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Playing Fly
My favourite childhood game is called 'Fly'. I don't know why it has this name - no-one does any flying in it but there is a lot of careful jumping, leaping and running.
For equipment, you need five thin sticks, each about 30-40 centimeters long. Then you need a bunch of children or just people in general. Six is a good number but it will work with three or more.
You lay the sticks out on the ground, vertically like a ladder with a foot space between each. Then someone is chosen to be 'Fly'. Their job is to go last.
The game begins when each person, one after another, steps carefully through the sticks without touching them. If your foot touches a stick, you're out of the game!
Finally the last person, Fly, has a turn and when they get to the last stick they can take a big leap. Where their foot lands can be the place for one of the other sticks to to placed. Fly can say, 'Move the second stick to where my foot is'. Of course, Fly can choose to move any stick. At Fly's command the specified stick it moved to the new place. Each time this happens, the little row of sticks becomes longer and more challenging until 'run ups' are needed by those still in the game. It's great fun.
On long hot nights in summer holidays down by the bay,I played this with friends, brothers, sisters, cousins and sometimes grown-ups. With crickets and frogs croaking in the background we'd play round after round of 'Fly' until it was too dark to see anything.
Years later, as I school teacher I taught this game to my students. At first, they laughed at it, thinking it silly and old-fashioned. But then, when they secretly gave it a try, they loved it. And sure enough it soon became almost as popular as handball and French cricket! You should try it some day.
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