Your Move, J. P.!

  Across the board, Kevin, himself fortified inside the silence of his turned-off hearing aid, concentrated on the game as well.

  The crowd watched silently. Kevin's cohorts had long since given up on their distracting maneuvers, and had drifted away toward the gym, where the sound of music indicated that dancing had started.

  "Check." J.P.'s voice was terse. Upright still in his golf bag, he had reached down and moved his king's bishop decisively.

  Kevin stared at the board for a long minute, and then moved his black queen over to protect his king and take him out of check. He glanced apprehensively across the table to J.P.

  J.P. took Kevin's queen with his bishop. The spectators were very still. Mr. Donovan adjusted his glasses and watched the board. It was clear that the game was coming to its climax.

  Kevin reached out smugly and took J.P.'s bishop with a knight.

  It was exactly what J.P. had hoped he would do. He moved his queen's bishop from the far side of the board where it had been lurking, almost forgotten.

  "Check," J.P. said.

  Kevin bit his lip. He held his hand above his own king, contemplating a move to the left. To the right. Back? Forward? There was no safe place for his king to go.

  Finally Kevin laid his beleaguered king on his side. "I resign," he said in a low voice.

  "Fifty-four minutes," Mr. Donovan announced, looking at the clock. "Good game, both of you."

  The crowd clapped, and J.P. took off his knitted helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  "Second game will begin promptly at—let's see—two-thirty," Mr. Donovan announced, after checking his watch.

  Angela appeared at J.P.'s side, with yet one more lemonade in her hand. "I went out to the refreshment stand because I got terribly hot," she told him. "And after a while, the game wasn't very interesting. It moves along so slowly."

  J.P. didn't answer. He was still replaying the final moves in his head with a kind of satisfaction. He wiped the damp hair from his forehead again.

  "Good game, J.P.," Kevin called from the library door.

  "Thanks. I'll see you in a little while," J.P. called back. Kevin wasn't so bad, really, he decided. He was competitive, that's all.

  Angela was watching Kevin as he headed off toward the courtyard entrance and the refreshment stand.

  "Doesn't Kevin have nice broad shoulders?" she said. "I mean, for someone our age. Compared to most boys—well, like you, J.P., for example. Your shoulders are terribly narrow."

  J.P. looked down at himself, still encased in the ridiculous golf bag. He was narrow.

  "I imagine he's a terribly good swimmer," Angela went on, still watching Kevin in his psychedelic bathing suit with the slick glistening kelp dangling around his neck.

  "Unlike your cousin, Raymond Myerson," she added meaningfully, and turned to look hard and long at J.P.

  Suddenly J.P. felt not only narrow-shouldered, but stupid. He felt, he thought suddenly, a complete, total, utter jerk. And a prisoner, as well. J.P. felt imprisoned in a stiff, suffocating golf bag; he felt imprisoned in a ridiculous romance with someone who never went to the bathroom in her entire life; and he felt imprisoned in a complicated network of lies.

  He wanted, more than anything in the world, to escape. He wanted someone to tell him how.

  At that moment, he realized that he knew who that someone might be.

  "By the way, James," Angela said, "I am still very eager for you to meet my father. I think the three of us should discuss your illness. He's right over there."

  J.P. looked across the library to where Angela's father was standing and chatting with a group of parents.

  "Not now, Angela," he said, firmly. "I can't talk to your father now. I have to concentrate on chess. And also—"

  He hesitated a minute. Funny, how not very long ago, he would not have dared to say such a thing to Angela Galsworthy. He would have blushed and trembled and stammered. But now it didn't seem to matter.

  "I have to pee," he told her, and left the library.

  J.P. found Hope in the hall, and nudged her into the supply room nearby. It was a small room filled with shelves of paper and books, and there was a sagging, decrepit couch along one wall. J.P. had always suspected that some of the teachers sneaked in here between classes to smoke. But today it was empty.

  "Would you help me get this off?" he said, urgently.

  "Sure." Hope tugged on the golf bag until J.P. was free. Gratefully he bent his legs and swung his arms, restoring the circulation. "Thanks," he said.

  "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" Hope asked. "I can wait here and help you put it back on again."

