Field Trip to the Taiga Read online

  Anyway, we made it out of the woods alive. But when Mr. Carl showed us to our cabin, I found out we were bunking with Ziggy Zombie. UGH. Don’t get me wrong: Ziggy and I are kind of friends. But that doesn’t mean I want to LIVE with him. He’s not exactly the cleanest mob in the Overworld.

  But I forgot all about Ziggy when I stepped into our cabin. It was just as cold INSIDE the cabin as it was outside. We had a furnace, but there was no wood or coal in it. HUH?

  Mr. Carl said not to worry about it—that we were going to do a little scientific experiment. “Let’s hunt for some fuel, and find out what makes the BEST fuel for a fire in the Taiga,” he said, all excited-like.

  I groaned—I couldn’t help it. What kind of a teacher makes his students look for their own FUEL in the Cold Taiga? SHEESH.

  But finding fuel turned out to be a blast. Who knew? Ziggy, Sam, and I followed Mr. Carl’s number-one rule and headed for the woods as a GROUP. We picked up big sticks right away, just in case we ran into polar bears. (And Sam seemed WAY too excited about that possibility, let me tell you . . .)

  We even marked our path so we wouldn’t get lost, just like Mr. Carl said we should. Well, he said we should use pieces of wood or stones to leave a trail. But we didn’t need to, because Ziggy just happened to be having a snack right about then. Chunks of sandwich flew out of his mouth and landed on the ground behind him. PRESTO. That zombie is like a natural path maker. It might be his one true talent.

  We hunted all over that snowy ground for wood, and we found plenty of sticks. But after a few sword fights, most of them were busted up. Then I borrowed Sam’s tablet to take photos of spruce tree branches frosted with snow—THOSE were award-winning photos for sure! And THEN I got distracted by all of Mom’s love messages to Chloe.

  DING!

  There was a photo of Chloe as a baby, taking a bath. “Miss my little girl!” Mom wrote. “Smooches!”

  DING!

  “Dad needs some gunpowder for TNT,” Mom wrote. “Where’s our girl Chloe with the short fuse? We miss her explosions! She’s off blowing up the Taiga this week. Miss you, girl!”

  Ha! I heard an explosion on the other side of the woods, which was probably Chloe blowing up when she read that message. She’d give me a turn with the phone for sure now, just to get away from Mom’s posts.

  DING!

  Mom posted a photo of a plate of steaming-hot, burned-to-a-crisp pork chops. “Serving your favorite meal for breakfast, Chloe!” Mom said in her caption. “Yum, yum!”

  Well that one really lit my fuse, because every mob knows that burnt chops are MY favorite—not Chloe’s. How could Mom get that wrong??? My mouth watered the whole rest of the morning.

  By the time we crept out of the woods, we only had a few measly sticks to burn in the furnace. Sam was shivering so bad, he was a jiggly green mess. But Mr. Carl took pity on us and hauled over some extra coal he had stashed in a minecart.

  “He’s so nice!” Sam kept blubbering. But what did he think? That Mr. Carl was going to let us FREEZE out here in the Taiga? Silly slime.

  I saw Mr. Carl bring coal down to the spider jocks’ cabin, too. But in the girls’ cabin, Willow, Chloe, and her best friend, Cora Creeper, didn’t need any. Somehow, they had a fire BLAZING in their furnace. Maybe Willow brought some potions with her on the field trip. Or maybe Ms. Wanda was giving the girls special treatment with a potion of her own. No fair!

  I would have raised a stink about that, but the heat coming out of our own furnace made me so sleepy, I could barely keep my eyes open. Sam was tired too—I could tell. He melted into a green puddle right there on the rug. And Ziggy was already fast asleep in bed, snoring and snorting up a storm.

  So it’s time for this creeper to get his sleepers, like Dad always says.

  WAIT! Crud. What did I learn today? I forgot to write it down. Ms. Wanda’s rule is really messing with me.

  What I learned today: Wood sticks make crummy fuel, but Mr. Carl has our back out here in the Taiga, just like Dad said he would. PHEW.

  DAY 3: SUNDAY NIGHT

  Okay, so I just had the WORST daymare ever.

