Kell and the Horse Apple Parade

by Darcy Pattison

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  For Fun

  Preview - Kell and the Giants

  Chapter 1

  Mailing List

  About Author and Illustrator

  KELL AND THE HORSE APPLE PARADE

  THE ALIENS, INC. SERIES

  Book 2

  KELL AND THE HORSE APPLE PARADE

  By Darcy Pattison

  pictures by

  Rich Davis

  Mims House / Little Rock, AR

  Text Copyright © 2014 by Darcy Pattison.

  Illustrations Copyright © 2014 by Rich Davis.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Mims House

  1309 S. Broadway

  Little Rock, AR 72202

  www.mimshouse.com.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Book design © 2013 by BookDesignTemplates.com

  Kell and the Horse Apple Parade/ Darcy Pattison — First Edition

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906312

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-62944-019-4

  Library Paperback ISBN 978-149748-021-6

  Hardcover ISBN 978-1-62944-023-1

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-62944-024-8

  Lexile 540L

  Printed in the United States of America

  Thanks to Todd Hutcheson for his help

  with superheroes and superheroines.

  “Kell, we need to plan the Friends of Police parade,” Mary Lee Glendale said.

  I swiped a streak of red across my paper. I sat at an art table with Mary Lee and my best friend, Bree Hendricks.

  Mrs. Crux, the art teacher, had shown us a painting by Alexander Calder called “Red Nose.” Now, we were painting red noses.

  “Will you march in the parade?” I asked.

  “My dad is president of the F.O.P. That’s what we call the Friends of Police, the F.O.P. I always march in the parade,” Mary Lee said. “Will you?”

  “No.” I rubbed my right eye and stared at the Red Nose on my paper. It was a good thing she didn’t ask, “Why?” She just kept talking.

  “I think the parade should have superheroes and superheroines,” Mary Lee said.

  My family runs Aliens, Inc. which plans and puts on parties and other special events. The F.O.P. parade was in one month and this was our first time to plan a parade. We were nervous. Mom and Dad said I couldn’t march because too many people would see me. That was dangerous for us.

  Bree said, “The best superheroes are aliens.”

  I glared at Bree for even talking about aliens. She was painting a very long, very skinny red nose. Probably a red elephant nose.

  Mary Lee said, “Superheroes aren’t aliens.”

  Bree said, “Superman is from the planet of Krypton. He’s an alien.”

  “My Dad says Krypton was a fantastic planet,” I said.

  “How would he know?” Mary Lee asked. “You can’t really go there.”

  But she was wrong.

  Bree looked up and grinned at me. She saw me peeling the skin off my face last week. I had to tell her the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I, Kell Smith, am an alien from the planet of Bix. No one else knows except Bree. Well, my parents know, too. And Dad really did go to Krypton before it blew up.

  But I can’t tell Mary Lee that.

  I dipped my brush into black paint. I put a black line around the red nose. I studied the painting. Was this the nose of an elephant? Or the nose of Freddy Rubin? I looked over at Freddy and then back at my painting. I looked at the painting and then at Freddy. Yes, this was Freddy’s nose!

  He has brown eyes. I raised my hand. “Mrs. Crux, do we have brown paint for the eyes?”

  “Yes,” she said. “In the cabinet. You may get it.”

  Mary Lee squinted at me while she asked, “Is there silver paint, too?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Crux said.

  But just then, Principal Lynx came into the room. She wore barefoot shoes, the kind that shows each toe. They were sneaky shoes. She glided around, looking over the shoulders of students. When she does that, it gives me the creeps because she is an alien chaser. I don’t want her to catch me.

  I decided to wait to get the brown and silver paints.

  Mrs. Lynx stopped behind Mary Lee and said, “I am very excited about the F.O.P. parade. It’s just the sort of thing to bring out the aliens. They love to see humans making fools of themselves.”

  Mary Lee cocked an eye at me and then at the principal. “Mrs. Lynx, I don’t think aliens will come to the parade. Just people dressed up like super-heroes and superheroines.”

  “Mark my words,” said Mrs. Lynx. “Aliens will be sneaking around the parade. And I will catch them.”

  I shivered.

  Mrs. Lynx turned to me. “Please thank your parents for taking on the F.O.P. parade.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I said.

  Mrs. Edith Bumfrey had planned the F.O.P. parade for the last 23 years. But last month, a rich aunt died and left her a house in Hawaii. After she moved, the F.O.P. hired us. But if Mrs. Lynx planned to stalk aliens at the parade, maybe we shouldn’t plan it. Except we needed the money.

  Mrs. Lynx took a cell phone from her pocket and clicked on an app. Then she leaned over Bree’s painting to see it better. “Is that an alien nose? It looks like an alien nose, and I would know.”

  “No, ma’am,” she said. “It is an anteater nose.”

  Mrs. Lynx nodded solemnly. “Ah, I see that now.”

  There are animals that EAT ants? I didn’t know that. I hate bugs of any kind. On Earth, there are more bugs than any other kind of creature. You can never tell which bugs will bite. Or sting. I made a decision: I wanted an anteater for a pet.