  But J.P. shook his head. "This is weird," he told Hope, "and I don't have time to explain. But I need to go and talk to someone before the next game." He looked at his watch. "I have twenty minutes.

  "Listen, Hope, I know we're not allowed to leave the school grounds without permission. But I'm going to. I'm going to duck out and run over to see someone in the park."

  "Who?" Hope asked curiously.

  "I'll tell you later. No time now. Meet me back here, okay, in fifteen minutes, so you can help me get this stupid costume back on before the second game?"

  Hope nodded. "Okay," she said.

  She called after him as he fled. "I forgot to tell you, J.P.! You really played like a genius!"

  He hadn't turned back to acknowledge Hope's comment, but he had heard it, and he thought about it as he sped through the park to the place where Ralph always sat. Some genius, he thought. I have a phenomenal memory and a high IQ and I can repair TVs and program computers and I play chess better than anyone else in the school.

  But unless I can get myself out of this stupid situation, within the next couple of hours I am going to have to face a distinguished doctor of genetic research and pretend to him that I have symptoms of a disease that probably doesn't even exist, and I can't even remember its name anymore—

  He ran down the path toward Ralph's bench, and despite his gloomy thoughts, J.P. was aware of how good it felt to have legs again. For hours now he'd been encased in stiff canvas. He hated the golf bag with a passion. He decided he would never play golf in his life. Not even miniature golf.

  "Whoa!" Ralph called to him. "What's your hurry?"

  In front of the bench, J.P. came to a stop with a skid of his sneakers. "Hi, Ralph. I only have a couple minutes. I have to get back to school. But I wanted to see you."

  Ralph tilted the visor of his baseball cap. "So here I am. Take a good look."

  "I didn't really mean I wanted to see you, Ralph; I meant I wanted to talk to you." J.P. was panting a little, breathless from his run.

  "So talk. What's on your mind? More diseases?"

  J.P. shook his head. "I guess I wanted to talk about, well, character flaws. That's what you called them. You seemed to know a lot about character flaws. Remember when I kept saying stuff like fraud, and fabrication, and you said those weren't diseases at all?"

  "You're boring me," Ralph said brusquely. "Nap time." He pulled his cap back down to shade his eyes. He made a snoring noise.

  "No, wait! Please, Ralph! I don't have anyone else to talk to about it!"

  "So is that my fault?"

  "No. No, it isn't, Ralph. It's mine. But I don't know what to do!"

  Ralph coughed. "Kid," he said, "listen. You got problems. Worse than bursitis or gum disease. And I can tell that as we move along in the alphabet, you're going to want to say mendacity and misrepresentation and perjury and sham—"

  "I don't know what mendacity means, Ralph."

  "Lies. It means lies. It all means lies."

  "That's me, Ralph," J.P. told him desperately. "I'm a liar. I really am. It's my character flaw."

  Ralph shrugged. "No sympathy here, pal."

  J.P. stood awkwardly in front of the bench, his shoulders slumped. "I can't stand it another minute, Ralph. But I don't know how to get myself out of it," he confessed.

  Ralph stared at him for a long
time. He coughed and wheezed. "What was your A?" he asked at last. "Acne. That was it. And your B—"

  "Body odor," J.P. reminded him. "And then I had common cold, dandruff, eyestrain, floaters, and goose bumps—"

  "Yeah," Ralph said, recalling the list. "Bunch of crapola adolescent stuff. Most of it you're stuck with till it goes away of its own accord. Character flaws, though—they're different. They don't go away. They get worse."

  "I know that," J.P. said dejectedly.

  "Unless," Ralph began.

  "Unless what? What can I do?"

  Ralph shrugged. "Unless you decide to call it quits. Just put an end to it. Won't work with acne or the common cold. Won't work with this emphysema, which is gonna do me in soon. But you can call it quits with lying, J.P. I would, if I was you."

  "Just like that? Just quit? You make it sound easy. But I'm all caught up in this complicated—"

  Ralph gave a loud fake snore.

  "I'll try," J.P. said dubiously.

  "So try," Ralph replied. "No big deal." He yawned, and closed his eyes.

