The Next Level

by Jackson Pearce

  “You know, you could get yourself an ant farm, Mrs. Curran,” Ellie said, lifting her eyebrows, still grinning. “Ant farms aren’t only for boys—just like engineering.”

  Mrs. Curran laughed, then sipped on her espresso. “You have a very good point, Ellie Bell. Perhaps he’ll trade me that ant farm for a doll of his own. And speaking of engineering—I see you have your tool belt with you. I wondered if you might help me with something.”

  “Of course! With what?” Ellie asked, immediately looking around the room, making a list in her brain of all the potential building materials. There weren’t many, because just about everything in there looked like it was Very Important. But she was pretty sure she could take apart the chairs and put them back together again, easy-peasy, so those could be useful . . .

  “The doctor says I ought to use crutches for a few weeks just to play it safe. And I thought, goodness, what a pain in the rear! It’s hard to carry much of anything when you’ve got crutches . . . unless . . . someone were to design some new, improved, better crutches and teach me how to build them.”

  Ellie’s eyes lit up, and she clapped her hands together. “Absolutely! Oh, Mrs. Curran, I have some really good ideas!” She grabbed her notepad and bounced up onto the side of the bed so Mrs. Curran could see, then started to draw her—their—next build: Project 67: World’s Best Crutches.

  “Is everyone ready?” Ellie shouted from the top of the stairs at Mrs. Curran’s house. Mrs. Curran was standing beside her with the crutches they’d made together tucked under her arm. Toby was positioned halfway up the stairs; Kit was at the bottom with the elevator platform, which they’d piled high with pillows. Ellie’s dad was standing in the doorway to the kitchen with his arms crossed over his chest, watching carefully and looking very pleased.

  “Ready!” Kit said, bouncing up and down.

  “We’re a go!” Toby shouted louder than he needed to, in a very official voice.

  “Let’s do it,” Mrs. Curran said, smiling. “Would you like to do the honors, Ellie?”

  “No way, Mrs. Curran. It’s your elevator,” Ellie answered.

  Mrs. Curran smiled even harder, then shuffled over to the banister where the elevator wheel was. She steadied herself and then began to turn the handle slowly. Ellie held her breath as she watched.

  The rope between the two pulleys tightened; the rope pieces attached to the elevator platform straightened out. And then . . . it began to lift off the ground! It inched up as Mrs. Curran turned the wheel, with the pillows perfectly balanced. Nothing tipped or fell or crashed! It was working, and it was working perfectly!

  “You’re doing it, Mrs. Curran! It looks great!” Toby called, jumping up and down on the steps.

  “Almost there!” Kit yelled.

  Mrs. Curran’s eyes were wide and happy and excited as she turned the wheel the last few times, until the elevator was level with the stair banister. Then, she released the wheel, threw her hands into the air, and wrapped her arms tightly around Ellie. Ellie smooshed her back hard.

  “Look at that! You’re a brilliant engineer, Ellie!” Mrs. Curran said over the sound of everyone cheering.

  Ellie beamed. “You’re an engineer now too, Mrs. Curran! How does it feel?”

  “It’s very . . .” Mrs. Curran took a deep breath and smiled when she said, “Unexpected. I’m so glad I won’t have to wait for someone to help me get my supplies upstairs. Which, speaking of supplies—Toby? I have a business proposition for you.”

  Toby darted upstairs. Mrs. Curran walked (well, crutched, but she was moving quite well and speedily) into her studio and emerged with a doll. It was exactly like the ones she’d given Ellie and Kit—except for one thing. This one was wearing a tool belt. Ellie’s eyes went wide. A doll with a tool belt! It didn’t have any tools in it, but still. Toby was the luckiest person in the world.

  “Would you be interested in trading in the ant farm I gave you for this doll? I heard you might prefer her to the ants.”

  “Yes! Yes, please!” Toby said, reaching for the doll and looking a bit overwhelmed.

  “A tool belt? That’s so cool!” Kit said when she arrived and saw the doll in Toby’s hands.

  “I thought so, too,” Mrs. Curran said. “Which is why . . .” She paused for a minute to reach into her pockets, and a moment later was holding two more doll tool belts. She dropped one each into Kit’s and Ellie’s hands. “I made them for you myself! But I’m afraid I don’t know enough about tools yet to make those. I was hoping that you three might come over and help me learn?”

  Ellie felt like she might explode with excitement—a working elevator, a tool belt for her doll, and an ant farm for Mrs. Curran. “Absolutely!” she said. Toby and Kit nodded.

