-----------------------

Professor Z stood up from behind his desk. Josie had just vanished into the black hole. Loose papers were flying around the room, several papers that needed marking, others that needed to be handed back to the students. And now he was going to have go through the business of cleaning it all up again. Not to mention finding out where one of his students had just disappeared to.

"Not again," Z muttered to himself, as he started out from behind his desk.

He was grateful for one thing only, and that was that the Science Club would be gathering in the Science Lab about now. He quickly left the room, with one last hopeful look at the black hole, and shut the door behind him.

He made his way down the hall, threading his way through the crowds of students who were happy that school was over, and into the Science Lab.

"Maybe she's been held up in Z's office," Lucas was saying as Z opened the door. "You know…"

Lucas, Vaughn, Marshall and Corrine were sitting around a lab desk, talking, while they waited for Z and Josie to arrive. When Z opened the door, the four of them looked him up at Z, and saw his worried face.

"Z?" Marshall asked with concern. "What's wrong?"

"It's happened again. Josie's gone through the black hole," he replied to the group, as he rubbed his hands together.

"Oh, no," Lucas groaned, thumping his head against the table he was sitting at him. He quickly lifted his head as he felt something sticky against his forehead. He wiped it away, and glared at Corrine, who had dared to giggle slightly.

With one look at Lucas's face, Corrine quickly turned back to Z. "So it's off to look in the library for clues, I guess?" she asked, suddenly all business.

Z continued rubbed his hands together for a moment before he clapped them once. "You've got it." He nodded towards the door.

As the four kids filed out of the room, leaving Z to wipe down the boards, he heard Lucas say, "I guess this means I get out of any detention I might have gotten. Thanks Josie." He heard Marshall thump Lucas in the arm, and laugh.

"Ow," Lucas cried out, as he shut the door behind him.

Z grinned to himself. 'Trust Lucas to see this as a good thing,' he thought to himself.

Within half an hour, his students were back in the room, piles of books between the four of them. Each was chronologically going through books from different time periods, books that had any mention of Blake Holsey High in them.

"Nothing," Vaughn called out, thumping down his last book. "There's no sign of her in any of these."

"Neither," Corrine said. The other two nodded in agreement.

"Well," Z said, turning from the blackboard. "We know she has to be somewhere. She couldn't have gone through without turning up somewhere. And it's always been within the walls of Blake Holsey High."

"Unless…" Lucas said. Then he shook his head uncomfortably.

"What?" Vaughn asked, prodding Lucas with the end of his pencil.

"Unless it's like what Josie said on her first day here, just after Corrine had gone through the black hole."

"What did she say?" Corrine asked, seeing Marshall shake his head out of the corner of her eye. "What?" she asked him, a note of concern creeping into her voice.

"Josie said that she'd read that some black holes… disintegrated whatever went through them," Marshall answered, looking down at the table he was sitting at.

Corrine's face went ashen. She turned to Z. "But… But… No!"

Z shook his head. "Don't worry Corrine. We've already established that our 'Black Hole' is really a wormhole. This means that everything that goes in has to go out the other side. I don't think that Josie has… disintegrated." He winced as he said the last word.

"But what if this was the one time that Josie didn't go through a worm hole," Vaughn asked. "Couldn't the worm hole turn into an actual black hole?"

"I find it highly unlikely Vaughn. I'm sure Josie is somewhere. We just have to figure out where." Z replied.

He walked over to the black board and start drawing various diagrams to explain some theories he had, when the janitor walked in.

He stared around the room at the kids for a moment, and then started to clear the trash. Just as he left the room, he said quietly, "She'll be back."

They all stared at his retreating back in surprise.

-----------------------