Ann Marie Smith, age 13, of Dodge City, Kan., for her question:

WHERE DID WE GET DOMINOES?

The game of dominoes goes back to ancient China. However, the game that is played with 28 oblong blocks made of ivory, bone, plastic or wood wasn’t introduced into Europe until the middle of the 18th Century.

Europe's first dominoes had ivory faces backed by ebony. They are thought to have been named because of their resemblance to the hooded cloak called a domino.

Domino pieces, called bones, are blank on one side and marked on the opposite side with dots. The dotted sides of the bones are divided by a line into halves. The dots are arranged in all the number combinations from double blank (0 0) to double six (6 6).

Some domino sets go up to double nine and contain 55 bones. Still others go up to double twelve and have 91 bones.