The Shipwreck: An Official Minecraft Novel

by C. B. Lee

  Nita giggles as she snaps a few of them and then busies herself with filters and shows Emily and Pattie a few options before Pattie approves the final.

  Emily realizes that she’s missed this, how nice it is spending time with Pattie and Nita. She’s missed Pattie’s endless stream of ideas and Nita’s ridiculous puns, Pattie’s charming confidence and Nita’s constant affirmations, how they always had a way to turn a boring afternoon into one filled with excitement and joy. And they are friends, even with all the doubts and insecurities and games in this relationship.

  It’s just like before with the three of them, except they’re here now in Emily’s space.

  Pattie and Nita haven’t said anything about the run-down apartment complex yet.

  The two girls are sitting on Emily’s floral bedspread, looking all around her room. A room that they’ve never been in, despite the many times they’ve hung out together. Emily shifts nervously as they take in the details: the fairy lights strung up above her bed, the messy closet, the desk cluttered with Polaroids and her camera sitting proudly on top.

  Emily realizes with a start that amongst the mix of photos of nature and architectural elements she’s been snapping all summer there are also a bunch of random pictures of Jake and Tank: Tank wearing a weird hat they’d found and Jake laughing in the background; Jake dancing with a mop; Tank holding up a bouquet of daisies he’d picked on one of their walks, grinning and pointing at the flowers; and one of the three of them wearing the matching masks Jake brought, their eyes shining with the smiles hidden behind the fabric.

  Guilt seeps into her when she thinks about the way Jake’s lip wobbled as she walked away. Looking at the photos, Emily feels a pang of sadness. Sure, sometimes they were annoying, and trying over and over to defeat the Leviathan absolutely sucked, but spending time with the boys, playing Minecraft with them…it was nice, not having to hide that part of herself.

  She sweeps the photos into an open drawer, quickly hiding them from view. It was nice, but it’s back to reality now. It’s all for the best, anyway. Her heart feels like it’s shattering into a million pieces, but it’s better like this, to hurt now rather than spend more time pretending that she can have it all.

  With Pattie and Nita back, she knows it would have been only a matter of time before they found her out, and it’s not like she could have led a double life.

  “Sorry it’s such a mess,” Emily says.

  “Oh no, I love your setup!” Nita squeals.

  Pattie nods her approval. “We should film here. The lighting is so perfect, and this background with the curtains you have would be so, so gorgeous.” She glances at Emily quickly before scrolling through her phone, but she doesn’t say anything about the apartment after Emily didn’t respond to her question about moving.

  It’s a test. It has to be. She has to know Emily was lying the whole time about where she lived. But Pattie doesn’t say anything else about it.

  Emily shrugs. “Oh, it’s just that your house is so beautiful, I always thought it was the best setup for filming your videos,” she says casually. “And you have that classic minimalist decor, it really goes well with all the haul videos, and this is just so cluttered.”

  Pattie laughs. “Well, we can do other types of videos here!” She squeals in delight. “Em, we have so much to catch up on! First, I have so many ideas for your channel.”

  Emily’s heart sinks as they dive right back into plans for YouTube. She can’t even enjoy that Pattie wants to actually feature her because she realizes that while she loves planning outfits with her friends, she’d really rather just hang out than pretend to be into working on a YouTube channel.

  “Aw, this is adorable! Did your little sister draw this?” Nita flips through a colorful book on Emily’s bedside table.

  Emily takes the book Nita offers her—oh. It’s the mermaid book that kid from the center drew a while ago. She’d taken it because she thought the twins would enjoy looking at the pictures, and Mama was asking for more picture books to read to them, but she’d forgotten about it.

  “It’s something one of the kids in the community center drew back when it was a thing,” Emily says. “I thought it was cute…” She trails off, her fingers lingering on the page.

  In green and black crayon, clearly outlined, is the Leviathan.

  Emily rereads the story, her heart racing.

  “Sorry, I forgot I have to do this thing,” Emily says. “Can we hang out another time?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  JAKE

  “Did you know that Isabella is Mrs. Jenkins’s daughter?” Jake asks Dad over dinner.

  He’d gone right back home after she caught him watching her from the bushes, her sharp eyes following like a hawk. There was no way he could go back to the center with her watching him like that, especially after they were supposed to be done.

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. It’s been a major pain for this whole project, since she doesn’t want anything to do with her mom,” Dad says.

  “Why?”

  Dad sighs and looks at his plate. “Something to do with Ellen not really being around when she was a kid.”

  Jake pokes at his food, twirling spaghetti onto his fork until he can’t get any more wrapped around the utensil. “The community center and these apartments—did Isabella grow up here? Why would she want to change everything?”

  Dad shrugs. “Bad memories, I guess. She wants to turn it into something new, something better.”

  Jake thinks about the photo of the girl in the pictures, looking up at her parents, and wonders what could have happened.

  “Did you know the community center used to have all these programs and stuff? I found lots of old photos and articles while cleaning it out,” Jake says. “There were, like, beach cleanups and camping trips and kids were there all the time.”

