CHAPTER 5

“What now?” Will asked Mina, who had finally caught up with him.

“We keep going,” she said. “Just a little more carefully and a little more slowly this time.” She was still breathing heavily from chasing after Will.

“So we head straight into the lava?” he asked. The heat coming through the doorway was already making him sweat.

“Well not into it,” she said. “Just near it. There could be lots of great resources in there. Where you find lava, you sometimes find redstone and diamonds!”

Will shrugged and followed Mina into the cave. He could hear the bubbling, popping lava before he saw it. And the heat grew stronger. As they came upon the glowing stream of red-hot lava, he pushed his sweaty bangs off his forehead.

“We sure don’t need redstone torches in here,” said Mina, taking in the orange glow of the lava on the cavern walls.

In the flickering light, Will could see across the hot lava stream to the other side. And what he saw there made his heart skip a beat.

“The minecart!” he said. “What’s it doing all the way over there?”

Mina scratched her head. “Maybe there wasn’t always a lava stream running through this cave. Sometimes when miners dig too quickly, lava strikes. It can fill a room in seconds!”

Will was only half listening. He had just spotted a stone bridge arching across the lava stream, and he wasted no time in jogging toward it.

“Be careful!” Mina pleaded.

But Will crossed the stones as quickly as he could. In the rising heat from the lava below, he felt like a melting candle. He had to get to that minecart. He’d been dreaming about riding one of them for so long!

The metal of the cart felt hot to his touch. He almost jumped in, but first, he had to figure out what powered this thing. Was there a coal engine? Will searched the carts before and behind. Nope.

Was it powered by redstone? Will examined the tracks for signs, like Mina would have. He saw torches placed beside the tracks, but they were turned off. Was the railway broken?

No. There must be a button or pressure plate somewhere, he told himself, just as there had been to light the torches in the tunnel.

He knelt to examine the track in front of the minecart. There! A square iron plate rested in the middle of the next track. Was this the “on” button?

Will turned to ask Mina, but she was just stepping through an opening carved into the side of the glowing cavern. And out of that little cave came a giant “Whoop!”

Will jumped about a foot at the sound. “What is it?” he called to Mina.

One word echoed back: “Diamonds!”

Will took a step toward the bridge, and then looked back at the minecart. Did Mina have to find the diamond treasure right now, when he was about to set off on his minecart adventure?

He ducked down beside the minecart track and pretended like he hadn’t heard her. If he could just activate the pressure plate, he could finally take that ride …

Mina’s voice rang out again, louder than before. “Will, get in here! You won’t believe this!”

He stood up with an exasperated sigh. It seemed like every time he found something amazing, Mina was pulling him back in the other direction. “It’s not fair,” he mumbled as he crossed back over the bridge, moving much more slowly this time.

Mina stood in the center of a small room, staring at a wall. Every other stone in that wall sparkled with whitish-blue flecks.

“I wish I’d brought my pickaxe,” she said. “But somebody was in such a hurry to explore the tunnel that we left our pickaxes at the camp.” She grinned at Will. “Let’s walk back and get them!”

A seed of an idea grew in Will’s stomach. “I have a better idea,” he said. “Let’s ride back and get them!”

Mina cocked her head. “The minecart, you mean?” She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “No, that could be old and rickety. The track might split off or be broken in parts, and we could get lost—or even hurt. Let’s walk back along the lit tunnel instead.”

Will’s chest was about to burst. He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t. What Mina said made sense. He couldn’t be sure that the tracks would lead safely back to camp.

But why do we always have to play it safe? he wanted to say. And why do you get to decide what we do?

He didn’t say either of those things. He clamped his mouth shut and followed Mina along the tunnel, dragging his feet with every step.