Kookoo the Curious Monkey
Dr. Kepler invented the Skyhook! You can see the Skyhook from many places around Acme. It is the nearly invisible cable that is tied to the very top of the Spire.
(text for a proposed children’s book written in 2045, before the Smash-Up)
Kookoo was a monkey. He was the pet monkey of a famous scientist, Dr. Kepler. Dr. Kepler treated him almost like a son. He took him everywhere with him.
Kookoo was very curious. That is why Dr. Kepler liked him so much. Dr. Kepler was curious, too. He was always finding things about the world, and then making new things with what he found out.
Dr. Kepler invented the Skyhook! You can see the Skyhook from many places around Acme. It is the nearly invisible cable that is tied to the very top of the Spire. At the other end is a space station! It swings around the Earth like if you tied a bottle onto a string and swung it around your head.
One day Dr. Kepler went to the top of the Spire to make sure that everything was all right with the Skyhook. It was very important to make sure that the Skyhook was in perfect condition. He didn’t want the space station to go flying away from the Earth. We would never be able to get it back!
Of course Dr. Kepler took Kookoo. But Kookoo was a curious monkey. He could see the Skyhook climbing up into the sky. Monkeys love to climb. And so he climbed up to the very top of the top of the top of the Spire – and started climbing up the Skyhook.
Dr. Kepler shouted at him to come down. “You can’t climb up the Skyhook! It’s 100,000 kilometers long!”
But Kookoo wouldn’t listen. He did not understand math.
(continued on page 2)
