Like most humans, Gratuity Tucci would never forget the day the Boov invaded.
For one thing, it was Christmas morning. She and her mom were opening presents under the tree. It was just Tip (that was Gratuity’s nickname) and her mom, Lucy, and that’s how Tip liked it. It had been that way ever since they had moved to Boston from Barbados.
Tip was about to give her mom a present when the Boov turned off the gravity.
“Hold on!” Lucy yelled back.
Suddenly, there was a hole in the ceiling, and a big tube came down from the sky. Tip watched, surprised, as the tube picked her mom right up through the hole.
Tip held on, and Pig, Tip’s cat, held on to Tip’s head. Light swept across the room from a Boov scanner. Because Pig was sitting on Tip’s head like a hat, the scanner only noticed that there was a cat in the room, and reported, “Life form detected. Not human.”
Tip stayed where she was until the Boov turned the gravity back on. Peeking out the window, she saw every human in sight being picked up by the tubes. Weird round alien ships floated in the air. Tip wondered what was happening.
Tip wanted more than anything to go looking for her mom. But she knew she had to stay safe. She and Pig holed up in the apartment.
Mom will find me, she kept telling herself. She’ll come back.
But her mom didn’t come. And then one morning, Tip heard a rumbling and raced to the window. A Boov ship landed on the street outside, and a hundred Boov walked out.
“Sector 195 is ready for occupation,” a Boov greeter informed them.
Tip picked up Pig. “We can’t wait for Mom, Pig. We gotta go. Now.”
She quickly grabbed her phone, keys, and some cans of cat food, and stuffed them into a bag. Then, on an impulse, she grabbed the Christmas present that her mom hadn’t opened yet.
Tip snuck outside to the alley, where she had hidden her mom’s car under a pile of trash bags. Even though Tip was twelve years old, she had been riding in the front seat long enough to know what to do, since this was an emergency. She and Pig climbed inside. Tip took a deep breath and started the car.
“Let’s go find Mom,” she said.
