On a far away planet unlike any other lived my brother, my wonderful mother, and I. My father had gone in search of treasure and the telling of this story is my great pleasure. First, I should start by saying hello, my name is Maizey Zavala, and my mother says I was pulled from the river of life here on the planet of Zimba Mazoo almost fifteen zenons ago and my brother, only ten. This is around the time when my father also decided to leave to search for the mighty treasure of Maka Makook, who was a king on the planet Cromaro. My father wanted a better life for us so if that meant going treasure hunting that is what he would do. Cromaro is one of the largest planets in our galaxy, as the earthlings call it, neighboring Zimba Mazoo. Here on Zimba Mazoo with the presence of nearly no atmosphere, temperatures would be very cold for non-zimzooians but for the extremely warm blood that runs through our yellow flesh, it does not seem to pose a problem. The gravity on Zimba Mazoo is also far greater than any other planet making it quite hard to move around at times. Together with two other planets, we form a solar system that is parallel to Earths. There is so much planet to search on Cromaro that I haven’t seen my father since I was four zenons old and now it is the zenon of 4034 and I guess I am just an ordinary half-age female Zimzooian, searching for herself in this little town of Heai. My town is one of many on Zimba Mazoo because conditions on some of our surrounding planets got too dangerous that they had to evacuate to our planet. So now, the story begins. It is a story of love, family, adventure, and finding your true self in the process.

Waking up the morning of the second month phase of Zimba Mazoo’s moon, I heard little tiptoe footsteps down the hallway of our house of diamond. Thinking it was those aggravating morning bees crawling across the floor hunting for something sweet to eat, I jumped out of my ceiling canopy and grabbed my face veil ready to capture any that crawled my way. Swinging open the board to exit my room I accidently hit something, or rather someone. It was my brother, I was in such a hurry to capture the “morning bees” that I had accidently hit my brother. To my surprise he, was holding a half squished Mazoo pie, during the incident the rest had somehow ended up on his face.
“I am so sorry Kelas; I thought you were the morning bees back to steal the rest of mother’s supplies for her pie business.”I said with a slight grin. Mother was always making pies and in our food chamber downstairs there were both large and small pies some big enough for you to last at least a week eating.
Kelas now began to wipe the pie off his face saying, “It is okay Maizey I just wanted to bring this to you for your Life Day.”
“Today is not my Life Day already is it?”
“Yes is truly is. Today is the second month phase of the moon. Fifteen zenons ago you were pulled out from the river of life so I wanted you to be able to celebrate this moment!” Kelas’s smile grew very wide now and I could see that he must have eaten some of the pie as it flew into his face because now his mouth was bright purple, which always happened to him after eating some of mother’s famous Mazoo pie.
“Well thank you Kelas,” I said taking the pie. “I will just bring it down stairs so we can all enjoy it.”

