The hammer rang once. A spark jumped off the anvil and did not go out. It waited. They followed.

It was the fair's last weekend. Lan had three things in her pocket now: a plain die, a cloth flag and a polished acorn. One for each weekend.

The spark hopped to the striped booth at the end of the row.

The booth's striped curtain swung shut behind them, and the noise of the fair went soft. The old stool had one new rung, and somebody had scratched a tiny hammer beside it.

"Last weekend," said Trial, and yawned. "The fair packs up on Sunday night. This time my booth goes with it."

"We're not going to wish," said Inkling. "We're going to make our own game. With the three pieces."

Trial's ears lifted, just a little.

"I'll do it!" said Lan. "I promise! I know exactly how."

She took Trial's pencil and a card. She wrote rule one. She wrote rule two. She wrote rules three, four and five without stopping.

"Is that all right?" said Lan.

"That's fine," said Inkling.

Trial did not take the pencil away. "Watch what she does, not what she says," said Trial.

Lan looked up. Inkling's hands were in her lap. She was not looking at the card. She was looking at the curtain.

A game one person makes is that person's game. Lan put the pencil down.

"Sorry," she said. "Let's start again. Together."

They emptied Lan's pocket onto the bench.

"The die is for chance," said Lan. "So the one behind can still win."

"The flag is for leaving things out," said Inkling. "One each. Plant it once, to make the other wait."

"And the acorns are for ending," said Lan. She counted out eight. "One a turn. Eight acorns, two of us. Four turns each."

They drew a track of sixteen spaces. They played. It worked! But something was odd. They each raced along on their own side, and never once touched.

Trial opened her notebook. She showed them three pages, one from each weekend.

"Every time a game got better," she said, "it was because both of you changed it. Not me."

Then she turned to a clean page and wrote one word at the top: OURS. She left the rest blank.

At the games tent, a brown otter in a blue top was leaning over a little board.

"Ooh, can I get in the way?" said Meddle, and moved a counter right in front of a boy's piece. The boy laughed and had to go round.

"Your game is two races side by side," said Meddle, when they told her. "A game with nobody to bump is a puzzle. What does my move do to yours?"

A pink flamingo in a blue shirt stood on one leg and watched them play. She did not wobble at all.

"Is there one move that always wins?" said Poise.

Lan and Inkling looked at each other. There was. If you planted your flag on the very first turn, you always got ahead.

"If one way always wins, nobody chooses," said Poise. "Balance it, then try again."

So they made a rule. No flags in the first two turns.

On Sunday evening the hoopla had gone. Men were rolling up the stripes of Trial's booth. There was almost no time left.

"It's still missing something," said Lan. "We still never bump."

Inkling counted first. Then she named it.

"I noticed something," said Inkling. "When you land right on someone, nothing happens. It should do something to both of you."

Then she thought of something nobody had shown her.

"If you land exactly on the other piece, you swap places!"

Lan opened her mouth to add a rule. Then she closed it. "That's it," she said.

They wrote OURS at the top of the card. They played twice. Both games ended on the very last acorn, and both times they shouted.

Trial had watched both games.

"May I play your game?" said Trial. Nobody had ever asked her that.

She played. She swapped places with Lan once and with Inkling twice. She lost by one home, and laughed out loud.

She took a plain wooden counter from her apron and gave it to Lan. It was the fourth piece. Lan's pocket was full.

The curtain swung open for the last time, and the Green was full of fair again. By morning the booth was gone.

The spark dimmed to a warm dot and settled back on the anvil. The Green was just the Green again.

Back on the Green

At home they taught OURS to Lan's little brother Tí. He added a rule about jumping. They kept it.

Tell the story back to someone. Why did Lan stop writing all the rules? What did each piece in the pocket do?