She dug down in the box for the pulleys and rope she’d used in her old room so that Aaron’s Millennium Falcon could fly and escape from Darth Vader. Building that contraption had involved nails in the ceiling and a very long Time Out.
THUMP.
Something was hitting the ceiling.
“What’s that?” said Alicia.
Eleanor thought she knew. She dragged Alicia’s chair over to the closet.
“Hey,” said Alicia. “What are you doing?”
“Shhhh!” Eleanor climbed on the chair. But she was still too short to reach the ceiling.
THUMP again! Eleanor listened. A small voice floated from the ceiling. It was saying . . . it was saying . . . , “OPEN YOUR WINDOW!”
Eleanor ran to her window and yanked it open. There wasn’t a screen, so she stuck her head out and looked straight up. There was Owen!
“Michael and I have the bedroom right above you!” he said.
“Michael?”
“My little brother. He was taking a nap. Now he’s awake. See?” Owen disappeared and a smaller kid stuck his head out the window and waved. His hair was squished on one side from sleeping.
“I’m not little!” he yelled cheerfully. “I’m already five!”
Owen pulled Michael out of the window and stuck his own head back out. He said, “We can send messages by thumping in the closet. I know about secret codes. I did a whole unit on them.”
“You did?” Homeschooling suddenly sounded way interesting.
“Yes. We can decide what one thump means, or two quick thumps plus one slow thump, or anything like that, and we’ll make a whole secret code.”
From her side of the room, Alicia said, “That’s a really annoying secret code for everyone else. Thump thump thump all the time. Also, you can’t reach the ceiling.”
Eleanor pulled her head back inside and studied her window. She stuck her head out and studied Owen’s window. She had an idea. “I’m coming up.”
Upstairs, Owen brought her to his and Michael’s room. A bunk bed stood on one side of the room and bookshelves and toy shelves on the other side. Eleanor gasped. “You have tons of books!”
“Our dad is a writer,” said Michael sadly. “We have to have a lot of books.”
“Did you have an idea for messages?” said Owen.
Nodding, Eleanor studied the window in Owen’s room. She said, “We can send messages by pulley!”
Chapter 6 Owen
Owen’s dad said they could all play in Owen and Michael’s room, and to please leave him alone for a while so he could write his chapter. Which was kind of perfect.
Owen helped Eleanor put together a pulley that would reach from his window to hers. He’d never built a pulley before.
“We just need to attach it, right?” said Owen, after Eleanor explained how it worked. “To the ceiling or something?”
“We’ll get in trouble,” said Michael. “Can I help?”
Eleanor handed Michael a plastic spaceship. “You can hold this for us. The notes go in here.”
It was the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo’s spaceship. Owen knew it right away. He had three books with the Millennium Falcon in them.
Eleanor explained how the pulley had been set up in her old room with nails in the ceiling.
“Well . . . ,” said Owen. “We once put a nail in my wall to hang my corkboard. But the ceiling. . .”
“Big trouble,” said Michael. He zoomed the spaceship around the room.
“Would it take more than one nail?” asked Owen. One might be okay.
“Probably ten nails,” said Michael. “Or twenty-ten.”
Eleanor said, “Less than ten. Maybe. Depends if chunks of ceiling fall down.” She hitched her thumbs in her pockets and stared up.
Chunks of ceiling sounded bad. But should he stop Eleanor? Could he stop her? Should he . . . tell on her? Having friends was hard. “How about . . . maybe another option?” he said.
Eleanor kept studying the ceiling. She didn’t answer.
Owen looked too. He studied the ceiling, then the window. “Oh! What about the curtain hooks?”
Eleanor grinned. She turned to Owen. “That’s genius,” she said.
Up near the ceiling were two big hooks, one on each side of the window, to hold up a curtain rod. But there was no rod and no curtain, only blinds. The two big hooks stuck out of the wall, doing nothing. Just asking to hold up a pulley.
Owen and Eleanor borrowed a kitchen chair. Then they ran downstairs and borrowed Aaron because they still couldn’t reach the hooks. Aaron stood on the chair and looped the pulley over a curtain hook, winked at them, and went back downstairs.
Then Michael gave Eleanor the spaceship, and she tied it on the end of the rope and lowered it out the window, draping the rope over the ledge that stuck out just far enough to keep the ship from hitting the house. The Millennium Falcon dangled in front of her bedroom window. Eleanor raced down to her room. She reached out and poked the ship, making it sway. “Pull the rope,” said Eleanor, “and make it soar back up!”
“Okay!” said Owen. He pulled, and the spaceship rose just like it was flying. Then he had an idea. “Don’t leave yet! Wait there!”
He ran to his desk, pulled out a piece of paper, and scribbled Olleh! Woh era uoy? Then he folded it up very small, opened the door to the spaceship, and put the note inside.
Owen pulled, and the Millennium Falcon descended to Eleanor.
A few minutes later, Eleanor was back in his room. “That note was in code, right? I figured it out! Every word was backward!”
“That was an easy code,” said Owen. “But if we want it to be tricky, we should invent a code together. That way it will be something only we know.”
“Yeah,” said Eleanor. “Alicia figured your message out really quick too. We need a harder code so it’s secret from spies.”
Owen found his book on codes, and
