Minecraft: Mob Squad: Never Say Nether: An Official Minecraft Novel

So here’s what you need to know: My name is Jarro, and when my mom hears about this, somebody’s going to be in really, really big trouble. I’ve almost got my hands untied from this stupid rope, when—

“Jarro?” someone shouts.

“Mom?!” I cry, looking around the endless sea of grass.

And then I spot a shape running toward me.

To my absolute horror, it’s the last person I want to see: that goody-goody Mal. And her stupid friends. And their stupid, scary wolf.

I want to shout at them, tell them to go away. But I’m tied to a tree in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by monsters, and if there’s one thing I know about the group of kids my town calls the Bad Apples, it’s that even if they hate me, they won’t let me die out here.

“A little help?” I drawl with my usual brand of smugness, hiding the fact that I’m terrified.

“I say we leave him here,” Chug says, his blocky hands in fists.

“We can’t,” Mal says, almost sadly. “The zombies will get him.”

“Zombies?” I look around, my heart clattering around like crazy. “What’s a zombie? Are they the things that moan or the things that rattle? Are they nearby? Do you idiots have swords?”

Chug looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Of course we have swords. What kind of dingus goes into the Overworld without a sword?”

I don’t have a good answer to that, so I go for his weak spot. “What kind of a dingus goes into the Overworld without his brother? With Tok around, it’s almost like you have half a brain. On your own, I’m surprised you can even figure out which boot goes on which foot.”

Success! Chug looks like I just punched him in the face, which is as gratifying as if I’d really punched him. “You mean he wasn’t with you? Or whoever did this to you?”

I look down at my ropes, then back up at Chug. “Untie me and maybe I’ll tell you.”

Chug looks to Mal because he’s a wimp who can’t think for himself. “I dunno, Mal. He’s a lot easier to kick this way.”

Mal shakes her head and unties my hands. I flex my fingers as the blood runs back into them, making them tingle. But I don’t thank her, because then it’s like she’s won. “They took your brother. They had us both blindfolded and gagged, but I saw him before they caught me.” I kick the wet lead, now lying on the ground. Once I’ve made sure my arms and legs work, I look back the way they came. “Home’s that way, right?” And I start walking.

After a few beats of stunned silence, they follow me. Chug runs around to block me, and I try to go around him, but his dumb girlfriends box me in.

“Where is he?” Chug bellows.

I turn away, wincing at his breath. “Where is your toothpaste?” When I try to walk again, his hand lands on my chest, and my anger starts to build. “Bro, get your hand off me.”

“You’re not my bro, bro,” he says menacingly.

Normally, I’d look to my sides and see Edd and Remy closing in, but out here, there’s a whole lot of nothing. Just my least favorite people and me. And, yeah, they think they’re so tough because they’ve been out here before, beyond the Cornucopia wall, but I’m not impressed.

“Get your hand off me, and let me leave, or I won’t tell you which direction they went.”

Chug’s face screws up, and his fist starts to rear back, and Mal grabs his shoulder.

“You catch more bees with honey than beetroot,” she says softly, making me snicker.

His fist cocks back just a little more.

“Listen to your girlfriend,” I say with a sneer.

“Just a little punch?” he asks. “Somewhere soft?”

But I can tell he’s given up. This always happens when Mal’s around. Which I like, because not only do I get hit less, but I also get to make fun of their friendship in a way that makes Chug even angrier.

Mal steps between us as Loony Lenna stares off into nowhere. Her brother Lugh says she does this all the time, and everyone in their family thinks she’s pretty useless.

“We want to find Tok,” Mal says in that bossy voice of hers. “And you know where he went.”

“Maybe,” I allow.

“And you want to get back home alive and not in zombie-chewed chunks.”

“I—” I swallow. “What’s a zombie? Do they really…eat people?”

I don’t like her answering smile, which suggests she’s superior just because she knows something I don’t.

“Zombies are monsters that want to hurt people. They only show up when it’s dark.”

I nod. “During the storm. The growling things and the rattling things.”

“The zombies growl and the skeletons rattle,” Lenna adds dreamily. “The zombies will bite you, but the skeletons have bows and arrows. So I guess they twang, too.”

During the storm, everything got really dark, and I heard the scariest sounds. The people who kidnapped me fought them off, shouting and grunting, and I only now realize that when they tied me to this tree, they basically left me here to die, because anything could attack me and I couldn’t defend myself. It’s lighter outside now, the rain gone and the clouds lifting, but at any moment…those things, those monsters, could come back. And I don’t have a single weapon. I was ready to walk back home, ready to do it alone, but now I’m frozen in place. Still, I can’t let the Bad Apples see my fear.

“Take me home, and I’ll tell you where they took your brother,” I say.

Chug and Mal share a look. “Tell us where they took Tok, and we’ll take you home,” Mal shoots back.

And then we go silent. My mom is a savvy businesswoman, with her sweet berry empire, and she once told me that when you’re negotiating, forcing the other person to talk first makes them lose power. I’ve got all day—whereas every moment they try to gain the upper hand, Tok gets farther and farther away.

“We can’t take you back,” Lenna finally says, breaking the standoff. We all stare at her, and she continues. “We don’t have time. We’ll lose their trail if we double back to town.”

Chug gasps and stares over my shoulder, toward the tree I was recently tied to. I can see his dumb face trying to figure out what to say, and it’s taking him forever just to formulate words.

Finally, he says, “So do we tie him back to the tree or what?”

