The Magic Marble

The Magic Marble

A short story by

Austin Mitchell

       Kirk and Ricky were playing marbles
outside their school gate one evening after school. Both boys were in Grade
Five. They were about even as to who had won the more games.

An old man approached them. It was the
first time either boy was seeing this old man. They wondered which village, he
was from.

“Boys, I’m hungry.
Help out an old man with some money.”

“We don’t have any
money,” Kirk replied, looking at the old man. The man’s clothes were untidy and
looked to be in need of a good scrubbing. The man fished into his pocket and
took out a marble.

 “This
here’s a magic marble, you can’t miss with it.”

  “How
much will you sell it to me for?” Kirk asked.

   The
old man looked curiously at Kirk.

  “I
thought you didn’t have any money.”

   “I’ll
buy it from you,” Ricky told him.

   “For
five hundred dollars, you can have it. As I said, you can’t miss with it. The
marble is not to be played after six o’clock in the evenings. If you disobey my
orders it will become useless to you.”

         The old man handed Ricky the marble
and Ricky handed him the five hundred dollar bill. Immediately the old man
rushed into a nearby shop to buy something to eat.

         Ricky soon cleaned out Kirk of all the
marbles he had. Kirk bought some more marbles from Ricky but again lost all his
marbles. Only when he was down to his bus fare did Kirk stop playing.

  Ricky
was so good at marbles that other boys refused to play against him. Kirk had
told them about the magic marble Ricky had. Many of the boys wished they could
have a marble like that. Ricky never missed with it, no matter the distance. He
refused to tell anyone where he got the marble from.

But Ricky was always curious as he never
saw the old man again. Nobody knew anything about him. But Ricky was a greedy
boy and decided not to heed the old man’s warning not to play after six
o’clock. The first and second days he played after six o’clock, nothing
happened. The third time he he played, the marble did not work the next day .

The marble was now playing like a normal marble.

“It’s no good. I’m sorry I ever listened to
that old man. If I ever see him again, I’ll demand back my money and give him
back his useless marble.”

“You’ve won lots more money than you paid
for it,” Kirk told him.

The next day Ricky flung the marble as far
as he could throw it.

Many boys asked him what he had done with
the magic marble. Ricky told them that 
it had become useless and so he had thrown it away. He never told them
that he had disobeyed the old man’s warning.

All the boys in the village started looking
for the magic marble.

Ricky learned that the old man was from
Westmoreland and his name was Josh. He made a lot of magical things which he
sold to make his living. Ricky heard that he sold magic ballons, kites, balls
among other things.

Two weeks after Ricky threw away the magic
marble, a man named Carlton and his son, Keeble were in their field one
Saturday afternoon. Kebble was helping his father cut callaloo to sell in the market. Suddenly, Carlton saw the marble on
the ground. He picked it up and gave it to Keeble.

Keeble was in Grade Six and was doing his
high school entrance examinations in 
three months time. He played as little marble as possible. But it was
soon noticed that he was winning a lot of games. He lived in the nearby village
to Ricky and went to a different school.

One Saturday a few weeks later, Rick was
passing a marble game. He couldn’t help noticing, Keeble winning and it was
with the magic marble! He asked Keeble where he got the marble from. Keeble
told him that his father had found it and given it to him. Ricky said the
marble belonged to him as he had lost it.

He made a complaint to his father. His
father and Carlton were friends. His father told Carlton that he had seen Ricky
with the marble before he lost it. He described the marble to Carlton. They
agreed that it was the marble Carlton had found.

“How did it get into my field?” Carlton
asked.

“I don’t know, sir. It fell out of my
pocket. Somebody probably found it and threw it into your field,” Ricky
replied.

So the marble was returned to Ricky.

Ricky was glad that he had gotten back the
magic marble. He thought that it had stopped working because he had disobeyed
Josh’s warning not to play after six o’clock in the evenings.

Ricky was back to winning ways again. But
greed was getting the better of him and he again began playing after six
o’clock. The first two times he tried it everything was okay. But after
the  third time the marble stopped
working. He kept it for two more days but nothing happened. He was not a good
player without the marble. He was soon losing a part of his lunch money buying
marbles.

The next morning he got vexed with the
marble sent it sailing away from him.

“I never want to see Josh and his useless
toys again. He’s no magician.”

A month later a boy by the name of Kelvin
found the marble. He was from a village a mile from Ricky’s village. He went to
the same school as Keeble.

Keeble soon heard about Kelvin and his
magic marble. He wondered if it was the same marble he had to give back to
Ricky. He knew that Ricky had been telling lies. He had thrown away the marble.
Maybe for some reason it had stopped working.

A month after Kelvin found the marble, Josh
was passing through their village. He saw Kelvin with the marble. He wondered
how this boy came to be in possession of the marble since he had sold it to a
different boy. He waited until Kelvin had cleaned out the boys of their marbles
before he approached him.

“Young man, I’m hungry. Can you spare me
some money?”

“Old man, I don’t have any time for you.
I’m off to catch another game,” Kelvin told him and rushed past him.

Josh looked with amazement as Kelvin
hurried up the road.

       Two days later, Kelvin sat cursing. The
magic marble had stopped working. The next morning, nothing happened. In the
evening it was the same thing. In disgust, Kelvin sent the marble sailing into
the sky.

sea. It remains at
the bottom of the sea to this day. The End. Austin's blog: stredwick.blogspot.com