Field Trip to the Taiga

by Greyson Mann

  Also by Greyson Mann

  The Creeper Diaries

  Mob School Survivor

  Creeper’s Got Talent

  Creepin’ Through the Snow: Special Edition

  New Creep at School

  The Overworld Games

  Creeper Family Vacation

  Creeper on the Case

  The Enchanted Creeper

  Mob School Swap

  Secrets of an Overworld Survivor

  Lost in the Jungle

  When Lava Strikes

  Wolves vs. Zombies

  Never Say Nether

  The Witch’s Warning

  Journey to the End

  This book is not authorized or sponsored by Microsoft Corp., Mojang AB, Notch Development AB or Scholastic Inc., or any other person or entity owning or controlling rights in the Minecraft name, trademark, or copyrights.

  THE CREEPER DIARIES: FIELD TRIP TO THE TAIGA.

  Copyright © 2019 by Hollan Publishing, Inc.

  Minecraft® is a registered trademark of Notch Development AB.

  The Minecraft game is copyright © Mojang AB.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or info@skyhorsepublishing.com.

  Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

  Visit our website at www.skyponypress.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Special thanks to Erin L. Falligant.

  Cover illustration by Amanda Brack

  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-5107-4103-4

  E-book ISBN: 978-15107-4122-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  Day 1: Friday

  Day 2: Saturday

  Day 3: Sunday Morning

  Day 3: Sunday Night

  Day 4: Monday

  Day 5: Tuesday

  Day 6: Wednesday Morning

  Day 6: Wednesday Night

  Day 8: Friday Morning

  Day 9: Saturday

  Day 10: Sunday

  Day 11: Monday Morning

  Day 11: Monday Night

  Day 12: Tuesday Morning

  Day 12: Tuesday Morning (Still)

  Day 12: Tuesday Afternoon

  Day 12: Tuesday Night

  Day 13: Wednesday Morning

  Day 13: Wednesday Afternoon

  Day 13: Wednesday Night (I Think . . .)

  Day 14???

  Day ???

  Day 15: Friday

  DAY 1: FRIDAY

  Some mobs like to hop a minecart and head somewhere WARM in the middle of winter. Like my big sister, Cate. She’d be sunning herself in the Nether right now if she could—I mean, if Dad would let her.

  But me? No, thanks. I’m not really a beach or dessert kind of guy. Oops, I mean I’m not a DESERT kind of guy. I’m definitely a DESSERT guy. I’d eat Mom’s burnt apple crisp every night of the week if I could. But I’m for sure NOT a sand, camel, or cactus kind of guy. I went to the desert once for a family vacation, and let’s just say that didn’t go so well for me.

  Anyway, when our science teacher Mr. Carl said we could SKIP SCHOOL for two weeks and take a “scientific” field trip to the Cold Taiga, I was like, “Um, WHAT now???”

  Two weeks in the snowy Taiga? Two weeks of skipping school and sipping hot cocoa? Two weeks of building igloos and snow golems? Two weeks of SLEDDING? Seriously??? I thought I’d died and gone to creeper heaven.

  I practically flattened every other mob on my way to the sign-up sheet. I mean, here in the plains, we get snow like once a year. I wasn’t going to miss out on TWO WEEKS of winter. NO way.

  But I had one teensy problem. Mom wasn’t crazy about the idea of the field trip. She said there weren’t enough wool sweaters in the Overworld to keep me and my twin sister, Chloe, warm in the Taiga this time of year. And Mom should know—she made like a gazillion of them when she was on her knitting kick last year.

  But Dad had a little talk with her. (Sometimes the old guy really comes through for me.) He said, “Honey, Mr. Carl will take good care of the kids. Besides, this will be the PERFECT way to use your new tablet. You can post messages to Gerald and Chloe on the field-trip blog!”

  Well, Mom’s not big on technology, so she’s not exactly a whiz with that tablet. But then my big sister, Cate, showed her all the ways she could stay in touch with us, like by posting photos on Instagolem or videos on Snapghast. She could write 140-character hisses on Hisser, or create an account on Faceblock, or . . . the list went on and ON.

