The Day the Knight Danced
The older child next door was more conventional in her tastes, with a liking for stories about princesses, ballerinas, castles in the air, etc. The challenge for me was to write something which avoided cliché and stereotype but which, nevertheless, responded to her preferences.
I knew that she was absorbed by the game of chess and that she had just started playing simple tunes on the keyboard.
The girl at the centre of my story has been playing chess against herself but, becoming bored, breaks off to play a simple mediaeval tune. She finishes, turns around and thinks that the knight has altered its position. Gazing at it, she also thinks that she sees him wink at her.
That night, she dreams that she is at a mediaeval ball. The band strikes up and people begin to dance. The girl realises that the tune being played is the one she had been rehearsing that evening and, to her astonishment, one of the dancing knights turns to her and winks!
The Day the Knight Danced appealed to me as a title because of the obvious pun.
The ending? I have written it but it awaits publication in a collection of the short stories written for the sisters.
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