The Shipwreck: An Official Minecraft Novel

by C. B. Lee

  It attacks what’s in its line of sight, Tank remembers.

  Tank fires at the Leviathan with his bow to distract the beast, and it roars and turns to him, aiming another blast just as it takes a hit from one of Jake’s arrows. He and Jake alternate their strikes as Emily gets another shot in. The sluggish speed of the arrows underwater used to mean they could barely cause any damage before it destroyed them with its blasts, even with the three of them drawing its attention. But now all Jake and Tank have to do is distract it long enough for Emily to attack, and they’re actually still here, still fighting even after this long.

  “Throw it!” Isabella says. “That’s how tridents are most effective!”

  The Leviathan roars, charging right for Emily as she throws the trident. It arcs in the air, gleaming, and spears the Leviathan in the eye.

  For a brief second, nothing seems to happen, but then a crack of golden light begins to form from the wound, expanding as the whole beast splinters into pieces of light. Small items rain down onto the ocean floor and as Tank swims closer he realizes they’re all pieces of kelp and seaweed.

  Jake takes a deep breath next to him. “Did we do it?”

  A great cheer comes up from the merfolk from the wall. They gather around the three of them, their happy voices overlapping.

  “I think we did,” Tank says. “Let’s go see the kingdom.”

  They swim forward past the no-longer-necessary wall into the kingdom. Sea lanterns flicker and sparkle as they wander through the graceful towers and monuments decked out in greens and golds. Celebratory music sounds out all around them, and merfolk pirouette past them in a joyous flurry.

  All the tension and nervous energy they’ve seen every time they’ve glimpsed the kingdom before is gone. Now, swimming through the prismarine archways, Tank can see in detail the way the buildings are stacked one upon another, columns stretching out from the ocean floor. Banners and lanterns wave in the ocean current, wrapping around delicate towers built of colored glass. Sponges dot the landscape, and outcrops of colorful coral flourish, and, in the distance, a grand sparkling palace awaits.

  Tank’s never had the patience for long-term goals before, isn’t even sure if he’s ever completed one. Maybe now he can try, knowing he’s done it before.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  EMILY

  Emily exhales, grinning at Jake and Tank, who both still seem stunned that they’ve made it here. She turns around to see Isabella watching them with a soft smile on her face. “Thank you,” she says. They couldn’t have solved this without her—the whole last riddle was all a reference to her specific childhood, a song she used to sing.

  “You’ve been playing this for weeks?” Isabella asks.

  Emily nods.

  Isabella takes a deep breath. “I’m going to go talk to my mother. Thank you for showing me this.”

  She smiles at the three of them and wipes carefully at her face before leaving them. The door shuts, and then they’re alone in the computer lab.

  “What now?” Tank asks. “We beat the game.”

  Jake is still mesmerized by the movement of the merfolk swimming around him, wandering through the village. “This place seems super cool. I mean, I bet each of these mermaid villagers have like, a job or role! I wonder what we could trade with them?”

  “We solved the mystery, though,” Emily says. “This whole time we’ve been wondering: Why is this game here? Who built all this stuff? And it’s been Ellen, this whole time, trying to connect with her daughter.”

  Jake leans back on his chair, tilting precariously. “Yeah. It’s pretty cool. I think that’s pretty amazing.”

  “What do you think is going to happen to the community center?” Tank asks.

  “I think that’s up to Isabella,” Emily says. “But whatever happens, it’s going to be okay. You know, we can always start a new world.”

  Jake brightens. “Oh yeah!” He falters, tapping his fingers nervously on the keyboard. “Would you—would you still want to play with me?”

  Tank nods. “Of course.” He looks at Emily, as if he’s still unsure.

  “I said a lot of things,” Emily says. “I didn’t mean it, that we weren’t real friends. I was just scared of losing my old friends.”

  “Do you feel like you can be yourself around them?” Tank asks. “I realized, like, Shark and those guys, they’d always laugh at me for the kind of stuff I like.”

