The Cave Starts to Spin Jolly Phonics · Step 3, Unit 11: /er/ mixed

Chink, chink, chink. My pick hits the coal. Same old coal. Same old dark cave. Same old dull day. Then a green flash glints in the rock, and my pick stops mid swing. An emerald. A big green emerald, glowing in the rock. My brain says, 'Do not grab it.' My fingers grab it first.

Hisss. I can tell that sound. I spin round and block as the mob bursts. Boom! The blast slams me back into the rock so hard my teeth shake. The dust drifts away, and I look at the emerald. A thing inside it glows. Not plain emerald green. A darker, odd green, like a tiny flame. 'That is new,' I say low. And then the cave starts to spin.

I blink. I stand on grass, under the stars, outside. No more cave. No more coal. I am far off now, with wind on my face and a wood sign in the grass. I check my blue kit for cracks. No cracks. I check the emerald in my hand. Still glowing. Still not right. 'So,' I say to no one. 'It is that sort of emerald.'

Twang! An arrow zips past my chin. A bone mob. It is always a bone mob. I block two arrows, turn, and yank out my blade. One swing. Bones all round. A little green orb floats up, and I drink it in. 'Thanks for that,' I tell the bones. The bones do not chat back. But in back of me, a thing does. Click. Click. Click.

I turn slow. A mob creeps out of the shadow, a red glow in the dark. Behind it, a bone mob with an arrow on the string. And behind that, a little green mob on a bird! 'Oh, come on,' I groan. I do not stop to count. I just run. My boots pound the grass, my kit clangs, and the bird goes cluck, cluck, cluck.

A river. Just right. I splash in. Green mobs can not swim fast, bone mobs can not aim at me as I swim, and green mobs on birds... well, I do not want to meet one. A green mob stands on the bank. It does not come in. I swim out and let the river take me. The mobs shrink to tiny dots. 'Not today,' I say low.

I swim and swim. The trees on the banks get tall and thick. Vines hang down. Ferns cover the banks. No one could run in there at night. Then I see it. A little wood hut sits in the ferns, and its shape gleams on the still river. A hut can keep the mobs out. I swim for it so fast I slurp up the river.

I flop onto the bed, and sleep hits me like a falling anvil. When I wake, sun fills the window. Then I see a green glow. The emerald, there on the bed. That odd flame still stirs inside it. It can zap me far off. I can tell. I pick it up. I hold it to the light. I grin. 'So,' I say. 'Where to next?'