Michelle Cuevas - The Care and Feeding of a Pet Black Hole

CHAPTER ONE

The Mysterious Something That Followed Me Home

T his story began on an afternoon the color of comets, with a girl dressed all in black. A sad girl. A girl with a hole in her heart, and darkness on the horizon.

That girl, of course, was me.

My name is Stella Rodriguez, I told the guard at the gates to NASA. Im eleven years old. Im here to speak with Carl Sagan.

It was late, almost dark, and I was alone. You and Mom would not have approved.

The guard looked up as if hed heard an annoying mosquito, decided he imagined it, and went back to reading his magazine.

Actually, I tried again, Im Carl Sagans great-great-great-great-granddaughter, and Im here at NASA to tell him that in the future weve invented time travel!

Please go away, said the guard.

But I have an appointment...

No, said the guard, you definitely dont.

Fine, okay, maybe I dont! I said, a bit too loudly. But if you take into consideration chaos theory or the butterfly effect, the very notion of long-term predictionsfor example, an appointmentbecomes an absurd impossibility. Time

But before I could continue trying to sound scholarly, an ear-piercing alarm started ringing. Lights began flashing, and I could hear shouts from inside the building.

Okay, I said, putting up my hands. Lets all just take it easy. Ill go peacefully. No need for alarms. Im too bookish for prison!

But the guard wasnt paying attention to me. He grabbed his phone and started shouting, something about code reds and protocol, and before I knew what was happening he had run inside, leaving the gate wide open.

I wish I were the type of person who would sneak into NASA during a molecular-robot-alien-rocket-invasion-explosion. But you know very well Im not that type. Not even close. Im more of a chicken-liver-jellyfish-fraidy-cat type.

And so I left. I left without seeing Carl Sagan, or giving him the important package Id come to deliver. Time was of the essence, since the Voyager launch dateAugust 20, 1977was mere months away.

Avoiding the alarms at NASA, I went to the bus stop and waited. It was the last moment of light, and I had a strange feeling. Like when you sense a breeze on your ankles in a room with no open windows or doors. Like when youre sure you can see a face in the moon, and its staring right at you. Like when youre the seeker during hide-and-seek, and you just know youre being watched through a closet keyhole. I darted my eyes from side to side, looking in the bushes and up at the trees. I didnt see anything anywhere but dusk.

And so I was understandably relieved when the bus came around the bend. That is, until I got on the bus, and things started to get even stranger, if possible.

My wallet! shouted a businesswoman. Someone stole my wallet!

Everyone scanned the bus for a shady-looking character.

And wheres my toupee? asked an elderly man.

This continued for three more stops, shouts of Wheres my lunch? and Who took my pet frog? To get off the bus, I had to weather an obstacle course of people on their hands and knees searching for something-or-other under their seats.

The stop was only a few minutes from home, but it felt like miles. I mean, what was going on?! The dusk had turned to straight-up gloom, which wasnt good because by that point I had a severe case of the creeps, a heebie-jeebie fever, and a touch of the willies. Im not afraid of the darkyou know that from all our time spent stargazingbut the minute I started walking, I got goose bumps down my arms and legs and all the way up my neck. I had such a case of the jumps that Im pretty sure I had goose bumps on my eyeballs, which, by the way, were not helping because in a matter of minutes it had gone from almost-dark-outside-gloom to dark-at-the-bottom-of-a-pocket.

I looked from side to side.

Whos there? I asked. No one answered. Has anyone in any scary movie ever answered that question? Oh, glad you asked, its me the axe murderer. Dang it! That was actually supposed to be a surprise...

So I did what anyone in my position would do. I started to run. Fast. I ran through the dark-like-the-muck-down-a-drain, I sprinted through the dark-as-the-inside-of-a-whale. I didnt hear footsteps or twigs breaking behind me, but the feeling was becoming stronger. Someone was lingering just out of view. I was being watched. I was being followed.

But by who?

Or, worse still... by what?

CHAPTER TWO

Hello, Darkness

W HERE HAVE YOU BEEN?! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE WATCHING ME UNTIL MOM GETS HOME. I COULD HAVE EATEN GLUE OR SOMETHING!

That shrill voice belonged, of course, to Cosmo. A fitting name given that hes a total space cadet of a five-year-old brother.

Shhhhh! I said. Help me batten down the hatches and secure the premises.

I ran around locking doors, closing all the window shades, and turning off the lights. I peered out through a crack in the front curtains. It had begun to rain and it was hard to see whatever monster had been following me home.

This is fun, whispered a voice behind me. What are we doing?

I looked down at Cosmo. He squeezed his little hands in excitement.

Did you eat glue?

No, he replied sheepishly.

Good, I said, very mature. Come on, Ill make us some dinner.

After fear-flavored grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup eaten in almost-dark, I told Cosmo I was going to do my homework, but really I just needed some alone time to think. I put on my fuzzy blue robe with the stars on it, and stared out my bedroom window on the second floor, trying to get a better view of the front yard. I tried using my telescope, but it just made me sad. Extra sad. Sadder than my lingering, everyday fog. It had been our father-daughter thing, just you and me, but now youre gone and there are monsters in the yard and everything is wrong.