Black Queen

by Michael Morpurgo

  It was risky, but I was so into the part that I knew I could fool her. “Hey, kid,” I called out. “You lost something?”

  She stopped crying the moment she saw me and began to back away. “Matey,” she said, “my rabbit. I can’t find my rabbit.”

  I held up Matey by the scruff of his neck. “This what you’re looking for?” I asked.

  I could see she was still nervous of me, but all the same she came over, reached up and took him from me. I don’t think she dared even look at me – which was just as well, I suppose.

  “Thank you,” she said, clutching him tight, and she ran off at once back into the house.

  I was in the kitchen a few minutes later just taking off my floppy hat when I heard the bell ring, the front door bell. I stood there, hardly daring to breathe. The bell went again.

  “Anyone home?” It was my mother! I heard Rula’s voice too! Both of them were there. And Rula knew I was in that house, she’d only just seen me. I had to be there.

  There was no way out. I had to say something. I made it up as I went along. “Listen,” I called out. “It’s a bit difficult. I’m washing my hair right now, OK?” I sounded just like her, the Black Queen, just like a woman, just like a real American.

  “It’s all right,” my mother replied. “We didn’t want to bother you. Rula and me, we just wanted to say thank you, that’s all, for finding Rula’s rabbit for us.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  “Maybe you’d like to come over sometime,” my mother went on.

  “That’d be fine,” I said, “just fine. Thanks.”

  And then they were gone. I could not believe it. I had fooled my own mother. I was brilliant, utterly brilliant; but I was shaking like a leaf.

  Chapter 7

  Hide and Seek

  THE NEXT DAY we heard that Greg McInley had beaten Purple for the first time, and once he’d started winning he didn’t stop. Whenever the news came on breakfast television we’d be watching, all of us – Gran included, and she’d always said that chess was the most boring game there ever was.

  Until now chess had been just a game for me – a game I enjoyed, but still just a game. Now it was becoming an obsession. For me, for my own private reasons, even more than for everyone else in the house, the result of a chess match between a man and a computer had become more important than a football World Cup final. Every day I was aching to tell them who the Black Queen was, that we had Greg McInley’s mother living next door to us. But I could not bring myself to do it. It wasn’t that I was frightened of her any more – she could hardly be a witch and Greg McInley’s mother, could she? But I had promised her I’d say nothing and she trusted me – she’d said so. And besides, I knew that once I told them that, then I’d have to tell them everything. I’d have an awful lot to explain away. So I kept quiet, but it was hard, so hard.

  When, after five more wins, we heard that Greg McInley had drawn level with Purple at six matches each, we all went berserk, leaping up and down like wild things, so much so that Matey went and hid under the sofa.

  Now it was on the television all the time, every news bulletin. And we weren’t the only ones getting excited. Of course they only ever showed the last few moves of each match. Greg McInley would be sitting up there on a dimly lit stage, a great electronic chessboard behind him. He’d be hunched over the table like a concert pianist, his nose almost touching the chess pieces on the board. When he moved a piece he always did it in precisely the same way. He’d sit back, brush his nose with his forefinger, then reach out very decisively. He’d tap the piece he was going to move three times, always three times, move it, punch the timeclock and sit back, then fold his arms and wait for Purple’s move to come up on the electronic board. When Greg McInley won there were no fists raised in the air in triumph, no smiles even. He’d just push his chair back and walk directly off the stage, completely ignoring the audience who’d be on their feet, clapping and cheering. I always looked for a glimpse of his mother in the audience. And I thought I did see her just once, a woman in black in the front row, but the camera passed by her so quickly that I couldn’t be sure.

  Evening after evening my father would take me through Greg McInley’s most amazing moves, and he’d go on and on about the genius of the man to anyone who would listen. None of us could really understand the complexities of it. All we wanted to know was who was going to win. Man or machine? Greg McInley or Purple?

  My father tried to stay up all night to hear the news of the last match – the deciding match – as it came in, but he fell asleep. So he didn’t know the result any more than we did when it came on the breakfast news the next morning. We were all watching, watching and waiting. Then at last it came. “Chess. And Greg McInley has done it! Last night Greg McInley, world chess champion, beat Purple in the last match in the series. So he wins seven matches to six.” Then we saw pictures of Greg McInley sitting up there on the stage in New York. We saw him sit back, stroke his nose, reach out, tap tap tap on the Black Queen and at last make his move. He punched the timeclock, and then came his voice, soft, deep, calm: “Checkmate.” The cheering was thunderous. This time, when he stood up, he did bow just once, and I saw a flicker of a half smile, a shy smile on his face as he walked off.

  The reporter went on: “That is probably the last we shall see of McInley for some time. He will take away five million pounds in prize money, money which he usually gives away to good causes. An intensely private person, he never gives interviews. He will disappear, as he always does, into nowhere.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” cried my father. “Didn’t I tell you?” He had tears in his eyes, and so did I, and so did Rula – but that was because she had lost Matey again. Matey turned up soon enough – my mother had shut him in the kitchen cupboard by mistake.

