...weren't you ever a kid anyway?

You'd better read what Spinifex has to say this month
or he might take his marbles and go home

Boof was down on one knee, hand thrust out in front of him, head cocked to one side and his tongue lolling out. Obviously in full concentration mode. Every piece of advice and sensible dealing with difficult small children screamed 'Don't interrupt him!' Too bad!
"You idiot, what the hell are you doing now?"
He looked up offended. "Well what on earth do you think we're doing? We're playing marbles! Want a game?" His voice trilled with pleasure.
The Professor strolled around from behind the big white frangipani. He was rattling some small orbs in the palm of his tiny hand. Oh Lord, more than one dill in a small enclosure?
"Look, you chronologically challenged old grey head," he smoothly spoke. "We have here," and he thrust his hand forward, " we have here some superb 1930 to 1940 examples of the highly skilled art of marble-making, representing a highly sophisticated game-form emanating probably from ancient Egypt at least or quite possibly from the civilisation of Mesopotamia in the region of modern Iran and Iraq." He was just as bright eyed and stupid as my dirty-kneed mate.
"What exactly is your game?" I spat out. The Professor turned at this, defiant and snarling. I battled on. "You are supposed to be this town's resident expert on everything from solar energy for land-based yachts to the intro-fertilisation of fallow cows to fixing stuffed dunnies and here you are with a pair of dirty knees, flicking little round objects out of your thumb and forefinger into a scrubby circle drawn in the dirt." I drew myself up to full height. "And you're playing with a celebrated idiot! You should be ashamed of yourself!"
I knew there was trouble coming from the look in his sparkling eyes. "We have found all of these fine examples of tombollas, dibbles, agates, cats eyes, milkies and other assorted marbles out on the goldfields, in dumps and other places." He intently watched the next shot, not badly done from Boof at all as the Professor's milky splattered outside the circle and ended up in Boof's already bulging pocket.
"Kids don't play alleys anymore, but they used to when I was young and you too, if you were ever young, and they did out there on the fields." He paused reflectively and then started in.
"Kids have never had a voice, you know" he spurted, "not much at all in world history and certainly not here on the last of the goldrush goldfields. What we have discovered is the fact that there were children here, they lived and were a vital part of everyday existence. Much loved and ever-present." He drew himself up to his puny height and glared at me. Puffed out like a little bantam rooster.
"So you don't know any kid who was here back then, they're completely ignored in the historical record?" I queried, because I knew better.
"Of course! Just for one, Kevin Weaber, ten years old and driving a truck to help out at the Rising Sun! And the copper turned a blind eye. Well, his dad was blind and someone had to do it!" Boof was proud of this little tit-bit.
"You appreciate as well of course," sarcastically intoned the Professor, "that the children of the pioneering Tennant Creek had youth clubs and gym clubs and ballet clubs. And rode pushbikes and explored and threw rocks and carried on as any collection of small children will. Everybody knows that. But that's not quite the point." He paused and squinted at me. "Children do not write the histories, children are rarely those pioneering men and women who are mentioned in the journals, children are the little ones - well, remember the prophet Jesus's call of 'suffer little children to come onto me'? Well, they are rarely remembered as little people who are moulded and developed by their environment and who grow into a second generation. They are merely little by-standers in history," and here he sniffed vigorously, "and are ignored and neglected. Just the little children."
He gestured to me to follow him and we made a funny little procession around the back to the littered breezeway and the big wooden table in the middle. "We however, have been investigating this rich source of historical research. Thus far we have restricted ourselves largely to examples of material culture and evidence and have indeed struck a veritable mother-lode of information." They were both cavorting around the table and bobbing and weaving like a pair of imbecilic, mating brolgas. "Look, look!" he cried. "See the evidence of little children on the Tennant Creek Goldfields!"
A litter of rusty old tin objects sprawled across the surface. "What the hell rubbish is this that you're putting out? What stupid game are you up to?" They hadn't even offered me a wine, preferring instead to quaff huge quantities of evil-looking red cordial as well as thrusting lurid red and green frog confectionery into their mouths. Bloody little kids' party!
"Philistine! Moron! See the value of these object d'arts - look, a die-cast bus, very fragile and rare, probably from a pre-war dump. A little boy was there at that minesite!" He gestured to the left. "See there, two almost perfect examples of plastic soldiers of a style not seen since probably 1955. Another little boy at a different site at a different time. Had the first little boy grown up? Was he still on the fields? Did he know the second little boy? Hmmm? Hmmm?" He was challenging me and things were becoming a little uncomfortable.
