You can’t charge people to stand in the street and watch the parade.
You can’t charge people to march in the parade.
“Maybe a parade is the wrong way to raise funds,” I said.
“Mrs. Bumfrey raised lots of money,” Bree said. “She just had people stand around with buckets. While people watched the parade, the bucket people begged for money. But every year, the money was less and less. Chief Glendale said to try something different.”
I just wanted to give up. On Bix, Mom and Dad were important. But here we have to lie low. No one should look at us or think about us, or they might find out we are aliens. But making a living is hard. Planning birthday parties is hard. Planning this parade was even harder. We might do all this work and still not make any money. I flopped onto the floor and lay there with my arms and legs all jumbled up. Nothing was going to work.
Just then, the telephone rang. Mom came out of the study to answer it. I sat up and listened to Mom talk. It was bad news.
When she hung up, Mom said, “That was Chief Glendale. Mary Lee was taken to the hospital early this morning. She has an infected arm. The doctor thinks it was a spider bite.”
I swallowed hard. “It was that spider in the art cabinet!”
Bree said, “That was too small to make someone sick.”
Dad stood in the study door. “In the United States, there are only two poisonous spiders. The black widow, which is black and red. And the brown recluse, which is small and brown. If it was a brown spider, it was probably a brown recluse.”
I put my head on my knees and shivered.
“We need to go to the hospital to visit Mary Lee,” Bree said. “She will need friends.”
At that, I flopped out flat again. Hospitals were scarier than spiders. Hospitals take a long hard look at human bodies. But I have an alien body. If someone x-rayed me, they would find a bligfa and other surprising things.
“Yes,” Mom said firmly. “Mary Lee is your friend. You must go and visit her.”
“My mom can take us,” Bree said. “She is out of court early today.”
Mom frowned. “OK. Maybe that is a good idea.”
Which meant that Mom was scared of the hospital, too.
“It will be OK, Kell,” Mom said. “Just don’t let them do anything weird to you.”
At least I wasn’t shedding my skin today.
The hospital was alarmingly big. To find Mary Lee’s room, we had to walk down halls and halls and halls. And ride a big empty elevator. And walk down more halls and halls and halls. If I had to get out fast, I would be lost.
“Room 318B. Here we are,” Mrs. Hendricks said. Her shoes clicked and echoed in the empty hall. When she knocked, the booming made me jump.
I whispered, “This is quieter than a library.”
“That’s because people are sick and need to sleep,” Bree said.
Just then, the door creaked and opened.
I jumped backwards.
But Chief Glendale smiled at us and said, “Oh, it’s you two. Mary Lee will be happy to see you. She’s bored.”
The room was small and white. White sheets on the bed, white walls, white floors. Only the chairs were blue. Mary Lee wore a strange green nightgown.
I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what to say.
“Hey!” Mary Lee said. “Are we ready for the parade?”
“Yes,” I said.
Mary Lee frowned. “I guess I won’t get to march in the parade.” She nodded toward her arms. The spider bit her left arm and it was wrapped with white bandages. But her right hand had something on it, too. And a clear plastic tube ran from her hand to a plastic bag that hung on a metal tree.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s an IV,” she said.
“Ivy? Like the vine that grows on my house?”
Chief Glendale laughed. “No. It’s Intra-Venous therapy. That means a needle is in Mary Lee’s vein. It is connected to the bag of medicine, so the medicine goes straight into her blood. IV medicine will make her well faster.”
I didn’t like this hospital room. And I didn’t like the IV. I wanted to leave. But Mary Lee was a friend, and I knew my job was to cheer her up.
I sat on the blue chair and told about Mrs. Lynx and the water hose. “I think she got water up her nose.”
Mary Lee and Bree laughed, which made me smile, too. Maybe visiting a hospital wasn’t so bad.
Then a nurse came in. When she saw us, she said, “Oh, I can come back later.”
“No, please,” Mary Ann said. “Will you show my friends your stethoscope?”
Uh-oh.
Bree said, “Yes, I want to hear my heartbeat!”