  "But I love this girl," J.P. whispered miserably, under his breath. "I did it because I love this girl."

  Ralph squinted up at him irritably. "That little blond bazooka you brought by here the other day? The one that gave you goose bumps? You're blaming her for your character flaws? Gimme a break, pal."

  J.P. looked at his watch. "I gotta go," he said. "I have to break a speed record getting back or I'll be late for something important. I'll see you later, Ralph. Thanks."

  He turned to leave, jogged a few steps, then turned back. "Ralph!" he called in a surprised voice.

  Ralph looked up impatiently.

  "What I just said? About the girl? That was a lie too, Ralph, and I didn't even know it! I was lying to myself, even!" J.P. called. "I don't love her at all!"

  Ralph sighed, and shook his head. "See you around, kid," he said, and coughed.

  Entering the school, J.P. glanced at his watch and winced. Two thirty-seven. He was seven minutes late for the chess game, and they were probably all wondering where he was. They had probably sent a scout to the men's room to look for him, by now.

  "Geez, Hopie, I'm late!" he blurted anxiously as he dashed into the supply room. "I have to get that golf bag on faster than Superman in a telephone booth!"

  But the room was empty. The golf bag was gone. And so was Hope.

  15

  J.P. opened the supply room door quietly and peered out into the empty hall.

  "Hope?" he called in an anxious whisper. But there was no answer. From one end of the hall he could hear the sounds of music and laughter. The gym was at that end, and the afternoon dance was at its height.

  He tiptoed across the hall to the heavy wooden door with gold lettering that said LIBRARY. Stealthily he turned the thick brass knob, opened the door a couple of inches, and peered in through the narrow opening.

  He could see the backs of numerous silent people. Beyond them, he saw the chess table, and Mr. Donovan, still wearing his Slinky-like spring. He saw Kevin Kerrigan hunched over the chess board, his snorkeling mask still pushed up above his forehead, his face intent with concentration.

  J.P. pressed his face against the crack in the door and stared in astonishment. He saw himself, facing Kevin. He was standing as he had for the length of the entire first game, rigid in the golf bag, anonymous in his knitted red bootie.

  He watched himself reach out one arm and move a pawn.

  He knew that it was Hope's arm.

  Panic-stricken, J.P. scurried back across the hall and into the supply room again. He sat down on the sagging couch and looked at his watch. Two forty-five. He put his face into his hands. There was absolutely nothing he could do but wait.

  He didn't have to wait long. Ten minutes later, the door opened and Hope entered.

  "I lost!" she wailed in a muffled voice. J.P. stood and pulled the thick red knitted helmet off her head.

  "I lost, J.P.!" she wailed again, and began to cry.

  "Hey, Hopie, don't!" J.P. said uncertainly. He had never tried to comfort a weeping person before. But he tried, awkwardly and unsuccessfully, to put his arm over Hope's shoulders. Hugging a person wearing a golf bag was a little like embracing a gas pump.

  "Here," he told her. "Let me pull this off you."

  He deposited the golf bag on the floor, and Hopie went to the couch and slumped there, weeping quietly.

  "It got to be two-thirty," she explained, sniffling, "and you weren't here, but I was pretty sure you'd be back in a minute—"

  "I should have been," J.P. said, angry at himself. "I'm always on time to stuff. But somehow I got held up over there, and when I got back—"

  "Well, they started announcing on the intercom that the second chess game was supposed to start. And then Mr. Donovan announced that if either player didn't show up, the game would be forfeited, and so I suddenly thought that I could get into the golf bag, and they wouldn't know—"

  She looked up at him and giggled a little. "It wasn't easy, getting that thing on all by myself."

  J.P. laughed too and looked ruefully at the green canvas bag lying on the floor. "Then you just walked into the library as if you were me?"

  Hope nodded. "Yeah. Although 'walk' isn't the right word. Hopped, sort of. Good thing our feet look alike." She looked down at her sneakers, which were very similar to his, though smaller.

  "And our arms," J.P. pointed out. They were both wearing the Burke-Thaxter regulation blue school shirt.

