by Mur Lafferty
Minecraft: The Lost Journals is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Mojang AB and Mojang Synergies AB. All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
MINECRAFT is a trademark or registered trademark of Mojang Synergies AB.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Lafferty, Mur, author.
Title: Minecraft: the lost journals / Mur Lafferty.
Description: New York: Del Rey, [2019] | Series: Minecraft
Identifiers: LCCN 2019007452| ISBN 9780399180699 (hardback) | ISBN 9780399180705 (ebook)
Subjects: | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / Survival Stories. | JUVENILE FICTION / Media Tie-In. | JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy & Magic.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.L224 Los 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019007452
Ebook ISBN 9780399180705
randomhousebooks.com
Book design by Elizabeth A. D. Eno, adapted for ebook
Cover art and design: Ian Wilding
v5.4
ep
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1: Might as Well Raise Mooshrooms
Chapter 2: Alison’s Dad Wasn’t Imaginative
Chapter 3: When Life Gives You Lava, Make Lava Juice
Chapter 4: You Can’t Shoot Lava
Chapter 5: A Stick, a Pickaxe, and Adventure
Chapter 6: The Difference Between Lightning and Lightening
Chapter 7: Boom, Surely
Chapter 8: Doom, Surely
Chapter 9: To a Wolf, It’s All Just a Game
Chapter 10: To the Victor Goes the Spoiled Meat
Chapter 11: The Locked Room Is Mightier Than the Sword
Chapter 12: The Enchanter with No Name
Chapter 13: Lies and Soup
Chapter 14: When Not to Act Rashly
Part Two
Chapter 15: Master Architect, Failed Enchanter
Chapter 16: Unnamed Helmet
Chapter 17: Bookcases in Your Back Pocket
Chapter 18: Not a Useless Skill After All
Part Three
Chapter 19: The Wrong Way
Chapter 20: Max’s Mom Taught Her Boy Politeness
Chapter 21: More Breaking and Entering
Part Four
Chapter 22: The Grandmother Journal
Chapter 23: New Uses for Cursed Armor
Chapter 24: Alison Is Boots All Over Again
Chapter 25: Alison and Max Wish They Ran Track in School
Chapter 26: Nicholas’s Terrible Armor Is Useful
Chapter 27: Ghast Tears Are Not Wolf Treats
Epilogue, or When We Know the Story Isn’t Over
Dedication
By Mur Lafferty
About the Author
Click here to view a transcript of this text
MIGHT AS WELL RAISE MOOSHROOMS
Orange and red heads bobbed up and down in the local cove, bleating as they surfaced and gurgling when they sank. Alison shook her head. The sheep had gotten loose and gone straight for the water. Again.
She crossed her arms and watched their fuzzy square heads appearing and disappearing in the water, showing no sign that they were considering coming to dry land anytime soon. What was with these sheep? They wanted to be in the water more than any sheep she’d ever known. Her parents had bred the animals for their coloring, but as far as she knew, they hadn’t tried to crossbreed with squid.
Speaking of squid: from the dark smudges in the water, the sheep had attracted some friends.
The sun hung high in the sky, so Alison had time to wade in and get them, but she hated swimming after the little monsters. Wet wool was the worst smell.
“Fantastic,” she muttered, pushing her sleeves up. She pulled some wheat from her pack and walked to the edge of the cove.
“What’s up?” came a voice over her shoulder.
She jumped and whirled. Her best friend stood behind her, head cocked. “Max!” she shouted. “Don’t do that. I thought you were a creeper!”
He shrugged. “Was I hissing? I just wanted to know what you were up to.” He leaned to look around her. “Oh…sheep swimming again?”
She was torn between pointing out the stupidly obvious and telling him to get away from the water. She decided on both. “Apple and Lil’ Prince got out again. I’m getting them back”—Max opened his mouth, but she continued, hurriedly—“alone, Max. Your mom will kill you if you go near the water again. And then she’ll kill me twice.”
He looked around with exaggerated focus, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. “Hm. I don’t see her anywhere. And I’m already near the water.” He edged closer and dipped his toes in, eyes squeezed shut. Then he opened them. “Did I die?”
“Not yet,” Alison said through gritted teeth. “Just let me get them out of there. If you want to help, go check their pen or something. Figure out why they got out again.”
Max took another step into the water, watching the animals splash around. Alison had to admit, the sheep did look like they were having the time of their lives in the cove. A squid had definitely joined them, its tentacles waving in and out of the water alongside the sheep’s brightly colored heads.
“You know they like me better than you,” he said. “You need my help.”
“That makes no difference, they’ll come if I’ve got food,” Alison said, exasperated. “And no, they don’t like you better.”
But they did. It really annoyed her that the red and orange line of her family’s flock liked her best friend and ignored her. Today was no different; they must’ve thought Max was coming to play with them, because the moment he was up to his knees in the water they bleated happily and began to swim toward him.
