an engineer, Mrs. Curran. Boys and girls and everyone in between!” Ellie said.

  Mrs. Curran smiled and righted her head. It didn’t look like she believed Ellie—it looked like she was doing that thing grown-ups do where they agree but secretly think you’re being silly. She said, “Of course, of course. Well, thank you, but I don’t think I need to learn to use a hammer. Whatever would I do with it?”

  “All sorts of things!” Ellie said.

  “Pull out nails,” Toby said.

  “Break the window into a billion pieces if you lock your keys in the car,” Kit said.

  “I think I would rather just call a locksmith, in that case,” Mrs. Curran said delicately. “Anyhow, today I would love for the three of you to help me by scrubbing the patio stones. They’re terribly mossy, and I worry I’ll slip and fall on them when I go out to pick mint from my garden.”

  Ellie bit her lip. This wasn’t going very well. They’d planned to teach Mrs. Curran to hold a hammer, then teach her how to use it to tap-tap-tap paint cans closed or put nails in the wall to hang pictures. A hammer was a pretty easy tool to use, and one of the handiest ones Ellie owned. Using one was only a tiny part of engineering, but it was a start!

  “Are you sure you don’t want to try to use the hammer, Mrs. Curran?” Ellie asked.

  Mrs. Curran smiled nicely. “I just don’t think that’s very useful for me, dear. Besides, I don’t know a thing about tools or engineering!”

  Ellie wanted to point out that if she learned to use a hammer, then she would know a thing about tools and engineering, but it was clear they weren’t getting anywhere. The three of them went outside and began to scrub at the patio with thick scrub brushes and hot water; Mrs. Curran started her slow climb up the steps to her studio.

  “I knew we couldn’t do it,” Toby said grumpily once Mrs. Curran was out of earshot.

  “Me too,” Ellie said sadly.

  “Me three,” Kit added. Ellie and Toby looked over at her, and she shrugged. “Mom says that at pageants you have to fake it till you make it. That’s what I was doing—just pretending really, really hard that I knew it would work.”

  “You had me fooled,” Ellie said supportively, and Kit seemed pleased—but still pretty unhappy about the whole situation. Ellie sighed. “I thought starting small was the way to go. It’s just one tiny little hammer!”

  “Maybe we looked at it the wrong way,” Toby said, pausing to move a beetle away from the patio stone he was working on. “Maybe instead of starting small, we should have started big.”

  “You think we should teach her to use a drill? Or an electric saw?” Ellie asked, wondering how she’d convince her dad to let her borrow the saw. It was a tool she usually got to use only when he was there to supervise.

  “Or maybe we should teach her about a different part of engineering. Maybe she’d like the part where you draw up plans more,” Kit suggested.

  Toby shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I’m thinking that perhaps we should have started with something that will help her in a big way. She thought the hammer just wouldn’t be useful, right? But maybe if you built something that would be a big help, she’d be excited about it and would want to help. It’d have to be something bigger than fixing cabinet doors and table legs, though.”

  “Maybe you could add lots of windows to her downstairs so it gets better light, and she can move her studio,” Kit suggested.

  Ellie looked at the back wall of the house. “I don’t know. I think you need big tools to smash bricks. And I bet she won’t let us make holes in the side of her house.”

  “She likes espresso,” Toby said. “What if you made an espresso delivery system?”

  Ellie thought on this. If she made some sort of lever—like a seesaw—in Mrs. Curran’s foyer, she could perhaps put the espresso on one end. Mrs. Curran would have to toss something heavy on the other end, and then it would shoot the espresso up . . . ​Ellie whipped out her notebook and began drawing.

  “Wouldn’t espresso go everywhere, though?” Kit asked when she saw Ellie’s sketch.

  “Maybe she could put it in a little cup with a lid,” Toby suggested.

  “I don’t think espresso goes in those kinds of cups,” Kit said. “And besides, she’d still have to go all the way downstairs to make her espresso, wouldn’t she?”

  Ellie sighed, which seemed to worry Toby and Kit—they weren’t at all used to seeing her feeling down about engineering. Toby said, “Okay, okay, what if you put a giant straw that went all the way downstairs and sent the espresso shooting up to her studio and into her cup? Like an espresso fountain. Then she wouldn’t have to leave her studio!”

  “Oh, that’s a good one,” Kit said, nodding. “And maybe then you could put one in my room that sends milkshakes shooting upstairs and into a cup.”

  “I call an orange soda one!” Toby said excitedly.

  “That is a really cool idea,” Ellie said, thinking on how a machine like that would work. It would need lots of power to push a drink all the way upstairs, and then they’d need a way to keep it from just exploding all over the studio . . . ​Ellie frowned. “We only have one more day of coming to Mrs. Curran’s. I think an espresso fountain will take us a lot longer to engineer and build. Plus, we probably ought to build it and test it somewhere that espresso won’t get all over expensive dolls.”

  “I don’t have anything that is too expensive to get covered in orange soda,” Toby said hopefully.

  Ellie went on without answering him. “What else would be a big help?” They all went quiet, thinking on this for a while. Every now and then one would open his or her mouth, then shut it and shake his or her head.

