"The rest of the spectators watched Mainac poke and tug and pick at the knot. Never a big pull or yank, just his fingertips touchig and grazing and pecking away, like some little bird.
'What's he doing?' somebody said.
'What's taking so long?'
'He gonna do it or not?'
After an hour, except for a few more finger-size loops, all Maniac had to show for his trouble were the flakes of knot crust that coverd the table."
Maniac Magee By, Jerry Spinelli Page 71

I like this passage because Maniac's stratagy is interesting as he takes the knot apart. He didn't try to untangle the knot by grabbing it and yanking the string apart. He did it in an organized sort of way. First he picked all of the crust off the string. Then he tried to find the other end of the string. Finally, once he found the other end of the string, he started to untangle it. In the end, he untangled the famous "Cobble's knot."