Martin and the Ball Game

Martin noticed some humans on a field, but he can't figure out what they are up to. His curiosity will not let him rest until he finds out! Will you join him on his journey of discovery?

    Five days quiet, two days busy. That was an observation Martin felt proud of. He had noticed there were more humans around on some days, and so he started to keep track of them to see if there was a pattern. Now he knew it he could tell before hand what kind of day it would be.
    Six days since the last busy day: that meant it would be busy again. Martin climbed up a tree. One time he had been munching on a plum, sitting on the ground when one of the little humans came up to him unawares. It frightened him a lot when he noticed her, and so he decided to spend busy days up trees. His mother and father told him it was highly unusual for humans to come over the fence, but this didn’t change his mind. Besides, being up trees meant he could talk to the birds, and if there was one thing Martin liked, it was talking to the birds.
    This day Samuel was around. Martin reckoned that Samuel was his favourite Magpie, although if he was more honest, Samuel was the only magpie he knew.
    “Well hello there young chap!” said Samuel with his characteristic style. “How are you doing today? Are your parents about?”
    “I’m well. My parents are probably next to the feeding place, you know how most bears are, lazy and always thinking of food”
    Martin loved his parents, but if there was one way to describe them, they were typical bears: just taking each day as it comes, and always thinking about what the next meal could be. Martin, on the other hand, was a bit of an oddball. He would always be asking this question and that question, never satisfied until he got an answer. His parents humoured him with his inquisitiveness, but they rarely knew the answers, and, having no desire to find out things for themselves, ultimately grew tired with Martin’s question-asking.
    It was different with the birds. They were free to fly around and see the world, unlike Martin and the other bears who were stuck in the enclosure. They could see so many things, and often enjoyed telling Martin about their observations and thoughts.
    “And how are you today?” asked Martin
    “Just smashing young chap, just smashing!” replied Samuel, “And what question do I have the pleasure of answering for you today, hmm? Go on, I know you have one!”
    Indeed Martin did have a question. This tree was one of his favourites to climb as it gave him a good view of the world outside the enclosure. There was a street with cars, and beyond that a large field with many humans who were obviously doing something… what? Martin had seen this happen before, on some of the busy days, and he noticed a pattern. There were ten humans dressed in white and ten humans dressed in red, and another two humans dressed in other colours, and they were all running around, and there was just one ball on the field that some of the humans were kicking around. It had to mean something, but what it meant was well beyond Martin’s pattern-spotting skills.
    “What are those humans doing on the field with the ball over there?”
    “Ah! A question about humans again! Silly little things. I must confess young chap, I don’t know the answer to that one. I don’t take much interest in humans myself, I much prefer hanging out with other magpies, or, failing that, with pigeons. There aren’t many of us magpies left.” He seemed slightly sad at this, and went into a reverie for a while. Martin was not discouraged though, one way or another he would find out what the humans were up to. At length, Samuel perked up again, and said “But I’ll tell you what young chap, I’ll get you someone who does know. I think Andrea’s about, and she likes watching humans, so she should be able to help you out with your query. Just wait a moment, and I’ll get her to come to you.” And with that, he was off.
    Martin felt very pleased at the result. Andrea was a raven, old and knowledgeable, and it had always been a pleasure in the past when Martin had had a chance to talk to her. What light would Andrea shine on the strange activity these humans were engaged in? Martin felt happy as he waited to find out. He continued to study the humans as they ran around and kicked the ball. Just then, a loud cheer erupted from them. Something had obviously happened, but Martin knew not what. So Martin waited until Andrea arrived, absorbed in the scene in front of him.
    When Andrea arrived she greeted Martin with a smile. “Hello Martin! Samuel told me you had a question about humans. What would you like to know?”
    “What are those humans doing there on that field?” asked Martin
    Andrea took a look at where Martin was pointing, and thought for a bit. “Ah, it seems to me they are playing football”
    “What’s that?”
    “Well, there’s two teams, the white team and the red team, and each of them is trying to kick the ball through the other team’s goal. Do you see the white rectangular things at either end of the field? Those are the goals.”
    “Ah that’s interesting” said Martin, and he thought for a while. “So is it a kind of game? And also, I heard a cheer just before you came, was that because they kicked the ball through the goal”
    “I reckon so, they always cheer loudly when they score a goal. And yes, it is a game.”