  Later, when we were clearing up breakfast, Gran suddenly said: “No-one can disappear into nowhere. Someone must know where he goes. That chess man, he must have a family somewhere. Everyone has a mother.” I felt myself going cold all over. “I mean,” she went on, “someone must know where he goes to, surely to goodness.”

  “Listen, Gran,” my father said, “if you’ve got a brain like he’s got, you can disappear, just like that, easy as pie. That man can beat the best chess players in the world, the best minds and now the best machines. Do you really think he can’t beat everyone at hide and seek too? If he doesn’t want to be found, then I’m telling you, he won’t be found.”

  “His mother would know,” Gran said – she was not giving up the argument. “Find the mother – she’ll know where he is.”

  I don’t know why I said it. I heard the words come tumbling out of my mouth and could not stop them. “The Black Queen, at Number Twenty-two next door, maybe she’s his mother,” I began – everyone was gawping at me – “well, she could be. She’s mad on chess. She’s got chessboards all over her walls, like pictures. I’ve seen them. Maybe she taught him. And she’s American too, isn’t she? Greg McInley’s American, isn’t he?” They were still gawping.

  “You’ve been looking in at her windows!” my mother cried – she was furious. “You’ve been snooping!”

  “I just looked, that’s all. When I found Matey that time, I just had a quick look.” I was in real trouble now.

  “Well, you shouldn’t have.” Now my father was joining in too. “What if she’d seen you?”

  ‘“She’s away,” I replied.

  “She’s not,” Rula said. “I know she’s not. I saw her yesterday through the fence. There’s a hole. She was feeding her cat. It’s a black one. It’s called Rammy Rambo.”

  “You’re not to do it again, Billy, you hear me?” My mother was simmering down, but she was still cross.

  So was I. After all, I had tried to tell them. If they didn’t believe me, then that was their fault. I stormed out in a huff. I needed to get out of the room anyway, to think things through. The more I thought about it now, the more I was convinced that the Black Queen had to be Greg Mc
Inley’s mother. She’d be back soon enough. I’d ask her straight out.

  That evening I waited until I was quite certain that Rula was safe in her bath before I went to feed Rambo. I discovered the little knotty hole in the fence she must have been looking through, and plugged it with earth – just to make her wonder. After I’d fed him Rambo just wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept wrapping himself round my legs, badgering me for more food. I gave him some water – the milk had run out days ago – but he didn’t seem to appreciate it at all. In the end I decided I would have to fetch him a little more food.

  I was going back up the steps when I noticed I’d left the door open. Suddenly Rambo made a dash for it. He was up the steps ahead of me and in the house before I could stop him. He wasn’t in the kitchen. He wasn’t in the hallway. I called him and called him, but he wouldn’t come. I tried tapping a bowl with a spoon. He still wouldn’t come. The Black Queen had told me I mustn’t let him in. I had to find him and put him out, or he’d claw at the curtains and do messes. I went down the hallway towards the front door. The doors were all shut on either side. Rambo had to be upstairs.

  I went after him. The stairs creaked horribly, every one of them. Something dark whipped across the window at the top of the stairs and screeched like an angry ghost. I could see it was only a branch, but every nerve in my body was jangling by now. The whole house felt alive all around me. I called out again, in a whisper this time. Still no Rambo. There were three doors leading off the landing. Only one was open, just ajar. He had to be in there. I pushed it open tentatively. Rambo was up on the bed, on the pillows, licking his paws and purring loudly. I was worried he might scratch me if I picked him up, so instead I tried to tempt him off the bed. He wouldn’t budge. There were chessboards on the walls here too, and one with all the pieces set up on a table by the window. Then I noticed the framed photographs on the table. I knew I shouldn’t, but I went over to look.

  I was right! It was him! It was her son, Greg McInley, world chess champion – with the same shy smile on his face, holding a silver cup above his head. There was one of him standing on the porch of a house under snow, his arm around his mother – she had much longer black hair in those days and of course she looked a lot younger – and another of him as a boy proudly showing a medal and grinning happily through gappy teeth.

  Suddenly Rambo was on his feet springing down off the bed. I soon saw why. In the door stood Mrs Blume, the Black Queen, Greg McInley’s mother, and she did not looked pleased.

  Chapter 8

  Checkmate

  “I WAS ONLY looking,” I said. She didn’t look as if she believed me. “It was Rambo. He came upstairs. I couldn’t stop him. Honest. He wouldn’t come down.”

  She said nothing, but just looked at me, frowning. I was glad I wasn’t having to lie, because I knew her eyes would find me out. Rambo was rubbing himself blissfully up against her leg, and I wondered how long it would be before he realized that two of us couldn’t be the same person.

  Still the Black Queen said nothing. I hated the silence, so I went on, “It’s him, isn’t it? In the photos. It’s your son. It’s Greg McInley. We’ve been watching. Everyone’s been watching. All those chessboards, and you said he was a chess nut. And you told me you were going to New York to see your son. I guessed it all along. That’s where you went, didn’t you? He won. He beat Purple. My dad says he’s a genius, a pure genius.”

