5

BACK TO THE LAB

“Is Peter coming back?” Michael searched the grassy area in front of Mr. Anarchy’s lab in hopes of finding his friend.

“No,” Mr. Anarchy replied, “I think he’s back in the real world just like Warren.”

The townspeople crowded around Mr. Anarchy as he spoke. They interrupted him, asking him questions about getting zapped back to the real world: “Have you discovered the glitch? Can you get us home? Is there another griefer that’s spawning the Ender Dragon?”

“I’m not sure I can answer all of your questions,” Mr. Anarchy stated nervously. “I didn’t have anything to do with Warren and Peter getting zapped off the server.”

“Who was the man with the red hair?” one townsperson questioned.

“He was accidentally zapped onto the server,” Mr. Anarchy confessed.

“Accidentally?” another townsperson called out.

Mr. Anarchy started to shake when a townsperson wailed, “He’s a griefer again. Mr. Anarchy is a griefer.”

Lily stood in the center of town and defended her friend. “He is not a griefer. He’s working with us and we’ll all get zapped off soon.”

Another townsperson called out to Mr. Anarchy, “Prove you’re not a griefer. I want you to zap someone off right now.”

Mr. Anarchy didn’t know if he could pull this off, but he knew he had to try. He ordered, “Everyone write your name on a slip of paper and place it on the ground.”

The townspeople followed his orders. Mr. Anarchy asked Michael to choose a name from the pile on the ground as he excused himself with, “I’m going inside to summon the lightning bolt.”

Michael leaned down and picked up a name. His eyes filled with tears when he read the name aloud, “Lily.”

Mr. Anarchy didn’t hear Lily’s name called. He was already in his lab working on the command blocks, trying to successfully summon a lightning bolt to zap the chosen person off the server, so he wouldn’t be attacked by the townspeople. He worked very carefully as he summoned the bolt and then hurried outside to see if it had worked.

“Lily!” Simon called out.

“She’s gone,” Michael said as he looked at Mr. Anarchy.

The crowd let out a collective cheer. Mr. Anarchy’s lightning bolt had worked and Lily was back home.

“I want to go next,” one of the villagers called out.

Mr. Anarchy looked down at the ground. He couldn’t answer. He was devastated that Lily was gone. “I’m glad it worked,” he sniffled.

“Now we can all get home,” Michael said to cheer up Mr. Anarchy, but it was hard. He also was sad about Lily leaving Lisimi Village.

Robin smiled. “I miss her, but I’m happy for Lily.”

Simon wondered aloud, “Will she tell my parents that I’m here? They must be so worried.”

Before anyone had a chance to respond, Pablo appeared in the center of Lisimi Village.

“Pablo,” Michael rushed over to him. “Have you heard anything about Lily?”

“Yes,” Pablo replied. “She made it back to the real world. I’ve already sent her a message explaining how to enter this server as a player without getting zapped on. It’s quite tricky. I know Warren was having issues signing on.”

“Warren is safe, too?” asked Simon.

“Yes,” Pablo said as he walked over to Mr. Anarchy. “I think this is your chance to get everyone off the server.”

“I know,” Mr. Anarchy replied, but he worried it wouldn’t work. There was something unpredictable about this server, and he wasn’t completely confident.

Pablo added, “I can tell there’s something on the server that’s making it have glitches. There are times I can’t get on to this server at all. It’s very frustrating.”

“That’s true,” Mr. Anarchy agreed with Pablo, and he walked back into his lab to work on the command blocks.

Suddenly, there was a loud explosion. Kaboom!

Mr. Anarchy flew out of the lab. “It’s my lab! Someone destroyed all of the command blocks with TNT.”

Michael was furious. “Who would do that?” he shouted.

“It has to be someone here.” Simon glared at the townspeople.

“It can’t be.” Robin was so shocked she questioned, “Who would want to trap us here?”

A tearful Blossom wailed, “Now we’ll never get home.”

Mr. Anarchy didn’t want this to break him. He had suffered losses before and had always come back strong. Fortunately, there was one person who believed in him and led him to his small victories. That was Lily. Without her, Mr. Anarchy felt lost.

Mr. Anarchy mustered up enough strength to address the crowd: “We need command blocks. If anyone has some for me, I will begin to summon the lightning bolts.”

As the townspeople searched through their inventories, a voice called out from the crowd.

“Mr. Anarchy!” the voice called.

“Lily?” Mr. Anarchy smiled.