At that very instant the town clock boomed twelve o’clock, noon, the long iron strokes which came as salvation because Doug leapt to the edge of the porch and stared toward the town square, up at that great terrible iron monument, and then down at the grassy park, where all the old men played at their chessboards.
An expression of wild surmise filled Doug’s face.
‘Hey,’ he murmured. ‘Hold on. The chessboards!’ he cried. ‘Starvation’s one thing, and that helps, but now I see what our real problem is. Down outside the courthouse, all those terrible old men playing chess.’
The boys blinked.
‘What?’ said Tom.
‘Yeah, what?’ echoed the boys.
‘We’re on the chessboard!’ cried Douglas. ‘Those chess pieces, those chessmen, those are us! The old guys move us on the squares, the streets! All our lives we’ve been there, trapped on the chessboards in the square, with them shoving us around.’
‘Doug,’ said Tom. ‘You got brains!’
The clock stopped booming. There was a great wondrous silence.
‘Well,’ said Doug, exhaling, ‘I guess you know what we do now!’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In the green park below the marble shadow of the courthouse, under the great clock tower’s bulk, the chess tables waited.
Now under a gray sky and a faint promise of rain, a dozen chessboards were busy with old men’s hands. Above the red and black battlefields, two dozen gray heads were suspended. The pawns and castles and horses and kings and queens trembled and drifted as monarchies fell in ruin.
With the leaf shadows freckling their moves, the old men chewed their insunk mouths and looked at each other with squints and coldnesses and sometimes twinkles. They talked in rustles and scrapings a few feet beyond the monument to the Civil War dead.
Doug Spaulding snuck up, leaned around the monument, and watched the moving chess pieces with apprehension. His chums crept up behind him. Their eyes lolled over the moving chess pieces and one by one they moved back and drowsed on the grass. Doug spied on the old men panting like dogs over the boards. They twitched. They twitched again.
Douglas hissed back at his army. ‘Look!’ he whispered. ‘That knight’s you, Charlie! That king’s me!’ Doug jerked. ‘Mr Weeble’s moving me now, ah! Someone save me!’ He reached out with stiff arms and froze in place.
The boys’ eyes snapped open. They tried to seize his arms. ‘We’ll help you, Doug!’
‘Someone’s moving me. Mr Weeble!’
‘Darn Weeble!’
At which moment there was a strike of lightning and a following of thunder and a drench of rain.
‘My gosh!’ said Doug. ‘Look.’
The rain poured over the courthouse square and the old men jumped up, momentarily forgetting the chess pieces, which tumbled in the deluge.
‘Quick, guys, now. Each of you grab as many as you can!’ cried Doug.
They all moved forward in a pack, to fall upon the chess pieces.
There was another strike of lightning, another burst of thunder.
‘Now!’ cried Doug.
There was a third strike of lightning and the boys scrambled, they seized.
The chessboards were empty.
The boys stood laughing at the old men hiding under the trees.
Then, like crazed bats, they rushed off to find shelter.