  Until Ellie opened her mouth and left it open. Because . . . well. It was obvious!

  “What is it, Ellie?” Kit asked.

  “Ohhhhhhh,” Ellie said. “Eeeeeeeeee!”

  “Is she okay?” Toby asked Kit. “I saw a television show where a boy started making noises like that, and it was because a ghost was in his brain.”

  “Ellie? Is there a ghost in your brain?” Kit asked, grabbing Ellie’s hand.

  “A ghost? Oh, no,” Ellie said. “It’s just—I know what we have to build! And it’s just about as scary as a ghost in your brain.”

  “What?” Toby asked eagerly.

  Ellie pressed her lips together, feeling a swirl of worried and excited. “We’ve got to build another elevator.”

  Ellie really did like rebuilding things and making them better. That was just part of engineering: you built something, tested it, and if it didn’t work, you tinkered with it until it did.

  But the elevator wasn’t like most of her builds. For
starters, it had been a capital-“D” Disaster: Kit’s mom hadn’t been able to get fancy replacement pickles in time, Ellie’s dad had had to get special cream for all the bug bites he got while cleaning up glass, and the backyard still smelled like pickles (which was not a great smell in the middle of a hot summer day). The whole reason they were at Mrs. Curran’s in the first place was because of how badly the elevator plan had gone!

  It was pretty obvious, though, that a way to get heavy boxes upstairs to Mrs. Curran’s studio was the perfect project. It would be such a big help to Mrs. Curran that she surely couldn’t turn it down. Plus, they would really truly need Mrs. Curran’s help to build it—they couldn’t just start nailing things into her stair railings or hanging stuff from the foyer ceiling without her there.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” Ellie told Kit and Toby that afternoon, in her workshop. She tore two pieces of paper from her notebook—one with the original elevator design and one with a new, improved, hopefully-not-capital-“D”-Disaster version. Ellie had been working on a new elevator design almost every night before bed, thinking on it during the day, and trying to trick her brain into dreaming about it while she slept. She was pretty sure she’d finally sorted out where her original design had gone wrong.

  “Two of these?” Toby asked, pointing to the two pulleys on the new version.

  Ellie nodded. “Yes. One pulley lets you lift something easier because you can pull instead of just heaving it up in your arms. But with two pulleys, it’s like you’re using two ropes instead of one, so you only have to work half as hard.”

  Kit’s eyes widened. “What if you added even more pulleys?”

  “That’d make it even easier, but I don’t think there’s time to make any more pulleys,” Ellie said. “I thought we could put this hook here, too, so that it wraps up the rope and keeps the elevator from sliding back down to the ground. I think we should work on some bits of the elevator here, that way we don’t have to start from scratch at Mrs. Curran’s house.”

  “Good thinking. She probably wouldn’t be very happy if we had to spread out all the nails and wood on her carpet in the foyer,” Toby said.

  “How do we keep everything from tipping off, like the pickles did?” Kit asked, studying the drawing.

  Ellie pointed at the part of the drawing that showed the elevator platform. “When we did it last time, we had two ropes wrapped under this piece of table, so when the pickles sloshed, everything tipped. This time around, we’ll use four ropes and tie them all up in the middle, see? So even if the boxes start to tip one way, the other ropes will stop them from totally sliding off.”

  “Let’s not test it with anything in glass jars though, just in case,” Kit said a little nervously. Ellie agreed.

  They got to work on the new and improved elevator. Ellie used her drill—her very favorite tool—to drill holes on the other two edges of the tabletop. They threaded rope through those holes, and then Toby tied super-tight knots. Toby knew a lot about fancy knots, like the kinds sailors use, and was really excited to show Ellie and Kit all the different sorts he knew about.

  “I think for the knots under the table, we ought to go with a figure-eight. It’s a knot that lots of firefighters use,” Toby said, nodding to himself.

  “Sounds good,” Ellie said, shrugging at Kit. “We’ll need a place to connect the top pulley to the ceiling. Is there a light up there? Or maybe a plant hook? Or—”

  “Oh! I know what to use!” Kit said, and hurriedly drew out a picture of Mrs. Curran’s upstairs foyer on a piece of paper. Kit was a good artist—and she had a really good memory. She hadn’t gotten a bad grade on a spelling test in basically her entire life, and she already knew her multiplication tables all the way into the twelves (Ellie was super stuck on the sixes). She handed her drawing of the foyer to Ellie, who drew the new and improved elevator over it. Ellie, Kit, and Toby looked at the drawing, then at the pieces they’d put together laid out on the workshop floor.

  “It looks like it should work,” Toby said.

  “It looks like it will work,” Kit said, patting Ellie’s shoulder.

  “It looks like it has to work,” Ellie finished. “Mrs. Curran has to see that anyone can be an engineer. And besides, she has to find a good way to get those boxes upstairs. I don’t want her to have to retire. No one should ever have to stop doing something they love to do.”

  “Oh my,” Mrs. Curran said when she opened the door the following morning. “What in the world is that?”

