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dirt.
    Panayoti saw Petros coming. “Got an ugly dog there,” he called.
    Panayoti’s fat dog barked, its neck fur standing up like a brown collar. The other boys shouted to spur it on. Fifi spread her forelegs and put her head down, ready for the fight. The dog trotted off as if it’d had something else in mind all along.
    “Don’t hurt Fifi’s feelings,” Petros said, reaching the edge of the game. “She’s likely to hurt yours back.”
    Panayoti tried to pet her. She nipped his hand. “Yee-ouch!”
    “See what I mean?”
    The other boys began to tease, putting out their hands and pulling back. Petros quickly brought out his new marble.
    It was an instant sensation.
    All the boys wanted to roll the marble between their palms, make a test shot. Left in peace, Fifi trotted over to a weedyarea for a nap. She walked in circles, trampling the grass to make her bed.
    Elia peered through the marble as if he were sighting a gun. “A marvelous thing,” he said, and passed the marble to Panayoti.
    Panayoti looked at it critically. He didn’t like things new, but if there was to be a new thing, he liked to be the one who brought it. His six-year-old brother, Hero, tugged impatiently at his sleeve.
    “It’s not a Greek thing,” Panayoti said, and passed it to Hero.
    Panayoti had been born in America and was no more or less a Greek thing than the well-traveled marble, or than Petros himself, but Petros didn’t say so.
    Hero looked the marble over, rolled it across his shirt as if to remove any dust that might cling, and popped it into his mouth. There was an immediate outcry. Panayoti whacked Hero on the back, and when the marble shot from Hero’s mouth, he shouted, “What’s the matter with you?”
    Panayoti slapped Hero again on general principles. “It’s a miracle you didn’t swallow it.”
    Petros wanted to give Hero another whack. He was always swallowing something he shouldn’t or putting things up his nose. He couldn’t play marbles to save his life. But he was Panayoti’s younger brother, and so he was tolerated.
    Stavros snatched the marble up from the dirt and rubbed it in a fold of his shirt. He held it out, clean and dry, for all to see. “Let me shoot with it first, Petros,” he said, his eyes sharp with greed.

chapter 5
    “You can shoot with it,” Petros said. Stavros could be more trouble than being first was worth. “But you can’t win it from me.”
    Stavros, the best player by far, said, “That’s how we play now. We gamble.”
    Petros put out his hand. “Give it back and I’ll take it home.”
    “Don’t listen to Stavros,” Elia said.
    Panayoti closed the argument. “If we all get to shoot with the marble, you don’t have to bet.”
    The glass shooter improved everyone’s game. They didn’t stop playing until the marbles all seemed one dark color. “Where’s the shooter?” Petros couldn’t find it.
    Elia emptied his pouch to make sure he hadn’t scooped it up.
    Petros saw his cousin sneaking off. “Check your pouch, Stavros.”
    “Why mine?” Stavros turned around, already angry. “Are you accusing me?”
    All the boys stopped checking their pouches, looking on. They’d gone so still, Petros could hear their shallow breathing.
    “Everyone must look,” Petros said. “But you’re in the greatest hurry to go home.” He made fists. “We should check yours first.”
    Stavros shoved Petros, and Petros pushed back.
    At first that’s all they did, push and yell insults. Petros had the better insults, or maybe a better memory, and hit a sensitive nerve. Stavros launched himself at Petros, knocking him to the ground. The boys rolled in the dirt, getting in punches when they could.
    The other boys shouted advice to both. Panayoti’s dog yapped. Fifi’s voice rose in an alarmed
meh-eh-eh, meh-eh-eh
, and once she reached into the fray to nip. She got Petros.
    The string on Stavros’s pouch broke, spilling the marbles between them. They felt like pebbles under