  Well, I owed Cate BIG for that one. I mean, I was pretty sure Mom was never going to use those apps. She’s not really a social media kind of mom, thank Golem. Plus, I also happen to know that kids my age aren’t supposed to use any of those apps—well, except for Snapghast Kids.

  But I figured it was the PERFECT time to ask Mom and Dad for a phone. All the mobs my age have them—except me and Chloe. Even Ziggy Zombie has his own phone!

  His screen is crusty and disgusting, but still . . . So I asked Mom how she planned to stay in touch with me and Chloe if we didn’t have our own phones in the Taiga. Genius, right?

  Mom thought about it hard. I could almost hear her brain hissing. And then she and Dad had a long talk about it—a long QUIET talk. I couldn’t make out a single word of it, no matter how many times I crept past the living room.

  And finally, FINALLY, Mom said yes to the field trip—and yes to the phone. But only to ONE phone that Chloe and I could share. GREAT.

  Chloe shares about as well as my baby sister, Cammy. If you so much as sneak a crispy potato off her plate, the little creep blows sky-high.

  So I already knew Chloe was going to hog that phone—especially when Cate pointed out that Snapghast was having a photo contest for school-aged mobs.

  I guess if you post a photo every day in March AND post the most creative photos, you can win. And Chloe? Well, she never passes up a chance to beat other mobs in ANYTHING.

  I didn’t care so much about the contest myself. Not at first. But get this: I found out that the winner of the contest gets (drumroll here . . . ) a brand-new phone! And it’s a WAY better phone than the one Mom and Dad are buying for me and Chloe to share. (They’re kind of cheapskates when it comes to stuff like that.)

  So now it’s game on. Chloe wants to win the contest, but I’M really the creative creeper in the family. I’m always drawing and writing rap songs, so I’ll probably be pretty good at taking photos too—I mean, if I can ever pry the phone away from Chloe.

  If I can’t, I have a backup plan. My buddy Sam will let me use his tablet. It’s not great for taking photos because it’s pretty much as big as my head and hard to hold on to. But hey, if it helps me win the contest, I’m all over that tablet.

  So right now, as we speak, I am flying along in a minecart with Sam, heading toward the Taiga for FIFTEEN DAYS of fun and photo taking. (If my writing gets sloppy, DON’T JUDGE. The track is really bumpy.)

  It takes TWO days just to get to the Taiga. And I can hardly wait to get out of this cart. I mean, I love Sam and all, but the slim
e has a way of taking over a space. He’s spilling out EVERYWHERE.

  Plus, he’s already chatting with his cat Moo on his tablet—or at least trying to.

  One of Sam’s little brothers is chasing Moo around with a phone, but Moo doesn’t seem all that interested in “chatting.” Every time I look at Sam’s tablet, all I see is cat butt.

  GROSS.

  I guess I should be glad Sam decided to sit with me instead of with his girlfriend, Willow Witch. Mr. Carl said we all had to buddy up, that his number-one rule on this field trip was to “stay with the group or a buddy at ALL times.” That’s fine by me. If I stick close to my buddy Sam, I can grab his tablet at the first sign of an award-winning photo opportunity!

  Ms. Wanda, our other chaperone, added a rule too: that we had to learn at least ONE new thing every single day. She actually wants us to write down what we learn—to keep a list. But who’ll have time for LEARNING and making lists when we’re so busy DOING things?

  So I’ve decided that I’m not going to let any rules get me down. I’m going to have fun. I’m going to have adventures! And I’m going to record it ALL on Snapghast.

  The only problem? My Evil Twin keeps trying to psych me out about the wild critters in the Taiga, just like she did on our family road trip last summer. She’s using OUR phone to send messages to me on Sam’s tablet.

  DING!

  DING!

  “I heard that packs of vicious wolves run WILD in the Taiga! Just sayin’ . . .”

  DING!

  “You mobs better build a decent igloo—you know, to keep out the POLAR BEARS.”

