Evo and Other Short Stories (Because I'm an idiot and lost the old account)

Tom's Birthday

Description: Tom's birthday is overshadowed by Grian's, but he finds a creative way to not let it get him down.

During all the excitement of Grian's birthday, everyone seemed to forget about Tom. This did not bother him, though, because he and his best friend Big B had a plan. Right now, they were in their underwater base taking inventory.

"Okay, let's make sure we got everything," Tom said, wire-framed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose as he tapped his pencil against his checklist.

"Silly string,"

Big B opened the large supply chest on the back wall.

"Yep, got it."

"Jukeboxes."

"Got them too." Big B replied.

"Redstone."

Big B dug down deeper. "Yep, and we have a few comparators and repeaters."

"Copies of Meatball Parade,"

"Right next to the jukeboxes."

"30 guys on a zip line."

"I've got the zip line in the chest, and the 30 guys are hanging out at my base," Big B said.

"Dude I was only kidding with that one," Tom said, spinning around to look at his friend and pushing up his glasses.

"I wasn't. I found 30 of our fans willing to do this," Big B replied.

Tom sighed, "Okay fine. We'll set the zip line up in Zee's base."

They continued taking inventory, but the more they checked, the more it became evident that they were missing key components to their master plan.

"Okay, so we need an oak sapling, 10 eggs, a cow, 25 rolls of carpet, and a skeleton named Skelly McBob," Tom said.

"Then let's go get them." Big Be replied, standing and stretching his arms.

Tom and Big B left their secret base and found a nice forest to harvest saplings. The first one they chopped down did not produce a sapling. Now, of course, it is unrealistic to expect the first bunch of leaves you break to drop a sapling immediately, so the removed all the leaves from the tree, but it did not yield any saplings.

'Trees do this sometimes.' they both thought as they moved on to the next tree. Slowly, their resolve started to waiver after removing the leaves from the 50th tree and receiving no saplings. The small little bit of forest they sheared looked more like a city of ruins, but they couldn't be bothered to fix it. They did gather a disgusting amount of apples, enough to bake apple pies for the rest of the year for everyone on the server. Big B and Tom were losing their temper but weren't too angry yet. They decided to switch to using birch saplings for their plan but started yelling, cursing, and stomping their feet when the first tree also gave them no saplings.

"You know what," Tom said, huffing, "why don't we go see if the others have some saplings we can borrow."

-0- -0- -0-

Meanwhile, Netty and Salem were resting up in Netty's melon farm, looking down on the surrounding area and munching on melon halves.

"You did well, dear," Netty said, smiling at her friend.

"Yeah, I guess. I'm still a little rusty. I mean I probably shouldn't have let you get behind me and whack me upside the head with your sword." Salem said, rubbing the back of her head gingerly. Her pvp skills were not that impressive today.

Netty looked out over the railing and saw Tom and Big B. "Oh hey, that's Tom and Big B. Lets see if they want to fight us."

Big B and Tom meandered closer to the tree house, not even bothering to check the leaves. Salem and Netty approached them cautiously, not knowing what mood they were in.