How It All Goes Down
When eighth-grader Gratuity gets an essay assignment at school asking her the meaning of Smekday, she starts to tell us about her experience with the alien invasion and saving the world.
No, really.
It all started when her mom mysteriously grew a glowing purple mole on her neck and claimed she'd been abducted by aliens. Of course Gratuity didn't believe her—she's not a little kid anymore, after all—but when her mom is sucked up into a spaceship right before Gratuity's eyes, well, she starts believing. And shortly afterward, aliens called Boov invade earth.
There are wars and big problems with the Boov's arrival, and eventually, humans lose. The Boov order all Americans to head down to Florida so they can keep the rest of the country for themselves, and Gratuity is on her way there (along with her cat, Pig) when she's stopped by a Boov named J.Lo who helps her fix her car.
Only he doesn't just fix it; he makes it hover. Gratuity doesn't want to trust the Boov (since they took her mom and all), but she agrees to give the little guy a ride down to the Sunshine State since he might help her if she runs into any more Boov along the way.
But when she does get pulled over by a Boov cop, J.Lo scrams into the back of the car and hides. Gee, thanks. In J.Lo's defense, though, he was supposed to set up a radio tower, but he messed up and accidentally invited some other aliens named Gorg to come to earth along the way. Uh oh…
Once the motley crew reaches Florida, they figure out that everyone is now on their way to Arizona, since the Boov decided to keep Florida for their own use after all. So they head over to Arizona, but on the way, they're hit by thunderstorms and hurricanes, and eventually wind up in Roswell.
You might have heard that Roswell is the place to see UFOs, and Gratuity has, too. She thinks it's all just urban legend, but she and J.Lo soon discover that a lot of people in Roswell actually believe aliens landed there (before the Boov and Gorg, that is).
Enter Chief. Not only does he believe the aliens came to earth way back when, he says he can prove it. Excitement quickly turns to disappointment, though, when Gratuity and J.Lo see his so-called spaceship is nothing more than paper mâché and foil.
When the Gorgs attack, Chief gets injured, and in the scuffle, Gratuity and J.Lo find his koobish, or Boov's pets. And when they do, they realize that Boov must have landed there. Now that they know Chief wasn't lying, they decide to go back to the spaceship, and inside it, they find the real teleclone the aliens use to copy things like milkshakes and food. Score.
With the teleclone in tow, Gratuity and J.Lo head down to Arizona, where they find her mom and a politician named Daniel Landry. He's some big shot who is negotiating a deal with the Gorg.
The plan? The Boov will head out and leave the Gorg on earth, and Americans will be able to live in three states now. Um, okay—that's not quite fifty, but whatever. Gratuity doesn't like this plan at all, especially since J.Lo insists the Gorg are not so nice and shouldn't be trusted. Pretty soon everyone else realizes this, too, when the Gorg try to destroy all the humans and take everything for themselves. Yep, that's humanity's first clue.
Luckily, Gratuity and J.Lo figure out that the Gorg are allergic to cats, so they use the teleclone on Pig to make a thousand cats and spread them all over. It's a sneeze fest for the Gorg, who can't take it any more and ditch earth. Then the Boov decide to leave, too. Hooray. Earth is finally back to normal… mostly. Gratuity's become friends with J.Lo, so he sticks around and lives with her family. He might be a Boov, but he did help save the planet, so they guess it's okay.