Black Queen (5 page)

I was just making my way out of the kitchen into the hallway, the bowl and spoon at the ready, when I remembered the milk. I went back to the fridge to get it, took out a bottle and nudged the door shut. I was all set. As I came out into the hallway again I was still practising my “Rammy Rambo” call out loud. I was getting better at it all the time. I had the bowl in one hand, the milk bottle in the other. That was the moment I heard someone coughing.

It sounded at first as if there was someone in the house. A chill of fear crept up my spine. Then I saw the shadow outside the front door, through the frosted glass. I froze where I stood
and
held my breath. How the milk bottle slipped out of my hand I do not know, but the crash of it echoed through the empty house, echoes that seemed to go on for ever.

“Are you all right in there, Mrs Blume?” The milkman! I knew his voice. “I thought you said you were away for a couple of weeks.”

He could see me through the glass. I couldn’t just stand there. I had to say something. “Tomorrow. I’m off tomorrow,” I called out, in her voice, in
her
accent. “A little accident, that’s all.” I could see his face was pressed up against the glass. “I’m fine, just fine.”

There was a long pause.

“You sure you’re all right?”

“I’m sure. Thanks anyway.”

There was a long silence; then the shadow bent down. “OK then. I’ll just pick up the empties. Have a good trip.”

I heard the clinking of bottles and then his footsteps going away down the steps. I couldn’t believe it. I had got away with it! I had fooled him! It was all I could do to stop myself giggling with triumph as I swept up the glass and mopped up the milk. I could hear Rambo yowling out in the garden. If I can fool the milkman, I thought, then I can fool Rambo. He was only a cat, after all.

I did just as the Black Queen had told me. Tapping the bowl, I went down the steps into the garden and called out:
“Rammy
Rambo! Rammy Rambo!” Sure enough, Rambo came at once, springing down off the sundial and bounding up the steps to meet me. He purred as he ate, his tail trembling with pleasure. It worked! So far as Rambo was concerned I
was
Mrs Blume, I
was
the Black Queen. I even felt confident enough to stroke him, and he didn’t seem to mind at all. I went back into the house and fetched another bottle of milk. I poured it out for him and crouched down to watch him lap at it, dipping his pink tongue in and out so delicately.

Then, a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye! Rula! Rula was peering at me over the garden fence. All I could see of her were two little hands and a round red face. Her eyes were wide with fear.

I knew then that this was the moment of truth. “Hi there,” I called out as breezily as I could. I sounded just like the Black Queen. It was amazing. “Just feeding my pussy cat. You got a pussy cat?”

Rula couldn’t seem to find her voice for a moment or two – which was unusual for her. “I’ve got a rabbit,” she said at last.

“A real live bunny rabbit?” I exclaimed. “Gee, that’s great!”

“He’s called Matey,” Rula went on, happier now, “and he gets lost sometimes.”

“And you’ve got a brother too, right?” I was really enjoying myself now.

“He’s a boy,” Rula said.

“Your brother?” I replied.

“No,” she laughed, “Matey. All brothers are boys, worst luck.”

I chuckled just like the Black Queen, and then retreated to the kitchen, where I laughed myself silly. After that, the rest was simple. I got out of my Black Queen costume and put everything away. I waited by the back door until I was quite sure Rula wasn’t looking, until I knew the coast was clear. Then I let myself out, locked the house, slipped the key under the flower pot and ran down to the bottom of the garden. I scrambled up over the fence and let myself down behind the garden shed where no-one could see me. The last thing I saw was Rambo arching his back at me on the sundial and hissing hideously. “Same to you,” I said, and went back home.

Chapter 6

Genius, Pure Genius

AT SUPPER RULA
was full of it. “I wasn’t frightened,” she insisted, “not a bit. And she’s not a witch at all. She’s American and she’s really nice.”

“Well, she looks like a witch to me,” I told her (I didn’t want her spying on me again). “And if you know what’s good for you,” I went on, “you won’t go snooping. She could turn you into a frog, or a slug maybe, or a worm. You’d make a good worm.”

The television news was on and my father wanted to listen. “Can’t you two do your squabbling somewhere else?” he snapped.

So Rula and I made ugly faces at each other in silence instead. Matey sat on the sofa between us, his nose twitching.

“I bet he does it too,” my father said. He was leaning forward, watching the television closely.

“What?” I asked. “Who?”

“Beats Purple.”

“What’s ‘Purple’?” I had no idea what he could be talking about.

“Purple’s a computer, the best, the most sophisticated computer in the entire world, and the makers have challenged Greg McInley to a chess tournament. Just listen.”

“Who’s Greg . . . thingy?” Rula asked.

“World chess champion,” I said, tutting at her and settling down to watch. “Don’t you know anything?”

“Enough!” My father rounded furiously on us both. “Will you please shut up for a moment and let me listen.”

There was a brief glimpse on the television of a young man getting out of a long black limousine and darting into a hotel. Then the reporter was talking to the camera. “McInley, world chess champion for the past five years, is still only twenty-three. Born in New York, he was a child prodigy – Grand Master at twelve years old – and now he’s back here in New York to take up the ‘Man Against Machine’ challenge,
against
Purple, the most powerful computer yet devised. Man and machine will play one match a day, and it’ll be the best of thirteen matches. If he wins, Greg McInley stands to win five million pounds. Not a penny, if he loses.”

“He’ll do it, you’ll see,” my father said. “I’m telling you, that man’s a genius, a pure genius.”

A shiver went right through me as I watched. I knew! At that moment I knew. You could say I put two and two together. Number 22 next door. The
Black
Queen. Greg McInley was her son, he had to be. Hadn’t she said he was nuts about chess, a “chess nut”? That was why there were chessboards everywhere. They were
his
, all
his
. And hadn’t she said she was going to New York to be with her son, and for two weeks as well? It fitted. Everything fitted, fitted perfectly. That lady next door, Mrs Blume (a false name for sure), the Black Queen, was the mother of the world chess champion! She
had
to be.

It was all I could do to hold it in. I wanted to blurt it all out, tell everyone. But I knew I couldn’t. I knew I mustn’t. If I did that, I’d have had to tell the whole story, confess to everything, all the lies and the dressing up, all my play-acting.

The news came to an end, and my father turned off the television. “Well, Billy?” he said, turning to me. “That could be you in ten years’ time, if you
practise.
Five million quid for a fortnight’s work. Not bad. And he’ll do it, I’m telling you he’ll do it.”