It was the winter of 5th grade. I lived far north at the time, so we got a lot of snow. This, coupled with the fact that our recess play area consisted of a wide open field, meant snow forts. Two rival groups quickly began to form, on one side was me and my buddy Martin, Short Eric, Tall Eric, Ivan and Rob. We lived a peaceful existence, one where snow was used not as a weapon, but to build feats of architecture. We were not merely builders, but artists, using twigs to carve works of art and writing into the walls of our fort such as penis drawings or "David <3 Bridget".
On the other side of the playground were our rivals, Matt, Thomas, Peter and Michael. Matt had never forgiven Short Eric ever since 4th grade, when a mistimed slide tackle in gym class soccer had resulted in Eric accidentally kicking him in the balls. And none of us really liked Peter, mainly due to his infatuation with the weird girl in Mrs Golinski's class, the one who ate her own boogers (or so the rumors said). Tensions were at an all time high, but an uneasy truce existed between us. All that would soon change though.
It started with a routine snowball-gathering excursion. We would pack together little balls of snow and roll them along the field, slowly growing in size until they were big enough to use as building materials for our fort. Five of us went on our way, leaving Rob and Tall Eric behind on guard duty. The snow harvest was good that day, and many snowballs were rolled up and ready to be carried back to the fort. But we returned to a scene of carnage. Tall Eric was being held down by Matt and Peter, who ran away as soon as they saw us coming. Thomas and Michael, followed closely by Rob, darted out from the fort and ran as well. Ivan went to help him up while we stared at our fort. It was a surprise attack. The walls of the fort were smashed. Fortunately many of the snowballs had hardened into ice and were simply tipped over rather than kicked into powder, but the little inscriptions, our works of art that we had carved into the snow were gone. Eric told us what happened, Rob had backstabbed us once we left, dragging him out of the fort with Matt's help while Thomas and Michael kicked down our fort. That was a dark day. We licked our wounds and rebuilt the walls of our fort, while plotting our revenge.
The first step was to get information, and for that we went to Aiden. He was that guy who didn't have many friends, and mostly kept to himself so no one paid him much attention. But if you paid him in gum, there was no reason he wouldn't just happen to wander over to the enemy fort and conduct a little clandestine espionage... From this we learned a week later that their fort building techniques were horribly primitive. Instead of packing it into snowballs which would eventually harden into ice and take lots time to kick down, they simply made thin walls, which, while reaching higher than ours, were extremely fragile.
The next day, we put our plan into action. Martin and Ivan, being the fastest runners, would create a distraction to lure the enemy out of their fort, while the Erics and I would sneak in, overpower any remaining guards and destroy their fort. It worked like a charm. They hadn't even bothered to leave a guard behind, so we were able to make short work of their paper-thin snow walls in seconds. By the time recess was over, there was no indication that any form of civilization had ever existed in that patch of snow.
We called a truce shortly afterwards, and a few weeks later they seemed to have forgotten the incident. But I think on some deep level, they knew not to mess with us again. Oh, and if you're reading this Rob, you're a backstabbing rat bastard.