  Just then, Mrs. Lynx’s phone jingled with piano music. Her mouth made a circle, like she was trying to say the word, “Oh.” Quick, she looked up and stared at Bree. She frowned and looked at the phone again and shook it.

  Mrs. Crux patted Mrs. Lynx’s shoulder and said, “Did you get it?”

  The principal’s face lit up with a big smile. “Yes. Want to see?”

  When Mrs. Crux nodded, they went over to the supply cabinet and turned their backs to the class. I had to know what they were doing.

  I walked to the supply cabinet and did a thing called eavesdropping. Eaves are part of a house’s roof. This doesn’t make sense to me. Eaves-dropping means that you listen to someone talking when they don’t want you to listen. Did humans hang from rooftops and listen to other people talking?

  Mrs. Lynx was saying, “—best app for finding an alien.”

  “Fantastic. How much did it cost?” asked Mrs. Crux.

  “A fortune. But I am the President of S.A.C., the Society of Alien Chasers. So, I got a discount. But this app didn’t come chea
p.”

  My mouth made an “Oh.” I shivered. How was I going to keep away from Mrs. Lynx and her app? “What does it do when you find an alien?” asked Mrs. Crux.

  Mrs. Lynx laughed. “Here’s the good part. It just sounds like a ring tone. But aliens are smart. You can’t just use an alien sound or alien music. Instead, it plays a cowboy song.”

  “I am from Australia, mate,” Mrs. Crux said. “I don’t know any American cowboy songs.”

  “Does Australia even have aliens?” Mrs. Lynx asked. “The app plays ‘Home on the Range.’”

  I had heard enough. I grabbed a jar of brown paint and turned to go. But I was so nervous that I slammed the cabinet door.

  Mrs. Lynx whirled around and squinted at me. “Wait. Were you listening?”

  My eyes got big and my hands shook. The bottle of brown paint dropped. Splat!

  Brown paint splattered all over my tennis shoes.

  And all over Mrs. Crux’s tennis shoes.

  Even Mrs. Lynx’s barefoot shoes were wet with brown splotches.

  “Oh, I am sorry,” I cried.

  Mrs. Crux shook her head at me and smiled, “No worries, mate. It’s just another Accidental Art. Aja, bring us some of that paper.” She pointed to large white sheets of paper.

  Mrs. Crux and Mrs. Lynx and I walked all over the paper. I stayed behind Mrs. Lynx and made sure her phone never pointed at me. We made brown barefoot shoe prints and tennis shoe prints and smears. We thumbtacked the picture to the Accidental Art bulletin board. That made eleven Accidental Arts for me. But it was the first Accidental Art for Mrs. Crux and the first for Mrs. Lynx.

  After that, they went to the teacher’s lounge to wash up their shoes. I washed my shoes at the sink in the art room.

  “Ouch!”

  I spun around to see who said that. Mary Lee stood by the supply cabinet shaking her hand and arm. “Something bit me.”

  Bree and Aja Dalal rushed over to Mary Lee.

  “What happened?” Bree said.

  “What do you mean, ‘something bit you’?” Aja said.

  “There!” Mary Lee pointed.

  “That’s nothing,” Aja said. “Just a small brown spider. Hey, Kell,” he called to me, “did you spill brown paint on this spider?”

  “Ha, ha,” I said, “Very funny.”

  Aja took off his shoe and slammed it against the cabinet. “It’s dead now.”

  I was not going close to that cabinet again. Because I do not like spiders, especially biting spiders.

  Just then, the bell rang and it was time to go to the next class.

  On the way out, Mary Lee said, “You forgot to bring me the silver paint.”

  “Why did you need silver?”

  “I wanted to paint an alien boy with a red nose and silver eyes,” she said. Then, she slapped my shoulder and left.

  Wait. How does an Earth girl know that alien boys have silver eyes?

  Bree is my next-door neighbor. Walking home, I thought about what I heard while eavesdropping. “Bree, what is a cowboy?”

  “It’s a man or a boy that takes care of cows.”

  I sighed in relief. “It’s not a boy with horns?”

  “Nope.”

  Bree was used to my strange questions, so I asked another. “Do you know a that cowboy song, ‘Home on the Range’?”

  “Yes, we learned it in second grade choir. You want me to sing it?”

  I nodded.

  Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,

  Where the deer and the antelope play.

  Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

  And the skies are not cloudy all day.

  How often at night where the heavens are bright

  With the light of the glittering stars,

  Have I stood there amazed and asked as I gazed

  If their glory exceeds that of ours?

  Home, home on the range,

  Where the deer and the antelope play,

  Where seldom is heard a discouraging word,

  And the skies are not cloudy all day.

  That Bree, she sings as sweetly as Bix crooners, the royal birds. When she sings, it makes the sun come out and shine inside me. And I liked that cowboy song because it has a good part about the stars, and I am from the stars.

  At home, Bree came over to work on homework. We found my parents in the greenhouse. Dad was dressed just in t-shirt, shorts and sandals. He knelt on the dirt beside the greenhouse wall and dug in the ground with a small shovel. Mom stood over him with her hands on her hips.

  They looked up when I asked, “Can I get an anteater for a pet?”

