Hello - to retrieve the pencil, I had the lid in the fully closed position. Then I shined a light into crack and could see the pencil. I tried to reach through the crack with a different pencil, but the second pencil was too thick to get through the crack. So I went looking for something long and thinner than a pencil that I could use to nudge the original pencil (and a food skewer fit the bill). The food skewer could move the original pencil, but the crack was still too narrow for the original pencil to come back through. So I slowly opened the lid and found the position where the crack is wide enough for the pencil to roll back out (with the cajoling of the food skewer) and pencil rolled through easily. It seems that as the lid opens/closes, the width of the crack between the lid and the top of piano slightly changes.