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.