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

The fair was back for its third weekend. Lan had two things in her pocket now: a plain wooden die and a small cloth flag. She held them both as she ran.

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 glass of the lamp had cracked once and been glued, and next to the crack was a tiny scratched hammer.

"I'll build it exactly as you wish," said Trial, and yawned. "The fair packs up on Sunday night."

"I'll go first," said Lan. "I wish for a game that never ends. Because when a game is fun, I never want it to stop. I promise this one will be the best."

Trial nodded. She built a loop of twenty spaces, round like a ring. She put two pieces on the start.

"Go round the loop," she said. "Every time you get all the way round, that's one home. And if you land on someone, they go back to the start."

They played. Lan landed on Inkling. Inkling went back. Inkling landed on Lan. Lan went back.

They played for an hour.

Every time somebody got near home, they were landed on and sent back.

Then the church clock on the Green struck six. It was time to go home for tea.

They had to stop. Nobody had won. Nobody could have. They walked home cross, and did not talk much.

Next morning, Lan had a plan.

"I know what that means," said Lan. "It just needs stopping. When the tea bell rings, whoever is ahead wins!"

Trial did not argue. "Let's see how they play it," said Trial.

They played. The bell rang. Lan was ahead, by one space.

"I won!" said Lan.

Inkling did not say anything. She had been one space behind. She had been about to catch up. Her face fell all the way down.

"Look at her face, not the board," said Trial quietly.

Lan looked. She did not feel as if she had won anything at all.

Trial opened her notebook.

"In one hour you took sixty turns," she said. "Somebody went back to the start twenty times. That's every three turns."

"Were we nearer the end?" said Lan.

"There isn't an end," said Trial. "After sixty turns, you were exactly where you were after one."

At the games tent, a curly-haired child sat at a little table. In front of them was a triangle board full of pegs.

"Fourteen pegs, fifteen holes," said Vault. "Jump one peg over another, and take the one you jumped away."

Lan tried it. Jump. One peg gone. Jump. Another gone.

"Does it ever stop?" said Lan.

"It can only go one way," said Vault. "Every jump takes one away. So it can only last thirteen jumps. When the pegs run out, it's over."

On Sunday evening, the loop game was still on the bench.

Lan sat on the stool. "I thought a game that never ends would be the best one," she said. "But nobody wants to start a game they can't finish."

Then Lan had an idea. She ran out to the oak tree by the cake stall and came back with her hands full.

She put ten acorns in a little basket in the middle of the loop.

"Every turn, you take one acorn," she said. "Ten acorns, two of us. Five turns each. When the basket is empty, the game is over. Whoever got home most times wins."

"It can only go one way," said Inkling, grinning.

Then Lan thought of something nobody had shown her.

"And the last acorn is worth two," she said. "So the one behind can still win at the very end."

They played. Inkling was behind all game. She took the last acorn, and it was worth two, and she won.

They finished three games before tea. Nobody was cross.

Trial watched the third game end on the very last acorn. She smiled.

She gave Lan a polished acorn to keep. It went in Lan's pocket, beside the die and the flag. That was the third piece.

The curtain swung open, and the Green was full of fair again.

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 bedtime, Tí begged for one more game, and then one more. Lan gave him five buttons. "Every game, you give me one," she said. "When they're gone, it's sleep." He gave her the last one himself.

Tell the story back to someone. Why could nobody finish Lan's first game? How did the acorns fix it?