Chapter 13

Chapter 13 YOUR HOME IS YOUR CASTLE! YOUR CASTLE IS YOUR HOME! Jodi had been right. With Ash helping them, they finally made real progress on the castle. And more important, they all had fun doing it. They spent the first few days making a mineshaft. They were all nervous about it. But Ash insisted they needed more material to work with. She reminded them to be careful.

So they dug. They placed torches every few squares. They set up doors in case they needed to retreat in a hurry. That way, anything scary they encountered wouldn't be able to follow them back to the surface. A few times, they heard strange sounds in the depths. Those sounds were proof of hostile mobs underground. Whenever they heard something, they would put up a wall of dirt, turn around, and dig in another direction. They all had swords now, but as Ash put it, why fight if they didn't have to? It was a good strategy. It allowed them

to bring a lot more building materials up to the surface. And that meant fewer arguments about who got to use what. Over the following week, Harper went wild with the small amounts of redstone they found. She made a switch for the main entrance, and even a simple trapdoor in case an unwelcome mob ever made it past the moat. Po found a use for all the flowers they'd gathered. He arranged them all over the castle: around the exterior wall, within the interior courtyard, and even in little flower boxes up on the turrets. Morgan was in charge of the four main turrets. He made them all identical. But he let Jodi place different stained glass windows in each one. There was a fifth tower, too. This one was

obsidian and rose from the very center of the fortress. And it was all Jodi's. Whereas the castle turrets were straight, this tower was twisted like a spiral. At its top was a wide platform for stargazing. The platform was surrounded with decorative arches. It was certainly strange, but she thought it was beautiful, too. As she was putting on the finishing touches, a thought occurred to her. "DID WE EVER FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT CHEST FULL OF OBSIDIAN?" she asked. "I thought Po took it," Morgan said. "A BASE KNAVE I WOULD BE TO STRAY SO FAR FROM THE RULES OF CHIVALRY!" Po said. "WHAT?" said Jodi. "He said he didn't take it," said Harper. "THAT'S WEIRD." Jodi said. She wondered if they had finally found one of the glitches Doc had warned them about. She hoped all the obsidian wasn't glitchy. What if her obsidian tower disappeared one day? After nearly two weeks of daily progress, Jodi had just one more task to accomplish.

This was something she and Ash had been working on in secret. One day, when the others were in the mineshaft, Ash took Jodi aside and said, "It's ready." They snuck away to a hidden plot of land. It was a sunny patch of ground on the far side of a hill, set right against a lake. The others couldn't see it from the castle. That made it the perfect spot for a secret garden. Ash and Jodi had planted wheat seeds there a few days before. Jodi said, "YOU'RE RIGHT! THE WHEAT LOOKS READY TO HARVEST." But wheat wasn't the surprise they had in mind.

Jodi and Ash waited at the top of a hill. They watched from a distance as Morgan and the others emerged from the mineshaft. "WHERE HAVE YOU TWO BEEN?" Morgan called. "WE FOUND SOME GREAT STUFF!" Jodi turned to Ash. "Are you ready?" Ash nodded. "YEP." They walked down the hill toward the others. They each held out a stalk of wheat.