“Didn’t I tell you to stay out of this tree?” a harsh voice said.

Marjorie saw that the starling was perched on a nearby twig. She didn’t answer the bird. Instead she looked down into the dark hole.

“Nick,” she called, “are you all right?”

“I’m not hurt, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “My feet are jammed against one side of the tree trunk and my back against the other. I guess I’ll be all right for a little while.”

“I’ll go home and get a rope.” Marjorie started climbing down the tree. It was much harder than climbing up. She was afraid she’d get dizzy if she looked down. It seemed a long time before she came to the lowest branch. Marjorie dropped to the ground and rolled over and over.

She jumped to her feet and began to race down the path around Lookout Mountain. She ran past the mulberry tree, along the lakeshore, across the roadway, and over to the big iron park gate. Here Marjorie slowed to a walk and crossed the wide street outside the park. She decided to jog the rest of the way home.

Marjorie ran up the steps of her house and opened the door with her key. She remembered that her mother had a clothesline somewhere in the basement. Mrs. Gordon used it when the dryer was out of order.

Marjorie found the rope behind the laundry room door. Her mother always wound the clothesline around a stick to keep it from getting tangled. The stick had snapped in half and fallen out onto the floor.

Marjorie tore upstairs to her room. She took her little square flashlight off her night table and dropped it into the pocket of her jeans. Then she took the big wooden spoon out of her dresser drawer. She carried it down to the laundry room and wound the clothesline around it.

Marjorie held tight to the big spoon and jogged back to the park. The young man was still jogging along the roadway. He waved to Marjorie. “Isn’t this great? This is my third time around.”

Marjorie waved back. She crossed the road and jogged along the lakeshore. A duck with four ducklings went paddling by. Marjorie would have liked to stop and look at them, but she kept jogging until she came to the path up the big hill. Then she began to run.

When she came to the beech tree, Marjorie tossed the rope over the lowest branch and used it to pull herself up. She wound the rope back onto the spoon and started up the tree.

The starling was still sitting on the same twig. “Here comes your sister now, Nick,” it called down into the hole in the tree. “You should be out of there in no time.”

The bird stared at the spoon under Marjorie’s arm. But it didn’t say anything.

Marjorie tied one end of the clothesline to a branch with the square knot her father had taught her. The rest of the rope was still wound around the wooden spoon.

Marjorie thought for a minute. If she let the rope down into the tree it might get caught on something and never reach Nick.

She turned on her flashlight. Marjorie held the flashlight in one hand and the spoon in the other. As she slowly let herself down into the hollow tree, the rope unwound from the spoon.