  I dreamed that our furnace ran out of coal, and I started SPOONING Sam. Like, I was so cold, I had to cuddle with that jiggly slime just to get warm.

  And when I woke up tonight, I realized it wasn’t a dream. And it wasn’t Sam. It was ZIGGY.

  Well, I flew out of our cabin like a bat out of a cave. I rolled around in the snow, trying to get rid of zombie germs. And I crossed ALL my toes, hoping that Ziggy had slept through the whole thing and wouldn’t remember.

  But he did. Yay. Lucky me.

  “Thanks for warming me up today, Gerald!” he grunted, wiping a stringy hunk of carrot off his chin. “It was FREEZING in here!”

  Aw, MAN. Mom might as well post that on our field-trip blog: “Son found spooning zombie for survival.” Then it would go viral, and I’d be the laughing stock of the whole Overworld.

  Luckily, zombies aren’t the brightest torches on the wall. I told Ziggy he must have been dreaming—that I hadn’t even SLEPT today because I’d been so excited about igloo-building.

  “Yup,” I said, brushing snow off my shoulder. “I was outside all day scouting a spot for our igloo.”

  “Really?” said Ziggy. He forgot about the spooning incident and staggered for the door. “Show me where!”

  So now I’m going to have to come up with some epic spot for igloo-building. Maybe we’ll walk outside and my gut will just lead me to the perfect site. (Hey, it could happen.)

  But first, my gut needs FOOD. I’ll bet Mr. Carl and Ms. Wanda have something DELICIOUS cooking up for us in the main cabin. Maybe roasted pork chops and crispy little potatoes!

  I’ll take a photo and post it on Snapghast. Maybe I’ll text it to Mom too, to remind her that it’s MY favorite meal, not Chloe’s. SHEESH.

  And then? I’m hitting up Chloe for the phone. My turn is WAY overdue.

  DAY 4: MONDAY

  You know, I think Mr. Carl might be taking our science lessons WAY too far.

  When we got to the main cabin last night, there was NOT a delicious meal waiting for us. Nope. Mr. Carl told us that the fuel we gathered yesterday wasn’t just for heat. It was also to help us make food—our OWN food.

  When I heard that, my stomach twisted into knots. SERIOUSLY? Couldn’t Mr. Carl just skip the learning part and jump ahead to the “Ms. Wanda and I cooked this delicious meal for you as a backup” part?

  The only good thing that happened in the main cabin was that Chloe gave me the phone. In fact, it seemed WAY too easy. I asked for it, and she gave it to me. HUH. THAT was a first. But when I stepped outside, I realized why. There was only one bar of service, and it kept fading in and out.

  When Sam, Ziggy, and I headed back into the woods, there was NO service. I guess the trees were too dense. GREAT.

  This fuel-gathering trip was WAY less fun than the first one. Ziggy didn’t leave a trail of food chunks—he’d eaten all of those. And we didn’t have sword fights. Nope. We were going to find every single stick in the woods, and every mushroom for mushroom stew.

  But here’s the thing: there aren’t a lot of mushrooms growing in the snow. When I found one popping out, I tried to post a photo of it—all cute, and round in a patch of white.

  But my dumb phone still had NO service.

  Lucky for me, Sam’s tablet DID. So he let me take a quick pic. Then I picked the mushroom. Then I popped it into my mouth.

  “Hey!” he said. “We’re supposed to bring them back to camp for mushroom stew!”

  But I couldn’t help it. Every time I found a mushroom, it leapt right into my mouth. I guess this camping in the Taiga thing was making me hungry.

  Besides, I knew Mr. Carl wouldn’t let us STARVE to death out here. If we didn’t have enough mushrooms for stew, he’d serve us up something else, right? So we just had to get through the stew-making lesson and on to bigger, better, and tastier things.

  Like the pork
chops he had frying in the main cabin for mobs who weren’t able to find any mushrooms. YAAASSSSSSSS!!!!

  I knew it! I knew he had our backs! A part of me wanted to point out to Mr. Carl that he wasn’t really teaching us much about science. He was actually teaching us that we could just have FUN and he’d take care of everything else. But another part of me told that first part to pipe down—that I had a good thing going here and shouldn’t blow it.

