Loren, a lonely girl seeking playmates, learns the mystery of a sixteenth-century village she discovers in the coastal mountains of Oregon, a village filled with children playing games, a village painted by Pieter Bruegel in 1560.

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Chapter One
The Print

“Two-hundred three, two-hundred four, two-hundred five,” Loren counted. “Two hundred six children playing games.”
The painting, Children’s Games, or rather a faded poster of the painting, hung on her Uncle Gig’s cabin wall. The title was a good one, for it showed many children playing games in an old-fashioned village. Under the title appeared the artist’s name and year:

Pieter Bruegel 1560

“All those children playing games together,” Loren said. “How lucky they are.”
Loren turned toward her parents who sat by the stone fireplace. Her father tapped on a laptop computer, while her mother ran a finger over a tablet screen.
“Who’s Pieter Bruegel?” Loren asked.
“Google him,” said her father without raising his head.
“He was a Flemish Renaissance painter,” said her mother. “Look him up.”
Loren’s father, a biology professor, had come to the coastal hills of Oregon to research a rare gastropod, the three-foot-long zucchini slug. Loren’s mother was a poet who wrote one line of poetry each day.
“But why is this Children’s Games poster hanging in Uncle Gig’s cabin?” Loren asked.
Her father shrugged. "Gig must have liked it," he said. "He liked all sorts of different things.”
“Now please, Loren,” said her mother. “We have work to do.”
Loren thought about her uncle, a world-famous explorer. Two years ago, he had disappeared in the jungles of Borneo. She missed him terribly. Uncle Gig had taken her through Europe and on camping trips in Alaska and Canada. He had also introduced her to her favorite pastimes, playing chess and tying knots. Now she could tie over one hundred knots and hitches.
Loren looked out the cabin window. Another foggy morning. Tall fir trees surrounded the remote cabin. Their needled branches raked through clouds blown in from the ocean and dripped with dew.
When the sky cleared, Loren would go outside to play among the ferns, hunt for mushrooms, or build a dam in the creek. But the thought gave her little pleasure. How weary she was of playing alone. All summer she had played by herself. She hiked alone, picked huckleberries alone, and built forts alone. How she longed for a playmate.
“Uncle Gig hung Children’s Games here to torture me,” she said aloud. “I’m bored.”
“Quiet please,” said her father.
“Play chess, Loren,” said her mother. “Or read a book.”
The jade chess set on the coffee table sparked no interest, so Loren stepped to the bookshelf under the window. The top shelf held an assortment of old paperbacks, stinking of mildew. Large books of photography and paintings filled the bottom shelf. Many books had the name PIETER BRUEGEL printed on their spines.
Loren knelt. She pulled out one of the art books. “Uncle Gig sure liked this Bruegel painter,” she said.
“Shush!” her parents said as one.
Loren sat on the coiled rug in the middle of the floor and plopped the book open. Inside she found glossy-colored prints of Pieter Bruegel’s paintings. Some paintings were happy ones. One showed people dancing on a village street. Another showed people sitting around a long table while two men played bagpipes. But other paintings were frightening. They showed misshapen people and hideous creatures with mixed-up bodies.
“Bizarre,” Loren said.
She turned to the print of Children’s Games. Curious. Stuck between the pages was a slip of paper. On it, scribbled in her uncle's handwriting, was a list of locations and dates.
Nuuk, Greenland 12/2023
Bora Bora 4/2023
Timbuktu, Mali 7/2024
Borneo 9/2024
Loren held up the paper for her parents to see. “Look. It's a list of the last places Uncle Gig went exploring."
“Shhh!” her parents said together.
Loren reread the list. “Tell me more about how Uncle Gig disappeared,” she said. “What did the people tell you?”
"We've discussed this many times before," said her mother.
"But tell me again."
Her father closed his laptop. “My brother was researching orangutans in the jungle,” he said. “He left his camp one morning with little gear, water, or food. He told no one where he was going. When he didn't return in two days, a search party was organized. No trace of him was found.”
Loren glanced at the chess pieces on the coffee table. "But the chess set," she said. "The people said he left with a chess set."
Her mother looked up from her tablet. "That's what they told us,” she said. "No jungle survival gear, only a small magnetic chess board and pieces."
"How unlike Gig that was to enter the wild unprepared," said Loren's father. "He never took thoughtless risks."
Loren flipped through the book looking for more notes. “It's all a mystery," she said. "And I still have no idea why, Uncle Gig, a man who climbed the highest mountains in the world, crossed the hottest deserts, and explored the steamiest jungles would have a painting of children playing games hanging in his cabin.”
"My brother had his quirks," said her father smiling.
"We were surprised when he bought this cabin in Oregon," said her mother. "He lived without a home. He didn't believe in buying property."
Something at the window caught Loren’s eye. She glanced up and started. Was that a face? No, a mask. In the bottom corner of the glass appeared a white, grinning mask with hollow eyes and a big nose. One second it was there, and the next it was gone.
“Mom! Dad!” Loren shouted. “Someone’s out there! Someone wearing a creepy mask was looking through the window.”
Both of her parents looked up. They saw nothing in the window but swirling mist.
“This is no time for games, Loren,” said her father.
“The fog’s playing tricks on your eyes,” her mother said.
Again, Loren checked the Children’s Game poster on the wall. How could that be? The mask in the window was a copy of the one on the left-hand side of Pieter Bruegel’s painting. She was sure of it. Same color, the same hollow eyes, and the same big nose.
She pointed to the poster. “The person was wearing that mask!” she said. “The same white mask in the Bruegel poster!”
But Loren’s father had already returned to his zucchini slug research, and her mother had resumed writing her line of poetry.