  Suddenly her face softened, and she laughed. “It’ll take more than some fool machine to beat my son,” she said. I was so relieved to hear her speak, that she wasn’t angry at me. She walked past me towards the window and looked out. “Good to be home. Hey, Billy, come see what I see.” I went to look. “That’s your bunny rabbit again in my backyard, isn’t it?” she said. And sure enough there was Matey nibbling away at the grass by the sundial. “I reckon he likes the grazing better over my side of the fence.”

  That was when my hand accidentally knocked over one of the chess pieces – the queen, the black queen. She stood it up again. “This was Greg’s first chess set,” she said. “He learnt all he knows on this board. Just a little old cardboard chessboard, cheapest one we could find down at the store. We had a lot of snow that winter, I remember. Too cold to go out. Nothing else to do but play chess. Only five at the time – took to it like a duck to water. We didn’t know what we were starting, I guess we never do.”

  She still had her hand on the black queen. She tapped it three times, tap, tap, tap. Then she moved it.

  “Checkmate,” she said, her voice soft, deep, calm. She smiled down at me. Suddenly I knew. Suddenly I understood. It was a man’s voice, his voice. I knew it too from the shy smile, from the tapping finger. It was difficult to take it in at first, just unbelievable. Unbelievable but true. She wasn’t his mother at all; she was the son, she was him, she was Greg McInley, chess champion of the world. And she knew I knew. I could see it in her eyes, she could see it in mine. Still smiling at me she took off her glasses, and then her hat, then her wig.

  “Sometimes, Billy,” said Greg McInley, “sometimes I reckon my mum taught me too well that winter. The pieces on this board, they became my family, my whole world. And now it’s the only world I really understand, where I can be happy, where I can be myself. The other world out there, the real world, I don’t want any part of it, not the money, not the fame, none of it. You understand me, Billy?”

  I was beginning to.

  “I never like to stay any place longer than a few months. Safer that way. And besides, I’m happy on my own. I play my chess, play my music. Bach – I could listen to his music all day and all night. It’s all I need. I do it all in my mind, Billy. I’ve got a game of chess going on every board in this house, but up here in my mind. I play myself – that way I always win and I always lose, if you know what I mean. Do you know something, Billy? You’re the first person I’ve ever wanted to tell. I reckon it’s because you remind me of me when I was young. Sometimes you want to share your secrets, you know what I mean? But you can only do it with someone you really trust.”

  He reached out and took off my hat and coat. “I guess you won’t be needing these any more, will you?” he said. “Now, you’d best be getting that rabbit back home where he belongs, where you belong too.”

  We went downstairs together. “And thanks for looking after Rambo for me. Don’t you worry, I’ll be taking him with me when I go. We can’t have you dressing up like a wicked old witch for the rest of your life, can we now?”

  “Are you going?” I asked.

  “Better be moving on, Billy. I’ve been in this place long enough, I reckon.”

  We said goodbye in the dark of the hallway, and that was the last I saw of him.

  Matey was easy enough to catch. When I got back Rula hadn’t even realized he’d gone missing. Then she clapped her hand to her mouth and hooted with laughter at me. “You’re wearing glasses,” she screeched. And so I was. I said I’d found them in the garden shed, and she believed me.

  No-one ever saw the Black Queen again after that, or Rambo. Within days a TO LET sign went up outside Number 22. Mrs Watson told Gran over the fence that the Black Queen had gone, that no-one had seen her going. My father joked that maybe she’d just flown away on her broomstick.

  “She certainly was a strange one,” my mother said. And that’s what everyone thought. I “kept mum”, as they say, and said nothing. It was our secret, Greg McInley’s and mine; and besides, I knew they wouldn’t believe me, not in a million years. Why should they? I had no proof.

  A week later I answered the door to the postman. He had a parcel for us, he said. It was addressed to me. Somehow I knew at once that it was from him. I took it up to my room to unwrap it in private. It was his cardboard chess set. “For my good friend Billy, with love from Greg McInley (and Rambo).” That was all it said, but it was enough. I was bursting to tell them. I came charging down the staircase and into the kitchen. I opened up the box and showed them. “That,” I declared proudly, “
is Greg McInley’s chess set. He gave it to me.”

  They laughed at me, of course. So I showed them the letter, and then told them the whole crazy story. From beginning to end. No-one said a word the whole way through, and after I’d finished they just gawped.

  THE END

  About the Author

  Michael Morpurgo is one of Britain’s best-loved writers for children and has won many prizes, including the Whitbread Prize, the Red House Children’s Book Award and the Blue Peter Book Award. From 2003 to 2005 he was the Children’s Laureate, a role which took him all over the UK to promote literacy and reading, and in 2005 he was named the Booksellers Association Author of the Year. In 2007 he was writer in residence at the Savoy Hotel in London.

  Also by Michael Morpurgo:

  Tom’s Sausage Lion

  The Last Wolf

  Illustrated by Michael Foreman

  The Silver Swan

  Illustrated by Christian Birmingham

  BLACK QUEEN

  AN RHCP DIGITAL EBOOK 978 1 409 02574 0

  Published in Great Britain by RHCP Digital,

  an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK