|
Chess by Post | ||||
|
Category: Alternate Universe Characters:None Genres: Comedy Warnings: None Rating: PG Reviews: 5 Summary: In which Ginny secretly plays chess with a muggle. From the muggle's POV. Well, from the POV of another muggle who is related to the first muggle. Hitcount: Story Total: 2948 Disclaimer: Harry Potter Publishing Rights © J.K.R. Note the opinions in this story are my own and in no way represent the owners of this site. This story subject to copyright law under transformative use. No compensation is made for this work. Author's Notes: As anyone who follows me knows, I wrote Ginny Weasley & the Half-Blood Prince as practice for writing my own, original books. Those books are now available on Amazon, and this short story tells of my two main characters being involved in an unknowing interaction with Ginny. And for MORE of the adventures of Race and Cookie McCloud, search for "Race McCloud" or "Cookie McCloud" on Amazon. |
|
|||
|
“So that's it, then. You've finally lost it.” Race looked up at her, surprised. “Oh, hey! When did you get back?” “Just now.” Her hands still resting on either side of the doorframe, 15 year-old Cookie McCloud nodded towards the chessboard laid out in front of her uncle on his desk, pieces scattered about mid-game. Her Uncle Race, the second worst private eye in Westside City, was playing the white pieces; there were two black pawns off the board in front of him. On the other side of the board, where apparently nobody was playing black, eight white pieces rested off to the side of the playing area: four pawns, a knight, and two bishops. “I don't know what's worse: that you're playing chess against nobody, or that you're losing.” “Ha, ha,” Race said, half-smirking at her. “Very funny. I am not playing against nobody.” He gestured across the board from himself to where Cookie was pretty sure nobody was still sitting. “I'm playing with my pen pal.” “Your pen pal?” “Yes. My pen pal.” Cookie studied his face, looking for any sign that this was all one big and weird joke at her expense, but Race looked one hundred percent serious, and usually if he was trying to pull one over on her he couldn't stop snickering like a five year-old. “All right,” Cookie said, pulling a chair over to Race's desk, setting it down and taking a seat across from him, on black's side of the board. “Your pen pal. Explain.” “I've always wanted to play chess,” Race began, his eyes lighting up and a broad smile spreading across his face. “It just seemed like something smart, classy people did, you know?” “So you thought if you learned chess you'd become smart and classy?” “No, but I figured it would help me fake it. Anyway.” He gestured across the room, where Cookie's laptop sat on a shelf next to a pile of old DVDs and video games. “I put an ad on Steveslist.” “The online classifieds?” “Yeah. Looking for a pen pal to play chess with.” Cookie frowned. “Geez, Uncle Race, that's pretty risky. You never know who you'll find on Steveslist. Bunch of weirdos on there. And you gave this anonymous whoever-it-is your e-mail?” Race waved that thought off. “Nah, c'mon. Give me some credit.” “Well, good. But then how --” “I gave them our mailing address.” Cookie dropped her head into her hands, gave both of her eyes a good, hard rubbing, and looked back up at Race. “Why in the world would you do that?!” Race rolled his eyes. “How else am I going to get the letters? I mean, duh, Cook.” “Wait a second.” Cookie pointed at the board. “You two are playing through the actual, old-timey, pen-and-paper mail?” “Yeah, why? People do that, you know. It's a real thing.” “The USED to do that. Now they play chess with people all over the world, on their computers, and their phones, and --” “And by closing their eyes and going online with their brain?” She glared at him. He was grinning. She hated when he mentioned her powers. “My point is,” she went on, ignoring his wise-assery, “you can play instant games online against anyone anywhere. Why find a pen pal?” Race shrugged. “I tried the online stuff. People kept getting mad at me for taking too long when it was my turn. Honestly, it's better for me to play by mail. I need the time between letters to think up my next move.” Cookie nodded. “I can believe that.” She turned her attention to the board; Race was about four moves away from being checkmated... unless he crossed his knight to d6 and began a textbook 'Drunken Pony' checkmate. “You know what you could do?” she began, pointing at the knight. “You could --” “Don't tell me!” Race shouted, throwing his hands up in front of his face to fend off her words. “How will I learn if you tell me?” “What you’ve been doing to learn so far hasn’t been working, so I may as well tell you.” She frowned; something had just occurred to her. “Where was this earlier?” she asked, gesturing to the board. “What do you mean?” “The board. It wasn’t out when I left this morning.” “You’ve been gone for four hours,” said Race. “Where were you, anyway?” She glanced away from him, only for an instant, but it was long enough. He was getting much better at reading her expressions and she didn’t like it. “Cookie,” he said, and for one rare moment he sounded like the parent-slash-guardian he was supposed to be. “Were you in the park again?” She set her jaw and glared out the window. “Yeah. So what?” “Watching pedestrians?” “Yeah.” “And sending them creepy text messages on their phones with your mind?” She folded her arms. “So what if I am? I’m bored! We haven’t had a case in a week.” It had been a slow couple of days for McCloud & McCloud Investigations, the detective agency she ran with her uncle. Cookie did not do well with slow days. “Hey. Hey!” Race reached over the chessboard and snapped his fingers in front of her. Her head spun towards him but she suppressed her other reflexes, the ones honed through years of training to be a super-secret agent… until she had dropped out of the Academy. If she hadn’t suppressed them, the back of his skull would have been halfway through the office’s rear wall already. “We’ve talked about that. You can’t do that! You can’t abuse your powers!” “Don’t call them powers!” She hated that word. “What have we said we’re calling them?” Race sighed. “Cookie, for the last time, I’m not calling what you can do your ‘special problem’. It makes you sound like a knocked-up teen from the 1950’s!” “That’d be better than having powers,” she grumbled. “Anyway, stop changing the subject.” She pointed, again, at the board. “How could you be having a game with a pen pal if the board wasn’t out this morning? Those games take weeks.” Race shook his head. “No, not with this guy. His mail delivery system is crazy fast. Oh, good! Here he is now!” Cookie turned to look at door of the office, but nobody was there, no postal carrier or deliveryman. And why was Uncle Race opening the window? And why the hell… !? “Why is there an OWL out there?!” Cookie yelled, jumping out of her seat. “And why are you letting it climb on your arm?!” There was, and he was. Race had heaved the window open (it got stuck a lot) and a bushy brown barn owl had swept into the office, quiet as a mouse, and settled on Race’s outstretched forearm. “He’s not an ‘it’,” Race said, stroking the owl’s downy feathers with one extended finger. “He’s a ‘he’. Don’t know his name, though. He can’t talk. I mean, of course he can’t. He’s an owl.” Cookie had a million questions to ask but they couldn’t all pour out of her mouth at once, so she settled for staring bug-eyed as Race detached a rolled-up piece of parchment from the owl’s leg and unscrolled it. He stared at it for a moment, and then looked to the board, and then back at the paper, and then back to the board, and finally said, “Huh.” The owl, which had perched on Race’s shoulder, spread his wings and swooped downward, alighting on Race’s desk. He leaned over the board and, with his beak, nudged the black queen over three squares. “What’s it doing?” Cookie asked. “What’s HE doing, you mean.” “Fine, what’s HE doing?” Race handed her the parchment. “Playing this move. I think. Did he?” Cookie read the parchment and looked back up at the board. “Queen to a5. Yeah, he got it right. And you’re in check.” Race frowned, studying the chessboard. “What should I do?” “If I tell you, how will you learn?” “Oh, shut up,” Race said, throwing her a dirty look. “Just tell me what to do.” Cookie studied the board. “You should probably use your rook to guard the king,” she decided, “but the queen’s going to take your knight. Nothing you can do about that. Why am I playing chess with an owl?” “Not with the owl,” Race said, sliding the rook across the board to defend the king. “With the owl’s owner.” He took the parchment from Cookie and picked up a pen, scribbling down his move. “Rook… to… d… 3…” “d2.” “d2,” Race corrected, scribbling out the old move and writing down the correction. “That’s what I said.” He rolled the parchment back up and held it out to the owl, who extended a talon to allow Race to tie the paper back on. “There you go,” Race said, testing the knot to make sure it was tight. “Go on.” But the owl didn’t move. “Oh, right! Sorry.” Race reached across his desk to one of the drawers and pulled it open. “I’m out of brownies,” he told the owl, who hooted loudly in response, the first sound it had made since it arrived. “Hey, I’m sorry, all right?” He pulled a large greasy bag out of the drawer. “You like corn chips? Here you go.” Race flipped a chip into the air, and in one motion the owl leaped up to snatch it mid-flight, then turned and was gone, back out the window. Cookie hurried over to watch it fly off; it was already a speck against the distant horizon. She turned back to Race, who was seated again, studying the board. “Where’d you find your pen pal again?” she asked him. He didn’t look up. “Steveslist. Why?” “And when will the owl return?” Race shrugged, still burning a hole through the chessboard with his eyes. “Thirty minutes or so. That’s the usual pattern. Man, I’m pretty much screwed here, aren’t I?” Cookie glanced at the pieces. “Oh, yeah. Now… would you focus here?” Race looked up at her. “Why, what is it?” “You don’t think this is weird?” She pointed out the window. “You’re playing chess with somebody who is delivering their moves to you VIA OWL! That doesn’t strike you as odd?” Race shrugged. “Not really. Should it?” “You’re a hell of detective, did you know that?” “Hey, c’mon. That was below the belt.” Cookie sighed. “So tell me: what’s the name of this chess-playing owl owner?” Race thought about that, his brow furrowed, the usual look he wore when he had just realized something amiss that everyone else had realized about twenty minutes ago. “You know, I don’t know? He just signed it with his initials. And it had a logo on top of it, that first letter did. A school crest. Maybe he’s a student. Maybe he’s your age. In fact,” Race snapped his fingers. “Maybe HE is a SHE. I don’t even know that.” “Yeah, great,” said Cookie. “We’ll just add that to the ever-growing list of things you don’t know.” But Race was only half-listening to her, his other half lost in thought. “G.W.,” he said finally. “G.W. Those were the initials.” Cookie shrugged. “I doubt it, but okay. What about the name of the school?” Race nodded. “That I remember. Completely and one-hundred percent.” “So what was it?” “Pigfarts.” Cookie just let that sit there for a few moments. “Pigfarts?” she asked, just to make sure she had heard him correctly. “Pigfarts?!” “Yeah, you ever hear of it?” “NOBODY’S every heard of it!” she exploded on him. “It’s not a real place! Remember better than that! C’mon! What stationary was the letter on?” Race, though, could do nothing but shake his head. “If it’s not Pigfarts, then I don’t know. I was almost certain… Hey! Maybe it’s a word that just SOUNDS like ‘Pigfarts’.” “I would like to guarantee you,” Cookie said, “that you will not be able to think of any word in any place or any time that sounds anything like ‘Pigfarts’.” She stood up, deciding suddenly that this was not a mystery worth solving. It was ridiculous and, after all, they weren’t being paid for it. “C’mon. I want lunch.” “Big Ol’ Burger Burgers?” Race asked, getting to his feet and grabbing his coat and hat. “Where else?” “You know, Cookie,” Race began as they headed out the door and down the hall of their building. “Speaking of school --“ “No.” “And people your age --” “No.” “I’ve got a friend with a daughter who’s fifteen --“ “No.” “Maybe you could enroll in her high --“ Cookie spun around on the front steps to face him and he stopped short, one foot out of the building’s main entranceway. “No school, no teenagers, no friends. Friends suck. We have our work. Now come on. Burgers.” As quick as she had turned and snapped at him she spun back around and leaped down the final four steps onto the pavement, light as rain. She shoved her hands in her pockets and headed down the street, a dark cloud settling over her. School sucked. ‘Friends’ sucked. Teenagers sucked. Still… She looked to the sky. Did she hope to see an owl flying through the air towards their office window, carrying another set of chess move from the mysterious attendee of a school with a name that may or may not have sounded like ‘Pigfarts’? She bristled at the notion. Mystery schools? Ridiculous. She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets and turned her gaze even further down towards the pavement as she walked, Race’s footsteps coming up behind her as he tried to catch up. She walked faster, annoyed that not even he understood: school was the last thing she needed. … Still… |
| Reviews 5 |
|