  I pretty much never let my Evil Twin see me sweat. But she’s CRAZY good at planting seeds in my head (like the way Mom plops seeds into the garden and sprinkles them with bone meal to make sure they grow). One minute, I’m not thinking about anything. Then Chloe says something, and it starts to GROW in my mind. And suddenly it’s the ONLY thing I can think about!

  I mean, I don’t think killer rabbits are real. That’s just Chloe blowing smoke. And wolves? My buddy Eddy Enderman has a wolf named Pearl, and I’ve hung out with her a few times. We’re not exactly pals, but I don’t think she’d rip me to shreds either.

  But polar bears? They’re a WHOLE other story.

  Sam saw Chloe’s message and got all excited about the polar bears. “Maybe we’ll see bear cubs!” His eyes got all gooey, like they do when he’s loving up his cat Moo. But Sam is NOT thinking this one through.

  See, I read somewhere that if you get too close to polar bear cubs, the Mom and Dad polar bears turn on you. And ALL their polar bear friends do too, like a pack of zombie pigmen. Well it just so happens that I, Gerald Creeper Jr., was CHASED by a pack of zombie pigmen during the Overworld Games last year. And just thinking about that day makes me want to hurl.

  Wait. I think I’m ACTUALLY going to be sick.

  Yup. Definitely going to be sick.

  BLECH.

  Sorry about that. I get cart sick whenever I take long rides in minecarts. The good news is, Sam just slid WAY over in the seat to give me more room—and he stopped blabbing about polar bear cubs. But I’m going to have to stop journaling pretty soon and focus on the tracks ahead. (Mom says that’s supposed to make me feel better.)

  DING!

  Speaking of Mom, Sam says she just posted a photo of me online. “You’re wearing your mushroom sweater!” he said, all happy like.

  GREAT. Thanks, Mom. Thanks a lot.

  Mom knit that sweater for me last year when I was going on a field trip to Mushroom Island. She COVERED it in mushrooms. Well, I’d rather freeze to death in the Taiga before letting anyone see me in THAT sweater. But now, thanks to Mom, EVERY mob in the Overworld already has.

  If she’d posted it on Snapghast, it would have disappeared by now, quick as a ghast in the Nether. But she didn’t. She’d posted it on the field-trip blog, where EVERY kid in these minecarts—and a couple of grown-ups too—would be sure to see it. She even added a message: “I hope my boy Gerald is wearing his favorite sweater. Stay warm, sweetie!”

  PERFECT.

  Mobs are snickering in the carts behind me.

  “Stay warm, sweetie!” That was Bones, the most annoying spider jockey in the Overworld. I think he just flicked something at the back of my head, but I am NOT going to turn around.

  I’m not going to let ANYTHING stand in the way of me having fun on this field trip. Not Bones. Not Chloe. Not polar bears. Not Mr. Carl’s or Ms. Wanda’s rules. Not Mom’s embarrassing posts. Oh, and DEFINITELY not cat butt.

  Nope. I’ve got a plan. And it goes something like this:

  DING!

  ARGH. I can’t even look. Delete! Delete!

  What I learned today: Keep your eyes OFF the screen and focused on the tracks ahead.

  DAY 2: SATURDAY

  GLUB-GLUB-GLUB . . .

  That’s the sound I woke up to last night. I hollered at Chloe to get her hands out of my squid Sticky’s aquarium and to get out of my room.

  Then I remembered I wasn’t IN my room. I was in a minecart, cruising toward the Taiga. And it wasn’t Chloe making all that noise. It was SAM.

  I asked him what his problem was. Did he have gas? Had he eaten a hunk of cheese? (The slime is lactose intolerant, which means he can’t eat cheese. Well, he CAN, but he really shouldn’t.)

  And you know what he said? He said that he wasn’t the one making the noise—that it was my MOM. She’d posted a video on our field-trip blog. And guess who it was for?

  Yup. Me. Lucky me.