  So I filled up on chops. When Chloe asked for our phone back, I gladly gave it to her. I mean, what good was it out here anyway?

  Then I hauled a whole bunch of Mr. Carl’s coal back to our furnace so we wouldn’t run out again. I will NOT be spooning a zombie again any time soon. No sirree.

  Later, when Mr. Carl and Ms. Wanda said we could build igloos, I nearly leapt out of my creeper skin. FINALLY!!! We were done with lessons and were going to have some FUN.

  I thought Mr. Carl would just turn us loose on the snowy mountain. WRONG. He said he wanted to teach us some “engineering basics.”

  SERIOUSLY??? How hard did he think it was to build an igloo? You just stack snow blocks on top of snow blocks. What did he think we were—poor mobs from the Nether who had never even SEEN snow?

  Mr. Carl drew this super-complicated diagram of a curved roof. “Pay attention,” he said. “You don’t want your roofs caving in on you, do you?”

  He kind of had a point there. So I tried to watch while he drew diagram after diagram (after diagram . . .). Then Ms. Wanda got in on the action and said we should sketch out our igloos on paper before we built them.

  Next thing you know, my head was bobbing with boredom, because I felt like I was back in school—studying diagrams and making dumb drawings instead of actually DOING something. What a snooze!

  Sam sketched us out a pretty decent igloo. I mean, it was more of a square than a circle. But whatevs. When Mr. Carl said it was finally time to start building, Ziggy staggered over and said, “Okay, Gerald! Show us the spot you picked out!”

  UH-OH.

  I had to play it cool, which isn’t easy when all the other mobs seem to know JUST where they’re going to build.

  Bones and his buddies rattled toward the pond. Willow Witch, Chloe, and Cora crept uphill. So while Mr. Carl hissed at us to “Stay together! Stay with your groups!” I had to think fast.

  Why were the girls hiking up a hill? Then it hit me—because THAT’s where we’d actually have phone service.

  “C’mon!” I said to Sam and Ziggy. “Time for a climb.”

  The girls hiked pretty high before finding a flat spot to build on. But we hiked even higher. Finally there was a flat patch of ground, but it wasn’t very big.

  “Is this it?” Ziggy asked, panting. He didn’t look very impressed.

  “Yup,” I said super confident-like. “This is definitely the best spot. DEFINITELY.”

  So he shrugged and started packing blocks of snow. Ziggy is a pretty easy-going mob—just like Sam. Those boys got to work, and before I knew it, we had a ring of snow blocks.

  “It’s not very wide,” Sam said.

  “So let’s build it TALLER!” I said. But we didn’t have very much snow to work with.

  Down below us, the girls were building like CRAZY. Pack, stack, pack, stack, pack, stack. It was like watching a video on Snapghast that was all sped up. My Evil Twin was moving so fast, she was a green blur.

  Then it hit me. They were using potion of swiftness! I’d seen Willow use it to build a snow fort last winter. I didn’t mind then, because she was building the fort with me and Sam. But now?

  I minded. Yeah, I minded a lot. Because the girls had a huge igloo built before we could even add on to our wall. And their igloo was BLOCKING the view from our igloo! NOT fair!

  Sam reminded me to pay attention to what I was doing. I guess I got kind of sloppy with the snow blocks. “We have to curve the roof!” he said, waving his sketch in my face.

  But how could I focus on our pathetic little igloo when the girls were adding a full CHIMNEY onto their own? SHEESH.

  When they disappeared inside the igloo, I tried to peek through a window to see what was going on. That’s when Willow added a pane of ice—FROSTED ice. Then I pretty much couldn’t see anything.

  Especially when smoke started pouring out the top of the girls’ igloo. And because OUR igloo was up above theirs on the hill, the smoke was pretty much blowing right in my face.

  “They built a FIRE,” I said, after a huge coughing fit.

  “Awesome!” said Ziggy, rubbing his hands together.

  “Ours will be MORE awesome,” I said.

  Sam had barely finished the roof of our igloo before I lit a few sticks inside with flint and steel. He was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t really hear him over our crackling fire.

  Yup, I got that baby roaring. Bust out the marshmallows and hot cocoa, because our fire was burning HOT.

