The Clockwork Queen by Peter Bunzl

Author:Peter Bunzl
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barrington Stoke Ltd
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

That was it, I realised. Olga had been in there! That was where she had disappeared to during the game. She had been playing the Clockwork Queen!

Olga smiled when she saw I had worked it out.

“I direct the Clockwork Queen,” she said. “From this secret compartment, hidden inside the box.”

“So all those cogs and wheels are fake?” I asked. “And the Queen can’t play chess herself? It’s a trick?”

“That’s right.” Olga nodded. “I’ve been playing for her since she was first built.”

“I spent years trying to design a real machine that could play chess as well as the greatest chess players,” Mr Kon said. “But I was never able to do it. Then I realised I had already made a chess prodigy who could puppeteer the machine for me and make it look real – Olga.”

“But why not just play chess as yourself?” I asked Olga.

“You know why,” she replied. “Society makes it harder for us girls to play professionally. That’s one reason. The other is that everyone’s seen human players before. But a Clockwork Queen – that’s impossible! Who wouldn’t pay to see that?”

Olga shook her head. “But I’m getting too old to play for the Clockwork Queen now. I’m almost too tall to fit in the secret compartment. So we needed to find someone new.”

“That is where you come in,” Mr Kon said. “I promised Olga that if she could get me a player good enough and small enough to replace her, she could run the show with me.”

“I wouldn’t have to climb into that tiny cabinet and hide myself away any more,” Olga said. “And I wouldn’t have to spend my entire life with a brain full of chess puzzles. That’s why I brought you here tonight, Sophie. To offer you this job. The role of the Clockwork Queen.”

I thought about it.

Did I want to climb into that machine? Hide inside that uncomfortable secret compartment in the cabinet? If I said yes, I would be going with the Kons to St Petersburg and the Winter Palace, where Papa was imprisoned. All I’d have to do was agree to play as the Clockwork Queen against the Empress. After the game, surely I could find a chance to speak to the Empress and beg her to free Papa?

Papa had always told me a clever pawn could become a queen. That had seemed an impossible goal for me at the time. But now here were the Kons offering me that chance.

I looked at their expectant faces. And at the unmoving mask of the Clockwork Queen.

She was a piece on the chess board. No more. No less.

She was a role I would need to play to get Papa back.

I couldn’t refuse such an offer.

My stomach fluttered nervously as I bent down and peered into the gap to the secret compartment in the cabinet beneath the Clockwork Queen.

“All right,” I agreed. “I’ll do it.”

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