  “An elevator!” Ellie said cheerfully. Kit and Toby were holding the tabletop behind her. The ropes were all hanging off it like spaghetti noodles. Ellie was holding two pulleys—one made out of the same tricycle wheel that the capital-“D” Disaster elevator was made out of, and a second one she’d made the night before out of two mini pizza pans she’d glued together.

  “Are you very sure you know what an elevator is, dear?” Mrs. Curran asked, setting her espresso cup down on a table in the foyer.

  “Yes,” Ellie said confidently. “We made it for you, Mrs. Curran.”

  Mrs. Curran’s eyes widened and Ellie could see just how neatly she’d put on her eye makeup. “How . . . erm . . . kind.”

  “Getting pretty heavy back here,” Toby said, and shifted so that he could hold the tabletop better.

  “Excuse us,” Ellie said politely, and scooted past Mrs. Curran. Toby and Kit followed behind her, and Mrs. Curran had to step out of the way to allow the tabletop through. Toby and Kit set it down gently on the foyer rug. Mrs. Curran shut the door, but then looked out the side window, like she thought she might need to flag down someone for help.

  “I’m not quite sure I understand what is happening here,” Mrs. Curran said, clasping her hands together.

  “Remember how I told you that I’m an engineer?” Ellie asked. Mrs. Curran’s eyes flicked over to Toby, like when she heard the word “engineer” she thought of him, but Ellie didn’t let herself get upset. She kept going. “I designed an elevator for you to get the boxes of doll supplies from your garage to your studio. Toby and Kit helped.”

  “Oh my,” Mrs. Curran said for the second time in only a few minutes.

  “We can put it together and show you how it works, but we need your help,” Ellie finished, putting her hands on her hips just above her tool belt.

  Mrs. Curran was smiling in a tight way. “That’s a very sweet offer, but—”

  “Mrs. Curran, didn’t the dolly work great? You said it was very clever,” Toby reminded her. “That was Ellie’s design.”

  “And you thought all the fixing we did in the house was great enough that you gave us all presents. That was Ellie’s work, too,” Kit said.

  “Yes, yes, that was all quite nice, but elevators are much more elaborate, aren’t they?” Mrs. Curran said. “I think perhaps this is the sort of thing better left to more experienced engineers.”

  “We already have experience building elevators,” Ellie said insistently, leaving out the fact that their experience was really just building a single, terrible elevator. “Plus, you’re going to help us! You’re an experienced person, and I’m an engineer, so together we’re the same as an experienced engineer.”

  “That doesn’t really make sense,” Kit whispered. Ellie shushed her. This wasn’t a time for making sense—this was a time for getting things done.

  “I don’t know if I can be much help,” Mrs. Curran said, looking worried.

  “Sure you can! And just think, Mrs. Curran: once we’re done, you’ll be able to move the boxes of supplies upstairs on your own, to your studio. Think about how great that will be! It’ll solve such a big problem, and you won’t have to worry anymore about needing to give up painting dolls,” Kit said, stepping closer and giving her best pageant smile (Ellie knew it well, since she usually went to Kit’s pageants to cheer her on).

  “Ahhhh,” Mrs. Curran said, cringing—but the kind of cringing that Ellie knew meant she was considering this. “I suppose the other things t
hat Toby—er, that Ellie—did were quite helpful. All right. Go ahead.”

  The three of them cheered, and it sounded for a minute like Mrs. Curran was cheering with them, but then it turned out she was just making worried noises deep in her throat.

  Mrs. Curran got herself another espresso and sat down in a fluffy chair in the foyer. Kit dashed up the stairs and studied the pull-down attic door—this is what she’d remembered and drawn for the others yesterday. She opened it just a crack, then slipped a rope around the door. It was the perfect place to mount the top pulley!

  In the meantime, Ellie worked on the bottom pizza-pan pulley. “Here, Mrs. Curran,” she said, and brought the pulley over to Mrs. Curran’s chair. “Could you put this rope through the pulley?”

  “Hm?” Mrs. Curran said. “Me? Is this a pastry tray?”

  “Yes,” Ellie said, “and yes again—well, if pizzas are pastries, it is.” Ellie went on, “See, the rope will slide in between the edges where the pans meet, and that will help lift the tabletop.”

  “How clever,” Mrs. Curran said, pinching her brows together. She took the rope from Ellie’s hands and slid it through the pulley. “There you go.”

  “Perfect,” Ellie said, and hurried to put the pulley in place. She lifted up the ropes on the tabletop next, then took her tape measure from her pocket. “Here, I need help with this, too,” she said.

  “What should I do?” Mrs. Curran asked, looking a little wary but a little bit curious, too. “A little bit curious” was a big improvement, and it gave Ellie hope.

  “I need to measure these ropes to be sure they’re all the same length—otherwise the tabletop might be crooked, and things could slide off it. I’ll hold the rope tight, and you slide the tape measure out to tell me how long the rope is,” Ellie said, and handed Mrs. Curran the tape measure. Mrs. Curran turned it over in her palm a few times, like it was something particularly magical, then pulled the measuring bit out. She held it up to the first of the ropes and, after a few moments of squinting, called out how long it was. She went a bit quicker with the second rope, and by the time they were measuring the last one, she was using the tape measure like a pro.