  “Hi, Gerald! Sticky the Squid says hello!” She waved at me with one of his tentacles. “He crawled out of his tank and into your bed yesterday. I guess he misses cuddling with you. XXOO Mom”

  There were so many things wrong with that video, I didn’t even know where to start. FIRST of all, I have NEVER cuddled with my squid Sticky. SECOND, Cate really needed to teach Mom that group blogs are NOT the place to post personal videos. THIRD, had Mom forgotten that she had a daughter going to the Taiga, too? Didn’t she want to post embarrassing photos and videos about CHLOE? Like EVER?

  You know, if Chloe were paying attention to all of Mom’s posts, she’d be upset about that. Because it’s PROOF that Mom loves me more.

  Anyway, I’m AWAKE now. I just snuck a peek behind me and caught Bones, that bully of a rattler, making fun of me. His bony friend sitting in the cart next to him started laughing so hard, I thought he was going to lose his head. I could almost picture that skull bouncing away down the tracks.

  Then I saw where we were. And shivered.

  See, sometime during the day while we were sleeping, we entered the Ice Plains! They’re these frozen fields FILLED with ice spikes. Some of them are super tall and twisty, like ice sculptures. WOAH.

  Chloe is back there using OUR phone to take pictures. She’s all about winning that Snapghast contest. I’d fight her for the phone, but by the time I got it, there wouldn’t be an ice spike left in sight—that’s just the kind of rotten luck I have.

  So I reached for Sam’s tablet instead. I tried to take a shot of the Ice Plains as we zoomed fast, but the tablet kind of slipped, and I got a photo of Sam’s green mug. Oh, well. Not ALL my photos on Snapghast were going to be winners.

  So I decided to write a rap about the ice spikes instead.

  I know, it’s not my best work, but Chloe is really getting on my nerves. I need that PHONE.

  Anyway, we MUST be getting close to the Taiga now. I think I see snow falling on Ziggy Zombie’s green head in the cart in front of me. (Wait, no. That’s just dandruff.)

  DING!

  I didn’t want to look, but Sam gasped, so I kind of had to. Chloe had posted a picture on Snapghast of a polar bear. An ANGRY one.

  YIKES!!!

  I’m not gonna lie—I practically jumped into Sam’s lap when I saw that. I figured the bear was chasing the train. “Faster, Mr. Carl! Fire it up!” I might have hollered back toward the furnace cart. I could almost FEEL that bear’s hot bre
ath on my green neck!

  Until Sam pointed out that the polar bear in the photo wasn’t even IN the Ice Plains. He was on a snowy mountain. So Chloe had found the photo online and posted it JUST to freak me out. REALLY???

  The girl had WAY too much time on her hands. So I came up with a genius idea to keep her busy. I borrowed Sam’s tablet and poked out a message:

  Mom. Chloe thinks you don’t love her anymore. You really should start posting pictures and stuff about her online. Signed, your favorite child and Chloe’s loyal and supportive brother, Gerald

  SWOOSH!

  That was the sound of my message flying home to Mom through cyberspace—and the sweet sound of victory. While Chloe was busy dodging Mom’s posts, I’D be busy dodging snowballs and building snow golems. YAAAASSSSSSSSSS!!!

  What I learned today: To keep Chloe out of my head, I have to beat her at her OWN game.

  DAY 3: SUNDAY MORNING

  TINK-TINK, RATTLE, TINK-TINK . . .

  That’s the sound of skeletons chattering their teeth, trying to get warm. Bones and his gang of spider jocks really weren’t built for the Taiga. But I WAS!

  As soon as the minecart stopped moving this morning, I jumped out to find the best photo ops. But I couldn’t even decide where to START. On one side of the wooden cabins was this super thick forest of spruce trees. On the other was a frozen pond.

  I picked the trees, because it had been a LONG time since our last bathroom break—and because I figured polar bears hung out near water more than they did in the woods. But Mr. Carl stopped me in my tracks. “Stay with a buddy, Gerald! That’s our number-one rule!”

  RIGHT. I didn’t love the idea of dragging Sam into the woods with me, but at least the slime was wide enough to cover me while I did my thing. And he had his tablet with him, in case we spotted something awesome in the woods. Plus, if we ran smack into a polar bear, it would probably sniff out Sam first. (I mean, the slime looks like a ginormous green fish.)