Creeper Family Vacation Read online

  Also by Greyson Mann

  The Creeper Diaries

  The Creeper Diaries

  Mob School Survivor

  Creeper’s Got Talent

  Creepin’ Through the Snow: Special Edition

  New Creep at School

  The Overworld Games

  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: CREEPER FAMILY VACATION.

  Copyright © 2018 by Hollan Publishing, Inc.

  Minecraft® is a registered trademark of Notch Development AB.

  The Minecraft game is copyright © Mojang AB.

  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.

  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 [email protected].

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

  Minecraft® is a registered trademark of Notch Development AB.

  The Minecraft game is copyright © Mojang AB.

  Visit our website at www.skyponypress.com.

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  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: 978-1-5107-3115-8

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-5107-3117-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  Day 1: Sunday

  Day 3: Tuesday

  Day 4: Wednesday morning

  Day 3: Wednesday night

  Day 5: Thursday

  Day 6: Friday

  Day 7: Saturday

  Day 8: Sunday

  Day 9: Monday

  Day 10: Tuesday

  Day 12: Thursday morning

  Day 12: Thursday morning (continued)

  Day 13: Friday

  Day 14: Saturday morning

  Day 14: Saturday night

  Day 15: Sunday

  Day 16: Monday

  Day 17: Tuesday

  Day 18: Wednesday

  Day 19: Thursday

  Day 20: Friday morning

  Day 20: Friday night

  Day 21: Saturday

  Day 22: Sunday

  Day 24: Tuesday

  Day 26: Thursday

  Day 27: Friday

  Day 28: Saturday

  Day 29: Sunday

  Day 30: Monday

  DAY 1: SUNDAY

  FAMILY. VACATION.

  Those are two words I don’t usually like to put together.

  Don’t get me wrong—I love my family and all. But hanging out with my three sisters isn’t exactly my idea of a “vacation.”

  My oldest sister, Cate the Fashion Queen, is always moping around about some boy she is or isn’t going out with. My youngest sister, Cammy the Exploding Baby, blows herself up CONSTANTLY. The girl has zero self-control. And my Evil Twin, Chloe? Don’t even get me started.

  But I don’t really want to hang out here at home all summer either. My buddy Sam the Slime is already getting on my nerves. I mean, I can only watch him loving up his cat Moo so many days in a row. Did I mention I’m not a huge fan of cats?

  Plus, every time I show up at Sam’s house, his girlfriend is there, too. I like Willow Witch and all, but sometimes a guy just wants to hang with his buddy—like the old days, when Sam and I would jump on his trampoline, just the two of us, for HOURS. That trampoline is getting pretty crowded these days, let me tell you.

  So I’ve kind of been warming up to this vacation idea. Especially when Dad said he’d let us VOTE on where we wanted to go.

  Well I didn’t even have to THINK about it. If I could go anywhere in the Overworld, I’d go to the desert. Not because I like the heat—I don’t. It makes me itchy. And I DEFINITELY don’t like cactuses or cacti or whatever you call those poky plants that grow there.

  But see, the desert is the home of my favorite rapper of ALL time: Kid Z. He lives in a desert village called Sandstone. And if I could meet him, well … I’d probably never ask for anything again in my whole entire creeper life.

  So Dad called a Creeper Family Meeting so we could all vote on our vacation ideas. And let’s just say that me and my sisters didn’t exactly 100% agree.

  For starters, Cate said she wanted to go to the Nether. SERIOUSLY??? Who wants to lie out on a LAVA beach in the middle of SUMMER, when it’s already scorching hot???

  Turns out, Cate did. And all because of a BOY—her zombie pigman boyfriend, if you must know all the gory details. It’s a new relationship, but if Dad has anything to say about it, it’ll be the SHORTEST relationship in history too.

  Chloe, on the other hand, was all about hiking in the Extreme Hills. I don’t know if she REALLY wants to go there, or if she’s just saying that because she knows how much I DON’T want to go there. But can you blame me? I mean, what’s so fun about falling to your death in an abandoned mineshaft? Or getting bitten by a poisonous cave spider? Just saying … it wouldn’t be my first choice.

  Then Mom and Dad piped up with their OWN ideas. Well, I sure didn’t see that coming.

  Mom said she wanted to vacation in the jungle, where she could find rare seeds and vines to bring home and plant in a garden. A GARDEN? I don’t know where in the Overworld she thinks she’s going to plant THAT. I mean, she’s already turned our backyard into a BARNyard. Sock the Sheep has munched up most of the grass. And then there’s that ginormous chicken coop, which is like Mom’s second home.

  Plus, I happen to know that the jungle is full of ocelots—big, fierce wildcats. And did I mention I’m not a fan of cats?

  Dad must have been thinking the same thing, because he changed the subject so fast, Mom didn’t even know what was happening. He said HE was hoping to get some cave camping in during our vacation.