  “Wonderful,” Mrs. Curran answered. “Now, if everyone would like to head downstairs, I have some snacks in the fridge. It’ll take me a moment to get down there . . . unless . . . I take the elevator . . .”

  Everyone froze.

  “Um, Mrs. Curran, the elevator works, but I don’t know if a person should get on it . . .,” Ellie began.

  Mrs. Curran laughed and poked Ellie in the ribs. “Just kidding! Come on, let’s take the stairs. For now.”

  ELLIE BELL’S

  GUIDE TO

  MACHINES

  (THE SIMPLE

  ONES, ANYWAY)

  Pulley

  Pulleys might be simple, but they are so so useful—they pull up little things, like the blinds in your house, and the heavy things, like stuff on construction cranes. The reason they make it easier to move stuff is because they let you work with gravity instead of against it. So, let’s say you need to get something heavy, like a box of coloring books, up onto your playset. You could just carry them up in your arms, but that would be really hard and you might fall down. You could also just tie a rope around them, climb to the top of your playset, and then pull them up, but that’d be really hard too. But if you put a pulley up at the top of your playset, you’d be able to stand on the ground and lift the coloring books by pulling straight down on the rope. If you wanted to make it even easier, you could add more pulleys, because the more you’ve got, the easier it is to lift something!

  Wheel and Axle

  A wheel and axle is really two machines that work together. The wheel is the round part that spins, and the axle is the part that goes through the middle and keeps the wheel from spinning right off down the road. It’s really easy to see the wheel and axle on a wheelbarrow:

  There are more wheels and axles than you might have realized. A rolling pin, for example, is a wheel and axle! So are the pencil sharpeners with the cranks that you might have in your school. And don’t forget Ferris wheels! They’re maybe my favorite wheel and axle of all.

  Lever

  Levers are everywhere, even if you don’t realize it! Seesaws are great examples of a lever—there’s something on both ends of the plank, and then the little bit in the middle that the plank rests on, which is called the fulcrum. When you push one end of a seesaw down, the other end lifts up! You can really change how easy or hard it is to lift the other end up by moving the fulcrum around:

  Seesaws aren’t the only types of levers though. The handle on the toilet flush-er is a lever, staplers are a type of lever . . . ​even forks are levers—your elbow is the fulcrum!

  Wedge

  A wedge is an extra-super-simple machine. Wedges are mostly just blades that help push things apart—like the sharp bit of an axe, or a nail, or even your teeth. If your ears are pierced, even your earrings are teeny tiny wedges!

  Also, you might not want to tell everyone this, but you know how sometimes you get wedgies (it’s okay—we all get them sometimes)? Well, in that case, your underpants are the wedge! Simple machines really are everywhere.

  Incline Plane

  If you have ever in your whole life gone up or down stairs or a ramp or a hill, then you’ve used an incline plane. Incline planes go from one level to another at an angle. The steeper the angle, t
he harder it is to move up the incline plane—but the shallower the angle, the longer the incline plane has to be. Have you ever taken your bike up a super steep hill in your neighborhood? If you go straight to the top of it, it’s really hard work, even though it’s the shortest distance. But if you zigzag back and forth as you go up, it’s a lot easier, because each zig and each zag is a teeny tiny incline plane. You have to be extra careful to not zig or zag if a car is coming though.

  Screw

  Screws are my very, very, very, very favorite simple machines, because I use them all the time. Almost every day! They’re used to hold stuff together, and they work by spiraling into things. There are screws all around you right now: holding doors together, holding your chair together, holding your glasses together, holding your house together!

  If you really think about it, a screw is an incline plane and a wedge smashed together: the sharp top is a wedge, and the spiral bit is an incline plane that goes round and round and round into stuff.

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  This electronic edition published in 2018 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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  First published in the United States of America in November 2018 by Bloomsbury Children’s Books

  Text copyright © 2018 by Jackson Pearce

  Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Tuesday Mourning

  All rights reserved

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Pearce, Jackson, author.

  Title: Ellie engineer : the next level / by Jackson Pearce.

  Description: New York : Bloomsbury, 2018.

  Summary: When Ellie and her friends help elderly Mrs. Curran around the house, Ellie cannot resist using her engineering prowess, but it is no fun for the girls when Toby gets the credit.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017056222

  ISBN: 978-1-6811-9521-6 (HB)

  ISBN: 978-1-5476-0206-3 (PB)

  ISBN: 978-1-6811-9522-3 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Engineering—Fiction. | Building—Fiction. | Sex role—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Neighborliness—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.P31482 Elt 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017056222

  ISBN 978-1-5476-0109-7 (Aus)

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