The nurse put the stethoscope in her ears and held the circle part to Bree’s chest. “Yes, you are alive,” she said.
She put the stethoscope into Bree’s ears. Bree held the circle part to her own chest. She closed her eyes to listen. “THUMpa, THUMpa, THUMpa.”
She opened her eyes and smiled at the nurse. “Thanks!”
“You next?” the nurse asked me.
Danger! Danger! I had to think fast.
“No! Just let me listen,” I said. Or did I yell it?
“You don’t have to be scared. It won’t hurt you,” the nurse said.
“No.”
The nurse shrugged, “OK.”
She put the stethoscope into my ears and I held the circle to my chest. I closed my eyes to listen.
Nothing.
Silence.
I said, “THUMpa, THUMpa, THUMpa.”
I opened my eyes.
Mary Lee was frowning at me. “Can I listen to your heart?”
“No!” That time, I did yell.
I handed the stethoscope back to the nurse.
And my bligfa hurt. I had never felt so alien. If an Earthling doctor or nurse ever tried to listen to my heartbeat, they would think I was dead. Because I didn’t have a heart to beat. Would I ever get to go home to Bix?
The nurse stuck a thermometer in Mary Lee’s mouth. When it beeped she took it out and said, “Back down to normal.”
Chief Glendale said, “Good. We were worried last night when it was so high.”
I asked Mary Lee, “Why can’t you march in the parade on Saturday?”
Her dad answered first. “The doctor said no P.E. class or anything active for two weeks.
Mary Lee said, “Oh, Dad. Please! I’ve done the F.O.P. parade every year.”
Her dad just shook his head.
But that wasn’t fair. Mary Lee had done so much of the planning. She needed to be at the parade. I blurted out, “I’ll think of something.”
“Really?” Mary Lee’s frown changed to a big grin. “You really thought of something for Bree and Freddy’s birthday party. I bet you’ll think of some way to get me into the parade.”
“Yes, I will.” I had no idea how I would do it. But I had just promised. And I keep my promises.
Parade planning was harder than I thought. Earthling girls think Bix boys have all the answers. And that wasn’t good.
It was Nutrition Day for the third grade. Ting brought spicy green beans and chopsticks. I baked eggless Earth Bread muffins. Bree had cheddar cheese French fries. Aja had cucumber-mint salad.
Freddy had a Caesar salad. Crazy. Who was the Caesar guy who made up this recipe? Freddy says he loves Caesar salad almost more than anything. His partner, Mario, brought pepperoni pizza. I ate two samples of pizza, but only one sample of Caesar salad.
Even Mary Lee came to school just for the Nutrition Day party. Her Dad made her ride in a wheelchair, so she wouldn’t get too tired. She and Edgar were supposed to work together, but Edgar’s parents never let him cook. Mary Lee did all the work herself. She brought potato-peanut butter pinwheels.
I walked all over the cafeteria tasting and tasting until my bligfa hurt. Mayor Lucky was the food judge. He and Mrs. Lynx walked around tasting every entry.
Then it was time for Show-and-Tell.
First, Mario was going to show about pizza dough. He took a small ball of pizza dough and stretched it out. When it got bigger, he threw it up in the air. When he caught it, he stretched it more.
Up, down, stretch.
Up, down, stretch.
The pizza dough was as big as a dinner plate and getting bigger.
Up, down, stretch.
Mario bent his knees and threw the dough very high. It went up and up and up. But it came down behind Mario. He turned around, searching the air for the pizza dough. And it came down and down and—plop!—it fell right on top of Edgar.
Edgar had just poured a small cup of ketchup to eat a sample of Bree’s French fries. Edgar whirled around his wheelchair and glared at Mario. He threw the ketchup at Mario.
He missed.
Instead, the ketchup hit Freddy’s forehead and dropped down his nose. It looked just like my painting of a Red Nose!
Freddy didn’t like being a Red Nose. He threw his can of Coke back at Edgar, but it hit Aja and Ting.
Someone yelled, “Food fight.”
Teachers and parents tried to stop it, but they couldn’t. Food flew everywhere.
