Just kidding around

For years the neighborhood children had played in the vacant lot. One day, Sam and Boris the toughest among them found a pile of rusty spa...

For years the neighborhood children had played in the vacant lot. One day, Sam and Boris the toughest among them found a pile of rusty spades and decided to dig for treasure. A few days later they uncovered, not treasure, but something far more exciting!

8220;They8217;re like glowing silver marbles!8221; said Sam, gazing at the two small spherical objects lying in the bottom of the hole. 8220;And they8217;re warm!8221; added Boris, picking one up. 8220;They8217;re mine!8221; said Sam, snatching it from him. 8220;No way!8221; Boris grabbed it back. Soon they were fighting over the find, till finally Boris went off in a huff and dug his own hole for marbles.

Word soon got around about the rivalry between the two leaders, and in no time all the kids arranged themselves into three camps 8212; those with Sam, those with Boris, and those in between. Three more kids found spades and dug up marbles of their own 8212; a pretty little girl named Frances, and two little boys named Cricket and Ping Pong. Along with Boris and Sam they formed a little club named the Plutonium Five, or P-5, which decided to take charge of all the spades and thereby prevent other kids from getting marbles.

Excitement went ballistic when it was discovered that the warmth of the silvery spheres increased if two or more were pressed tightly together. 8220;And we know what happens when we squeeze 20 of 8217;em together, huh?8221; remarked Sam, winking at his closest friend Cricket.8221;They go off with a big bang!8221; cried Cricket. 8220;Yeah, that8217;s why we need to make these slingshots,8221; Sam continued. 8220;So we can shoot bunches of marbles right across the lot into Boris8217; hole!8221;

Alas, Boris too had the same idea; his camp was busy making slingshots to shoot bunches of marbles at Sam8217;s camp. Came a point when neither dared shoot at the other8217;s camp 8212; each knew the other would shoot some marbles back. Yet they didn8217;t throw away their marbles and kept digging for more.

What of the remaining kids? They found themselves stuck in the low ground between Sam and Boris. Worse, a constant barrage of muck, dirt and rocks emerged from them both, making their lives miserable. 8220;Stop digging! Bury the hatchets!8221; they appealed to Sam and Boris, to no avail. The only way to escape the barrage was to jump into one or the other hole. A small kid named Shaktiman held out for a while and then fashioned a spade from a saffron twig and dug up a few marbles for himself. The P-5 were outraged, especially when another kid named Abdul followed suit. 8220;Stop! You8217;re throwing dirt on us! Dig yourselves out of your holes!8221; they cried. 8220;Give up your marbles, sign a No-Plutonium Treaty before others get marbles and make the neighbourhood a more dangerous place.

8220;NPT? What a good idea. But Abdul8217;s already gifted us a few marbles!8221; murmured three little kids named Libby, Persis and Correa8230;