Minecraft: Battle of the Block

Chapter One

In my old neighborhood, the teenagers used to tell me, “You’re so extra, Zing. You do too much.” They’d be cracking up, but I’d never get the joke. Now, I’m wondering why that too-muchness isn’t showing up in the build on my computer screen. What I’m seeing is not much to look at at all.

I wave my blocky arms uselessly. At least my avatar, dressed in red with a golden crown, is cool. My legs bounce in my red (yes, it’s my favorite color) swivel chair, and I make my character hop in place a few times. I’ve never been able to sit still, so why should RedZinga have to, even if I have no idea what to do with her right now?

I lean forward and stare, unblinking, into the large monitor like an idea will stare back at me. Like something more magical than rowhomes—attached skinny houses—on a boring city street will suddenly take shape. Some idea has to come. Our deadline to present this build is soon. I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them, willing a vision to pop up.

Nothing looks back except the same brick, rectangular structures my partners Jannah and Mir created with me. Jannah has recreated the redbrick homes, except because they’re so old, these houses are fading into a yellow brown. She expertly chose sandstone blocks to create the look, which almost perfectly matches the drabness of what it looks like in real life. Drab on top of drab. We’ve crafted Honeysuckle Street exactly.

Honeysuckle Street.

As bland as it looks, I miss living there. Things weren’t so messed up before we moved.

Mom and Dad keep hinting that things went wrong here because of my mouth. The truth is, when I speak, sometimes people don’t get me, and I don’t get them. Is it fair to hold that against a girl the way all the kids at my middle school did? I shake off thoughts of Great Valley, the name of my current school and neighborhood. It’s summer now. No need to care about that.

I study the screen again for something to inspire. On one side of the street, the almost identical two-story houses are interrupted by occasional pops of color. Grandmom has a yellow house—because she’s a lot too—right in the middle of the block. Jannah used End stone bricks to recreate it. We used to live there with her. A couple of white houses, made with calcite, also cut through the sameness in random spots. Across the street, the rust-colored buildings continue, except for a large gray cobblestone building in the middle, representing the abandoned drugstore. It’s all so meh. We’re supposed to improve this. But how?

Hoping for Jannah’s help, I gaze at my phone. I’ve done that a lot today. Why hasn’t she texted back?

I catch a flicker of movement from the side of my eye and jerk my head back to the build. EnderMirr, clad in purple and black and sporting boxy hair, is breaking up blocks of grass in the patch that runs between the house of our old fussy neighbor, Ms. Berta, and the pharmacy. He’s the avatar my brother Mir (short for Samir) uses. I want to holler at him through the wall that separates our rooms and tell him to stop trying out weird landscaping builds. But I know Mir is sitting at his computer, probably sporting the same frustrated frown as me, and I’m working on not triggering him. Instead, I type a message into the chat:

what are you doing now?

He doesn’t answer. Probably better that he doesn’t. We would just argue about this project again. We need Jannah. Jannah, our cousin who still lives on Honeysuckle Street, would know what to do. She balances us. Plus, her builds are fire! She was the one who got the sandstone and calcite blocks perfect for the houses on the block. That is, before she went ghost. Did she forget that she was part of our team?

I stare at my phone, sitting next to the computer monitor on my desk. Think about something else.

That just makes me think about it more. I’ve sent six messages. They’ve been sitting on my phone as “delivered” since yesterday morning. I thought about sending a seventh text all day, but I didn’t. Seven without a response feels like too much. Too much—like me. I hate when people say that about me.

I even thought about texting Aunt Maryam, Jannah’s mom. But I didn’t want to be a snitch, begging my aunt to make her play with me like we’re three again. Our mission is more important than playing in the sandbox.

