Free Rescue On Nim's Island by Orr Wendy Page B

throat. There were no more cords to tie onto him.
    Ollie started to whimper again. Nim wondered how long Tiffany could go on holding him. She swallowed hard.
    ‘Fred’s on his way!’ she called. ‘Hold the sheet out in case he falls!’
    Fred slid down the side of the tunnel, his claws gripping where he could. Nim could hardly bear to watch, but she couldn’t shut her eyes either.
    ‘Fred!’ Ollie and Tiffany shouted together.
    Then Fred was on Ollie’s shoulder, sneezing with relief.
    ‘Yuck!’ said Ollie, and stopped crying.
    Tiffany untied the cord from Nim’s pocketknife and shoved the knife back in her pocket. She tied one end of the cord around the loose end of the sheet, and the other end around Fred’s shoulders.
    ‘Is that too tight?’ she asked.
    Fred tried. He could slide down Tiffany’s arm, but when he tried to scramble up the walls of the tunnel, the thick cord rubbed against his armpits and made his front legs clumsy. He slipped, and Tiffany caught him just in time.
    Nim could hardly breathe. Watching and doing nothing was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
    ‘I need your tail, Ollie,’ said Tiffany. She lifted the necklace over the boy’s head and undid the clasp. The amber scorpion plummeted to the bottom of the shaft. But that wasn’t the part that Tiffany wanted. Untying Fred’s cord, she knotted the golden chain into a harness around the iguana’s shoulders. Now the cord was tied to the loop right in the middle of his back, lying smoothly between his spikes.
    Fred raced across to the wall and started climbing back up to Nim, trailing the cord behind him. She dangled right down into the hole again, with the boys holding her ankles, because they all knew that Fred needed to see Nim to make him as brave and strong as he could be.

    ‘You can do it, Fred,’ Nim whispered.
    Fred scuttled and scrambled, and pulled himself up those smooth funnel walls. His claws found every tiny crack and crevice that the water hadn’t smoothed away. Sometimes he slipped down a little, but every time he started back up again and found a claw-hold that he’d missed before, and every time he ended up a bit higher than he’d been.
    Finally he was close enough that Nim could touch his cool spiky back, then he crept up another lizard-length, and she could hold him in both hands. The boys dragged her back until she could sit up and untie Fred’s golden harness.
    Tristan grabbed the cord and started pulling the sheet up.
    ‘Wait!’ said Edmund. ‘The cord’s too thin – it’ll slip right out of our hands once we’re pulling Ollie. We need to wind it around something thicker.’
    He dumped out his backpack and looked doubtfully at his paintbrush.
    ‘My bottle!’ said Nim. Her drinker was a thick piece of bamboo stem; it was strong and easy to hang onto. Tristan knotted the cord around the middle, threw himself back down on the floor and started hauling, winding the cord around the bamboo. Nim and Edmund held onto his feet.
    ‘It’s pulling!’ Ollie screamed. ‘I don’t like it!’
    Tristan had pulled in all the cord now; his hands were on the sheet.
    ‘Kick off from the walls, Ollie!’ he called, panting.
    But Ollie was too terrified to push. His arms and legs were thrashing and waving like a fish trying to get free from a hook.
    ‘Tris isn’t going to be able to pull him in by himself,’ Nim said.
    Edmund nodded. It was as if they’d worked together forever. With a few smooth tugs, they hauled Tristan backwards.
    ‘I can hold him myself now,’ said Edmund.
    Nim threw herself down on the floor beside Tristan and reached for the sheet. Ollie was close to the top. Another few hauls together and they’d be able to reach him.
    There was a sharp ripping noise.
    The terrified toddler was kicking and fighting so hard that he was tearing the knot in the sheet.
    Tristan dived further into the shaft and grabbed his little brother’s wrist. Then Edmund hauled Tristan, Nim hauled the sheet and