Sue and the Whoops-Hole

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Sue lived on a tiny space station. It wobbled a little. She liked that. “My station is the best lab in the universe,” she said proudly.

Sue had a very important dream. She wanted to see a real black hole. So she built an engine. It was red. It was loud. It had one wobbly dial.

“This engine will zoom me straight to the black hole!” Sue announced. She twirled her wrench like a champion. The wrench flew out of her hand. Clang!

Sue had a plan. Step one: turn the yellow dial to MAX. Step two: hold on tight. Step three: try not to spill her juice box.

She turned the dial. The engine roared. It rattled. It shook like a sneezing elephant. Then — Boing! — the exhaust pipe shot off like a party popper.

The pipe bounced off the ceiling. It bonked the toolbox. Tools rained down everywhere. Crash! Clatter! Boing again! Sue stood very still under her helmet.

“Okay,” said Sue. “Small problem.” She fixed the pipe with sticky tape. Lots of sticky tape. She turned the dial again. WHOOOMP! Every single button on the wall lit up at once.

The lights blinked. The station spun around like a top. Sue's juice box floated past her nose. “This,” she said, “was not in the plan.”

Sue grabbed every wire she could reach. She plugged them in — any hole, any order. She squeezed her eyes shut. She pressed the big red button. ZZZZT! Splat!

The station stopped spinning. The engine hummed quietly. Outside the porthole, something round and dark and ENORMOUS appeared. Sue's mouth fell open. She had found the black hole. BY ACCIDENT.

Sue pressed her nose to the glass. “Hello,” she whispered. The black hole did not answer. It just looked magnificently, perfectly mysterious. Sue grabbed her notebook. “And THAT,” she said, uncapping her pen, “is why you should never, ever follow the plan.”