Our project is for Phantasy Philly, a convention where kids get to recreate real Philadelphia places in Minecraft but put an imaginative spin on them. Actual city leaders will be there and might even make the changes we model. Some adults don’t take what kids do seriously, but cities around the world are being rebuilt by kids based on their Minecraft builds. I read about a few of them, like Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. It had an unused marketplace there that had become nothing but concrete and empty markets. Kids redesigned it into a skate park. Building professionals then brought their game builds to life.

Phantasy Philly works the same way. Engineers, city planners, and lawmakers come to the convention, look at designs, and take notes. Last year, a kid crafted the 30th Street train station with a brand-new outdoor plaza. That plaza is now being built!

As cool as that kid’s build was (and it was really cool), Jannah’s re-creation of the art museum made his look like basic blocks of grass and cobblestone. She’d noticed on a school trip a woman pushing all her belongings in a rusted shopping cart at the bottom of the art museum’s famous grand steps. It was a hot day, and there’s no shade there. With towers and arches of quartz, Jannah recreated the museum, which looks like an ancient Greek palace. Then, at the bottom of the many steps, just off to the side, she made a shelter for unhoused people. The size of a small house, the shelter was a miniature replica of the museum. It was beautiful but useful, with three long benches for sitting or sleeping underneath the arches. City leaders weren’t interested in building that, but it attracted the attention of the Crafties. They’re a club for Philly middle schoolers who are Minecraft experts. Getting in with them is the real reason I’m signed up for Phantasy Philly this year. I just haven’t figured out how to tell Jannah yet.

This year’s Phantasy Philly theme is “Block Makeover,” or recreating an everyday neighborhood block into something unexpected. Jannah, Mir, and I have finished the first part: crafting the street as it is. The houses are on my screen. There’s the pharmacy. The skateable sidewalks made of stone slabs are in place. The trees are where they should be. We even figured out how to put white lines in the road. The only thing missing? Imagination. We’ve named our build Honeysuckle Dreams, but there’s nothing much to dream about. Everything is so blah. No fan—uh—phantasy in our model. Jannah is good at brainstorming the kinds of buildings that no one would think to create, like a shelter that looks like a palace. If she would only brainstorm with us. I swivel to look at my phone.

Ugh, just forget it.

I click the space bar twice and float up to the sky. Gliding above the buildings, I take in our build from a different angle. I note the slope of the street. I hadn’t paid much attention to how Mir formed the steep hill weeks ago when he was doing it, but I still pinch myself at how realistic it is—it looks exactly like Honeysuckle Street. That incline has to be perfect for something. I search my brain. It’s just a place where rainwater rolls down, causing a flood at the bottom of the hill. A smile breaks across my face when that sparks an idea in my mind.

I dive down and start hacking at a strip of the road, digging one block down and six blocks wide—the street’s width. When I go to the inventory for water, messages fly onto the screen.

zing, what are you doing?

why are you tearing up the street???

i worked hard on that!

Oh, so he does remember how to use the chat.

Before responding, I throw a bucket of water into the small well I’ve made. The banging from the other side of the wall that separates our two rooms jolts me out of my chair. Fine, I’ll respond.

making a water slide. honeysuckle street is perfect for a waterpark.

But as I type it, it sounds a little silly to me. I ignore that thought and dump another bucket of water.

impractical! how will people get to work?

Yeah . . . how would they? Maybe they’d boat there? I hunch over my keyboard, trying and trying to think of an answer to type back that makes sense. My shoulders sag. Oh, forget it! The audience at Phantasy Philly will laugh us off the stage. Once again, this is another desperate plan and a dead end. I’m not yet ready to admit that to Mir, so I turn my attention to what he’s doing. The deep square crater he’s formed near the pharmacy makes my stomach lurch.

well, what in the world are you making?

an underground garden.

Another bust. I’m not the only one who’s lost. I try to figure out a gentle way to say that. We’ve argued enough about this project today, plus I get what he’s trying to do. He’s probably designing a private space that lets him enjoy the outdoors. Mir needs quiet spaces sometimes, but this would never be taken seriously. He saves me the trouble.