So bringing Kelas’s Mazoo pie down the stairs, I began to think about father again. About this time, every zenon I thought about him. It has been eleven zenons since the last time I had seen him and I had the feeling that I needed to find him. Many things had happened since then like our completion of lower education, different activities and the process of us growing up. One of the most important though had to be the visit of the earthlings where strange “men” had shared stories with us about their planet and what they knew about our world. They said that they had come to study out atmosphere. With plants in abundance on Zimba Mazoo, they thought there could be no way that the atmosphere could be so thin and how we could live here. It was very hard to believe them at first but they soon began to make sense and our knowledge about their world grew as well. They also showed us how to control the ships that they had arrived in. After that thought about the earthlings I remembered something, the men that had come from Earth left behind one of their strange ships. They had arrived here in it but it had not started up in time for them to leave so they had to board one of the others that had come with them and soon they were gone. This ship was perfectly fine but the machine that had made it work ran a little too slow for the needs of these men so they just left it behind, keys and all. Maybe… no that is insane, you could never do something like that I thought to myself, shaking my head. I should really talk to someone about all of this.
“What is the matter sweetie? You didn’t like your pie?” My mother asked at the sight of me shaking my head.
“Oh nothing is wrong and I loved the pie but I think Kelas liked it more than I did,” I said laughing to myself.
“I am glad honey and Happy Life Day!” Wow even mother remember, I am surprised that I was the only one who forgot about my own Life Day today. I should really check the moon more often.
“Thank you and mother I was wondering if I could go to the Orion house for a little while. I need to talk to him about something?” I asked in the most polite voice that I could find.
“Of course you can,” she said, “just as long as you are back before dark.” Lucky for me the second phase of the moon meant that there were three full days of sunlight before it would become dark again, hopefully enough time to carry out my plan.
“I promise , thanks again mother,” I said running upstairs to pack my bags full of enough clothes to last three days, then, rushing past the food chamber I grabbed the biggest pie I could find, wrapped it up and placed it in my bag. My father’s office was my last stop. Sometimes I would sit in there to look at his old treasure maps and wonder where he was right at that moment. I was sure to take a few with me in the process and just before leaving, I was sure to tell mother, “I love you, and I will tell him you said hi.” Little did she know that I was not talking about Orion.

Hurrying with all of my might over to Orion’s house I almost busted through the board to his room.
“What is going on?” He screamed.
My lungs burning with what felt like that heat of a thousand firebirds I finally managed to say, wheezing, “We need to talk.”
“About what and why do you have a bag with you?” Orion answered. Orion and I had been best friends since we had been pulled out of the river of life just days apart from each other. I trusted him with everything and he said he would do anything for me. Now was the time when I was hoping this was true.
“I need your help,” I started, “As you know my dad has been searching for Maka Makook’s treasure for the past 15 zenons and not once have we ever tried to find him.”
“What are you getting at Maizey?” Orion asked.
Please don’t freak out Orion, I thought, please don’t. “I want you to help me find him.”
“Are you feeling alright Maizey? You are not talking straight right now. That is on the next planet we cannot do that. We have no way to get over there and who knows if he is still alive?” Watching the expression on my face change from hopeful to upset, Orion quickly said, “I did not mean that the way that it came out. I am so sorry Maizey, I’m just saying that how do you know?”
“The thing is that, I don’t know but I really can feel it. Inside my heart, I know that he is alive out there and I need to find him. I need my father Orion; I have needed him since I was four zenons old and now is my chance.”
“Fine,” he said, “but how will we do it?”

Overjoyed, I embraced him and showed him the keys that I had been hiding in my room that day that the earthlings had left that foreign ship on our planet. I knew that someday it would come in handy. You may be asking how my father and all of the rest of the people got from planet to planet. Well the answer is through very large canopy like carpets that fly through the sky, they were only used in the time of transfer from planet to planet and my father jumped onto the back of one headed for Cromaro to pick up the last load of cromarians living there. Legend has it that in the treasure of Maka Makook a device for travel would be there so transportation back to his home planet was no worry for him.


Arriving to the shed where the ship had been hidden Orion’s mouth dropped. Still dazed and confused Orion managed to mumble, “I am sorry I ever doubted you Maizey, but what is this thing?”
“I call it the Space Blaster 5000. It seems fairly easy to use, as far as the earthlings showed us so I say we get out of here as quickly as possible.” I said, reaching for the button to lower to door of the newly named, Space Blaster 5000.

Psshhhhhewwwww… the door dropped down and soon enough we were in the control room of the ship. Putting the keys into the ignition it was just like, I had remembered. Buttons and blinking lights everywhere you looked and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the screen with a map of our solar system on it.
“Here this is where we start,” I said to Orion. “I just program in Cromaro and that will be where it takes us. Don’t worry dad, we are coming.”
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Sensing how unsure Orion was I knew that even if I was not 100% sure that things were going to work out I needed him to think that every little thing was going to be all right.
“Yes Orion it will work I just know it.” I replied. With a sigh of relief, Orion leaned back on the control panel and pressed the start button. Then in that very instant the ship started up and off, we went. Unable to speak we screamed and held tight to anything we could and within seconds, we were rushing toward the surface Cromaro.
“What do we do now?” Orion yelled sounding as only as whisper to me.
“I don’t know!” I yelled back trying to find any button that would somehow help us land safely.

