Page 46 of The Little Board Game Café

As things progressed, everyone forged ahead of Emily, building rooms for their houses and fences for their animals. Ludek was the first to have a child and the first to plough a field and sow crops. She managed to save up clay and wood and used it to build an oven in her house, which meant she could bake bread which was a more efficient way to feed her meeple family.

This was serious stuff, thought Emily, glancing round the table at her opponents. They barely said a word, heads bent over as they studied their cards, planning their strategies. Ludek was clearly planning his moves way ahead, and took ages over each turn, assessing what everyone else had done and calculating whether he was taking the right actions. He had a second child before she’d even managed to have a first, and had three fields towering with wheat whilst she only had one. Malcolm had clearly opted to specialise in animals and had three sheep and a pig, whilst Alan’s farm was mostly arable.

‘You need to have some children,’ Alan said to her.

‘I’d need to build more rooms for my house first and I don’t have enough wood. Besides, my meeples are so wrapped up in love for each other that they don’t want children. Maybe when the honeymoon period is over.’

‘Meeples on honeymoon,’ said Ludek, laughing. Her eyes met his; they were positively twinkling at her and Emily felt her cheeks reddening.

There was an awkward silence. Malcolm looked up – up until now, he’d been studying his cards, seemingly oblivious to the conversation.

Alan said, ‘You need to have children, or you definitely won’t win the game. The more meeples you have, the more turns you get each round.’

Emily realised she’d been holding her breath and let it out with a rush.

‘Anyone fancy a cuppa?’ she said.

‘Tea break. Good idea,’ said Alan.

‘Milk, two sugars please,’ said Malcolm.

Emily went into the kitchen and filled up two kettles. This was the first time she’d had to use more than one kettle at once; she’d never had this many people in The Lancashire Hotpot before. As she waited for the water to boil, she stared out of the hatch, enjoying the sight of the full tables. This. This was what she’d dreamed of. A full café – well, almost. Customers enjoying themselves. The buzz of conversation. She wished her mum could see it.

And board games. She loved them. She hadn’t expected to, but she absolutely loved them. Even this complicated one with its farming scenario and its wood and its meeples and its baffling array of different cards, each offering a different benefit. No, make that especially this complicated one. She adored Agricola, even though she hadn’t quite got the hang of it.

And the gamers themselves. She and Kate had dismissed them as geeky initially, but that was doing them an injustice. She enjoyed their quiet, gentle company. Especially Ludek’s. Obviously.

The kettles boiled. Emily snapped herself out of her reverie, made three pots of tea, one for each table, and carried them out on a tray with a jug of milk, a bowl of sugar, twelve mugs and some home-made biscuits.

When the tea break was over and play had resumed, Emily finally managed to collect enough wood to build an extra room for her house which allowed her meeple couple to have a child.

Two and a half hours after the game had started, they totted up the points. Ludek won with forty-three points and she came in last with a paltry twenty-two. Malcolm and Alan were somewhere in between, closer to Ludek’s score than to hers.

As Ludek packed the game away, putting the little pieces into their little bags again – one for the sheep, one for the cows and so on – the three men indulged in a bit of post-game analysis; the kind of thing you’d see after a football match on the telly rather than after a board game.

Emily handed Ludek her little meeple family. He looked down at the three tiny wooden figures, sitting in his hand.

‘I’m glad they finally had their honeymoon baby,’ he said, raising his eyebrows, and she felt herself blushing.

Chapter Seventeen

On Saturday, Emily was in the kitchen, frying some bacon to make herself a butty for a late lunch, when she heard the door opening. A customer. At long last.

Mr B and Marjory had been in for their morning coffee and Chorley cakes as usual, and Mrs Scott and Mrs Sinclair, the two trolley ladies, had had their usual fry-up followed by scones and jam. Emily had wondered how they stayed so slim. And were they still ‘spying’ for Florence? Since they’d left, she hadn’t seen another soul. Until now.

She turned the hob down to its lowest setting as no one wanted to smell burning bacon when they walked into a café and went to greet the new arrival.

Ludek.

‘Hi,’ she said, hastily wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Just passing?’

He laughed. ‘Hi. How are you?’

‘Tired. A bit fed up. Not getting many customers. Last night was fun though.’

‘Yes, that’s why I’m here. I wanted to thank you. You really helped us out. It was great holding the games evening here.’

‘Anytime.’