intrepid Lucky and Paloma peered into the Lost Brooch Well, leaning on the old timbers that framed the waist-high opening. Two ancient wooden posts with notches cut in their tops extended up from the sides, and a heavy metal pole lay across them, resting in the notches. A very show-offy person, Lucky imagined, could do pull-ups on that metal pole—but if she lost her grip, she would fall straight to the bottom of the well and be smashed to smithereens. Lucky was not that type of person, show-offy, but she was adventurous and brave, and there is a difference. She was almost almost almost eleven, and she was intrepid. HMS Beagle finished sniffing around and lay down in the crooked shade of a nearby Joshua tree. They couldn’t see the bottom of the well, only darkness. “Oh good,” said Lucky. “There’s a ladder.” She was eager to get down there and look for the missing piece of the brooch. “Yeah,” said Paloma, but not in a way of someone agreeing to a good thing. It was more a way of saying that a ladder wasn’t really a good thing at all.
