“Yeah, well.” Eli can imagine Nellie waving her hand. “So we didn’t agree on some stuff. I’d still rather be here with you than anywhere else.” She hesitates, and then says, “and, for the record, I don’t think your ideas are boring. They’re much more sensible than mine.”

“Sometimes sensible can be a little bit boring,” Eli admits. “I could have tried doing things your way, too. I was just upset that—” He stops. It feels silly now, how angry he’d been that Nellie hadn’t been as interested in the treehouse as he was. “I just really wanted to find the treehouse.”

“Oh.” Nellie sounds surprised. “I mean, I know you do. I also. But we didn’t need to rush back into it. We have plenty of time.”

“Not really,” Eli says. “I mean, we’re not five years old anymore. We have different schools, different friends…” He hasn’t really thought about it before, how much things are changing. Nellie isn’t happy to just follow Eli around anymore or jump into his plans. The old duo is starting to break apart. Eli’s going to spend a lot more time learning soon, and he’s barely going to see Nellie then. And Nellie’s going to get busier with her school as well. “How much longer are we going to want to hang out in a treehouse together anyway?”

Nellie scoffs. “Oh forever,” she says, and she sounds sure about it. “We’re twins, Eli. I’m happier doing this together,” she admits. Eli feels warm even in his soaked sweatshirt. “And even if we’re busy, we’re always going to find time to spend in the treehouse. I’m sure of it.”

“Well, if we ever get out of here,” Eli mutters.

“What?”

Instead of responding, Eli looks around. There isn’t anything that he can use to get to Nellie, not that he can see. But he does have some things in his sweatshirt pockets. Maybe he can somehow turn them into something useful.

He fiddles with the relics that he’d found from the treehouse. There’s the globe, glowing so dimly with purple light that it barely illuminates the wall in front of him. He can see that the wall is made from a pile of rocks, and there’s a tiny gap between two of the big ones that might be large enough for him to stick an arm through.

He tries it. When he crouches down, he can push his arm in and poke Nellie’s side at the other end. She jumps and lets out a screech. “It’s just me!” he assures her. “Hang on. I think I’m missing something.”

Nellie breathes out. “The magnifying glass? I found it along the way.” She presses it into Eli’s hand, along with a little vine-like thing. “I found this a few days ago. I think it’s from the treehouse.”

Eli pulls his hand back and examines Nellie’s items. “I found some things, too. It’s like the treehouse is giving us clues how to find it again.” He sets the globe on top of the little tool that he’d found. It fits perfectly, though it rolls off again a moment later. Eli uses the vine to tie the globe in place. “I wonder if I can use these things to get us out.”

With a cautious hand, he moves the little globe-on-a-stick. “I made a… flashlight, I guess? It doesn’t give me much light.”

Nellie considers his words. “I don’t need help getting out,” she says. “My way back is just a tunnel. You can walk right through it back to land.”

“Hmm.” Eli frowns at his flashlight, moving it around to peer at his surroundings. Dirt surrounds him on all sides, and the way to the top is smooth rock — a straight shot upward. “I’m stuck in a deep pit. Maybe you can walk out and throw a rope down to me.”

“Eli,” Nellie says, “Do you really think that I just wander around with a big rope?”

“A tree branch, then. Or you can go get help.”

“No way. I’m not leaving you here.”

“That’s probably smart,” Eli concedes. “Last time we found something in the woods and lost it again, it was the clubhouse.”

“Oh, we are absolutely finding that again,” Nellie says fiercely. “I refuse to live this close to something that cool without making it back there.” She sounds suddenly hopeful. “You saw the brook too, right? Think we can follow it to the treehouse?”

Eli laughs. “I can’t believe I’m the one saying this, but we can’t focus on that right now. First, I have to get out of this hole.” As he says it he feels more confident. Nellie’s energy always gets him moving. “I think I need to take down this wall between us. Then we can both walk out your way.”

Nellie is skeptical. “The wall feels pretty tough to me.”

“I don’t think it is.” Eli studies it with the glow of his makeshift flashlight. “I think it’s just a bunch of rocks stuck together. If we can break even one of them, they’ll all fall down.”

“Eli, you quit karate three years ago. How are you going to break a rock in half?”

“I’m thinking.” Eli traces the handle of his flashlight with his thumb. “I wonder…”

He takes the last piece they have and looks at it. “It’s looks like a magnifying glass, but it has that point in the middle.”

“It reminds me of the light the doctor uses when he checks our ears,” Nellie offers.

Eli thinks about that. “I don’t know what a light like that would do here, though. I can already see a little with just the globe.” He examines the magnifying glass again. “Remember last summer, when I figured out how to hold a magnifying glass under the sun to set a leaf on fire?”

Nellie laughs. “I remember when I tried doing it after you and accidentally ignited Rikki’s book. She was so mad.”

Now that they’re together, laughing even in a pit in the ground, the storm outside doesn’t feel nearly as frightening. Eli’s thoughts are clearer, and he’s sure, suddenly, of what to do next. “I don’t think this globe is just a light. I think it might do something much cooler if we try using its light like we used the sun.”

He raises the magnifying glass and slips it into his other hand, right up against the flashlight. The glass sits perfectly against the glass of the globe, and when Eli holds it out to the rock, it shines a sharp purple light at it.

“It’s like a laser,” Eli says, fascinated. “I think it’s going to cut through the rock. Get back, Nellie.”

“Okay.” A muffled shuffling noise, and then, “Oh, no, Squizzle, you can’t go right up against the wall now—”

Eli frowns. He moves the laser carefully. There are a lot of rocks here, but if he cuts the right ones, he should be able to—

With a single, long stroke, he splits a rock in two, and the entire wall comes crashing down. voice call from the other side of the rocks. “Nellie? Nellie, is that you?”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Jr., Issue 992)