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“What do you think our options are at this point, Lexi?” Juliette asked, interrupting my thoughts.

I took a deep breath and tried taking her advice to relax. “Well, after we siphon as much water as we can out of the box, we have to lift the float and the weight and somehow get the golden disc off the bottom of the pool without getting our heads wet. That’s it in a nutshell.”

“Why can’t we use the cans to remove the water in the box like we’re doing at the hot tub?” Stefan interjected.

“I thought of that, but there’s too much water to move and not enough time. I need to come up with a faster solution. There are many other related problems to solve, but that’s the big one.”

“In my experience, we tend to make our problems more complicated than they really are,” Juliette said. “The best first step is to define the biggest problem standing in the way of your goal. Often, if you solve that, the rest will fall into place.”

Defining the problem was the easy part, in my opinion. But I humored her just the same. “Our biggest problem is getting all the water out of the box as quickly as possible. We have no other options until we can do that.”

“Why can’t we continue to use the siphon?” she said. “It’s working wonderfully.”

“For now, yes. But the siphon will stop working once the level of the water in the box reaches the same level as the water in the hot tub.”

“Oh.” She stopped to consider that for a moment. “So, if I understand this correctly, at a certain point, the problem is you can’t lower the siphon any more to continue to drain the water.”

“Correct.”

“Then to use the siphon past that point, we have two choices. Lower the drain end of the siphon or raise the water in the box.”

“Both are impossible, I’m afraid,” I said. “We can only lower the siphon end in the hot tub as low as the bottom of the tub if it’s empty. And raising the water is opposite of what we’re trying to do, which is to lower the level of the water in the box so we can get the disc without getting our heads wet. Therein is the conundrum.”

“Hmm…” she said, falling silent for a moment. “You know, this problem kind of reminds me of an old Aesop’s fable I used to read to Romeo, Stefan, and Gio.”

“An Aesop’s fable?”

“Yes. All this talk of raising and lowering the water reminds me of a story called ‘The Crow and the Pitcher.’ You may have heard of it before. The crow badly wanted a drink, but the water in the pitcher was too low for him to reach. The crow couldn’t tip over the pitcher, so instead, he figured out a solution. He dropped rocks into the water until the water rose to where he could drink it. I often remember that fable because afterward, the editor annotated the story with the quote ‘Necessity is the mother of invention.’ I’ve used that motto during many challenging times in my life. Now, I don’t know where you’ll find your rocks, but I have faith an intelligent woman like yourself can figure out a solution from that.”

I stilled, finally understanding where she was going with the story. Why hadn’t it occurred to me before? “Juliette, you’re brilliant. You just solved this puzzle.”

“I did?” she asked. “Because I don’t know what comes next.”

I smiled at her. “Don’t worry. I do.”

Rocks. I needed rocks, but what could I use in their stead? I turned and stared at the crew dumping water from the hot tub. They were slowing down a bit, but I could see the results of their efforts. They’d gotten into a good rhythm on the brigade, and the water in the box was already down well over a foot in just a few minutes.

Cans. We’d use the cans. We had twenty-four of them, and each can could hold five gallons. That would displace 120 gallons of water. I estimated the siphon would leave about 220 gallons in the box before I started using the cans as my so-called rocks. I wouldn’t be able to getallthe water out of the box using the siphon and the rocks, but there would be less than three feet left when we were finished. That should be enough. Ithadto be enough to retrieve the disc.

I didn’t want to slow the brigade’s progress, as it was critical to our success, but I needed some help. I asked Juliette to take a quick break from the hot tub.

“Would you please bring me the remaining empty cans from the end of the pool?” I asked her. “I think I’ve found my rocks.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Lexi Carmichael

The water brigade was currently using only five of the cans, which left nineteen cans for me to use.

“Vittoria, would you please help Juliette bring me all the remaining empty cans?” I asked. “Stack them up right at the edge of the pool. Then go back to help at the hot tub. Tito, when Vittoria and Juliette are back on duty at the hot tub, can you come out here and help me? I have an idea.”

The two women started bringing the empty cans to the edge of the pool deck, standing them side by side until all the cans were there. Juliette and Vittoria switched places with Tito, who came over to the edge of the pool, awaiting my orders.

“Bring me the empty cans,” I instructed. “Two at a time.”

He brought the first two cans, carefully walking along the glass walkway. I took one of the cans and filled it with pool water. I screwed on the cap, hefted it onto the edge and pushed it in the box, handle up. The water line rose slightly. Encouraged, I filled the second can to the brim.

Before I could push the second can into the box, Tito leaned over my shoulder. “I assume you’ve figured out how to get the cans back out of the box. Someone is going to have to go down there to get the disc, right?”