The pizza is out

Well, the pizza shield plan is definitely out.

Last Saturday was real sunny and warm. The temperature got to 70˚. Normally that's perfect, but my garage probably got up to 80˚. Although the pizza held its shape, the smell is nasty.

Mom made me throw it all away when she caught Donald munching on a piece. He must not have any sense of smell, maybe it was the ball bearing incident. The stink went from sour milk and dirty socks to a sour milk, dirty socks and messy diaper mix.

There was also a greasy spot that Mom made me scrub. It took forever to get it all up and it left a stain that will probably be there for a thousand years.

On top of that, today Melanie gave me a bag full of fresh Pan Pizza. The grease was beginning to eat through the bag, but she seemed so happy to help that I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I wasn't going to use it.

I tossed it in a dumpster on the way home.

Anyway, it's nice having her pay attention to me and it's cool that she's interested in my project. 

I wonder if she'd like to go to Mars.

Nabbed by the lunch lady

Okay, just for the record, in case I disappear or something, I think the head lunch lady is on to me. Remember, P.J. and me are collecting Pan Pizza, well, I think she knows we're not eating it. I don't know for sure, maybe I'm just a little paranoid, because I know she's responsible for the recipe for the pizza, but I get the feeling she's watching my every move on pizza day.

She's not onto P.J. yet, or at least he doesn't think she is. I'm playing it safe though, I just order two slices – or three, if I know she isn't looking. 

But I do have an alternate plan. Melanie Shaw actually asked me about my science project. Melanie is one of the prettiest girls I know and usually I don't know what to say to her. I mean, whenever I get close to her it feels like my mouth fills up with dry crackers and my head goes a little woozy, but this opened the door and of course I do have a lot to talk about. 

It also gave me an idea–I asked Melanie if she could help and she said yes. So now I still get my pizza heat shield and a reason to talk to Melanie!

But I'm not so sure the pizza heat shield thing is such a good idea anymore. We have a good pile of it already in my garage. It's in a cool shady spot, but I have to say, it is not smelling so great. Kind of like sour milk and dirty socks left out in the sun. 

In August.

I don't know if I could stand that smell all the

 way to Mars and back. So I'm thinking we'll have to come up with something else.

Another fact:

Full Speed Ahead!

Now that I have the official backing of Mrs. Applebaum and the Pine Nuts School system, I can start working on my trip to Mars full steam ahead. So, the plan now is to have the rocket ship completed and ready to launch for the Parent's Day Science Competition.

I'll also have the poster of really cool facts (which I've already started), along with a flight plan and list of things I want to do once I get to Mars.

Grandpa is still very keen on helping out, so he can sit in the rocket during Parent's Night and talk to people about flying and stuff. He can even wear his leather jacket and helmet. Maybe we can find him some goggles too.

And since Mom still insists that I let Donald do something - even after the ball bearing incident- he can be our Martian specimen. Once me and P.J. figure out what one looks like, we'll make a costume and dress Donald in it and he can stand around making Martian sounds.

P.J.'s going to stay over Saturday night so we can do research. He has an awesome flying simulation video game that will give me some practice and he said he can bring over other study materials from his dad's video collection. I'll get kettle corn and soda.

Real Facts

I think for our science project we should have a poster listing a bunch of interesting facts about Mars. Not your everyday facts, like Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun, I want to have cool things that nobody really knows.

Facts though, not made up stuff. Last year Eddie Spithausen did a project on Komodo Dragons and he had a poster called "Things you should know about the Kimono Dragon." First of all, a Kimono is a kind of dress and second everything on his poster was made up! I guess he thought that everyone would be so impressed with his paper maché dragon model that they wouldn't check his "facts."

Well, that might have worked, if the model had been any good. It didn't look like a Komodo Dragon. Actually, it didn't look like any kind of dragon at all. Mostly it looked like a cross between his bulldog, Puddles, and a rabid turkey—only green. With Chiclet teeth.

I mean, I know I can be lazy about school projects, but the least he could have done was look up what a Komodo Dragon looked like. Eddie's judgement can be a little off at times. He once got detention for calling Mr. Mulligan, the gym teacher, a meat puppet.

I still don't know what that is. I think it was in reference to Mr. Mulligan's muscles—the guy's got like 23" biceps—which is more to the point, why would you say anything stupid to a guy that could pop your head like a pimple?

You gotta wonder sometimes.

Mrs. Applebaum announces a class project.

Something happened at school today that will definitely speed up production on the rocket and of the Mars trip. Our teacher, Mrs. Applebaum, announced our Spring project. It's a science competition that we will exhibit at parent's night.

Parent's night is when everyone's mom and dad, and sometimes grandparents and aunts and uncles are invited in to school to see that we haven't just been fooling around all year. But mostly it's an opportunity for the teachers to prove that they are actually teaching us something—that they aren't "glorified  babysitters," as Mrs. Applebaum is always telling us that she is not.

Everyone in class has to pick a partner to work on the project with, then we have to research and construct a scientific experiment and show it off at parent's night.

Well, I already have a partner—P.J.—and we are so far ahead of the rest of the class, it's ridiculous! Me and P.J. are sure to win. Apparently, there are going to be some prizes for the best projects, "as of yet, undetermined," as Mrs. Applebaum put it.

I sure hope it's money, going to Mars has got to be expensive.

Anyway, Mom can't complain anymore that I should spend half as much time cleaning my room as I do on planning a trip to Mars - because now it's a school project!

A new kid at school

There's this new kid at school whose name is Billy, but for some reason he makes everyone call him Bubba. He's really tall. Well, I guess he's not that tall for his age - it seems he's been left back a couple of times, maybe three. He also has this kind of dull mean look about him. 

P.J. ran into Billy - uh, Bubba -  in the hallway and tried to make some small talk, trying to avoid being beaten up. He told Bubba about our rocket and the trip to Mars. Bubba told P.J. that wasn't anything big, that he'd been to Venus three of four times and that the girls on Venus were much better looking than the girls on Earth. He also told P.J. that he had a girlfriend on Venus and that she is way prettier than Molly Pinkston (the prettiest girl in our grade).

Venus! Come on! Now I see why this guy's having difficulty getting to the next grade. Does he realize that it's about 900˚ F on Venus? I guess that would make his girlfriend really hot!

At first I thought Bubba might be trouble, I don't really think that anymore.

Cafeteria Pizza!

For lunch today at school they were serving something they called "Pan Pizza." This was rectangle slabs of thick dough with dried up sauce and this grayish white stuff on top that I think was supposed to be cheese.

The only other choice was tuna salad, which was so dry it had started to crack.

I chose the pizza. I guess everyone else did too, because there was a wait while the cafeteria ladies made more. But they tried to make too many at the same time and the ovens caught on fire. It wasn't that big a fire, but the cafeteria monitors made us stand outside while it was put out.

I guess it wasn't a bad idea, because it took over ten minutes to put the fire out. The amazing thing was the pizza slabs looked exactly the same as they did before they caught fire. The cheesy stuff was a little more gray and the sauce was as dry as the tuna salad, but all in all, they were intact.

This gave me a great idea. The rocket's gonna need some kind of heat shield and me and P.J. have been experimenting with what to use—now we know:

Cafeteria Pan Pizza.

I told P.J. all about it, so now whenever the cafeteria is serving Pan Pizza we'll order extra until we have enough for a shield!

Unfortunately, I don't think there is anything we can use the tuna salad for.