Bree and I hid under a table and I protected us. If anything got close, I just turned it away with tele-kinesis while Bree cheered.
And we got to throw things at passing feet. Mrs. Lynx had ketchup on her toe shoes and Mayor Lucky had a lettuce leaf on his brown leather shoes. Pizza dough clung to the wheels of Mary Lee’s wheelchair. Ting threw green beans at everyone. Freddy and Mario pretended to play baseball with my Earth muffins.
It was a fantastic mess.
Finally, Mr. Chamale, the school custodian, stood on a chair and bellowed, “STOP!”
Shocked, everyone turned to look at him. And the food fight was over.
Looking foolish and guilty, kids started picking up food and putting it on the nearest table. Bree and I came out from under the table and helped.
Mary Lee stared at Bree and me, “You didn’t get any food on you?”
I shrugged, “Just lucky.”
Mary Lee frowned and started to say something, but a microphone squealed.
Then over the microphone, Mrs. Lynx said, “Third grade, I am ashamed of you. You will have to clean up this mess.”
Mr. Chamale got out brooms and mops. We took turns. Some kids went to the bathroom to wash their face and hands, clothes and shoes. The other kids stayed in the cafeteria to clean up. Then we swapped. I got to wash up first and then came back to mop.
The cafeteria was made of large square tiles, alternating grey and red. Each row was offset by a half square. I realized it was like a big hopscotch board.
I jumped and hopped across the floor. When she saw me, Bree hopscotched, too. And then Aja, Freddy and Ting hopscotched. Jump, hop, jump, hop. We just needed some chalk to write the numbers on the floor.
“You look like a horse galloping through a hopscotch board,” Aja said.
And that was the answer. Sometimes you need to let go and be crazy. Was this one of those times? No one else had an idea. I had to solve the F.O.P. parade problems—my way. Mary Lee and Chief Glendale and Bree and the F.O.P. were all trusting me to do that, weren’t they? It was hard to be crazy and brave at the same time.
I called everyone over. There was Mrs. Lynx and Mayor Lucky, Mrs. Parrot and Mrs. McGreen. Even Chief Glendale was there to pick up Mary Lee and take her home early to rest.
“Here’s my big crazy idea,” I said. “Horse Apple Hopscotch.” I explained that if we drew big squares on the road, we could sell the squares. Each person would bet that the Horse Apples would fall into his or her square. And the F.O.P. would have a funny fundraiser.
The Mayor’s head-rug had ketchup splatters, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. He said, “No, you can’t do Horse Apple Hopscotch. Someone will still need to clean up all that poop.”
Mr. Chamale leaned against his mop. He said, “I clean up things all the time. I can clean up the Horse Apples if you pay me.”
I thought about that. Aliens, Inc. needed the money, but we would be busy running the parade. We didn’t have time to clean up Horse Apples. I nodded to Mr. Chamale.
Chief Glendale said, “Sure. We can pay you some of the fund raiser money.”
Now everyone was happy, except Mayor Lucky. But he said, “Anything to keep the voters happy.”
Mary Lee was still sad, though, because she still couldn’t come to the parade. But I knew what to do about her problem, too.
“I have been reading about parades,” I told Mary Lee. “Usually, there’s a marshal who is the head of the parade. What if you and Edgar ride in a convertible car at the front of the parade? You will be the Marshals of the Parade.”
I was afraid the Mayor would object. After all, the Mayor is often the parade marshal. But he saw Edgar’s grin and Mary Lee’s hopeful face and said, “As Mayor of this fantastic town, I name Edgar and Mary Lee the Parade Marshals of the F.O.P. Parade!”
It was only fair. I called, “Hurrah for Mayor Lucky!”
And everyone cheered, “Hurrah for Mayor Lucky!”
And then, everyone was happy.
After the cafeteria was clean, Mayor Lucky used the microphone to make an announcement. “The winner of the Nutrition Day contest is Mary Lee. I love peanut butter. And I love her potato-peanut butter pinwheel.”
Freddy called, “Is there a prize?”
“Yes,” the Mayor said. “Mary Lee wins a year’s supply of broccoli from the Grocery Barn.”
