Mitch grinned. "Right then, I think it's my turn to do the honours by now, don't you think?" Sky rolled his eyes and Jerome slapped Mitch playfully on the hand. Mitch pouted and turned to Husky. "Quentin, back me up here dood!" Husky grinned, spreading his palms out in a gesture of surrender. "I'm not getting involved!" Ty laughed and Sky glanced round at SSundee who seemed to have his gaze fixated on the flickering tongues of the fire. "Hey, Ian?" Sky waved his hand in front of his friend's face and Ian started. Jason laughed. "He doesn't seem to be with us much does he?" SSundee mumbled something unintelligible and stared at the ground instead. Sky had a numbing feeling of foreboding curling around his insides. It evaporated though when Mitch began his story. The Canadian stood up and cleared him throat. "Right then. I was always a bit of a troublemaker. Jerome knows this." Jerome grinned. "Do I?" Mitch smiled. "Well, I guess I'll have to start with the 'sticky chalk incident.'" Jerome chuckled. "That was a good one." Mitch grinned. "Well, here goes..."

Mitch's POV

Jerome and I sat beside each other in the classroom, barely holding back the waves of laughter soon to come. I bit my lip and grinned like an idiot as the teacher got up in front of the class. "Ok class, today, we're doing crafting recipes." I twisted round in my seat and saw Sky staring out of the window. Deadlox was sitting beside him, copying the date down in his book. Jerome had his paws covering his mouth, barely stifling his giggling. I smirked and quietly scrunched up a bit of paper. I wrote something on it and aimed it carefully, throwing it at Sky. It hit him on the side of the head. He frowned and turned to me, mismatched eyes full of confusion. I grinned at him and mimed a pencil stuck to my hand. I shook it furiously. Sky's eyes flickered up to the board and saw the teacher about to pick up the piece of chalk. They widened and he bit his lip, stifling a grin. The new kid was sitting at the back of the room, his blue eyes studying us in quiet curiously. I smirked and he smiled back. The teacher picked up the chalk and began drawing out the crafting recipe for a pickaxe. My stomach ached from containing the tsunami of laughter threatening to overcome me. I could see Jerome was having the same issue I was. "Ok class, if you would turn to page 345 in your text books, I shall demonstrate the crating of a pickaxe." The teacher went to put the chalk down, only to find it was stuck to his hand. He frowned slightly and shook it lightly. Nothing happened. I turned round and glimpsed Sky sniggering as Ty held back his giggles next to him. Most of the kids in the class were in various forms of withholding their laughter. Even the new kid was covering his mouth with his hand. I grinned at them all and looked back at the front just in time to see the teacher cry out and leap up and down in a panic, desperately trying to prise the chalk away from his hand. "HELP!" I was in hysterics as the rest of the class roared in laughter along with me. I high-fived Jerome as we watched the headmaster came into the room, see our teacher in distress and try to help him prise the chalk away from his hand. Soon both of thm were jumping around; the chalk now stuck to both of them. The new kid was grinning and Sky was practically falling out of his chair in fits of laughter. Eventually, the teacher had to be taken away to have the chalk surgically removed from his hand. The class was dismissed and we all ran outside. First chance he got Sky whipped round and grinned at me. "Mitch, that was amazing!" I laughed. "It was Fluffy's idea really!" Jerome grinned. "Mitch made the glue though!" The new kid, I think his name was Ian, ran up to us. "That was you guys?!" I nodded. He grinned, "Dat was awesome dude!" Sky smiled. "Better get used to it Ian cus these guys are real troublemakers!" Jerome pretended to blush. "Oh stop it you!" Ty ran up to us with Seto, both grinning like idiots. "Ah god that was classic!" Ty snorted. "His face though!" I laughed. "I'll never forget that reaction!" Sky grinned. "So, class dismissed huh? What we gonna do for the next hour?" Ian was taller than me and I could see him looking over my head at something. I frowned and turned round. Beside our school was the hybrid complex. It was basically a school for hybrids. People were always campaigning to migrate the hybrids into our society, but it wasn't a popular idea. Jerome was the only hybrid in our school because bacca's had integrated into the human population hundreds of years ago in search of food and shelter from hunters. My family had adopted him so it was obvious that he should go to the same school as me. The two schools were separated by a chain-link fence that could easily be climbed, but no one had ever dared to do so before. I grinned fiendishly. "Are you guys thinking what I'm thinking?" Sky looked uneasy. "Are you sure Mitch? Some of the hybrids are really hostile." Ian tilted his head to one side, blue eyes filled with curiosity. "I wouldn't mind checking it out." Ty shrugged. "YOLO, right?" Jerome laughed. "Yup." Sky sighed. "Seto?" Seto looked up from a book on herbaceous plants. "Uhh, yeah, sure." Sky grinned. "Ok, lezzgo then!"