"These are the substance of local history and you, you tinpot expert, have ignored the obvious questions." At last, a triumph for the losers. And they were right. The lumps of rubbish were gradually beginning to take shape.
There was an old tin gorilla with moving parts which made it seem to dance. How the hell old was that? From sort of around Eldorado. A large collection of marbles, some still quite beautiful after the skein of dirt had been washed off. A brilliant little toy jeep, left-hand drive, what a beauty, wish I could play with that! Hell, had I really thought that? That old tin truck, someone stepped on it once and the paint was all faded but gee, those wheels still turned around, all four of them. Did that little boy share it or did he really hang onto it? We'd never know now.
"This is unique," puffed the Professor as Boof gingerly carried forward a tiny object. "Obviously we live now in a more enlightened and sophisticated age and would never give our children potentially damaging toys such as this, we only give them mind decaying television programs full of sex, violence and junky foreign concepts. But back then a loving father or mother spent a pretty penny or two for this." In Boof's fat, pink and slightly trembling hand lay a little feetless and headless lead drummer boy, residues of red paint still clinging to the perfectly moulded military uniform. A treasure.
"That wonderful yarn-spinner Margot Miles tells tales of naughty little boys coming to the rough and rugged old picture theatre in the early days and playing very vigorous games of cowboys and indians. See here, now!" he commanded. It was the old aluminium handle and cylinder drum of a toy pistol, one side of it only. The rest was either broken and lost or rotted away. My brother used to have a gun like that. "These are frequently encountered on the fields. Must have been quite a posse!" he drily suggested.
I was puzzled. "Look here," I demanded. "Toy guns, tin trucks, plastic soldiers, drummer boys, busted old cars. Where were the little girls? They were here. Where's the evidence of them? Prove your thesis, smarties!" Got them.
Not quite. They gestured towards a crumpled and almost decayed doll's head with, amazingly, shreds of dirty old clothe still adhering to it. "Rare, very rare. Little girls being the tender little creatures they are, even today, tend to take better care of their precious things and they are uncommonly found. Also they are more fragile and perishable than boys' toys and thus disappear more readily." All this with much sadness and shaking of heads.
"However, you do remember the old water-colour paint set we found at the Comstock? And the decaying remnants of the hobby horse? Quite probably the toys and playthings of little girls." I remembered them.
"I suppose they played hopscotch, the Romans did. And what about knuckles," remembering my vicious older sister with the wicked punch, "and skipping ropes too." She'd throttled me a couple of times with those when I mucked up her game.
A hush fell over them both and Boof dramatically pulled a piece of clothe back from the table. There lay six tiny little lamb knuckles bleached pearly white on the top and red-stained from years of rain and dirt on the bottom. "We found 'em out bush, near an old habitation site, under a big old coolibah. A very special little site. We'll never take you there." That hurt. "Some little girl just got up one day for some reason and walked away from them. Left her toys right there and never went back. And that," and he spun aggressively on me, thrusting a finger into my face. "That is the voice that is missing, that is the mystery and mystique of children in history." He was very angry.
"Alright, well what do you know about these kids, if they're so special?"
"Oh wild, real wild." Boof almost giggled and looked goofy. "Once, after the teacher had gone down to Scott's Hotel for a couple of soothing ginger ales at lunchtime, oh this is in about 1935, he had to have a bit of a nap in his chair up the front of the class. Well, the kids took his clothes off him and put them on again back-to-front and buttoned them all up and then tied his shoelaces together. He couldn't get away and his wife had to rescue him." They both smirked knowingly at each other.
"Oh wow" I sneered. "Is that all?"
"The flogging they got didn't work. The teacher did it again a few weeks later, a few more grogs and bingo, sound asleep. This time, the little buggers herded up about a hundred goats and locked them into the room with him while he was asleep. And then went home. The goats ate the books, they ate the maps, they ate the charts and times-tables off the walls, they ate the chalk, they even ate the flags." They both were both rolling around the lawn, off their heads with glee. The sugar had kicked in. "And even though the kids got a really terrible flogging, they reckoned it was worth it because they said on a still night for years after you could hear the goats farting the ten-times table." They fell over again gushing tears and laughter and spilled the marbles onto the ground.
"Want a game?" Boof gushed. He looked up eagerly as he chased them around the floor. "You can have the silver cat's eye if you like!"
"Idiots" I sneered. "Never quite grew up did you? Either of you."
"Oh, we grew up alright, but we at least remember what it was like back when we were young. Weren't you ever a kid anyway?"
Yeah well fair enough. That comment hurt. Of course I'd been a kid once. The only trouble was, I couldn't seem to remember quite when anymore.