Gnome Celebrates!
Written by Dr.Laxmi Iyer

Gnome was a 8 year old mixed breed cat who lived with the Weatherhalls - a happy family of 6. There was Mr. and Mrs.Weatherhall and their two daughters, Jezebelle and Janice and their only son Christopher and his pet cat Gnome. Gnome was the family cat. However, for all practical purposes he was Christopher's pet.

He would follow Christopher everywhere he went. The strange thing aboutGnome was that he was more like a dog than a cat.

Cat and boy shared pillow dreams and bedtime stories together. Christopher spoke to him about everything - about the stars, about the birds, insects, flowers, his dreams...Why! Sometimes he would compose special songs only for Gnome which he would then sing out loud and clear for Gnome to listen to.

However, Christopher's universe had changed in the past few weeks. It was a gift that he received from his grandfather for his ninth birthday. A set of hand sculpted marble chess pieces and chess board. The moment Christopher set eyes on it, it was like his whole world had changed. That day, his grandfather taught him how to play chess. It was a decisive event in his life.

Chess ruled his life. All his waking hours, when he would not be away at school, he would be sitting reading books on chess or trying out different strategies on the chess board. Christopher knew that nothing in life would be more important than this game. He no longer called it a game. For Christopher, chess had become the very essence of life itself!

He had a friend named Carl. Saturday evenings would see both Christopher and Carl busy engrossed in playing a game of chess. For the first time in his life Gnome was asked to stay away from sitting too close to Christopher...for fear that he might play with the chess pieces and accidentally break them.

Nothing or nobody in 9 year old Christopher's life had absorbed him as much as the game of chess that they played every week. Week after week the two kids would sit playing chess quietly. In the beginning Gnome would stare at Christopher with his large eyes looking lost and hurt to have to be sitting by the window instead of right next to Christopher.

Sitting by the window Gnome would watch every move and carefully look for signs of celebrations. He knew that the moment Christopher won, Gnome would be called and given his favourite biscuit. That was a celebration treat that Christopher always gave him when he won.

It was now 6 weeks since the chessboard had taken space in Christopher's life. So far, he had won two of the 6 matches against Carl. However, he didn't quite realize what had happened in four of the matches - in one match just as Carl had reached a winning position, from nowhere Gnome had landed on the chess board. That match had to be abandoned.

In another match, Carl was just on the verge of winning when suddenly Gnome' s long bushy tail had brushed off all the pieces of the board. Once again, the game had to be started all over again. When the rematch was played, it was a draw.

Another time, Gnome had landed with such a thud close to where Carl sat that he had jumped up with a fright, upsetting the chess board.

Christopher idly wondered to himself whether Gnome could understand the game. Something told him that Gnome could follow perfectly the entire game and he was just pretending to be looking out of the window.

That day, he made Gnome sit opposite him and explained to him the entire game. Then, he called Carl and together they started playing the game.

This time, Gnome sat like an umpire between the two of them watching the game. Suddenly, it was beginning to look like Carl was going to be winning the game. Both Christopher and Carl noticed that Gnome had his fur standing on edge and was looking very thoughtfully at the chessboard.

As soon as Carl had made another move and was just a few minutes away from winning the game, the two boys noticed that Gnome had stood up very decisively and was holding out one paw ready to topple over the pieces on the chessboard.

Christopher realized that Gnome had understood the game. He held Gnome close to him and said, " It's okay Gnome! This is only a game! You lose some. You win some.
C'mon! Let's celebrate! "

He held out two of Gnome's favourite biscuits. Gingerly, Gnome settled down to umpire position munching on the biscuits while absorbed in the game.