    “Well I wouldn’t have guessed! Those humans are grown ups and they seem to be taking things awfully seriously, it didn’t seem like a game”
    “Humans are strange creatures. I’ve been watching them for ten years now, and they still surprise me. They get awfully interested in this thing called money, which as far as I could see was just some pieces of paper with pretty drawings on them. Some humans are rich; they have a lot of money, while others are poor. I can normally tell which is which by seeing where they live: the rich humans live in big detached houses. But anyway, for them money is a very serious matter and they do all kinds of things trying to get more of it”
    “How silly!”
    “Well, that’s what I thought at first, but then I kind of understood them. You see, humans seem to want all kinds of things, but they aren’t allowed to just take them like us animals are. They have to give money to get things.”
    “Oh right!” said Martin. He then imagined what it would be like not to be allowed to pick up plums from the feeding place just like that, and instead have to draw very pretty pictures on pieces of paper and give them to someone before being allowed to eat. His bear brain shuddered at the thought. He started to feel sad for the humans who didn’t have much money, when another thought crossed his mind.
    “So is that why there’s only one ball and twenty humans playing with it? They are too poor to afford one ball each?”
    “I don’t think so. I’ve seen very rich people play football and they still do the same thing. Only they get even more serious about it, and they play with thousands and thousands of people watching, in big places that were built especially for football.”
    “Thousands and thousands of humans? Just watching other humans play a game? You must be pulling my leg!”
    “No, it’s true, I saw it with my own two eyes.”
    “Huh! What a thing.”
    The two of them sat quietly on the branches of the tree for a minute. The sky was a big canvas of dull grey. Martin’s parents liked sunny weather, but Martin preferred these cloudy days. It meant he could look at the sky and watch the birds without worrying about the sun getting in his eye. There was also a bit of wind, but no rain, which was also a plus. Martin got grumpy when he got wet. This day was quite busy at the enclosure, Martin could hear the many voices of humans on the other side of the fence, both big humans and the little ones. He felt glad he was up a tree, and that he had a raven to talk to.
    “So how have you been lately?” Asked Martin at length.
    “Been better. Still watching humans. Their behaviour concerns me some times, like what they did with Old Ted’s field.”
    “Who’s Old Ted?”
    “Old Ted was a hawk. When I was a young raven, my parents used to visit Old Ted and take me with them. They considered him to be a very wise hawk. They would talk with him about all sorts of things, while I would play in the field and hunt for worms. It was a very nice field, with plenty of food for us birds. But not any more.”
    “What happened?”
    “One day, while I was still young, my parents told me I couldn’t play in Old Ted’s field any more because it wasn’t safe. I asked them, ‘why isn’t it safe?’, to which they replied, ‘because of the mess’. They told me about how some humans came to the field in a big truck full of all kinds of things, and they emptied the truck onto the field, making a massive mess. They told me about how there was a great mix of things on the field now, some food, some clothes, and other things they couldn’t identify. They said that there was plastic in the mess too, and I shouldn’t play in the field any more because I might eat some plastic by accident and that would make me ill”
    Martin had heard of plastic before. It was a strange substance that humans liked to make things out of. “Where does plastic come from?” he asked.
    “I don’t know how plastic is made I’m afraid. I think that’s a secret only the humans know. But I do know it’s dangerous to eat.”
    Martin visualised a picture in his head of a nice field, and then humans coming along and leaving a massive mess. It seemed confusing to him. From what he saw of humans, they seemed to be very tidy creatures, living in neat houses. “How comes the humans want to make such a mess? I thought humans don’t like messy things!”
    “That confused me too. More recently I thought I would try to get to the bottom of it, but my discoveries only left me more confused.”
    “What did you see?”
    “I followed the truck around to see where all the things in the mess were coming from, and I saw the truck going down streets of houses. Each house had a plastic container in front of it, which had been filled up by the humans, and some other humans were emptying the plastic containers into the truck. So it seems that all the humans are helping to make the mess.”
    “Oh! I can see why you’re concerned.”
    “But there’s more. I remember one time Old Ted came to visit us, after his field started being turned into a mess, and he told us what he thought about it. There was another field, which he called the Old Big Mess, where the trucks had already been. The humans had finished turning that field into a mess, so that’s why they started turning a new field into a mess. It was just bad luck that that happened to be Old Ted’s field. Now Old Ted’s field has almost finished being turned into a mess, so I don’t doubt that soon the humans will start turning another field into a mess.”
    Martin thought about this for a while. He carried on watching the humans who where playing football on the field. Then, a thought passed through his head. “Hey! Eventually the humans will have to play football on top of a mess!”
    Andrea chuckled at this. “They’ll find that a lot trickier than playing on a normal field! I imagine they would trip over things a lot.”
    “But aren’t the humans worried about that?”
