I pull the curtains and get into bed. I hold the trophy tight to me. It really is mine, but I can’t stop thinking that any minute now Mum will come in and shake me awake and I’ll realize that this day hasn’t happened and I’m late for school.

I close my eyes. In my mind I can see the hall and I can feel the light shining down on me. And I can see the chessboard and my opponent’s king lying across two squares. Then all around me I can hear the sound of a clock tick-tick-ticking. I screw my eyes tight and hug the trophy so hard it digs into my skin. The clock keeps tick-tick-ticking, and I wish it would tick-tick-tick faster so the morning would come.

Alerts!

BUZZ. BUZZ.

BUZZ. BUZZ.

My phone is buzzing and flashing in the dark.

I reach out and try to turn it off. My hand knocks against it and it falls onto the floor.

BUZZ. BUZZ.

What day is it?

Sunday.

No school. I didn’t set an alarm.

I pick my phone up, squint at the screen – twenty-six messages?

It can’t be.

I wipe the sleep out of my eyes – twenty-six messages!

Twenty-six messages, all of them from Jake.

Felix, wake-up.

Felix!

Felix!

Felix, are you awake?

Felix!

Felix, you idiot!

Felix!

I scroll down, but each time I do a new message arrives. Felix, come on!

Felix!

Okay, I reply. I’m awake.

At last!

What is it?

Don’t know how to tell you.

What?

Shall I call you?

No. We’ll wake my mum and dad. What is it?

Your granddad.

My heart skips a beat. What about Granddad? Is he ill again? But how would Jake know?

What about him?

Can’t tell you. Just look!

Jake sends another message, but this time there are no words, just an internet link.

I click on it. My screen lights up bright. I blink and refocus.

Wha—?

What?

Youngest ever schools chess champion wins using moves of Stasi commander.

Stasi commander? No, that’s not right. Granddad told me everything about the Stasi, how they watched people all the time, went through their rubbish, listened to their phone calls. They were spying on him – he wasn’t one of them.

I scroll down the page and see a picture of me holding the trophy.

Have you read it?

Another message from Jake pops up at the top of my screen.

I’m trying to!

I go back to the screen.

We have our youngest ever National Schools Chess Champion. Eleven-year-old Felix Schopp beat off strong challengers from schools all over the country using the Spreebogen Variation of the Yugoslav Attack, a move only ever used by the former East German secret police commander Lionel Steiner, who famously disappeared after winning the 1962 World Championships in Berlin.

What’s Jake on about? What’s so urgent?