  Dad nods. “Yeah, it sounds like it was great back in its heyday. Back in Seattle, when Isabella first hired me as the project manager for this complex, we talked a bit about the designs and she asked me for any input given my experience. One of the first designs I submitted had a place for a center like that, but Isabella hated it immediately. I think she resented the fact that her mother spent more time with those other kids than she did with her, but I don’t know the full story.” He gives his spaghetti bolognese a sadder look than it deserves. “Look, you know that I’m trying my best, right?”

  “I know, Dad.” Jake looks down at his plate.

  “You know, at the beginning of the summer I said a lot of things, about spending time together and everything. I know we weren’t able to go to that Dodgers game like I said, or go to the beach, but I’ve been really busy. I know that it probably just sounds like excuses to you, but I’m serious. I know after your mom passed away, I wasn’t…I wasn’t great.” Dad gulps, his chin wobbling. “I was just running away, you know? Anytime it would feel too close to what we used to have, it would scare me.”

  Jake’s always thought Dad was larger than life, maybe because he hung out with all these tough people who built things and worked hard making cool stuff. He’s always been in charge, an intimidating man who gets his way, one who always has an answer.

  Now he looks nervous and small the way he hunches his shoulders and looks up at Jake.

  “I get it,” Jake says. “I think I was like that, too. New schools, new people. I’d always start out wanting to talk to people and trying to make friends but didn’t bother keeping it up because I knew we would move again. I didn’t want to get attached to anyone, so I didn’t really give anyone a chance.”

  “I’m so proud of you,” Dad says. “The way you jumped into this service project, and making friends with Emily and Tank—they’re good kids. Like you’re a good kid.”

  Jake doesn’t feel like a good kid. He feels terrible. It was his fault Emily and Tank left; they didn’t like the pl
ans, he shouldn’t have been so pushy about them, and now the center is going to be destroyed and they’re never going to be able to finish the game.

  His eyes blur with what definitely aren’t hot tears. Jake jabs at his plate with his fork and twirls a gigantic mass of noodles before shoving them into his mouth. The spaghetti sticks to the roof of his mouth, and Jake thinks about how Dad used to just order takeout for him or leave him money to fend for himself. But tonight he watched a dozen YouTube videos to figure out how to make the sauce from scratch, and then asked Jake to make the noodles with him. It had been fun and totally new and different and Jake doesn’t know what to do with this Dad who tries. Now they’re going to stay in this place and Jake’s ruined it, ruined it all with his friends.

  He takes another bite and just chews and nods so he doesn’t have to talk.

  “You know you can talk to me anytime, okay? Doesn’t matter. I know I might not understand everything, but I sure am gonna try.”

  Jake swallows. “Dad, I think I messed up.” The story tumbles out in bits and pieces: finding the server, playing with Emily and Tank, becoming friends—or so Jake had thought—and then their fight that morning. Jake’s voice wobbles.

  “You can ground me. I know that the service project was supposed to be a punishment, and instead we’ve just been playing this game.”

  Dad chuckles. “I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit—it sounds like you and your friends got all the work done to organize things for Ellen, and you also discovered a great game.”

  “Right.” Jake sighs. “But now there’s no point. Everyone hates me, and there’s no way we can save the mermaid kingdom before the whole place vanishes completely.”

  “Sometimes people say things they don’t mean,” Dad says. “I think your friends will understand. Just apologize to them and be honest and tell them exactly what you told me.”

  It can’t just be that simple.

  Can it?

  * * *

  —

  Jake knocks on Tank’s door, his heart pounding nervously. He paces back and forth, the apology thick in the back of his throat.

  The door opens and Vivian looks curiously up at him. Jake looks at the ground, dragging his shoe awkwardly. “Hey. Um, is Tank home?”

  Viv shakes her head. “Hanging out with Shark, I think.”

  “Oh.”

  “Want me to tell him you stopped by?”

  “I’ll text him, I’ll—” Jake doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t want to apologize over text message. “I’ll just come back later.”

  He leaves the West Tower and cuts through the courtyard to the North Tower, bounding up the stairwell and down the hallway toward Emily’s apartment. He knocks and waits, wondering if she’s spending time with her other friends, too. Everyone has someone they’d rather be with than you, he thinks glumly.

  The door opens, and Emily’s older sister Carmen looks down at him with a bored glance. “Hello? Oh, it’s you,” she says. “Emily isn’t home.”

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?” Jake asks nervously. He could text her, but he feels like this is important to do in person.

  “No idea. Bye.” She rolls her eyes and shuts the door, leaving Jake to his thoughts.

  He walks toward the stairwell when a light on in the community center catches his eye.

  Jake races downstairs and runs across the courtyard, his heart skipping as he slips between the crack in the chain-link fence and ducks under the caution tape. He throws open the door to the computer lab.

  It’s empty, but one of the computers is on. Jake frowns, looking around. “Hello? Is anyone here? Emily? Tank?”

  He sits down. The Minecraft window is open, like someone had been playing recently.

  Jake eagerly logs in when he sees the notification on the loading screen that one player is already in the world. Maybe Emily and Tank weren’t ready to let this go. The fact that they came back here must mean something, right?

