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pit and attached a harness to Dolly. Then Jessie climbed back up. (But not before she gave Dolly a few hugs and whispered some sweet nothin’s.) “Ready,” she said.
    “All systems go!” cried Drake.
    “Stand back, Frisco and Baloney,” cried Nell, “and let the real scientists do their work!”
    And with some gentle tugging, Drake and Nell drew in the rope a foot at a time, while the pulleys turned. It was easy work, really. They scarcely broke a sweat. And Dolly rose up out of the pit, lickety-split. Oink!
    “Hey!” cried Frisco and Baloney. “No fair!”
    Then, with a quick lasso from Jessie, Dolly was hauled to the side and released. “Oh, Dolly!” Jessie wrapped her arms around Dolly.
    Oink! oinked Dolly, wagging her little piggy tail.
    It was quite a tender moment, really. (Drake dabbed his eyes with a hankie.)
    Jessie said, “You done saved my little pig’s life, Drake and Nell. How were you able to do it when Frisco and Baloney couldn’t?”
    “Simple,” said Frisco, scowling. “They were cheating.”
    Drake adjusted his glasses. “Frisco is right. It was simple. But it wasn’t cheating. Allow Scientist Nell to explain.”
    “Thank you, Detective Doyle. To begin with, moving a pig out of a pit requires a lot of work.”
    “Tell me about it,” mumbled Baloney.

    “However, simple machines help make work simple,” said Nell.
    “Hence the name ‘simple machines,’” added Drake.
    Nell continued, “With the help of simple machines—pulleys in this case—Detective Doyle and I were able to do the work using less force. You see, pulleys are like miniature wheels.”
    “Quite handy, really,” said Drake.
    “The first thing pulleys can do for us is change the direction of the force.” Nell drew a quick sketch in her notebook. “Instead of having to pull a load upward , one pulley and a rope can let you pull downward .”

    “Which,” mentioned Drake, “makes the work easier.”
    “Blah, blah,” said Frisco. “Easier, schmeasier.”
    “The second thing pulleys do for us,” said Drake, “is divide the load, again making the work easier. Scientist Nell?”
    “Thank you, Detective Doyle. You see, work is defined as the force, or weight of an object, multiplied by the distance to be moved. In our case, we had to lift a two-hundred-pound pig out of a twenty-foot pit.”
    “But by using a multiple pulley system—” said Drake.
    “Dolly’s weight, or force, was divided between each of the pulleys.” Nell drew another sketch. “Now, let’s say, instead of pulling a rope with a force of two hundred pounds, we pull a rope with a force of, say, fifty pounds, or twenty. It just depends on how many pulleys we use.”

    “All we have to do is pull more rope,” added Drake.
    “Again, far easier. Force is traded for distance,” said Nell. “It takes more rope and a little more time to set up, but it’s not nearly so hard.”
    “Simple, if I do say so myself,” remarked Drake.
    “I just can’t thank y’all enough,” said Jessie. “Doyle and Fossey, you’re everything everyone said you’d be.”
    “Hey, what about me?” asked Frisco.
    Jessie scuffed the dirt with her cowgirl boot. “Well, you’re everything everyone said you’d be, too, I reckon.”
    Nell handed her their business card. “Call us. Anytime.”
    Back in the lab once again, Drake wrote in his lab notebook:
    For a hard day’s work, it was a snap.
Jessie and Dolly reunited at last.
Received free lasso lessons.
    Paid in full.

E very good scientist needs a laboratory. It’s quite simple, really. All you need is a work space, like a desk or a card table. Add a lamp, stir in some supplies, stick a pencil behind your ear, and presto! Here are some tips for creating your own lab:
    1. Start out by collecting some odds and ends, such as glass bottles, jars, string, balloons, a magnifying glass, or rubber bands. You never know when these might come in handy. Safety glasses are a must for any well-stocked lab.
    2.