Raymond Mayweather and the Cold Planet

by Daniel Errico

Raymond Mayweather tuned up his ship.He checked every latch, and he fixed every drip.

It was time for his voyage to deep outer space. As always, he hoped to find some unknown place.

Raymond’s ship hurtled into outer space.  He flew past all of the other planets he had visited. He took the Galactic highway to the very end. He flew further into space than he ever had before! 

Eventually, he came upon a small blue planet. As he got closer he realized that the entire planet was covered in ice. He set his ship down on a landing pad and was greeted by a small blue creature covered in fur.

Raymond put his arctic snow suit on and hopped out of his ship.

“Hello there!” said the furry creature, “Thank Goodness you’re here. Do you have our the tilber we need?”

Raymond was a bit confused.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what tilber is. I am Raymond Mayweather, space traveler and arctic-adventurer extraordinaire.”

“Oh that is disappointing.,” said the creature as they both walked into a large igloo-shaped building.

Raymond was not used to such a cold welcome, and he needed to warm up. When they got inside he found that it was not any warmer than outside!

The fuzzy creature was sitting around a table surrounded by more furry creatures. Raymond decided to call them ‘fruzzies’, in his space log. 

“Excuse me,” said Raymond, “But what is tilber? Each planet has a different name for things. Maybe I do know where some tilber is.”

“Tilber, is the what we use to heat our planet. We burn the tilber and it keeps us warm. We ran out of all our tilber days ago. I sent for more, but no other planets have any for us. As Supreme Chancellor of this planet, it’s up to me to find more tilber.”

The other fruzzies around the table started to throw out ideas to help.

“Mr. Chancellor, sir,” said a stern-faced fruzzy, “As head of your military, I suggest we attack another planet and take their tilber!”

“It is not their fault that we ran out of tilber,” said the Chancellor, “No.”

“Mr. Chancellor, sir,” said a female fruzzy with long frizzy hair, “As head of your Chief Scientist, I say we build rockets and use them to push our planet closer to the sun. It might be a good idea to build some brakes too…”

“Our planet is fine where it is,” said the Chancellor,” and rockets need tilber to run.”

“Dad!” said a young fruzzy, “I think the best idea is to give everyone thermometers that say it is warmer than it really is. That way they’ll think that they are warmer.”

It was then that Raymond spoke up.

“Mr. Chancellor, sir. These are all interesting ideas. But, if you have any tilber at all, I can study it back on my ship. If there is none left anywhere, then maybe I can find something just as good. “

The Chancellor agreed took Raymond behind the building to where the tilber used to be stored. The other fruzzies argued over which idea was best and the Chancellor’s son was winning.

Behind the building, were three hollow mountains with no tops. 

“These are the containers that we use to hold all our tilber. They used to be full but now they are empty. You might be able to find a piece of tilber at the bottom.

Raymond noticed some creatures much larger than the fruzzies, standing around nearby.

“Who are they?” asked Raymond.

“Ah, those are the balders. They shovel the tilber into our furnaces. Since we ran out of tilber, they have nothing to do,” Said the Chancellor.

Raymond climbed up the nearest mountain to peek inside.  When he got to the top he realized something.

“These are space volcanoes!” Raymond thought to himself. As usual, this gave Raymond an idea.

When Raymond slid down the mountain the Chancellor asked him, “Did you find andy tilber?”

“No I did not,” said Raymond, “but I have a plan! These balders have shovels…do you think they could do some digging?”

The Chancellor was confused but listened to Raymond’s plan. It was a better plan than invading a planet, better than driving the planet into the sun, or giving out trick thermometers!

After all the work was done, Raymond and the Chancellor called all the fruzzies and balders together.

“Good creatures,” said Raymond, “we have solved the tilber problem”

All of the fruzzies thought that their idea had been chosen to save the planet.

“You’ve been storing your tilber inside space volcanoes. And as any good space traveler knows, all it takes to wake up a space volcano is some space pepper. And I never leave Earth without space pepper.”

Raymond walked to the top of the volcano and sprinkled some space pepper inside.

The space volcano grumbled and rumbled, and started to shake.  Raymond slid back down and watched. There was a loud, “AH CHOO,” and space lava started flowing down the mountain!

The balders had dug a large moat around the planet which collected the lava and kept everyone safe. Almost immediately the planet began to warm. 

All of the fruzzies and balders cheered. The Chancellor’s son was even cooling off in the snow. After a celebration they carried Raymond on their shoulders back to his ship.

“Thank You!” said the Chancellor. “Please come visit us again, soon.”

Raymond waved goodbye and bid them farewell. 

Raymond Mayweather tuned up his ship.He checked every latch, and he fixed every drip.

He hurried on home, where the temperature’s right,

And he cranked up the heat for his long return flight.