Rebecca smiles, like she knows I’m stuck about what to do. I suddenly want to meet her in the library but I did promise Jake. I give her a look that says, Sorry! I think she gives me one that says, It’s okay. Then Jake grabs my arm.

‘Come on, Felix,’ he says. ‘We’re going to be late for woodwork.’ He pulls me away and I leave Rebecca behind.

‘Thanks for thinking of my granddad.’

‘What?’ asks Jake.

‘Thanks for saying that my granddad doesn’t like meeting people at the moment.’

Jake laughs. ‘That’s not why I did it!’

‘Why did you then?’

‘I did it because if your granddad can teach someone like you to win, think what he could do with a brainbox like her!’

The City and the Wall

Rebecca messaged me to say there were three good reasons why I should play in the Inter-Schools Championship:

1.   She wants the school to win.

2.   She thinks Leah likes Chris so they will sit together on the minibus and not talk to her.

3.   She doesn’t want to sit next to Rich on the minibus.

Granddad has been on at me to play too. It was the first thing he said to me when he picked me up from school and he’s still going on about it during tea. But what he doesn’t know is that I want to—

‘Retire?’ Granddad waves his fork across the dining table at me. ‘Retire! You cannot retire. You are only eleven!’

‘I know, but what if I get beaten really badly? Everyone will think I’m an idiot.’

‘Ah. I see what is happening. You are losing confidence.’

‘I know, Granddad,’ I say. ‘I felt amazing when I got up this morning. I was feeling amazing at Film Club. But in the afternoon, during maths, the amazing started to wear off.’

Granddad ruffles my hair. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Remember Bobby Fischer. He didn’t give up after three games! Now tell me the moves you made in the match yesterday with this Rich.’

I force a smile as I slide my notebook across the table. Granddad is listening to me but he’s not understanding me. I thought the amazing feeling would last for ever. I don’t want someone to pull the plug out and watch it all slowly drip away down the drain.

‘Mmm . . . This is interesting.’ He nods. ‘He was using the Ruy Lopez!’

‘Roy who?’

‘Not Roy, Ruy. This is the Spanish Game. Ruy Lopez was a bishop who wrote a book . . . let me think . . . yes.’ Granddad’s eyes light up. ‘He wrote The Book of the Liberal Invention and Art of the Game of Chess. We could not get it in East Germany, not officially, but we smuggled copies of it in from the West. This boy is only eleven and using this move.’

‘No, he’s fifteen, Granddad,’ I say. ‘And he does read lots of books.’