    “Well, there are a lot of fields in the world. Even at this rate, it will take more than a thousand years for the humans to succeed in turning all of the fields into messes. Humans don’t tend to think that far ahead.”
    Martin was finding the conversation to be an eye-opening experience. It definitely gave him lots to think about while he continued watching the ball game. It seemed to him that the humans weren’t thinking too much about the mess they were making. Or at least, these humans right now weren’t thinking about that: they were too engrossed in their game of football. Just then he noticed another group of humans, five there were altogether, little ones. They were playing with a ball as well, kicking it to each other. He gestured to Andrea. “Are those humans playing football too?”
    “Those children? Not quite. Football has quite a few rules that the players have to follow. I don’t know them all, but I know enough to say that that isn’t football.”
    “How so? They’ve got only one ball between them like the grown ups have.”
    “Yes, that may be true, but in proper football you need to split the players up into two teams.  Those children haven’t separated into teams as far as I can tell.”
    Then there started to be a big commotion between the grown ups. It looked like the players were arguing with each other. Meanwhile one of the players was limping and going towards the edge of the field.
    “What happened?” Asked Martin.
    “I think that player got injured because of a bad tackle” replied Andrea.
    “What’s a tackle?”
    “It’s when two players both want the ball at the same time and one player tries to get it off the other player”
    “They must want that ball awfully badly!” replied Martin. Then he thought for a while. He looked at the children playing with their ball, then back at the grown ups, then back at the children again. “I think the children have a better idea than the grown ups.”
    “How so?” Asked Andrea
    “They’re sharing the ball so that everyone gets a turn with it. Not like the grown ups. I thought grown ups were meant to be cleverer than children. You’d have thought that by that age they’ve learnt to share things. But it looks like they haven’t. They’re selfish!”
    “You’re a clever little bear! Well done for noticing all that.” said Andrea, “However, I think there’s more to it than that. You know, I’m not completely sure, but I think that when you play football you’re not supposed to share the ball. At least not with people on the other team.”
    “Huh! Those grown ups are making life very hard for themselves”
    Andrea and Martin continued watching the two ball games for a while in silence. There was another loud noise from the grown ups. Presumably they’ve scored another goal, Martin thought. The two ball games seemed interesting before he knew what was happening, but now with Andrea’s explanations they were downright fascinating.
    “You know”, said Andrea, “I often wonder what the children will be like when they grow up. They learn things from the grown ups around them. So maybe they’ll grow up to be like the grown ups are now. But then again, maybe they will see things differently and do things differently. It will be up to them.”
    “Maybe they’ll play a version of football where you do share the ball!” exclaimed Martin “Or they might start tidying up the mess in Old Ted’s field!”
    “Perhaps! These days a lot of humans say they care about the environment. I’ve even seen them marching around the city centre with banners that have slogans on them, encouraging people to take care of the planet. Grown ups and children too.” Andrea paused. “Unfortunately I don’t think Old Ted’s field will be tidied up any time soon though.”
    “Why is that?”
    “Because the humans who march around telling others to look after the planet help to make the mess just like all the others! And besides, the mess isn’t even the biggest problem. Old Ted said as much himself.”
    “Then what did Old Ted say was the biggest problem?”
    “He was worried about the soil. He liked his field because it had good soil which could sustain lots of different plants, worms and other creatures. He was quite unhappy when he had to find another field, because most fields were managed by farmers. The farmers were interested in getting their crops to grow, not in the soil, so they often let the soil get washed or blown away. Year after year, the soil would get worse and worse. Eventually it will not be good for much any more”
    “But humans live in cities, they don’t need the soil like us animals do!”
    “Well that’s exactly the problem. Because most humans live in cities, they don’t notice what is happening to the soil. But they need the soil because that is how their food is grown. No soil, no food. No food, no humans.”
    This information, though interesting, put Martin in a bit of a sombre mood. He could see that looking after the soil was very important, and that most of the humans weren’t thinking about it. He continued looking at the humans on the field playing their two ball games. It still seemed a bit strange that grown ups should be so serious about a ball game. Meanwhile, he could understand the kids a bit better. They were still small, so it was only normal that they would play games. But what would they be like when they grew up?

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

Excellent! Your writing is top notch, and storytelling abilities, too. I love the setting, use of animals, and perhaps most of all--the message. I was in that tree with Martin, Samuel, and gang. (the old, scruffy seagull who sat silently in the back)
While reading, it occurred to me that we who care for the environment are a lot like the animals who sat in that tree--appalled by what we see going on, but nearly powerless to stop it. I hope you write more stories, for I thoroughly enjoyed this one.