It all starts with a school essay.
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Twelve-year-old Gratuity โTipโ Tucci is assigned to write five pages on โThe True Meaning of Smekdayโ for the National Time Capsule contest, and sheโs not sure where to begin: when her mom started telling everyone about the messages aliens were sending through a mole on the back of her neck? Maybe on Christmas Eve, when huge, bizarre spaceships descended to Earth, and aliensโcalled the Boovโabducted her mother?
Or when the Boov declared Earth a colony, renamed it โSmeklandโ (in honor of glorious Captain Smek), and forced all Americans to relocate to Florida via rocketpod?
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย Gratuityโs story is much, much bigger than the assignment. It involves her unlikely friendship with a renegade Boov mechanic named J.Lo, a futile journey south to find Gratuityโs mother at the Happy Mouse Kingdom, a cross-country road trip in a hovercar called Slushious, and an outrageous plan to save Earth from yet another alien invasion.