Page 77 of Love Letters on Hazel Lane

A small girl standing beside him said, ‘Mr Morgan always says it’s the taking part that counts. Not the winning.’

‘Well, Mr Morgan is up next in the second semi-final,’ Jo said, ‘if you want to cheer him on?’

‘Nah,’ said Alfred. ‘We’re all going to play Junior Scrabble in one of the classrooms. I’m offering coaching sessions. Oh, and by the way, it’s Alfie now. Not Alfred.’

Jo left them to it, and went to warn Mr Morgan and Harry, the only ‘professional’ left in the tournament, that their match would be starting in five minutes.

It’s probably fair to say that Harry wiped the floor with Mr Morgan. As soon as the game finished, Mr Morgan headed out of the hall and disappeared in the direction of his office.

Jo went up to the stage and picked up the microphone. ‘Thank you all for watching. The final starts at half past two. In the meantime, grab yourself some lunch, see what’s on offer in the craft room or play a game of Scrabble yourself in one of the classrooms.’

Then she went after Mr Morgan and tentatively knocked on his door.

‘Humiliated,’ he said. ‘That’s what I am. Humiliated. In front of my entire school. The chair of the governors was watching. Not to mention the parents. And all the children.’

He was sitting at his desk, his head in his hands.

‘The children weren’t watching. Alfie’s giving coaching sessions. They’re crammed into one of the classrooms.’

‘Even so…’

‘You reached the semi-finals,’ Jo said. ‘That’s pretty good going.’

‘But I lost,’ he mumbled through his fingers.

‘Isn’t it the taking part that counts? Not the winning? Isn’t that what you tell the children?’

He looked up at her. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Fancy getting some lunch? I hear there’s cheese pie and beans today.’

*

An expectant hush fell through the hall as the final began. Latecomers tiptoed to their seats – not that there were many seats left – and customers at the PTA refreshment stall whispered their orders.

The two opponents stared at each other, weighing up the competition, last-minute game plans and strategies no doubt running through their minds, and the audience waited in silence. It was like the Snooker World Championships at the Crucible, thought Jo. Only without any cues. Or any green baize. Or coloured balls. So not like the snooker at all, in actual fact.

During this final game of the tournament, Jo stood at the top left-hand corner of the table in her role as adjudicator. For most of the match, her eyes were fixed on the board and the players so she didn’t notice Zoey and Kate arrive. But she looked up when Mr B was taking a particularly long time to figure out his next move and spotted them: Zoey was sitting in the back row, between Kate and Razz. Jo bit her lip hard, praying that her eyes wouldn’t fill with tears again, and forced herself to focus on the tiles that Mr B was now placing on the board. He moved his hand with a flourish and stopped his clock. He’d used all his letters, scoring the fifty-point bonus. A collective gasp ran round the audience.

Jo didn’t look back at Zoey or Kate for the rest of the game, nor as she declared Mr Stanisław Baranski the winner.

Florence rushed straight over to Mr B. ‘I’m so proud of you, Stan,’ she said, dabbing at her eyes with a hanky.

Then Harry, the losing player, shook hands with Mr B and said, ‘It’s great that someone from the local club has won the whole thing. I’m already looking forward to the rematch at next year’s festival.’

Next year’s festival?

This was a one-off as far as Jo was concerned, but she didn’t like to say.

She looked at Mr B. He’d been a different player in the tournament compared with the one she knew at the club. As well as using up all his letters and scoring that bonus, he’d managed to play three, four and even five scoring words in one turn. He didn’t make a single proper noun or word of his own invention, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by Florence.

Later, as Jo tidied some of the tables, she overheard Florence saying to Sylvia, ‘I don’t understand it. Stan never plays that well on a Friday evening yet he beat that pro hands down. He didn’t try any of his usual nonsense.’

‘Bit of a dark horse,’ said Sylvia. ‘I reckon he’s been fooling us all this time.’

The two older women moved away and Jo couldn’t catch the rest of their conversation.

‘He has, you know,’ said a voice from behind her.