  “I hope you know I just like spending time with you,” Jake says. “We could be cleaning and joking around and it’s still a good time.”

  “Me too,” Emily says. “I feel like I don’t have to pretend to like anything I don’t like. I can just like the stuff I like.” She elbows Tank playfully. “Like just building pretty things. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  Tank brightens up, his face breaking into a smile that completely transforms him. Emily feels protective of this boy twice her size; he’s got such a good heart and he cares so deeply, but people struggle to look past his size. “Thanks. This has been the best, you know. I’m kinda glad I was stuck here cleaning with you guys.”

  Jake laughs. “Well, now that we’ve finished this, we can just hang out! Play Minecraft, go get tacos, anything!” He reaches out for a high five.

  Emily slaps his open palm, shaking her head. She used to think Jake’s earnestness was annoying, that he was naïve, but she appreciates his positive attitude, the way he can get so excited about anything. It makes her excited about things, too.

  “Do you guys like action movies?” Tank asks. “Or like”—he frowns, like he’s trying to remember the word—“go-karts? At Fortress Park?”

  Emily laughs. “That sounds fun. You know when school starts, if you want, we can eat lunch together sometimes.”

  “I’d like that,” Tank says.

  Emily disconnects and turns off her computer. One by one, the machines power down, and the three of them exit into the empty lobby. She knows whatever comes next for this place, it won’t matter. The magical thing that happened here, how they were able to connect and become friends, that’s beyond a building now. She loops her arms with Jake’s and Tank’s, walking side by side with them into the courtyard.

  Outside, Isabella is pacing back and forth in front of the apartment next door to the community center. She sees the three of them and pauses.

  Emily gives her a thumbs up.

  Isabella smiles, fixes her hair one more time, and knocks on the door.

  She hesitates, looking down at her feet, tapping her heel nervously, and then the door opens.

  * * *

  —

  Emily feels like she’d tried on half of her closet before she found the right outfit to face Pattie. She isn’t sure what she expects from this meeting, but she wants to feel strong and capable and ready, like putting on armor.

  She’s still not sure how she feels about Pattie knowing where she lives, and she doesn’t know what to do about the fact that the sight of Pattie still makes her smile, that she still remembers all the good times hanging out, how Pattie always knows which ice cream she likes and always sends her cool new videos on photography techniques or sends her photos she might like.

  Pattie smiles at her from outside the side entrance as Emily unlatches the gate and lets her in. Mrs. Anderson is parked across the street and waves at them both, watching Pattie slip inside.

  Emily wonders if Pattie asked her mom to wait because this would only take a minute, if she knew what was coming. Emily was pretty vague in her text, just a simple Do you want to hang out?

  “Sorry for all the mess, it’s been a construction zone here forever,” Emily says. “They’re taking their time on the renovation plans for this front building.”

  “Oh, no worries,” Pattie says breezily. She pauses to study the projected model of the new complex and the simple printed
sign that reads REDESIGN COMING SOON.

  “Come on, this way.” Emily leads Pattie down the alleyway into the center of the complex.

  Pattie prances into the courtyard after her, the skirt of her dress fluttering prettily as she sweeps in.

  Today Pattie is wearing a sleeveless floral-print sundress with boots, set off with chunky jewelry. At a glance Emily knows that the dress was from last summer, the attempt to update the look with the necklace doesn’t quite work, and the boots are definitely an autumn look and overcomplicate the silhouette. Emily would have suggested strappy sandals and a simpler necklace. The overall affect is a bit rushed, and Pattie’s lipgloss is smudged. She also looks kind of cold, shivering in the early evening air.

  Maybe a few months ago Emily would have deliberated over and over in her head the perfect way to compliment Pattie while at the same time pointing out the flaws in her look, playing into the endless back-and-forth for approval that she’d worried was the core of their relationship. Because in Emily’s mind, that doubt, that insecurity, those little games of power and dominance they played were always simmering in the background.