  "But I lost, J.P.," Hope added disconsolately. "I started out okay, but I got flustered. I was more nervous than I usually am. I don't know why."

  J.P. laughed. "Because you were wearing a golf bag and a head bootie and pretending to be me?"

  Hope grinned at him. She pushed her red hair back behind her ears and smoothed it with her hand. "Yeah, I guess that's why. But darn it, J.P. I wanted to win, for you."

  "Hope, I'm glad you lost! If you'd won, it would have been a disaster! If you'd won, you would have been champion, and everybody would have started congratulating you, and you would have had to take the head thing off, and—"

  Hope cringed. "And it wouldn't have been J.P. Tate at all."

  "And it would have been cheating! But because you lost—well, heck, there's no reason for anybody ever to know. I'll just go back and play the last game. What time is it supposed to start?"

  "Three-fifteen."

  "That's in ten minutes. I wonder if I have time—"

  "Time for what?"

  "Hope, I'll meet you back here just before three-fifteen for the last game. I promise I'll show up. I just want to go find someone first."

  She glared at him. "J.P., you're not going back to the park, are you? Because I'm not going to put that golf bag on again. I swear I'm not. There's a limit, J.P., to what I'll—"

  "Honest. I'll be right back. I just need to tell someone something."

  Leaving his costume behind in the supply room, J.P. dashed out into the hall and looked around. There. There at the end, near the gym entrance, Angela was standing with her father. Her golf bag had disappeared.

  "Angela!" he called.

  She looked at him casually as he approached. "I'm sorry I didn't go to the second chess game," she said. "But I got to talking to some friends out in the courtyard, and I completely forgot about it.

  "I'd like you to meet my father, James," she said. "Father, this is James Tate. Those foolish costumes were his idea. I see you took yours off, too, James," she added. "I found it terribly difficult to dance, wearing a golf bag."

  J.P. shook Dr. Galsworthy's hand politely.

  "I lost the second game," he explained, though she hadn't asked. "The third one starts in about five minutes. So I have to rush back. But I just wanted to tell you something, Angela. I don't have that disease. I never did. I can't even remember what it was called; I made up the name, anyway."

  Angela stared at him.

  "Disease?" her father asked.

/>   "Yessir. Angela told you I had this rare disease, and I know you were interested because you specialize in rare genetic diseases. But, sir, I just said it to make Angela feel sorry for me because I wanted her to like me."

  The bell that signaled an announcement suddenly sounded, and everyone was quiet.

  "The third and final game of the chess tournament is about to begin in the library." It was Mr. Donovan's voice.

  "Rare genetic diseases?" Angela's father said. How about that, J.P. thought, suddenly; he has echolalia, too.

  "I have to go," J.P. said in a rushed voice. "But I wanted to tell you I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Angela. I'm sorry, Dr. Galsworthy. I lied, and it was dumb and adolescent, and it was a character flaw.

  "But I've quit lying," he said, and felt a great weight lift. "And I really have to go play chess now."

  He turned and hurried back down the hall. Behind him, he heard something that he would think about later. He heard Angela's father say, "Angela, what ever was that boy talking about? And why did you tell him that I'm a doctor?"

  An hour later, J.P. ceremoniously dumped his golf bag into the trash can at the entrance to Central Park. Fourteen seconds after that, a jogger, breathing heavily, stopped, looked at it with interest, pulled it out of the can, and continued jogging with the golf bag in his arms.

  "Wait till he finds out it has armholes and shoulder straps," J.P. said to Hope, who chuckled.

  "Who is this guy you want me to meet?" Hope asked as she walked beside J.P. through the park.

  "Just someone I know. He's a kind of philosopher. His name is Ralph."

  He was afraid that Ralph wouldn't be there. He was afraid that Ralph would simply have disappeared, that he would remain forever a mysterious figure, so that in the night, for years to come, J.P. would stare at the ceiling wondering, "Did I dream it? Was Ralph only my own fantasy?" the way people did in books. And then, in the books, they would find some hint—some clue—some mysterious object, like maybe a piece of grubby cloth that could possibly have been a corner of Ralph's crummy handkerchief—they would find that lying around, to tantalize them, to make them always wonder...