Ambassador

Gabe Fuentes is reading under the covers one night when he is interrupted by a creature that looks like a purple sock puppet. The sock puppet introduces himself as the Envoy and asks if Gabe wants to be Earth's ambassador to the galaxy. What sane eleven-year-old could refuse? Some ingenious tinkering with the washing machine sends Gabe out to the center of the galaxy. There he finds that Earth is in the path of a destructive alien force, and Gabe himself is the target of an assassination plot.