  And she’s tired. She’s tired of wondering if her friends like her for who she is, and she’s ready to talk about it. No matter what happens, even if she loses her spot in Pattie’s inner circle.

  Emily turns around, wondering if she should just dive in and explain and get it over with, and is pulled into a close hug.

  Pattie giggles, drawing her close. “It’s so good to see you! I’m so glad you had time to hang out today! I’ve missed you!”

  Pattie grasps both of her hands and jumps up and down, and her excitement is infectious, and Emily lets out a laugh.

  “I’ve missed you, too,” Emily says. “Hey, I’m sorry about last time. I was being weird about, like, you finding out where I lived. I didn’t mean to hide it from you. I was just embarrassed.” Emily kicks her heel awkwardly against the tile, looking very carefully past Pattie and not meeting her eyes.

  Pattie raises one manicured eyebrow and pulls back a little to place her hands steadily on Emily’s shoulders. “You think I care where you live? Seriously?”

  Emily had been playing a game for so long that Pattie’s abrupt statement takes her by surprise. Emily used to replay every interaction, think about every move, every comment, every single possible hidden meaning. But now, thinking about it, Emily wonders if she did that because she thought she had to, and if there was ever any hidden meaning at all. Maybe Pattie just says what she thinks, and she’s been Emily’s friend all along.

  Emily blinks.

  “Really?” She’s has been avoiding this moment for so long—Pattie at her apartment complex, her real apartment complex, in all its glory, faded paint and ripped chain-link fence. It feels oddly anticlimactic, talking about it for the first time. Pattie’s just looking at her and shrugging it off like it’s nothing.

  “I care more about the fact that you thought you had to walk somewhere else! Come on, you could ruin your shoes. Seriously, it’s way easier to pick you up from here.” Pattie huffs. “So. There’s a double feature at the Annex. Nita can’t drink a Slurpee without getting brain freeze, and there’s no way I can finish one on my own. I wasn’t sure what you wanted to do, if you wanted just me-and-you time, which we can do here or we could go out to a movie, whatever. Just let me know, and my mom can either drive us, or I can tell her to go home.”

  “I—” Emily doesn’t know what to say; she’s completely bewildered. She’d been prepared to have to explain even more about why, that Pattie would say they couldn’t be friends anymore, but there’s only this, an awkward sidestep around the whole issue. And…an invitation? Pattie still wants to hang out with her?

  Pattie smiles at her and maybe for the first time Emily isn’t looking for the thorn under the rose, for a hidden meaning or backhanded compliment. It’s a real smile, stretching from ear to ear. Pattie doesn’t want to prove anything. She’s just really happy to be here.

  “The movie starts at four. If we leave now we have time to get ice cream at that place you like.”

  “Hey, um—”

  Pattie pauses, looking back at her.

  “Look, when we hang out—I used to freak out, all the time. Worry if I was good enough, you know? And it’s fun helping you with your channel and stuff, but I don’t really care about having my own.”

  Pattie gives her a long look that could possibly stretch to infinity. Emily can feel her palms start to sweat, and she feels suddenly nervous, starting to babble. “It’s not that I don’t like the haul videos and putting together cute outfits and stuff like that for you—I just—I don’t like it as much as you do. I’d rather just hang out and, like, go explore and go to the mall and stuff with you. I like finding cute stuff but it’s not, like, the same for me as it is for you. I actually don’t care about being a YouTuber at all, really.”

  The admission hangs in the air, and for a moment Emily thinks it’s all over, that Pattie will scoff and tell her they can’t be friends anymore, that they never were friends, really. She takes a deep breath and tells herself it’s okay, that she’s done all she could, and saying this—spending her time the way she wants to—is more important than what Pattie thinks of her.

  “Oh! That’s great. Glad you figured that out. You know I went through three different versions of my channel before I figured out what I wanted to focus on?”

