Chapter 7

Chapter 7 Nine Out of Ten Piglins Agree: The Best Seat in the House…Is a Boat! Nothing was going on. Ash muted her connection to the others for a moment and groaned where only Eek could hear. Their simple Nether base was done several times over and had a boat in every open space. She'd added three extra stone walls around it—she told Eek it was for safety, but really she just needed something to do. There was another burst of laughter on the line from the others at Ironsword. Ash sighed. Eek jumped on top of the fourth safety wall in progress and looked down at her. "What is wrong, Ash?"

"Nothing." Ash placed another block. "Oh, wow!" Eek said. "Neat!" "What's neat?" "I do not think I have ever seen lying before." Eek sounded impressed. "It is amazing to watch." Ack! She was not expecting him to notice. "I wasn't lying! Nothing's wrong!" "Wow! I did not know I had this sensor. There is a part of my brain that is saying Lie detected! over and over." He paused. "Wait, perhaps it is an error. Try telling the truth this time."

In real life, Ash closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. "I wish I could be out there with them. Or that they were in here. Or something. I told you already that I live in a different place— the truth is: I've lived in a lot of different places. We move a lot for my mom's job. It's happening again right now." "I can tell that is the truth." Eek jumped emphatically. "I think my sensors are calibrated correctly. Now try lying again." "It doesn't bother me," Ash said. "I'm one hundred percent fine. I don't feel like I'm always playing catch-up. I never worry that if they stop playing Minecraft, I'll lose my only group of friends who've stayed with me across multiple homes. My life doesn't feel, sometimes, like I'm starting a new game over and over and over. I'm not jealous that they can all hang out, and laugh, and get in trouble together. And when I take my headset off, I'm just…alone." "It works! Those are lies," Eek said. He jumped off the wall and sat down in the closest boat. "I

think I understand." "You do?" Jodi's voice came through their connection: "No, Prince Pellets! That's not food!" And then another burst of laughter. Eek looked thoughtful. "Until now, I did not think about how you have a whole life outside of this world. I imagined that you were sleeping, like your avatars, until you came back and woke up.

But you are going to school, playing, and talking to friends and moms? This is your life?" Ash sat next to Eek. "Yeah." "Then we are alike in this way, too. I feel like I am playing catch-up on an entire world. My head is full of words and knowledge, but I have never gone to school. I am not sure how to play. The closest thing I have to a mom is the Evoker King, who I will never meet."

"Dad, I think," Ash said. "But it doesn't matter." "The skeleton is gone. You are all my only friends now. And when you take off your headset, I am alone, too." Ash hadn't thought of it that way before. She knew Eek was different from the other parts of Minecraft, but she had still been thinking of him as a program more than a person. He was a person, and he had the same feelings she did, somehow. "Look what I found in Prince Pellets's cage!" "A vampire pigurine?! Look at its fangs and cape!" "I must stay out of ze sun, or I vill become bacon!"