We ran up to the fence and I stared up at the top. It seemed a lot higher than before. "I think some of us are gonna need a boost dudes." Ian stepped forward. "I'm the tallest, I can help." I nodded, smiling. This kid wasn't so bad after all. Silly Sky. Scared by stupid rumours. "So, who's going first?" Jerome started jumping up and down with his paw in the air. "Me! Oh oh! Pick me!" Ian nodded and went down on one knee, intertwining his fingers to make a step up. Jerome came forward and placed his foot gingerly on Ian's upturned palms. Ian grinned at him and Jerome grinned back before pushing upwards. He sprang up the fence and hooked his paws through feet scrabbling for purchase below. Finally, he was on the fence properly. "Next?" I laughed and came forward. One after the other we were boosted up until we were all clinging to the fence. Ian came last, jumping up from the ground and grabbing hold of the fence, climbing up till he was next to us on it. I nodded and began climbing to the top. Soon my fingers ached and my feet were sore but I grit my teeth and carried on. I reached the top and swung one leg over, taking the time to appreciate the view from my vantage point. I could see the village sprawled out in the plains biome down the road, then beyond that. In the distance I could see a blurred haze. The city. We'd all heard tales about Minecraftia's capital. Notch lived there, Herobrine was rumoured to prowl the streets after dark; there was a hunger games arena there and the Nexus. If I ever made it there one day, which I would, I would build a house there and visit the Nexus everyday, trying to beat my high scores. I was shaken out of my daydream when Jerome climbed up beside me and started down the other side. "C'mon biggums, hurry up!" I smiled and started down beside him. Last on the other side was Sky; he lost his footing and fell down the last few feet of fence, hitting the dusty ground with a dull thump. I turned round and my eyes widened. A ring of hybrid kids had formed around us. A few feet away stood an Enderdragon hybrid. Her immense purple wings were folded around her and her fangs and talons were out to their furthest extent. Seto frowned and I saw Sky gulp as Ian backed away to the fence. I stepped forward and came face to face with a Mudkip. They were glitches in the game that meant they were a cross between a Pokémon and a Minecraftian. His orange fins flapped weakly against his cheeks as we looked each other up and down. He grinned, showing small, neat, pointed teeth. "Heyo humans! Welcome to our humble abode." Ty snorted and Sky smiled. I tilted my head to one side. Jerome came and stood by my side, ready to defend me if this fairly peaceful congregation turned nasty. Another hybrid stepped forward. He had green skin and bulgy eyes. Something long and pink (No. Stop. Seriously! Stop being dirty-minded!) flicked out from his mouth and moistened his eyeballs before disappearing back into his mouth again.

He was a frog hybrid. Jerome looked the Mudkip up and down too before whispering to me: "He looks a fish." I grinned. All around the circle wings flapped uneasily, claws retracted and unsheathed, tails whipped nervously and eyes narrowed in suspicion. I swallowed and said: "Hey. Sup? We just thought we'd drop by and say hi!" Sky facepalmed and Ian raised his eyebrow. "Really, 'hi'?" I rolled my eyes as Ty cleared his throat. "We don't mean any harm. We thought you guys looked lonely and we don't think its fair you get cut off from the rest of society. So, yeah. Here we are." The Enderdragon hybrid smiled at him and unfurled her wings to their full extent. "Welcome." Her tongue was forked like a reptiles and all her teeth were pointed and sharp like canines, but damn she was hot. Jerome saw me looking her up and down and nudged me in the ribs with his sharp elbow. "I know what you're thinking; so stop." I sighed. Sometimes having a friend who was basically your brother could be annoying. Sky blinked and I caught a squid hybrid staring at him from the back of the crowd. Her eyes were ocean blue and her tentacles curled around her restlessly. Her skin had a bluish tinge and her hair was turquoise; cascading down her back in ringlets. I averted my gaze when she caught me staring at her. Eventually, after numerous silent staring competitions had taken place, the Mudkip held out his webbed hand and said: "The name's Quentin." I smiled and shook it. "Mitchell Hughes." Gradually, we all greeted one another and someone started up a game of ball. Seto had found a friend who seemed really interested in magic and they were chatting animatedly to one another. As I ran round the playground like crazy, trying to get the ball off of the Enderdragon hybrid, whom I later learned her name to be Silver, I noticed Ian was standing alone. He seemed uneasy, his blue eyes clouded over as though he was in a daydream. As I watched an ocelot hybrid bounded up to him and stood beside him. His eyes cleared and he turned to her. I smiled, glad he'd found a friend, and ran after Jerome, who'd wrestled the ball off of Silver and was loping towards the goal. An hour or so later the hybrids were called back in to class. In that time we'd made many new friends and I'd offered Quentin and the frog hybrid, who's name was Dakota, a place in our group we were planning to form when we someday travelled to the city. They'd agreed and we all made our way back to the fence. Ian said goodbye to his ocelot companion, (he later told me her name was Cindy) and rejoined us for the taxing climb back over.

***

Later that day after school finished we headed home buzzing with energy, laughing about the 'chalk incident' as we'd come to call it, and chatting about the hybrids. Sky and Ty left to go back to their homes and Seto went with them. Ian, me and Jerome stood at the base of Jerome's treehouse. I was sleeping with him for the night cus my parents were attending a meeting or something in the city. I felt a twinge of jealousy that they could go there and pushed it down. One day I would too. Ian smiled at both of us and went to walk away when Jerome spoke up. "This morning we were talking about some rumours about you. Are you really insane?" Ian froze and I groaned inwardly. Jerome and his big mouth. Then, to my surprise, Ian turned round and smiled crookedly. "That's for me to know, and for you to never find out." Then he walked away into the oncoming night and was gone. I shivered. "He's cool, but creepy in a way. If you know what I mean?" Jerome nodded. "Yeah. I guess so." I smiled at him and started climbing the rope ladder up to the treehouse. "C'mon biggums. Time to get some sleep." Jerome nodded and followed me up into the treehouse, pulling the ladder up when we were both in. We jumped down in the morning cus it was more fun. I lay down on my bed and curled up, staring across the room at Jerome's bed, knowing he'd be doing the same, but to me. "Night Jerome." "Sleep well biggums..."