Chapter 1

TROUBLE BREWING

“You will need a glass bottle for this activity, and you must fill it with water before we begin,” the teacher told the class.

Lucy looked around the class nervously. She had a bottle, but she didn’t have any water. She needed a cauldron, and she quickly looked through her inventory for iron ingots to craft one with. But she knew she was terribly low on supplies. Lucy checked twice just to be sure, but what she suspected was true: she didn’t have any iron.

Lucy had spent her school break on a treasure hunt with her friends, Henry and Max, and she had used up a lot of the valuable resources that had been in her inventory when the break began. She hadn’t had time to replace anything—the treasure hunt had taken longer than they expected, and Lucy had rushed back to Minecrafters Academy just in time for the new term to start.

But now, Lucy didn’t want the teacher to think she wasn’t prepared. She looked around the class, hoping a fellow classmate would see her predicament and help her out, but everyone was busy filling up bottles with water, not paying attention to Lucy.

“Lucy,” the teacher called out. “Don’t hold up the class. Let me see you fill your bottle with water. Where’s your cauldron?”

“Um,” Lucy stammered, and her heart raced.

“Well?” The teacher put her hands on her hips and looked sternly at Lucy.

Lucy didn’t have a response. She couldn’t meet the teacher’s eyes, so she looked at her glass bottle instead, as though hoping it would fill with water on its own.

Just then, a voice called out. “Lucy’s cauldron is right here.”

Lucy turned around and saw Jane standing by a newly-crafted cauldron. With a huge sigh of relief, Lucy nodded her agreement at her teacher and stepped over to the cauldron, filling her bottle with water. She whispered to Jane, “Thanks.”

“That’s what friends are for.” Jane smiled.

The teacher said, “Great. Now we can go on. Everyone take out Nether wart from your inventory.”

Lucy was relieved. Nether wart was one of the few supplies she had a lot of.

“Now take out blaze powder and add it to the potion,” the teacher instructed the class.

Lucy was still shaken from almost getting in trouble earlier and, without realizing it, she took a fermented spider eye out of her inventory and added it to the potion instead of blaze powder. Hurrying to catch up with the rest of the class, she brewed the potion. Only when the teacher walked over did Lucy realize her mistake: she had made a potion of weakness instead of a potion of strength.

While her teacher talked to Jane, Lucy scrambled for supplies, hoping to brew a potion of strength quickly. She found blaze powder in her inventory, but it was too late; the teacher stood by her side.

Lucy tried to hide her mistake, snatching the potion of weakness away from her teacher’s gaze. But as she grabbed the potion, it splashed on the teacher.

“You’ve made me weak!” The teacher’s voice was quite low.

“I’m so sorry,” Lucy kept repeating as she quickly brewed a potion of strength and then splashed it on the teacher.

The teacher sighed. “It’s okay. We all make mistakes.”

Lucy was glad the teacher wasn’t angry with her, but she knew this wasn’t her first mistake. This school year had already been a lot more challenging than she had expected. After battling zombies and capturing Isaac, the villainous former headmaster, before the break, she had thought that schoolwork would be easy. But she had been wrong. This past semester, she had been having trouble in her sword-fighting class and her brewing class. Today’s lesson was just on brewing basic potions, and she was still struggling. With each new mistake, Lucy wondered if she was really cut out for Minecrafters Academy.

Lucy squared her shoulders and thought about what her friend Phoebe had said the night before: “Lucy, you can’t give up. You were the person who saved our school from zombies and exposed Isaac’s plot to take over the Overworld. It’s obvious that you’re smart and talented.”

Lucy wasn’t used to compliments, and she had blushed at the time. Of course, she’d love a compliment now—anything to boost her confidence after this disaster in brewing class.

When class ended, Lucy packed up her supplies sadly and walked out of the classroom alone. Phoebe and Jane were waiting for Lucy just outside the classroom door.

Lucy turned to her friends. “Can you believe what happened in brewing class? I’m awful.”

Jane shook her head and remarked, “The teacher was right. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s okay.”

“Thanks for saving me.” Lucy smiled at Jane.

“No problem. And you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it really is. You just had a hard time in one class. It’s not the end of the world,” Jane reminded her friend.

Phoebe said, “And remember, you saved us from Isaac. Everyone in school knows that you’re the one who helped stop his attack on the Overworld. You’re a hero.”

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t have to do the work, and I’m struggling so much with it,” admitted Lucy.

“If you know you’re not doing well, then try to figure out what you can change, and do it,” said Jane.

Phoebe added, “And if you’re having trouble with something, just ask us. We want to help you.”

Lucy smiled at her friends, feeling better already.

As the trio reached the dining hall, they ran into Stefan, the school administrator, who was on his way out. “You’re just the people I wanted to see.”

“Really?” Phoebe asked.

“Yes. The new headmaster, Victoria, asked me to put together an end-of-year talent show that will showcase all of the new skills the students learned this year at Minecrafters Academy—something to present the school in a positive light after all of last year’s trouble with Isaac. I was hoping the three of you would be interested in helping us organize the show.”

“That sounds like fun!” Jane grinned excitedly.

“What do we have to do?” asked Lucy. She didn’t want to have one more thing on her plate when she was already struggling in her classes. And, worse than that, Lucy had never told her friends that she was afraid of performing on stage. Even if this was just an organizing role, what if they expected her to audition to support the show?

“Well, it’s not going to take place until the end of the term, so we have some time. But right now, we’d love for you to help us with planning. You can organize the auditions and help structure the show. This is the first time we’ve ever done something like this, so we need a lot of help, and your creativity would make a big difference,” Stefan explained.

Phoebe spoke up for her friends. “We’d love to do it.”

Lucy still wasn’t so sure, but could she really turn down a request from the school administrator? With a shrug, she said, “Okay. We’ll brainstorm some ideas tonight.”

“Great!” Stefan exclaimed. “And I’m going to ask a few other students to be involved, as well. I’ll let you know when we have the first meeting so that you can attend.”

Stefan left, and the trio walked into the dining hall. They grabbed their trays, but just as they were filling them with carrots and chicken, the lights went out.

“Ouch!” Jane cried out in the dark.

“What happened?” Lucy asked, alarmed.

“An arrow just hit my arm!”

With a frightening rattle, a gang of skeletons marched through the entrance of the dining hall.

“Not again,” Lucy groaned.