  Emily shakes her head, relief flooding through her.

  “Was that it? You were afraid of hanging out with me because you don’t like something I like?”

  It feels silly now that she says it aloud, but Emily nods.

  “Friends don’t have to like all the same things, you know. And come on, I don’t care about any of the Final Fortress movies, but Nita loves them. And it’s been weird without you, you know?”

  Emily throws her arm around Pattie’s shoulder and lets herself relax. It’s as if a huge weight has been lifted off her. She thought she had to choose—that she could only be that girl who was friends with Pattie and Nita and liked finding cute dresses and makeup and loved putting together cute outfits, or the girl who liked to charge headfirst into danger in Minecraft and find all the hidden pieces of treasure.

  “All right, let’s go.”

  “So what have you been doing aside from your community service stuff? Bet you’ve been bored out of your mind without us.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ve actually been playing a lot of Minecraft.”

  “Oh, that game with the blocks?”

  “It’s really fun, you can build things, or go on adventures…Wanna try it sometime?”

  Pattie smiles. “Sure. As long as you won’t laugh if I’m bad at it.”

  “Aw, never. And it’s not like there’s a point system or anything. It’s not a competition at all. I’ve actually been playing with some new friends—Jake and Tank. They’re really cool. If you want to ever hang out with everyone. It could be fun.”

  “Sounds good.” Pattie grins, leading the way. “Let’s go, my mom is waiting! Do you wanna call Nita?”

  Emily grins as she follows her friend out to a new adventure. She thought she could only have one kind of friend. Turns out, she’s got plenty of space for all of them.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  JAKE

  Jake groans as he picks up the ball from the ground and tosses it back to his dad. “Come on, what are you aiming at, my feet?”

  “You have to be flexible!” Dad laughs. “You never know where a ball’s going to be, all you can do is prepare for it.”

  The next toss is a high arch that Jake has to back up to catch, and he tumbles back, back, back through a bunch of shrubberies and grabs the ball just before it sails through a window.

  “Nice catch,” Ellen says from behind the open screen, taking a sip of tea from inside her apartment.

&
nbsp; “Thanks,” Jake says. “Oh, Dad wanted to know if you wanted to join us for dinner?”

  “I’d love to. Isabella is also coming over. Can she come, too?” she asks. She slowly approaches the door, opening it and stepping outside, watching the sun setting over the distant city.

  “The more the merrier! I’m going to go get started,” Dad says, ruffling Jake’s hair. “I’ll see you two later!”

  “How are you doing?” Jake asks. It’s been a week since they solved the last puzzle in the game. He hasn’t seen any construction work start on the site, and Dad hasn’t said anything about it, either.

  “Good,” Ellen says, holding her tea gingerly. She smiles at Jake, her eyes dancing and full of life. “You know, when you kids first found the server, I hadn’t thought about the world I created in so long. I was rather upset, just like when you all found those photos. I hadn’t wanted to think about my life, my failures.”

  Jake tosses the ball a little into the air and catches it. “You did attack us and steal all our stuff,” he says, teasing.

  “I gave it back,” Ellen says, chuckling a bit. “I realized you three were serious about playing. Of course, the whole world was meant for Bella, but she never even knew about it. We hadn’t spoken for years, not since the fight we had when she left for college. She already wanted nothing to do with me by then.”

  “You were busy with the community center?”

  “That was always Christopher’s forte. He loved it, and then his cancer was rough on all of us. But I helped out a lot, and the three of us—we had so much fun.” She sighs. “And then I had to keep working, keep everything afloat, and…I lost perspective.”

  Jake reaches out to touch Ellen tentatively on the shoulder. He’d spent so much time thinking she was mean when she was sad and lonely the whole time, missing her daughter. “I know it’s hard. My Dad couldn’t…we never talked about it, either.”

  “You two look pretty happy now,” Ellen remarks.