  CAVE camping? Where do creepers get these crazy ideas, anyway? I kind of wished my parents would start talking about the garden again. But nope, Dad was ALL about pitching a tent in a cave.

  I could see it already: me waking up in my sleeping bag with a CAVE SPIDER stuck to my face. Ah, no thanks.

  So I knew I REALLY had to push for my desert idea. I started singing my baby sister’s favorite Kid Z rap song, because I knew she’d start singing it too. “See?” I said. “Cammy wants to go to desert, too!” And who’s going to argue with a baby who’s about to explode with happiness at any moment?

  But my other two sisters were ready for battle too. Cate was wearing a T-shirt that said “Nether or BUST.” And Chloe pretty much busted right there on the spot—or BURST, anyway. She said if she didn’t
get to go to the Extreme Hills, she’d be so disappointed she’d keep blowing herself up (as if that’s any different from any OTHER day around here).

  I could tell Dad was bummed that none of us were going for his cave camping idea. (As IF.) But then he got all excited and said he’d just had the BEST idea ever. Instead of vacationing for two weeks and only seeing a part of the Overworld, he said we should go for FOUR weeks and see LOTS of things.

  “We’ll ride the rails across the Overworld!” he said. “Across the plains! Through the jungle! Over the Extreme Hills! Down to the desert! We’ll see it all! I mean, EXCEPT for the Nether. It’s way too hot this time of year.”

  Cate crumpled when she heard that. I kind of felt bad for her, but I felt pretty great for myself—because I was going to the DESERT. I was going to meet Kid Z! FINALLY!

  We’re leaving on Tuesday, so now I’m in my room packing. Dad said we can only bring a few things. Well that sent Cate into another funk, because the girl doesn’t travel lightly. She needs her WIGS, she said. Her MAKEUP! Her SKINS!

  I’m not worried about packing, because I only need ONE thing—this journal. By the time I meet Kid Z, I’ll have written the best rap song of all time in this trusty journal.

  I AM worried about a few other things though. Like … How am I going to survive four weeks in a tiny minecart with my family? Sometimes our HOUSE isn’t even big enough for the six of us.

  And … will my pet squid Sticky be okay? Sam offered to watch him, which I appreciate. But Sam isn’t always the most responsible slime. What if Sticky gets loose in the swamp?

  And … what am I going to EAT for the next month? See, I’m really a roasted meat and potatoes kind of kid. But Mom says she can only pack so much food. She says we might have to “live off the land.”

  I gotta say, I’m not loving the sound of that. It didn’t help when Dad said he’d bring his fishing pole. I mean, I like smoked salmon, but what are the chances of Dad catching salmon everywhere we go? I’m going to end up eating poisonous pufferfish if I don’t plan this whole thing right.

  But my biggest worry? Well, let’s face it. That would be … SURVIVAL. Am I gonna make it out of this vacation alive? I mean, I like to think I’m a brave kind of creeper. But who knows what kinds of critters we’re going to run into out there in the wild?

  Chloe’s already saying things to freak me out, like “Bet you can’t wait to meet a few ocelots in the jungle, Gerald,” and “Don’t you just LOVE sleeping with cave spiders?” That girl really knows how to light my fuse.

  So it’s time to come up with a serious survival plan, something like this:

  I’m kind of kidding about that last one, but not TOTALLY. I mean, bad things happen, right?

  That’s why a creeper has to have a plan. And besides, if I get to meet Kid Z at the end of this 30-day trip, I’ll make it. I can survive ANYTHING.

  DAY 3: TUESDAY

  So we’ve been riding the rails for what feels like ages. I want to ask Dad if we’re almost there, but I’m trying to keep my mouth shut.

  See, the last two times I asked, Mom shot me The Look. (You know the one.) And it’s WAY too early in the trip to get on Mom’s bad side.

  Things started out okay. Dad filled up the furnace cart with charcoal and tossed our luggage into the chest cart. He was all happy and whistling, maybe because everything actually fit.

  But then it was time to choose our seats. At least I THOUGHT we’d get to choose our seats. But see, Mom and Dad already had that all worked out.

  Dad said he and Mom would ride in front with Cammy. So I figured Cate and Chloe could take the middle cart, and I’d take the back. If you ask me, I was being pretty generous. Everyone knows that the front carts are the smoothest ride and the back carts are the jerkiest.

  But Dad said that Chloe would be sharing the middle cart with ME—that Cate could have the back cart all to herself! I guess he was trying to get back on Cate’s good side, because she was still moping about not going to the Nether—and because Dad only let her bring one wig along. Sometimes parents are SO unfair.

  Anyway, as soon as we hit the powered rail and took off toward the jungle, Chloe and I started fighting. She thought I was hogging the seat, but how’s a creeper supposed to write in his journal when he’s all squished up against the side of the cart?

  Then Dad started singing this song: “99 Bottles of Potion on the Wall.” It was kind of dumb, but kind of catchy too. Mom started singing, and Chloe joined in, and even Baby Cammy bopped her head to the beat. Before I knew it, that song was coming out of MY mouth.