  “Where do you get one?” Mom’s blue-grey eyes flashed. “We need an anteater in here.”

  Bree said, “Anteaters don’t live around here, except in a zoo.”

  Dad stood and held out his shovelful of dirt. “Look. Ants and ants and ants.” He carried it outside and dumped it. “Why won’t the ants stay outside the greenhouse?”

  “You probably can’t keep them out,” Bree said.

  “Ouch!” Dad cried. “An ant just bit me!” And he dropped the shovel. Right on his big toe.

  “Ouch!” he cried again. He jumped and danced around. He bent over and wiped his hands over his feet and legs to make sure the ants were all gone.

  That’s my dad. On Bix, he is a famous astro-physicist, but he can’t hold on to a shovel.

  When he calmed down, I told Mom and Dad about Mary Lee getting bit by a spider. Mom shook her head, “It sounds like a bad day for bugs.”

  “It was a bad day for aliens, too,” I said. “Mrs. Lynx has a smart phone app that can find aliens.” I explained about the S.A.C. and the Alien Catcher App that played the “Home on the Range” song. Bree sang it for them.

  Mom frowned. “We must be very careful.”

  But Dad got a faraway look on his face. “Leave the Alien Catcher App to me. I can take care of it.”

  Fantastic. That was one thing I didn’t have to worry about.

  Bree reached up to a shelf and tilted a clay pot so she could look at the dirt inside. “What are you growing here, Mrs. Smith?”

  “Veggies,” Mom said. On Bix, she studied Bix plants; here on Earth, she is studying Earth plants.

  “Oh,” Bree said. “Bix vegetables.”

  “Yes,” Mom said.

  Bree looked at me. “Will I like them?”

  “Some.” But I was remembering how Bree hated grawlies, which are sort of like black French fries. They are my favorite Bix food. In fact, I wished the replicator still worked. I would make some grawlies right now.

  Suddenly, there was a knock at the greenhouse door. Who would walk into the backyard to find the greenhouse?

  In the doorway stood a policeman. Mom and Dad froze in place. And then Mom shoved Bree and me behind her.

  Was the policeman coming to arrest us?

  Had Mrs. Lynx figured out that we are the aliens?

  “Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I hope you don’t mind me coming by. I rang the doorbell, and no one answered. Mary Lee told me about your greenhouse, so I thought I’d look back here.”

  “Ah, Chief Glendale.” Dad stepped forward and stuck out his hand. “Good to see you.”

  I breathed. It was just Mary Lee’s dad.

  “I just want to make sure you understand that the F.O.P. parade is a fund raiser,” Chief Glendale said.

  “Oh, yes,” Mom said.

  Dad nodded. “We’ll raise loads of funds.”

  Of course, they didn’t know what they were talking about. What on Earth did they know? They were aliens.

  Chief Glendale pulled at his mustache. “Great. I’m glad we got that cleared up.” He reached up and tilted a clay pot so he could see the dirt inside, just like Bree. “What are you growing here?”

  “Veggies.” Bree rolled her eyes and said, “Yummy.”

  “Great, great.” The Chief hitched up his pants and stuck his thumbs in his pocket. “Mrs. Bumfrey took care of the parade for so many years. Bu
t I’m sure you’ll do just fine.

  “Oh, yes,” Chief Glendale said. “One more thing. Mayor Lucky says we can’t have the mounted police in the parade. He’s worried about horse apples. Mrs. Bumfrey always took care of things like this. You’ll need to talk to the Mayor and convince him that the F.O.P. parade must have the mounted police.” Without waiting for an answer, he tipped his hat to Mom and left.

  Bree said, “What are horse apples?”

  No one answered.

  All I could do was shake my head. We were in big trouble. Bree is the Aliens, Inc. Go-Between. That means she helps the Bix aliens understand the Earth way of doing things. If Bree didn’t understand Chief Glendale, no one else would.

  I am the official Go-For. I “Go for this” and “Go for that.” This time, the Go-Between and the Go-For needed to get together for a Look Up Later List.

  PARADE LOOK UP LATER LIST

  1. What if Fund Raising?

  2. What are Mounted Police?

  3. Why can’t Mounted Police be

  in a parade?

  4. What are Horse Apples?

  I turned to Bree and said, “Yummy? Did you say ‘Yummy’?”

  She shrugged. “Some veggies are yummy.”

  “Which ones?”

  “You know. The good ones.”

  Just like an Earthling girl. She won’t answer a straight question.

  “Taste this.” Mrs. McGreen passed around freeze-dried string beans.

  They were dry. They didn’t smell green, but they tasted green.

  We were in Health class and it was just three weeks before the F.O.P. Parade. Mrs. McGreen was talking about nutrition, which is what you eat. Mom says that Bixsters need to eat different things than humans eat. So I didn’t listen.

  Mrs. McGreen finished the lesson by saying, “To stay healthy, you need to eat right. You need lots of exercise. And you need lots of vegetables.”

  Then Mrs. McGreen said, “Kell, I was talking to Chief Glendale this morning when he dropped off Mary Lee at school. He tells me that your mother has a greenhouse.”