Our correspondents from the front report that hostilities, which had been simmering throughout the school holiday period, with mutually unfriendly tribes forced into close cohabitation for more than two days at a time, have exploded following some ill-advised intervention from the United Parents.
A peacekeeping mission was mounted after a resolution from the Security Council that the combatants be taken outside to get it out of their systems. The father in charge of the mission chose a large beach with ample space for all parties to run around and felt that, beyond a certain amount of rinsing afterwards, that the mission was as good as accomplished and that he could get on with a little light reading courtesy of the wonders of the modern smartphone.
However, the warring tribes did not disperse as expected but remained encamped near the Green Zone surrounding the peacekeepers, presumably because proximity provided a certain degree of protection and further the ability to have one's voice heard first with any allegations involving insertion of stones into ears, using of the s-h word or making mean faces at me.
Proximity being the mother of trouble, fighting soon erupted about priority rights to draw words in the sand and not have those same words defaced by the opposition who can't even spell because he's an idiot. It was at this point that the peacekeeping force made it's mistake: the officer in charge drew a line in the sand.
Now, any student of history will know that there is nothing more certain to start a protracted, pointless and trans-generational war than an imperial power drawing an arbitrary line to delineate two otherwise indistinguishable expanses of featureless sand.
And this was true in the case in question. No sooner had the line been drawn than heated negotiations - some at stick point - began about exactly where the line was, where it was meant to be, how far down the beach it extended and whether he had been rubbing it out and moving it more over to my side. Literally square inches of territory changed allegiances in a minute-by-minute tussle as lines were drawn and rubbed out, umbrage taken, sticks waved, sand thrown and lessons learned about the effect of a headwind on hurled handfulls of the landscape. The Red Cross was called at this point to remove the grit from the eye of wounded combatants.
Further tensions ensued as both parties realised that a nearby creek and bushland contained valuable cubby-house building resources and expeditions were mounted to retrieve them all because they're on my side of the line, you can see if you stand here.
While the armies were away, a smaller, more mobile terrorist force moved in and started to sieze strategic military assets and territory from both sides indiscriminately; driven, apparently, by no greater desire than to create havoc and fill his underpants with sand.
A ceasefire was achieved by the United Parents' representative by the simple process of re-annexing the entire territory for the empire and declaring that no-one would be allowed to build any bloody cubbies and, indeed, could go home to bed unless the fighting stopped immediately.
So far the fragile peace is holding and the Security Council is fervent in their hope that the imminent return of school will put matters into abeyance for another few months
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