Everyone cheered. But not very loud.
Except Freddy who loves vegetables.
I am glad I didn’t win. Edgar watched his partner, Mary Lee walk on stage, and I think he was sad that he didn’t win, too. He didn’t help with the potato-peanut butter pinwheels, though. So, it was fair.
Leaving the cafeteria, Bree said, “You did it again. Somehow, you always manage to sort everyone out.” And she tried to hit my arm.
But this time I was ready, and I twisted away. “Too slow.”
“You’re learning, Earth man.” Wait. Why did she call me an Earth man? She knows I am an alien.
Getting ready for the F.O.P. Parade was a mad dash. We had to decide where to put the squares for the Horse Apple Hopscotch. We had to ask for donations for prizes. The best prize was a year of horseback riding lessons from the Davis Stables.
Next, we marked up the parade maps with Hopscotch squares. Mrs. Hendricks helped Mom organize some Moms to make phone calls and sell the Hopscotch squares. We started with just ten squares, but we kept adding more all day long. Finally, we had 100 Horse Apple Hopscotch squares sold. The fund raising was a success!
Mr. Hendricks organized some Dads to draw all the squares. They finished late in the night.
Meanwhile, Dad was still working on the “Home on the Range” problem. He was on the phone and computer all day and all night.
Saturday dawned bright and cool; it was a perfect day for a parade. Everyone gathered in Lucky City Park. At the park’s center was a statue of Mayor Lucky’s great-great-grandfather who had come to the area 150 years ago in a covered wagon. The statue was made of iron and painted black. But the paint was gone on his face, and his nose was red from rust. Another Red Nose!
The park was full. Chief Glendale drove up in a red convertible for the Parade Marshals. The high school band gathered under some oak trees with a rat-a-tat-tat of drums and a um-bah of tubas. Bree, Ting and the hula hoopers were near the playground practicing their routine. And little kids on tricycles careened everywhere, chased by yelling Moms or Dads.
Bree and I had hard jobs. We had to get everyone lined up in order. Bree was the official Go-Between, and she knew just how to talk with people. Last night, we made huge cardboard numbers for each group. I was the official Go-For and walked around handing out the numbers. If anyone had questions, I was off and running, going to Mom or Dad for answers.
We alternated a superhero or superheroine with different kinds of acts. There w
as Spy-Dee, followed by Aja’s All-Star Invisible Tambourine Band. Fever came next and had buckets of band-aids to throw to the crowd. And then came the Hula Hoopers.
I handed out all the numbers and headed back to help Bree. That’s when I saw Mrs. Lynx, who wore a lime-green T-shirt that said, “Official UFO Identification.” It had pictures of different kinds of Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs. There was a flying saucer, a space rocket, strange circles with lots of lights and more. Mrs. Lynx’s sneaky, barefoot toe-shoes were lime-green, too. But the strangest thing about her was the lime-green baseball cap. It had a helicopter blade on top. The blade had a cord that ran down to her smart phone. The helicopter blade must be an extra antenna to make the app work better.
And even worse, we saw other people dressed just like Mrs. Lynx. They were walking up and down the parade line. The S.A.C!
I had to help Bree. But I also had to stay away from the Alien Chasers.
Suddenly, right behind me, I heard that song, “Home on the Range.”
I whirled around and saw Freddy punch his phone and say, “Hello.”
Turning back, three Alien Chasers were running our way. But then, from over near the high school band, I heard the song again. The Alien Chasers turned and ran that way.
Confused, I waited until Freddy told his mom and dad where he was. When he hung up, I asked, “Where did you get that ring tone?”
Freddy shrugged. “My mom played the piano music. Your dad made it the official F.O.P. Parade song and ring tone. I got the email last night about it and downloaded it.”
That’s what Dad had been doing! The “Home on the Range” ring tone meant the Alien Catcher App had found an alien. But now, the Alien Chasers would hear the song everywhere. The S.A.C. would chase songs everywhere and get tired when they found nothing.
But Mom, Dad and I still needed to avoid the Alien Chaser App.
Kell and the Horse Apple Parade Page 3