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 dipped 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 him. “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 a five hundred dollar note. Immediately the old man rushed into a nearby shop to buy something to eat.
Ricky soon won all the remaining marbles Kirk had. Kirk bought some more marbles from Ricky but again lost all of them. 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 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 balloons, 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. Keeble 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 would do 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 a nearby village to Ricky but 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.”
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 his winning ways again. But greed got 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 and 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 his 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 won all the other boys’ 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 complaining. 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.
The marble fell into a fast running river and was washed out to sea. It remains at the bottom of the sea to this day. The End.