Chess board interface. Cannot remove child. Any suggestions? - actionscript-3

Question

Hello
I am in the process of creating a chess board where you can move the pieces. Currently i am working on the rook and the coding is below. I know it is not elegant and probably the most inefficient code out there, but this is day 2 of my actionscript 3.0 life and i am kinda a beginner. Anyway, so the thing is, when you click the piece the code below figures out the possible ways to go. Then green squares appear at those places. You can then press those green squares and then the rook will move there.
Ok, now to the problem. The squares will not go away. I want them all to be deleted when i have clicked on one of them and the rook will move there.
I have tried removeChild(), but since that happens in a different function it does not work. So if you are so kind to look through the code and suggest a solution, your help is much appreciated.
Kind Regards Emile
https://picasaweb.google.com/109156245246626370734/Jun42011?authkey=Gv1sRgCMy4v_b01aikzAE&feat=directlink
import flash.display.Sprite
import flash.events.MouseEvent
import flash.text.TextField;
import flash.geom.Point;
import caurina.transitions.*
myPoint.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, startMove);
function startMove(evt:MouseEvent) {
var boxNum:int = Math.floor(myPoint.y/100)+1;
for (var i:int = 1; i <boxNum; i++) {
var box:Ball = new Ball();
box.x = myPoint.x;
box.y = myPoint.y - i * box.height;
addChild(box);
Tweener.addTween(box, {alpha:0.5});
box.buttonMode = true;
box.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, onOver,
false, 0, true);
box.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OUT, onOut,
false, 0, true);
box.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, onclick);
}
var boxNum1:int = Math.floor((800-myPoint.y)/100)+1;
for (var i:int = 1; i <boxNum1; i++) {
var box1:Ball = new Ball();
box1.x = myPoint.x;
box1.y = myPoint.y + i * box.height;
addChild(box1);
Tweener.addTween(box1, {alpha:0.5});
box1.buttonMode = true;
box1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, onOver,
false, 0, true);
box1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OUT, onOut,
false, 0, true);
box1.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onclick);
}
var boxNum2:int = Math.floor(myPoint.x/100)+1;
for (var i:int = 1; i <boxNum2; i++) {
var box2:Ball = new Ball();
box2.x = myPoint.x - i * box.height;
box2.y = myPoint.y;
addChild(box2);
Tweener.addTween(box2, {alpha:0.5});
box2.buttonMode = true;
box2.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, onOver,
false, 0, true);
box2.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OUT, onOut,
false, 0, true);
box2.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onclick);
}
var boxNum3:int = Math.floor((800-myPoint.x)/100)+1;
for (var i:int = 1; i <boxNum3; i++) {
var box3:Ball = new Ball();
box3.x = myPoint.x + i * box.height;
box3.y = myPoint.y;
addChild(box3);
Tweener.addTween(box3, {alpha:0.5});
box3.buttonMode = true;
box3.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OVER, onOver, false, 0, true);
box3.addEventListener(MouseEvent.ROLL_OUT, onOut, false, 0, true);
box3.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, onclick);
}
}
function onOver(evt:Event):void {
var box:MovieClip = MovieClip(evt.target);
addChild(box)
box.scaleX = box.scaleY = 1.1;
}
function onOut(evt:Event):void {
evt.target.scaleX = evt.target.scaleY = 1;
}
function onclick(Event:MouseEvent):void {
var xcod:int = Math.ceil(mouseX/100)*100-50;
var ycod:int = Math.ceil(mouseY/100)*100-50;
Tweener.addTween(myPoint, {x:xcod, y:ycod, time:1, transition:"linear"});
}

Answer 1

alxx's answer is correct, you wouldn't need to keep a special list for them. The other way you could do it, using an Array to save references, would look like this:
var boxes:Array = new Array();
function startMove(evt:MouseEvent):void {
...
var box:Ball = new Ball();
addChild(box);
boxes.push(box);
...
var box1:Ball = new Ball();
addChild(box1);
boxes.push(box1);
...
}
function onClick(evt:MouseEvent):void {
for each (var box:Ball in boxes) {
removeChild(box);
}
boxes = new Array();
}

Answer 2

You can put temporary highlights in separate Sprite. Then your board will looks as follows:
Stage children: base board, highlights, pieces, in that order.
When you need to remove highlights, you can iterate highlights' children with numChildren and getChildAt and call removeChild on each, you don't even need a special list for them.