Suddenly a countdown appeared on the screen 5,000 yards until landing, then to 4,000 yards, 3,000, 2,000, 1,000 and quickly went down from there.
“What does that mean? What are yards?” Orion screamed again from across the ship.

This time I did not answer him, to tell you the truth I was not sure what to say to him. All I knew was that the number on the screen was going down and with every tick of the countdown; the ground was getting closer and closer. All I could think about doing at that moment was hugging Orion and telling him thank you for everything that he has done for me, and that happens to be exactly what I did. Both of us scared about what was going to happen to us next we closed our eyes and held tighter. Then all of the sudden the ticking stopped and we came to a halt, flying down onto the ground and feeling very sick.
“Are we dead? Did we crash? What happened? Maizey are you okay?” Orion’s endless amount of questions seemed to go on forever until I stood up and looked out the window amazed at what I saw my mouth dropped for the second time that day. What we saw was horrifying. Not a soul in sight, the land of Cromaro was gone, it had been destroyed, and suddenly the sick feeling in my stomach came back. Were coming for you dad, was all I could think about. Knowing very well that navigating through this mess of a planet to try to find him would be very difficult, I decided to show Orion the maps that my father had drawn up zenons earlier to look for places to program into the system to find where we would need to go.
“Wow, they are so detailed! Orion said.
“They are incredible aren’t they?” I responded, “What I have always wondered is how did he know where to look?”
Looking up from the maps Orion said, “Well, why don’t you ask him for yourself?”
“What?” I asked. Then following his light purple eyes out the window I saw a figure of a man walking toward us. It took all that I could not to break through the glass window and hug this mysterious man. Racing to the door of the ship, we lowered it and then rushed out to try to make out if this man was truly my father. By the time, he was and arms length away I was positive that this hairy, skinny, and very filthy man was in fact my father. Overwhelmed with emotion I froze and so did he.
“Father? Is that you? If it is mother says hello.” I finally said. My turquoise colored eyes filled with water and slowly began to leak, something that had never happened to me before.
“Yes Maizey it is me,” my father said the first words that I have heard cross his lips in the past eleven zenons.

At this, I began to sob uncontrollably. In the arms of my father, everything felt right again. I did not care about anything at all in those moments and as soon as he released me, I asked him on question.
“Well father did you ever find the treasure of Maka Makook?”
Looking at me with eyes full of love and compassion my father answered, “I have searched everywhere on this planet for this hidden treasure. From the mountains of Aeroschollis to the caves of the Skarps and in the end I did find the treasure I have been searching for.”
“Well that is great father! Where is it?”
He then answered, “Right in front of me.” With that, we set the Space Blaster 5000’s coordinates back for Zimba Mazoo, home of the greatest treasure of all, family.

Arriving home just before sunset on the third day, mother was waiting.
“Where have you been Maizey? It’s been almost three days!” she sounded quite upset with me.
“I am sorry mother but I told him that you said hello.” I replied with a slight grin.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.

Appearing on the staircase was Kelas, who suddenly froze in his tracks. Mother saw this and followed the gaze of his light purple eyes right out the doorway to the figure of a man approaching them.
Looking at everyone with love and compassion father said, “Hello to you to my dear, I am finally home.”

Discovering that the treasure that my father searched all of his life for was right in front of him I have realized that family is everything and that my place in this world no matter what planet I am on whether it is Earth, Cromaro, or Zimba Mazoo is with those that I love. On a far away planet unlike any other lived a sister, a brother, a wonderful mother, and now after a journey that changed our lives, a father as well.