Pieter Bruegel

Contents

1. The Print
2. Nick O’ Time
3. The Covered Bridge
4. Entering the Town
5. The Town Hall
6. Around the Square
7. Knucklebones
8. Along Play Boulevard
9. The Cathedral of Games
10. The Chess Player
11. The Creepy Crypt
12. Return to the Square
13. From the Loft
14. The Tea Party
15. The Painter
16. Loren’s Escape
17. Friends
18. The Way Home

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Large Children's Games print

Children's Games Game List PDF
List of games in Children's Game (Can you find them?)

• 1. Knucklebones
• 2. Playing with dolls
• 3. Whirligig
• 4. Blowing soap bubbles
• 5. Rattle
• 6. Playing clergy
• 7. Pop gun at a stuffed owl
• 8. Mask
• 9. Swing
• 10. Baptism procession
• 11. Play with a bird
• 12. Blind Man’s Buff
• 13. Cartwheel
• 14. Standing on head
• 15. Somersault
• 16. Riding a fence
• 17. Climbing a fence
• 18. Running the Gauntlet
• 19. Odd or Even
• 20. Play wedding
• 21. Leap Frog
• 22. Beat the Pot
• 23. Walking on stilts
• 24. Mounted Tug-of-War
• 25. Carrying an angel
• 26. Hobbyhorse
• 27. Poking a stick in dung
• 28. Drum and whistle
• 29. Calling down bung hole
• 30. Trundling a hoop
• 31. Trundling jingling hoop
• 32. Riding a barrel
• 33. Blowing a hog’s bladder
• 34. Johnny On a Pony
• 35. Keeping shop
• 36. Throwing knives
• 37. Brick building
• 38. Bouncing to make butter
• 39. Pass the hat
• 40. Run whit a cake
• 41. Pulling hair
• 42. Hunting insects
• 43. Dwyle Flunking
• 44. Row Game
• 45. Spin a hat on a stick
• 46. Procession game
• 47. Playing door keeper
• 48. Who’s Got the Ball?
• 49. Riding on shoulders
• 50. Singing door to door
• 51. St. John’s Fire
• 52. Put broom between legs
• 53. Push someone off seat
• 54. Hare and Hound
• 55. Follow My Leader
• 56. Fighting
• 57. Climbing walls
• 58. Touch Tag
• 59. Throwing bones
• 60. Little Stick
• 61. Bowling
• 62. High stilts
• 63.Hanging fence
• 64. Balance broom
• 65. Pick-a-Bag
• 66. Whipping tops
• 67. The baskets
• 68. Fluttering ribbon
• 69. Who Is to Be My love?
• 70. Doing a wee-wee
• 71. Nine Pins
• 72. Milling around
• 73. Climbing trees
• 74. Swimming
• 75. Bathing
• 76. Swim with hog bladder
• 77. King of the Hill
• 78. Dig holes
• 79. Tilting windmills
• 80. Rattle

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