by Ishan Gupta ’20

It used to be common knowledge among us grown-ups. When you’re playing a game against a little kid, a six-year-old, you go easy. You let him win. You let him have his moment of glory.

But I don’t believe in that anymore.

Way early in the year, my first-grade Buddy Alex told me how much he likes to play chess, and his parents said he practiced a lot. So when quarantine had Alex isolated from all his best friends, I set up an online game between us to keep him company.

Now understand, I’ve been playing chess ever since I was Alex’s age in Lower School Chess Club, so I know what I’m doing. But as Alex takes my pawn, and another one, and then my rook, and then my queen – I realize he might know what he’s doing just a little bit more than me.

Okay, so he won the first game. No biggie. We’re going all in now. I’m in it to win it.

I’m making big moves, moves you’ve never seen before. These are high-level moves, chess strategy I’m inventing on the spot. You can’t even understand these tactics, Alex. I’m too advanced. My mind’s on another plane right now, another level of functioning.

This is the big league, Alex.

Welcome to the jungle.

So unfortunately, Alex did win the next two games. Not only am I losing 0-3, but my opponent is trying his best not to mock every move I make. Every time I think I’m messing up his game, Alex hits me with “you haven’t foiled my plan yet!” Or when I think I’m making a strategic play, he’ll say “That move was… weird.”

Weird? Is weird bad? No, not at all, he says. It’s just… weird.

Sometimes, I wish I were more like Alex. He clearly knows he’s better than me, but he doesn’t want to admit it. It’s not important to him. He’s trying to stay humble, and although I see through it, I appreciate that.

This game of chess doesn’t prove anything to him, even though he’s whooping an 18-year-old senior. It’s not about him being smarter than me or a better player. It’s just about having fun.

Being a Marksman, or just being a legal adult, there’s a lot of pressure to forget what that feeling is like as we take up more responsibility. There’s always something weighing you down, some task you haven’t finished yet, and until you finish it, you feel guilty when you’re having pure fun. But Alex doesn’t know that guilt, and that’s why I want to be more like him. It’s because I know I’m all grown up now and I have these responsibilities – but in my mind, I’m just a kid.

The years that have passed since our first time playing Poison Ball with Doc in Spencer Gym, the years that have passed since I broke my arm in second grade because I was jumping off my bed even though my parents told me not to, the years that have passed since we got banned from sneaking onto the old playground in seventh grade because that space was reserved for the Lower School – the years feel like minutes. Like seconds. Like I just met the Class of 2020 for the first time and now we’re supposed to graduate without properly saying hello.

It’s not that I miss "the good ol' days" or that I’m yet another sentimental senior. It's just that despite all the Wessays in Mrs. Jenkin’s Humanities class and the Sutcliffe tests and the philosophizing with Dr. Steg, I'm still just a kid. I don’t think that makes me less of a Marksman, or less of a man. Maybe I can be all three of those things at the same time.

So as Alex and I start our fourth game, I’m not trying to prove anything. I just want to play. I save myself from making some dumb mistakes, and Alex even tells me “that move was good,” which is definitely a compliment compared to ‘weird.’ As one move leads to the next, I get confident, and I can’t believe my eyes as I take his pieces one by one until finally – finally, I make the last blow.

Checkmate.

I’m jumping up and down in my seat, shaking my fist in the air and doing a little victory dance in my chair. Most people would be judging me hard right now if they could see how excited I am to beat Alex, a six-year-old, in this last game. But Alex gets it, and he congratulates me.

See, even though I'm older than him and bigger than him and stronger than him and I know how to spell complicated words like "spaghetti," I'm still just a kid. And while we’re in quarantine, while we’re in summer, before I head off to college, I think I’m going to enjoy that feeling for a little while longer.