Chapter 4

Chapter 4 EVERY JOURNEY STARTS WITH A SINGLE STEP. EVERY STEP STARTS WITH AN ELECTRICAL IMPULSE Before Harper learned to make things, she had learned to take them apart. It was the best way to see how things worked, after all. By the time she'd graduated from elementary school, Harper had pulled apart a toaster, a vacuum cleaner, two laptops, and an old TV. It was done under adult supervision, of course. Not that her parents knew much about electronics. Her mother was a painter, and her father was a sculptor. Mr. Houston's specialty was turning trash into objects of beauty. He'd needed circuit boards and TV coils for his projects. So Harper had been able to help him, while satisfying her own curiosity about gadgets.

Knowing this did not make it any easier to take apart her own work now. But materials were scarce, and she needed redstone dust. The quickest way to get it was to dismantle the lever mechanism she'd made for their castle's front door. "Done," she said, and she held up her newest creation for all to see. Morgan recognized it at once. "A compass!" he said. "Good idea, Harper." Jodi, however, was skeptical. "Are you sure we need it?" she asked. "The sun rises in the east and sets in the west here, just like in real life. Couldn't we use that to navigate?" "Ah, but a MINECRAFT COMPASS is special," said Harper. "This will always give us the way to the world spawn point." "The what now?" said Jodi. "THE WORLD SPAWN POINT. It's where we appeared on our first day here," Morgan explained. "And since we built our castle quite close to that

point…" "We'll always be able to find our way back here," said Harper. "Just in case we want to see your sculptures again. OR OUR SHEEP!" "Yeah, about the sheep…," Morgan began. "Yes?" Harper prodded. "Well, I've been wondering…" Jodi asked, "Why are you being so sheepish?" Then she laughed at her own joke. Morgan wasn't laughing. Finally, he blurted, "Do you think maybe we should eat them?" The girls gasped. "EAT BEAU?" said Jodi. "And Beep?" said Harper. "We're going to need food out there," Morgan said. "That means we're probably going to have to

get meat from animals." At the girls' shocked looks, he added, "They're not even real! They're just sparkly pixels and a few random bits of computer code." "MMM…SOUNDS DELICIOUS," Jodi said sarcastically. She rubbed her belly for effect. "Real or not, we're not eating animals that we've named," Harper said. "Or that I gave to you as a gift!" added Jodi. "Beep represents our sibling bond!" "Okay, okay," said Morgan. "I'm sorry I brought it up. But we should bake bread before we leave. AND WE SHOULD GATHER AS MANY APPLES AS POSSIBLE WHILE WE'RE EXPLORING. We'll need them." "And we'll need to be smart about who carries what," said Ash. She and Po were walking toward them. "We've just gone through all our chests and discussed what to take…and what to leave behind."

"I hate to leave anything behind," said Po. "But we can only carry so much." "Well, save a slot for this," Harper said. She held up an iron sword. "Ooh," said Po. "That's quite an upgrade." "I'm making one for everybody," said Harper. "I hope we don't need them. But I'd rather be prepared."

They headed north, toward the obsidian letters, then turned west toward a range of snowcapped mountains. They decided the mountains would give them a good view. From there, they could decide their next move. They were moving steadily uphill, which meant they had to jump frequently. There were no gentle slopes here. The elevation increased whole blocks at a time. Soon they were high enough that patches of snow appeared on the ground. Every time their path took them by a low tree, they would swipe at the leaves. They were lucky and found several apples in a matter of minutes.