Ellie, Engineer by Jackson Pearce

Author:Jackson Pearce
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781681195209
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

“Hmm,” Ellie said, studying the drawing.

Toby went on. “So I want to build something that blares a really loud alarm, maybe, when the door handle gets turned. Or maybe a bunch of teeny poison darts could zip from the wall and stick them right in the arm!”

Ellie nodded a little but thought maybe Toby watched too many movies. “I bet your mom wouldn’t be too happy about little poison darts or a super loud alarm. But maybe something else would work . . .” She stopped and looked up at Toby. “Maybe we can work on this in between working on the doghouse.”

“Really? You’ll help me with it?” Toby said, looking relieved. “I didn’t get very far on my own. You can tell, I bet. I just drew the door and some alarm ideas and then a bunch of butts on the next page.”

“I can tell,” Ellie said. “We can work on it tomorrow. We’re basically done with the doghouse until I go get the flower paper from the . . . uh . . .” Ellie tripped over the words. What she almost said was they could work on it while they waited for The Presidents to finish up drawing the flower wallpaper. But she didn’t think Toby would like knowing The Presidents were helping any more than they would like knowing he was helping. After all, even if Toby turned out to be okay, he was still one of the neighborhood boys.

Toby frowned. He wasn’t dumb. “What’s going on? Who is making the flower wallpaper?”

“Oh, just a . . . uh . . . friend of my mom’s,” Ellie said fast. This was two lies about the doghouse in two days, and she hadn’t liked either of them. She changed the subject as fast as she could. “Anyway, I was saying that I bet we can work on it tomorrow afternoon, after I get the flower paper. Come on—let’s work on the doghouse. I’ll show you how to use sandpaper.”

Together, they finished the little border, which Ellie made out of some cut-up pool noodles wrapped in ribbon, and the ramp. The ramp was just a piece of wood they laid down by the door, but she showed Toby how to rub the sandpaper back and forth so it was smooth—that way, Miss Penelope wouldn’t get splinters.

“I have an idea for something Kit might really like,” Ellie said. “Sprinklers.”

“Sprinklers? On a doghouse?”

“Yep. Kit loves running through sprinklers,” Ellie said, feeling proud of the idea. She’d had it last night while lying in bed and liked it so much she kicked the blankets away and wrote it down right there in the dark. (She couldn’t read the handwriting so well the next morning, but that didn’t matter because it was such a good idea, she remembered it anyway.) None of the doghouses they’d seen that morning had sprinkler systems, so it would be really extra special. The two of them walked around to Toby’s backyard, where the doghouse sat half-finished, its soda-can roof bright and shiny in the morning sun.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.