He hadn’t even tried to get their attention with wheat.
“Max!” came a loud shout, and Alison winced. She didn’t turn around. She knew that sound very well; Max’s mom made it all the time. “Get out of the water right now!”
She brushed by Alison without a word and ran into the water. Apple and Lil’ Prince bleated in panic and turned to escape, eager to get away from the rampaging, splashing monster that bore down on Max. The squid dove into the deep.
Max’s mom paid no attention. Max had barely begun to protest when his mom grabbed him around the middle and muscled him back toward the beach.
Max struggled. “Mom, it’s okay, I’m not drowning, I wasn’t going any deeper!” he shouted. “Alison needed help with the sheep!”
“I will not risk losing you again!” his mom said, tears already forming in her furious eyes. She dumped him on the sand and put her hands on her hips.
“You won’t lose me
!” Max said, but his last words were cut off with a grunt when his mom bent over suddenly and grabbed him again, wrapping him in a tight hug.
“Did you forget I almost lost you already?” she repeated, ignoring his struggles.
Alison looked away, embarrassed. In recent months, seeing others’ family closeness, even the weird closeness Max had with his overprotective family, made her uncomfortable.
“And Alison,” Max’s mom said, letting her son go and putting her hands on her hips again. “I thought you knew better.”
“Don’t yell at Ali, Mom,” Max said, stepping between them. “She told me not to go. I didn’t listen.”
“She should still take care of you. She’s older.”
“By less than a year!” Max protested. “I’m twelve, I don’t need her to be my babysitter.”
“We will talk about this at dinner, you two,” she said, then pointed at Max. “Don’t go into the water again.”
Max sighed. “Yeah, okay. I’ll go check the pens, Ali, and be really careful not to go near any water on the way. I don’t know what I’ll do about my spit, though. It’s pretty hard to avoid.” He spat on the ground and then sprinted away from it, arms flailing in mock panic.
“That’s not funny!” Max’s mother called as she watched him go, tears dribbling down her face. “I don’t want him near the water,” she reminded Alison—as if she’d forgotten.
“I know,” Alison said. “I don’t want to be near the water either. But the pen broke again, and I had to get the sheep back.”
Max’s mom wiped her cheeks and took a deep breath. Composed, she looked at Alison, pity in her swollen eyes. “Why?” she asked gently.
“Why what? Why do I need them back? Because they got out,” Alison said, blinking at her. “Why did the pen break? I don’t know. But I do know the sheep get out, and when that happens, you put them back in. My grandfather had a stupid saying about it, something like ‘When the sheep get out, might as well raise mooshrooms.’ ”
Max’s mom frowned. “That makes no sense. I meant why worry about the sheep? They’d do fine if you let them go wild. You don’t need to care for them anymore. We don’t need the wool, you don’t need the responsibility. There’s definitely no reason to keep breeding them, and fixing the pen just takes you back to your house over and over again. You could do without the memories, you know.” She put a little emphasis on over and over, reminding Alison that going back to her destroyed house wasn’t doing her any good. She patted Alison on the shoulder. “Think about it. I’ll see you at dinner.”
Alison stared into the water to avoid watching her go. The pen had been a ways from the house, through a copse of trees, so when she visited the sheep she didn’t actually see the ruined tree house that she used to call home.
She visited the pen often, trying to be responsible for the sheep. She felt she owed them that much.
But Max’s mom was right. They didn’t need the wool anymore. And Alison was wasting time and materials with frequent repairs on the pens, and losing whole afternoons running after the lost flock.
Then again, they were one of the few sources of joy in her life. She gazed out at the swimming sheep, who happily played with the squid, which had resurfaced and was playfully wrapping its tentacles around Apple. Lil’ Prince was trying to head-butt the tentacles that got near him.
Alison heard thumping steps behind her and, before she could turn around, Max was back, running past her toward the cove. With a whoop he jumped into the shallow water, making the biggest splash he possibly could have, and waded with high, galumphing steps toward the sheep, who greeted him with happy bleats.
Alison laughed and waded out after him, waving the wheat over her head. Even with the threat of getting in trouble hanging over them, Max could always make her laugh and forget about her problems for a moment.
ALISON’S DAD WASN’T IMAGINATIVE
Apple nibbled on the wheat Max offered as Alison surveyed his fix to the sheep pen.
“Don’t feed them too much,” she warned, not looking around at him. “They shouldn’t breed right now. I definitely don’t need any more lambs.”
“Aw, come on, you want a baby Apple, right?” Max said, patting the sheep. “Maybe make an Orange?”
“Not if Orange is going to be even more interested in escaping for an afternoon swim,” she said. “So…did you use my tools to fix the pen, or did you go…another way?”
