diff --git a/e2e_toy/tests/test_textops.py b/e2e_toy/tests/test_textops.py
index e05680d..f4c21cf 100644
--- a/e2e_toy/tests/test_textops.py
+++ b/e2e_toy/tests/test_textops.py
@@ -7,6 +7,10 @@ class WordCountTest(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_single_spaces(self):
         self.assertEqual(word_count("a b c"), 3)
 
+    def test_repeated_spaces(self):
+        self.assertEqual(word_count("hello  world"), 2)
+        self.assertEqual(word_count(" padded\ttext\n"), 2)
+
 
 class SlugifyTest(unittest.TestCase):
     def test_basic(self):
diff --git a/e2e_toy/textops.py b/e2e_toy/textops.py
index 8f71f6c..359ef78 100644
--- a/e2e_toy/textops.py
+++ b/e2e_toy/textops.py
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 
 def word_count(text):
     """Number of whitespace-separated words in ``text``."""
-    return len(text.split(" "))
+    return len(text.split())
 
 
 def slugify(text):