  If anyone from Mob Middle School had seen us flying down the rails singing that song, I would have died of mortification. But the only critters we passed on the plains were cows and horses, their eyes glowing in the moonlight. And I think they actually kind of liked our singing.

  Then Mom spotted something along the side of the rails. “Stop!” she hollered at Dad. “Stop the cart! I saw some sunflowers!”

  I’d almost forgotten about Mom’s plan to collect seeds. I guess Dad had too, because he just hollered back in a jolly voice, “We’re not stopping! Not till morning!” Then he started singing again.

  But Mom didn’t. So that’s when I knew we were in for it. We were still heading north, but our trip had just taken a turn to the south.

  Next thing you know, Cate squealed. She sounded like a ghast in the Nether—I’m not even kidding.

  I spun around in my seat just in time to see her wig fly off her head. It attacked a signpost along the railway and then tumbled off into the darkness.

  “Stop the cart!” she screamed.

  Dad sung back, “We’re not stopping!”

  So we kept going. But if Cate was mopey before, she was MAD now. Her bald green forehead was all scrunched up, her sunglasses had slid down to the end of her nose, and she was shooting arrows at the back of Dad’s head with her eyes.

  Everything got really quiet after that. Perfect! I started working on my rap song. I was going to add a bunch of verses—like all the things my dad WOULDN’T stop the cart for. A herd of zombie pigmen. Wither skeletons. The Ender Dragon himself!

  That was right about the time the railway got curvy, and I discovered the one thing Dad WOULD stop for.

  See, I might have had a few too many roasted pork chops for dinner. I guess when Mom said we would be “living off the land,” I got scared. I loaded up my plate, stuffed a bunch of chops in my mouth, and even threw some leftovers into my backpack.

  But now, every time we went around a curve, those pork chops slid around in my stomach.

  Maybe it was because I was trying to write in my journal in the dark. Or maybe I was wrong about the last cart being the jerkiest. Either way, I told Dad I was going to be sick.

  He took one look at my face, which was probably even greener than normal, and guess what?

  He stopped the cart. A few seconds too late.

  Anyway, we’re taking a break by the side of the railway now. There’s a cow staring at me, which reminds me of how my pet squid Sticky stares at me from inside his aquarium. Just thinking about Sticky makes me homesick, and homesick plus cart-sick equals REALLY sick. So I’m gonna have to stop thinking about Sticky now.

  The good news is, Chloe says I can have the middle cart all to myself for a while. She’s going to ride with Cate, thank you very much.

  The bad news is, Mom says I can’t write in my journal anymore while the cart is moving. So … a long trip just got way longer.

  Wish me luck.

  DAY 4: WEDNESDAY MORNING

  Did I mention that Dad’s not big on asking for directions?

  We rode the rails all night toward Creeperville. That’s where Dad said we’d stop in the morning for some food and a good day’s sleep. Except we didn’t end up in Creeperville. Nope. There’s not a single creeper in this village—I mean, except for my family. But there are a whole lot of humans.

  Yup, you heard me right. HUMANS. So Dad must have missed a curve in
the track or something, but he’ll NEVER admit that.

  Dad’s not a fan of humans, especially after a miner named Steve broke Cate’s heart. But Dad is determined to make this the best creeper family vacation EVER, I can tell. He plastered a smile on his face and crept up to the first human he saw, as if they were besties or something. And he asked where some creepers could get some good food and a place to sleep around here.

  For some reason, that human took one look at Dad and ran the other way. I mean, Dad DOES look kind of scary when he’s fake-smiling, but still …

  Mom tried talking with this lady in a white robe, but that was a no-go, too. She slammed the door right in Mom’s face. RUDE!

  Even Cate got all flirty when she saw a young farmer guy pushing an apple cart. Then she caught her reflection in a shop window and must have remembered she wasn’t wearing her wig, because she turned three shades of green and started slinking behind Mom.

  Anyway, I’m the one who saved the day. I only did what any smart creeper would do—I followed my nose. And it led me to the back of this butcher shop, where this guy in a white apron was cooking meat in a charcoal furnace. I didn’t actually SEE the meat, but I knew it was there. Oh, yeah—I’d know the smell of pork chops ANYWHERE.

  I must have surprised the butcher, because his eyes got real wide. But when I asked if we could buy a pork chop dinner from him, he was all like “Um … sure! Whatever you want!” He said we didn’t even have to PAY for it—that we could just take it and go. RIGHT AWAY. How nice is that?

  The pork chops weren’t burnt to a crisp the way I like them, and the potatoes were kind of raw and crunchy, but hey … creepers on the road can’t be too picky, right?

  Since the butcher was so nice to us, Dad said we should ask him for a place to stay, too. But by the time we got back to the butcher shop, it was all closed up and dark. Dad banged on the door for a while, and Chloe started getting all hissy and impatient.