Max glanced up. She was frowning at the large, bulky objects he’d chosen to patch the sheep pen with. “Oh, that. I just took some blocks and plugged the hole. I couldn’t find any wood. I made the fix two high just in case Big Blue started jumping again. That was right, wasn’t it?”
“But…” she waved her hand at the fence, at a loss for words. She looked around the clearing. Alison’s family’s farm was outside the village, near Max’s house, and their clearing was large, surrounded by tall trees. Her family’s ruined tree house lay around the bend, and Max noticed she always kept her back to that area, lest she remind herself it was there.
“You had plenty of wood! I gave you good tools!” she said, waving her arms at the trees. “But you just plugged the hole with…what is that?”
“It’s obsidian.” Max knew she had never seen obsidian in real life. It was too rare, and their parents would never let them play around lava.
She stared at him blankly and then started firing questions at him. “How is this a reasonable fix? It’s not even a fence anymore. And where in the Overworld did you get obsidian? And why would you waste obsidian on a sheep pen? If your mom finds out you’ve been messing with water and lava, she’s going—”
“—to kill me, I know,” he interrupted, grinning at her. “Mom will have to kill me lots of times if she finds out what I’ve been up to. Do you think she’ll be madder about the water, or the lava?”
There. He’d left her an opening. Ask about the blocks. Ask about where I’ve been. He waited for her to ask him more, but she just herded some of the sheep back into the pen while the other sheep (Big Blue, Old Blue, Light Blue, and It’s Okay You’re Gray, I Still Love You, or “Okay” for short) watched them warily. Most sheep avoided the water, and avoided those who didn’t avoid the water. Apple and Lil’ Prince didn’t care, though, munching on grain and dripping water on the grass. The air started to smell of wet wool.
Alison took her shovel from her pack and began digging in front of the fence. Max groaned. She was determined again.
“If you’re bored, why don’t you help me?” she said, tossing him her shovel and retrieving another one. “Dad always said moats were ugly. But I think it will be the easiest way to keep them in the pen.”
Max took a moment to admire the craftsmanship of the shovel she had tossed him. When she wasn’t fussing over the sheep, Alison had been throwing herself into crafting, making better and better tools every day. She had begun to dabble in armor creation, but only when they found enough materials, and there were rarely enough materials.
He got to digging, moving around the fence in the opposite direction from Alison so that they met on the other side, each having dug a one-block trench. “You going to fill it with water? Or better yet, lava!” he said, grinning.
“Not today,” she said, putting her tools away. “The trench will work for now.” She jumped out of it and sighed, dusting her hands off. She turned to him. “Well? Where did you find the blocks? I know you didn’t mine them, because you don’t have a diamond pick.”
Yes! She is interested! He chuckled in what he hoped was a clever and wicked manner. “I’ll tell you someday soon. And I was hoping you could make me a diamond pick.”
She began walking back toward Max’s house. “To mine obsidian you have to have a diamond pick. You need diamond to make a diamond pick, so you have to find diamond and happen to have an iron pick.”
“Which should be enc
hanted, I know,” Max said, rolling his eyes. She had told him this before. He knew they’d make a great team—she could make the tools and he could enchant them—but Alison for some reason always said that messing with enchantments was a bad idea. “But, you know, if you come across the means to make an iron pick, you could make one. That’s all I’m saying. And that’s another step toward mining our own obsidian.”
She had perked up when he’d hinted about having the resources necessary to make an iron pick. After a moment, she shook her head and laughed softly. “I guess I’m predictable. Should I ask your mom to grab me some diamond when she goes to the village to see your dad next week? And then you can tell me where to find this obsidian that needs mining.”
“I’ll tell you later about the obsidian,” he said. They were nearing his house, and if his mom overheard anything about mining, or enchanting, or doing anything else dangerous like breathing the air outside of the house, she would have another fit.
Max relaxed a little bit. He’d finally made Alison smile, a job he’d had to throw more and more effort into lately. He couldn’t blame her for her grief, though. A few months ago, his own family had gone through some unfortunate changes, and it had taken a while to get used to it.
On top of that, he never expected that Alison would become essentially his adopted sister. You expected your friends to hang out, have adventures, run from zombies if you stay out too late. You don’t expect them to come and live with you after a life-changing disaster like losing your home and family to an unexpected creeper attack.
Max had been grateful for her joining the family when she did, though. A few weeks before her tragedy, he had nearly drowned swimming in the cove, and ever since then his mom had been smothering with her concern for him. She’d even built a shed in the backyard to store all of their liquids away from the house, which Max thought might be a bit of an overreaction, though he’d never say that to her. When Alison came to live with them, stunned and grieving, it gave Mom somewhere else to channel all her worry, and Max was able to recover in peace. The best and worst part had been that Mom saw Alison as an older sister/babysitter—worst because come on, Max didn’t need a sitter, and best because he finally got to leave the house again, and with his best friend.