Livora Gracely

Why climb with everything,
when everything can climb?

Tom’s tree house was three meters above the ground.

This was excellent for the view.

It was less excellent for groceries.

By ten o’clock, Bob and Sam had assembled everything required for an afternoon headquarters: books, a lantern, a football, a racket, a guitar, sandwiches, several mysterious bags, and enough cold soda to suggest they were expecting visitors from another forest.

There was also a snake.

Nobody remembered packing him.

The ladder stood against the tree.

Bob looked at the ladder.

Then at the buckets.

Then at Sam.

“We’ll need twenty trips.”

Sam counted again.

“Twenty-three.”

Above them, Tom appeared at the railing.

“Or one rope.”

Five minutes later, a pulley hung from a sturdy branch.

Bob and Sam loaded the first bucket with cold soda and ice. The snake climbed in too, apparently having reviewed the transportation options.

Tom pulled.

Up went the bucket.

Up went the soda.

Up went the snake.

Bob waved.

The snake waved back in the only way available to a snake, which looked suspiciously like doing nothing.

“It works!” Sam shouted.

That changed everything.

Soon the ground resembled a tiny freight terminal. Buckets waited in line, each carrying supplies for life at altitude. Bob became Head of Loading. Sam promoted himself to Director of Things That Might Be Useful.

Tom remained upstairs as Chief Puller.

Nobody volunteered to become Chief Ladder.

Bucket after bucket rose through the branches.

Books.

Food.

Games.

Blankets.

One teddy bear nobody admitted bringing.

The ladder remained completely empty.

By afternoon, their tree house contained nearly everything three friends could want, while Bob and Sam finally climbed up carrying nothing but themselves.

Tom handed them cold sodas.

Below, the abandoned buckets glittered in the sunlight.

Sam looked at the pulley.

“We built that because we were too lazy to climb?”

Tom considered this.

“No. We were too clever to climb twenty-three times.”

Bob raised his bottle to that.

And perhaps that was the finest thing about their little headquarters.

It stood three meters above the ground, but nobody had needed to become a hero to reach it.

Sometimes the cleverest shortcut does not avoid the work.

It simply teaches the work how to climb.