Chapter 14

Chapter 14 A Hint of Things to Come! Because in Minecraft, We Never Stop Building. Ash blinked furiously. The light had blinded her, but only for a moment. As her vision returned to her, she realized she was no longer in Minecraft. She was back in the Woodsword cafetorium, surrounded by students and scouts, all of them removing their headsets and rubbing their eyes. "Oh," said Ash, and she realized her own headset was blinking red. She didn't know much about electronics, but blinking red lights were usually not good. And Theo's computer was smoking and shooting out sparks.

"I'm on it, kids!" said Hope. "Nobody panic!" As Ash watched, Po's cousin doused the computer with a fire extinguisher. That took care of the fire hazard. But Ash figured the computer was ruined for good. Theo didn't seem worried. "Did we do it?" he asked. "Did we succeed?" "I don't know what just happened," said Shelly. "But it was awesome." "Right?" said Po. "Nice job, prez!" Morgan turned to Harper. "Why did we get booted from the game?" he asked.

Harper held a magnifying glass to the circuit board she'd welded to her sunglasses. "The whole network was overloaded. It burned out." She put the glasses back on her face. "These are nothing more than shades now." "I think my headset is broken, too," said Ash. "That might have been our last hurrah." "But did we fix the game in time?" Jodi asked. "Did we save the Evoker King? Did we fix Minecraft?" "It looked like it," said Theo. "But we can't know for sure until we get access to the library's computer." "That might take a few days," said Ash. "We still have a lot of work to do at the library." "Then we'll have to wait," said Morgan. He watched as the kids around them all discussed their adventure excitedly. They

didn't seem to mind that it had been cut short. "And we just have to trust that we did everything we could," he added. The very next morning, Morgan was right back in the cafetorium. The school staff had pulled out the bleacher seats, and several teachers and administrators were on the stage. Mr. Mallory was there, too. "Does this have something to do with the library?" Morgan asked his friends. Theo shrugged. Po yawned. And Harper said, "Shhh! The assembly is starting." Ms. Minerva welcomed them all, and she reminded everyone about the flood at the library and the smashed school lab. (As if anyone could forget.)

Morgan's mind began to wander. And then he thought he heard his teacher say "iron sword." "What was that?" he said, a little too loudly. Jodi chuckled. Ms. Minerva clucked her tongue. "As I was saying, the storm system has passed. But the damage done to the school and library was more extensive than we hoped. It will take some time to make repairs, and we have no choice but to close an entire wing of the school."

"School's canceled?!" asked Po. Ms. Minerva crossed her arms. "Absolutely not." Doc leaned over and took the microphone from Ms. Minerva. "What my verbose colleague is trying to say is this: To avoid overcrowding our classrooms, some Woodsword students will be attending another local school for the rest of the school year. And they'll be joined by a few familiar teachers."