Page 90 of Second Chances at the Board Game Café

Footsteps thudded across the ceiling above them, and Taylor could hear voices from upstairs.

‘I’ve got the decorators in,’ said Emily. ‘Watching you and your sewing group every week made me think I should start using the space. I’m putting more tables and chairs up there. It’s often packed in here…’ she glanced round the almost empty café ‘…although looking at it now, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.’

‘I’m sure you are. This place is really popular. Max loves it.’

‘That’s good to hear. You know, Taylor. I’ve just had an idea.’

‘Oh?’

‘Why don’t you use the upstairs as your new display area? You could upcycle some clothes that would appeal to board gamers. I’m thinking like Harry’s dragon shirt for the Dungeons and Dragons fans. Or perhaps a denim jacket with pockets made from the meeples fabric and meeples for buttons?’

‘Meeples?’

‘Like on my pinafore – the one you made for me.’

Taylor frowned. ‘I thought they were weebles.’

Emily laughed. ‘No, they’re meeples. Hang on.’ She stood up and went over to the shelves, pulled out a game and returned to the table.

The box had a picture on the front depicting an old-fashioned country scene, with a sheep, a boar and a woman in peasant’s robes and a mop cap. She was carrying a basket of bread.

‘Agricola,’ Emily said, opening the lid. She removed the leaflet of games rules, and picked up a little red figure. ‘Taylor, meet Mr Meeple. Mr Meeple, meet Taylor.’

‘Hello, Mr and Mrs Meeple,’ said Taylor, taking out another tiny figure from the box. She paused for a moment, mulling over Emily’s idea. The upstairs of the café would be a wonderful space to showcase her work, and board-game-themed garments were a genius idea. ‘I could use the Scrabble fabric too. And I’m sure to be able to find train fabric. There seem to be a lot of board games about trains.’

‘Yeah, I’ve a little group of regular players that I’ve nicknamed the Trainspotters because they only play train games. Your Harry’s one of them.’

Her Harry.

Well, he wasn’t quite hers yet, but hopefully he would be one day.

‘I’m sure we could find some dice fabric,’ said Emily. ‘And there are board games about pretty much everything. Loads of animal board games. Flowers. Food. You find the fabric, I’ll find the game to go with it. I was thinking you could have a rail upstairs to hang the garments on, and hang some on the walls too, like artworks. Because they are works of art, Taylor. They really are.’

Taylor barely noticed the compliment. In her head, she was designing garments. Shirts with Scrabble cuffs and collars. Jeans with trains on the pockets. And meeple buttons! She loved that idea. She might even be able to look into getting some special board game fabric printed too. This was going to be brilliant. A new project. A second chance.

47

The prospect of designing board-game-themed garments distracted Taylor for the rest of the day, stopping her from worrying incessantly about Max, but nevertheless she was glad when quarter past three finally arrived and she was standing at the school gates, waiting for the bell to ring and the children to emerge from their classrooms.

Max was one of the first out, running through the playground towards her with his arms flung wide open. She wasn’t sure if this was a good sign or a bad one; it was certainly different from his usual demeanour when he left Essendale Primary, but did the fact he was running mean he was desperate to get out of his new school?

‘How was it?’ she said, bending down just as he reached her so that his head collided with hers.

‘Ouch.’ He rubbed at his forehead. ‘It was brilliant. There’s this boy in my class and he’s into trains too and you’ll never believe it, but his mum bought my train waistcoat for him at the auction. And loads of children in my new class go to the Scrabble club, so I want to go too. There’s this boy Alfie. His mum bought him the Scrabble waistcoat. He’s the school Scrabble champion, but he’s in Year 6 so he’ll be gone next year, so I want to be the new school champion.’

‘That’s great, Max. But you’ve never even played Scrabble, and it’s the playing that’s important, not winning.’

‘Yeah, yeah. And…’ He paused and looked round the playground then cupped his hands around her ears and whispered, ‘This is a secret, Mum, so you are not to tell anyone. One of the boys in Year 6 came up to me at playtime and said I was really brave to wear that red petticoat and that he’d like to wear skirts and dresses too sometimes, but he doesn’t think his dad would like it. I said I could teach him to make a skirt if he wanted.’

‘That’s really kind of you, Max.’

‘Is Harry at home today? Because I was thinking we could go round to see him and I could tell him about my first day at my new school and we could play one of his train games.’

Taylor hesitated. ‘I think he works in Halifax on Mondays.’

‘Later? You could text him and see?’

Max looked so hopeful that she could hardly say no. In any case, she could kill two birds with one stone and take her sewing stuff over, ready to start work there later that week.