It’s my turn to gasp. “No! That would be murder! The skelbies and zombletons or whatever—they’ll come back after dark. You can’t just tie me to a tree and leave! And if you did, I’d never tell you which way they took Tok. Never.” Normally, I put a lot of energy into not sounding scared, but I can tell that Chug would do it. He would tie me to the tree and walk away, and then he’d think he’d won.

“We’re not going to tie him to a tree.” Mal taps her chin. “But we’re absolutely not taking him home. Lenna’s right. If we double back to town, we lose hours and hours, plus the berry trail, and someone back home might try to stop us.” She frowns at me. “Especially if Jarro runs back to his mommy and tells her what we’re doing. They’d never let us leave again.”

Now they’re all staring at me, and I hate it. I’ve somehow lost the upper hand.

“So what do you propose?” I say.

“Dig a hole, throw him in, seal it up, come back for him later,” Chug suggests.

“Stick him in the tree?” Lenna offers.

“No,” Mal says before I can protest. “We have to take him with us.”

“No!” Chug and I both howl at the same time.

“He’ll ruin everything! He’s useless out here! He’ll slow us down!” Chug screeches, right as I bark, “This is a big waste of my time! Take me back home or I’ll tell the Elders!”

It’s an empty threat and we all know it, but it’s just what pops out whenever I’m around these jerks.

Mal steps up to me and really looks at me. I don’t think any of us ever really look at each other. We’ve known one another since we were babies, we’re in the same class at school, nothing about any of us ever changes—or it didn’t, until these kids left town and learned how to live in the Overworld outside the wall. I guess I haven’t really looked at them, either. I just see them as the same Mal, Chug, Tok, and Lenna I’ve always known—or Bossy, Jerky, Wimpy, and Loony, as I like to think of them. But now we regard each other, and it’s almost like Mal is sizing me up. I tower over her; I could crush her like a bug. I resist the urge to throw my shoulders back and stand taller. I don’t owe her anything.

“Do you think you can learn to survive in the Overworld?” she asks me.

I snort. “If you guys can do it, it can’t be that hard.”

Chug snorts, too. “We’ve nearly died ten times, dude. Everything out here wants to kill you.”

I shrug. “So give me a sword. I’m not scared.”

“If you’re smart, you should be scared.” Lenna’s smile is pitying, which I hate. “It’s actually pretty scary. My first night out here, I was scared. And I was scared today, too. The fear doesn’t go away—you just get more skills, experience, and loot.”

I can’t believe I’m listening to Loony Lenna, but…well, the Bad Apples just seem different, ever since they went on their stupid adventure. Tok and Chug own their own shop, like adults, and make their own profits. Even my mom has to admire that, and she hates them. Mal is allowed to do her own mining—and, again, keep the profits. And Lenna has this weird importance, I guess because she works for one of the most important people in town and is set to inherit Nan’s job one day. If I’m honest, and I would never admit this to anyone, I’m kind of jealous. My mom doesn’t even let me leave the Hub. She says the world is dangerous, and I need to stay where she can protect me. Even Edd and Remy get to roam farther than I can.

It hits me then, like a slap across the face—I’m outside.

Outside the Hub, outside the wall, outside the town.

Outside what has been, up until this moment, my entire world.

Outside of my mom’s carefully designated limits.

I take a deep breath and just look. At the uneven ground, the wildflowers, the passing birds, the mountains in the distance. Things outside just smell different. Even the air feels different on my skin. I never, ever thought that in all my life I would be this far away from my mom, or my town.

I just wish it didn’t have to happen with these particular people, under these particular circumstances.

“So let’s say I go with you…” I put my hands behind my back and pace. My mom says it makes you look important when you’re doing a deal. “And let’s say I tell you which way they took Tok. What do I get out of it?”

“I don’t punch out all your teeth, to start with!” Chug roars.

Mal holds up a hand to him, and his jaw obediently snaps shut. “If you help us find Tok, and you aren’t too much of a jerk, we’ll teach you what we know. These skills are valuable back home.”

Chug shakes his head like a confused chicken. “Mal, you can’t be serious. You want to give Jarro—our enemy, the jerk—a weapon?”

She ignores me to face him. “What else are we going to do? If we take him back, we lose the trail and half a day, and someone in town will stop us. If we leave him here, he dies. If we take him with us, we’re more likely to achieve our goal, because he knows he can’t go home until we have Tok. And when we encounter hostile mobs, we’ll have one more fighter.”

Chug deflates, and I’ve got to admit—it’s gratifying. “If he doesn’t stab me in the liver,” he groans.

Mal pats his arm. “We’ll start him off with a wooden sword.”

“Great! Liver splinters!” Chug throws his hands up in the air and walks around, muttering angrily to himself.

Mal steps closer and stares me right in the eyes. “Can you behave?”

My head jerks back. “I always behave! It’s you guys who—”

“Zip it.” Her fingers snap nearly on my nose, and to my surprise, my mouth, too, clicks shut. “We’re going to have to call a truce. You need us and we need you. As long as we’re outside the walls, you’re on our side.” She picks up the lead that tethered me and swings it in front of my face. “Betray us, and we really will tie you to a tree. Got it?”

I’m kind of speechless. She’s right about us needing one another, and I hate that. But I also…kind of…want to know what they know. And out here, away from Edd and Remy and my mom and all the other nosy neighbors, with no one watching me and judging me…maybe I could try.

When she drops the lead at my feet, I pick it up and stuff it in my pocket. It barely fits, and it makes me feel dumb, but I don’t want her to threaten me with it again.

“But you have to give me a real weapon, and you have to teach me how to fight,” I say, nose in the air.

“Deal.”

Mal sticks out her hand, and I shake it.