10. The Expanding Universe

10 The Expanding Universe Andrea rang the doorbell, and sure enough Mrs. Yonkers popped her head out of the screen door. Well, she didn't really pop her head out of the screen door. If you popped your head out of a screen door, it would hurt. Also, you wouldn't have a head anymore. "Oob!" we all shouted. "Treat or trick!" "Well, howdy, y'all!" Mrs. Yonkers said. "Yee-ha! I've been waiting for you varmints to show up." She's from Texas. People from Texas say "y'all," "yee-ha," and "varmints" all the time on TV. Nobody knows why. Mrs. Yonkers is the computer teacher at our school. She's a genius, and she's always inventing stuff. Like one time she invented a

giant hamster wheel that generated electricity. Another time she invented a boat that traveled through time. She even started her own computer company called NERD: New Electronic Research Development.

Mrs. Yonkers was wearing one of those big yellow fake-cheese hats. It wasn't her Halloween costume. She wears that thing all the time. Nobody knows why. She let each of us take two candy bars from her bowl. "Andrea said you have a magical Halloween surprise treat that we can't get anywhere else," I said. "I do!" Mrs. Yonkers told us. "Do y'all want to see it?" "Yee-ha!" we all shouted. Everybody was excited as Mrs. Yonkers led us into her kitchen. She told us she had created a top secret invention that nobody knew about yet. Then she waved her hand dramatically and pointed to the microwave oven. "Ta-da!" she said. "Here it is!" We all looked at it. "Uh, that's just a microwave oven," Ryan

said. "Oh, it looks just like a microwave oven," Mrs. Yonkers told us. "But actually, it's the revolutionary new MicroMole 4000 Expandinator." We all looked at it some more. It sure looked like a microwave oven to me. "What does it do?" asked Neil the nude kid. "Let me see if I can explain," Mrs. Yonkers told us. "For thousands of years, scientists have wondered where the universe ends. Does it have an edge somewhere, or does it just go on forever and ever?" "What does that have to do with your machine?" Billy asked. "You'll see," Mrs. Yonkers replied. "In 1929, an astronomer named Edwin Hubble proved that the universe is expanding all the time.* With the MicroMole 4000

Expandinator, I figured out how to accelerate the rate of expansion by altering the molecular structure and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah..." Mrs. Yonkers went on like that for a while. It didn't seem like the universe was expanding to me, but it sounded like a cool idea. If the universe was expanding, maybe there would be more video games and skate parks. Finally, Mrs. Yonkers finished talking about the universe expanding. "So what does the MicroMole 4000 Expandinator actually do?" asked Andrea. "Oh, that's simple," Mrs. Yonkers told us. "It makes stuff bigger." WHAT?!!! "You mean to say that if you put

something in that machine and turn it on, it makes the thing bigger?" asked Ryan. "That's right," said Mrs. Yonkers. "See for yourself." She picked up a pot holder from the kitchen counter and put it inside the MicroMole 4000 Expandinator. Then she pushed a button. The machine turned on and made a noise just like a microwave oven. About ten seconds later, there was a little ding sound. Mrs. Yonkers opened up the MicroMole 4000 Expandinator. And you'll never believe in a million hundred years what was inside. A GIANT POT HOLDER! "WOW," we all shouted, which is "MOM" upside down. "That's amazing!" Andrea said. "It's like the universe expanded in the machine!" She was right. That is, if the universe was