A metaphor with another physical object will always fall short. Why not just state the number of bits a particle represents? It's much easier to describe going through each dimension (colloqiual, I hate string theory for the same reason of unnecessarily using a physical analogy) and describing how it interacts with other particles. Sure you'll lose a lot of your audience but those that remain will have a much clearer picture than via a comparison to a billiard ball. This also makes the more advanced topics like singularities, entanglement, teleportation, the lack of true vacuum, etc much easier to manage.

(I'm aware we don't have an understanding of how quantum physics interacts with singularities, but the whole billiard ball metaphor certainly is incoherent with it)