  He spawns on the strip of sand inside the cavern underneath the castle. He looks at the other two beds with a pang of sadness, thinking about his friends and how much they’ve gone through together to solve this. There’s no one around the little area, but they could be somewhere else in the world.

  The recent chat log doesn’t have anything except the last time the three of them logged out together…except for one new line that makes Jake’s heart skip.

  TheCrestWizard has joined the game.

  Jake looks around. The Wizard hasn’t shown up since that first time he attacked them, but they’ve been playing this game, following his clues. Why appear now?

  < MCExplorerJake > hello? wizard?

  < MCExplorerJake > we’ve been fighting the leviathan. Is there any way to defeat it?

  < TheCrestWizard > Of course there is.

  < MCExplorerJake > is there one riddle we’re missing? What do we need to do?

  There’s no answer.

  Jake dives down toward the ocean monument and follows the pathway. He has to see the Leviathan one more time, to see if there’s any clue he’s missed. If the Wizard is here, surely it’s to help them.

  < MCExplorerJake > you built that shortcut through the Nether, you’ve helped us before. Is that why you’re here now?

  Jake opens the door at the end of the pathway. Outside, standing just before the stretch of sandy field, is the Wizard, staring out toward the mermaid kingdom.

  < MCExplorerJake > hey! are you here to play with us? Let me get my friends!

  < TheCrestWizard > There is no point. I made this game so many years ago, but I don’t remember how to defeat this creature I created.

  < MCExplorerJake > you don’t have notes or anything?

  < TheCrestWizard > I have gotten rid of so many things that reminded me of the past. I’m sorry.

  Jake stares at the avatar; it’s just a collection of pixels, but the Wizard seems to be lost in thought, staring off into the distance.

  < MCExplorerJake > but you’ve helped us before!

  < TheCrestWizard > Do you want to see the end? I can just bring you there.

  Just teleport into the kingdom? That’s no victory. Jake wants to be a part of the story, to save the merfolk from this monster.

  < MCExplorerJake > no way! that would just defeat the purpose of playing the game

  < MCExplorerJake > I just feel like we’re missing something!

  < TheCrestWizard > I don’t remember where it is or how to get it. I could just look through the code, but that would take ages. And the renovation is beginning tomorrow, and they’re ripping out the land lines. There’s no point.

  The Wizard steps forward, and the sequence happens exactly how Jake has seen it happen so many times before: The crack opens and the Leviathan rises. A single blast of power emits from its mouth, catching the Wizard before an attack can even be made.

  TheCrestWizard was slain by Leviathan

  Jake stares. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but that certainly wasn’t it. Is the Wizard just giving up?

  TheCrestWizard has joined the game.

  < TheCrestWizard > Thank you for the adventure.

  TheCrestWizard has left the game.

  The Leviathan lunges at him, eyes glowing bright red. Jake disconnects before it reaches him, and then sits back against his chair in a defeated slump.

  The Minecraft opening screen lingers, waiting for his choices on how he wants to play. The evocative music seems to mock him now.

  The door flies open.

  “There you are!” Emily says, wide-eyed and gasping for breath, holding a notebook in her hands. “Why weren’t you home?”

  “You went to my apartment? I went to your apartment!” Jake blinks at her. “Your sister said you weren’t home.”

  Emily approaches him, her eyes lit up with excitement as she
waves the book in the air. “I found something—I—” She falters, hesitating as she stops a few steps away.

  They look at each other for a long moment, and Jake takes a deep breath. His dad’s words echo in his head, and he thinks about Ellen and her daughter and how they can’t even talk to each other. He doesn’t want to have regrets like that, he doesn’t want to miss out on having friends.

  “I’m sorry,” Jake says.

  “I’m sorry!” Emily blurts out at the same time.

  They take a second to laugh, and then laugh again when they both make gestures for the other to continue. It’s a little awkward, but Jake’s glad to see her smile a little.

  “I didn’t mean what I said, you know,” Jake says. “I think your gamer style is awesome, Emily. It’s way different than what I’m used to, but it works for you.”

  “I think your style is cool, too,” Emily says. She looks at her feet nervously and then back at Jake. “I really like hanging out with you and Tank, but Pattie showed up and I was so frustrated with the Leviathan and the game ending…”

  Jake nods. “I get it. And I know I’m a loser…you don’t have to hang out with me at school if you don’t want to.”

  Emily shakes her head. “You know what? I’m going to figure this out. Like you said, it’s not like there’s a limited number of slots for friends, right?”

  “Right,” Jake says. “Friends?” He puts his hand out to Emily for a fist bump, and she knocks knuckles with him, smiling.

  He grins back, thinking about the first time all three of them had played together. They fit together like clockwork, solving the riddles, each of them bringing a different strength. Emily’s fighting skills, Tank’s patient problem-solving—

  “I gotta talk to Tank,” Jake says. “He probably hates me.”

  “Let’s go find him,” Emily says. “Especially since I think we can solve the puzzle.” She flips open the notebook she’s holding—the crayon drawings of the mermaid story they’d found a while ago. “This look familiar?” Emily flips open to a page featuring the Leviathan. A single mermaid stands in front of it, holding a gleaming golden trident.