  I started to sweat. Then I realized it wasn’t sweat—it was water dripping from the ceiling. A LOT of water. Next thing you know, our whole ROOF caved in! Right on our fire. Right on ME.

  Turns out, if you’re going to build a fire in an igloo, you have to leave a hole in your roof for the smoke to go through. HUH.

  “I tried to tell you,” Sam kept saying. He showed me the vent on his sketch, which was now soaking wet.

  I wish he’d tried a little HARDER.

  He and Ziggy wanted to fix the roof right away, but I said maybe we could do it later—after a good day’s sleep. I mean, a roof had pretty much just crushed me. I wasn’t much feeling like building another one. So we took a photo of Sam’s sketch before it totally fell apart. Then we headed back down the hill toward the cabin.

  Chloe had the nerve to poke her head out the front door of her igloo and brag that she and the girls were SLEEPING in their igloo today. “Who needs a cabin?” she said, all smug-like.

  Well, first of all, who puts a wooden DOOR on an igloo? How’d the girls get that made so fast? What kind of potions was Willow brewing in there?

  Chloe snapped a photo of my surprised face—with the phone she’s SUPPOSED to be sharing with me—and slammed the front door. I guess she’s got service again, which means my mug will be featured on Snapghast any second now.

  When we got back to our cabin, I remembered that I hadn’t posted a photo to Snapghast yet today. And I’d only taken a single photo—the one of Sam’s igloo sketch. So I posted that online. Why not?

  Like I said, not ALL of my Snapghast photos are going to be winners. Just like not all my fifteen days here in the Taiga are going to be winners. Today was definitely NOT.

  What I learned today: Where do I start? Let’s see. DON’T waste time gathering food—Mr. Carl has that covered. DO spend time paying attention during igloo-building lessons. DON’T try to use a phone in the woods. DO head uphill when you want service. DON’T be surprised when Chloe cheats—especially when she’s bunking with a potion-brewing witch. DO try to listen to Sam when he talks. The slime knows a thing or two about a thing or two.

  Whew! That’s a lot of learning for one day. Ms. Wanda would be proud.

  DAY 5: TUESDAY

  So when I woke up last night, Sam was gone.

  Ziggy was snoring up a storm, but Sam was nowhere to be found. UH-OH. I wondered if I’d driven my buddy away with the whole “ruining the ceiling of our igloo” thing.

  But when I headed outside, I heard his jolly laugh. From up on the hill. So I guess he’d decided to hang out with his girlfriend for a while in her igloo mansion.

  I crept up the hill to spy on them, but like I said, those frosted windows aren’t very easy to look through. And somehow, Chloe knew I was out there. She flung open the door and told me to get my sneaky creeper butt inside. I think what she REALLY wanted to do was show off her igloo.

  I gotta say, it was pretty impressive. The fire pit was roaring. Willow must have used a blaze rod to light that thing or something, because it didn’t look like it was going to burn out a
nytime soon—like ever.

  Cora gave me a quick tour. There was a crafting table in the corner, which explains how they made a door. And three beds. And a torch chandelier. And a woven carpet on the floor. SHEESH.

  I don’t think Mr. Carl could even make an igloo like this, no matter how many diagrams he drew first. Chalk one up for potion of swiftness.

  I could tell that Chloe wanted me to say something about the igloo—to pay her a compliment or something. But I couldn’t cough one up. Instead, I asked for the phone back. “It’s my turn,” I said.

  “Not yet,” she said. “I need to post a Snapghast photo first.”

  But half an hour later, at dinner, she couldn’t WAIT to give me the phone. I realized why as soon as I saw Mom’s mug, larger than life, on the screen.

  UH-OH. I guess Cate had finally taught Mom how to video-chat. And Chloe made sure to hit the “accept” button before tossing me the phone like a hot potato. GREAT.

  “Hi, honey!” Mom hollered really loud, like she didn’t think I could hear her through the phone. But EVERYONE in the cabin heard her—from Ms. Wanda in the kitchen to Bones and his buddies sitting way at the back table. “How’s my boy?” Mom shrieked.

  I TRIED to lower the volume. But I somehow turned Mom’s voice UP instead of DOWN. “Oh, I miss you so much!” she bellowed.