Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles

by Thomas Lennon

  Next to Brian was the slightly scary Log MacDougal, who had saved me from Big Sweaty Jimmy Gibbons in the barracks. She rocked left and right between her feet, maintaining a low, breathy chuckle. It looked like she was about to take off running, or perhaps launch herself straight up into the air. If I am being honest, Log MacDougal did not seem “functional” in the classic sense of the word.

  At the end of the line was a trainee who was never formally introduced to me, but I know his name to be Tim the Medium-Sized Bear. Tim is a medium-sized bear, and honestly, he is a bit of a mystery. He doesn’t wear the trainee jumpsuit, just his own bear fur, and he keeps to himself mostly.

  As “Fields of Athenry” faded on the pipes, Pat Finch tipped backward and collapsed. This frightened the rabbit version of Sergeant O’Brien, who shape-shifted into her donkey form, which was interesting to see. She bucked and darted off into the fields toward the lake.

  A moment passed, and everyone wondered if their hearing would ever return to normal.

  “Céad míle fáilte,” said Deputy Commissioner Finbar Dowd into an old-fashioned megaphone. “A hundred thousand welcomes to Collins House.” Finbar Dowd is a man so overwhelmingly ordinary that he defies description. Picture him in your head. There! You did it. No matter what you pictured, you are correct. That’s him.

  Dowd gestured up to the coat of arms above the front doors, which depicted a shillelagh violently cracking a leprechaun on the skull with the Latin words PUGNABIMUS NYMPHARUM across it. The leprechaun’s eyes were replaced with Xs—either to symbolize that he was drunk or that the crack to his skull had killed him.

  “Yes, many people, especially in this era, have complained about the insensitive coat of arms,” continued Dowd.4 “Please, no more emails about the coat of arms. And if you’re already on the email chain, please don’t ‘reply all.’ There is a committee looking into some new coat of arms designs, and I assure you, we’re taking everyone’s point of view into account,” droned the astonishingly ordinary Finbar Dowd. He opened up an old scroll, which was an awkward moment, as he wasn’t sure what to do with the megaphone in his other hand. Perhaps Sergeant O’Brien was supposed to hold it, but she was now a donkey, rubbing her behind against a low stone wall and really enjoying it.

  “Professor Wise Young Jim of the Honey Caves shall now read the Recruit’s Pledge, and yes, there will be a test on it later,” said Dowd.

  A fourteen-hundred-year-old leprechaun named Wise Young Jim of the Honey Caves waddled forward and took the scroll. Wise Young Jim is three feet tall, but his beard is twenty-seven feet long. He pushes it around in front of him in a wheelbarrow. He took a short pull on a flask and began to read the pledge.

  “In rain, in mist, or light to medium fog, in drizzle, or just a sprinkling, or even proper bucketing, or if it’s pissing, or really pelting down, we still go out. Go out and get ’em. If . . . of course . . . we can get ’em. God knows we try. Try . . . try for sure. Special Unit . . . number one, whoo,” said Wise Young Jim, and then he burped.

  This is word for word the Recruit’s Pledge, even though it sounded like he was making it up on the spot. I read the scroll in the library, and this is exactly the way it’s written. Even with the pauses and the burp at the end. So, so strange. And almost impossible to repeat, which is what we had to do right then and there. It took a lot of tries. Then there was also a written test on it, right on the spot. Everyone failed the test, but luckily we would be tested on the pledge every single day in Wise Young Jim’s class, so there would be many more chances to get it right.

  After the pledge, a marvelous picnic luncheon and boating trip was held for the new recruits, out on Lough Leane. The lunch included creamy leek and potato soup, curried chicken salad sandwiches on toasted sourdough baguette, and a type of homemade potato crisp dusted with dill and sea salt that remain the finest crisps I’ve ever had to this very day.

  After everyone had eaten as much as they could, the trainees were handed all of their course books for the twelve-week program. Then, two seconds later, the boat was set on fire by the graduating trainees, who shot burning arrows at it from the shoreline. This “escape a boat that’s on fire” bit was the big, not-so-fun surprise of the very inaccurately named Frolic Day.

  The new recruits—now stuffed to the gills with curried chicken salad—had to escape a burning boat and swim back half a kilometer to land while keeping all of their new books dry. Honestly, if Log MacDougal hadn’t towed me the last hundred meters, I very likely would have drowned.

  Brian Bean did drown. This is the big test of Frolic Day—surviving it.

  Later that night, I shivered in my cot, half-watching Dermot Lally in his extensive bedtime preparations that included a Moroccan hair oil treatment, slathering his face with petroleum jelly, and putting on strange mitts for his hands, designed to keep them as soft as a baby’s behind.

  “Must take care of your skin, Little Rick. It’s your biggest organ,” said Dermot, who had taken off his eye patch to sleep. The “Little Rick” confusion was compounded by the fact that my trainee jumpsuit had stitching that literally said RONAN BOYLE over the left breast pocket. Perhaps Dermot could not read? But then why was he so confident? It was confounding.

  I was feeling pretty low and a bit lonely, even in the crowded, smelly barracks. I missed my parents. I had the little clay busts they had made me on a shelf above my cot. (Big Sweaty Jimmy Gibbons had asked why I had lizards watching me, and it was a fair question.) I missed Dolores, as unreliable as she is. And though I’d only known him for an hour, the death of Brian Bean bothered me a little bit.

  On the bed next to mine, Log was softly giggling, as is her custom. With a switchblade, she carved something into the leg of her cot.

  Tim the Medium-Sized Bear was curled up asleep right next to the potbelly stove. This is a breach of protocol for a new trainee, but it seems the senior recruits were willing to give him a pass, as he is not a small bear.

  I flipped through my course books, which were mostly dry, except for a few mushy pages in the back of Tin Whistle for Beginners. Sensing my sad mood, Log shot her crazy eyes in my direction. (Have you ever tried to set something on fire with your mind? That’s what it looks like when Log looks right at you.)

  “You want to hear a song that the otters sing, Boyle?” she giggled.

  “The others or the otters?”

  “Aye, the otters. It’ll cheer you up, lad. That’s what it’s for.”

  “Um. Sure. I suppose?”

  I took Log to mean a song about otters. But no, this was a song by otters. She popped her two front teeth out over her lip and began whistling and clicking in a way that was both genuinely delightful and quite mental. I couldn’t help but snort, fogging up my glasses.

  “Brilliant. Did you just make that up?” I asked.

  “No, I just told you,” chuckled Log. “That was taught to me by an otter named Quick Ronnie. It’s actually a very dirty song. He taught it to me in Tir Na Nog.”

  I sat up on my cot like I’d just been hit by lightning. “Wait, you’ve actually been to Tir Na Nog? The land of the faeries?”

  Log burst out laughing, which made everyone in the barracks give a little jump. Her chimpanzee strength, short temper, and her reputation as someone not to be trifled with were now well established.

  “I haven’t just been to Tir Na Nog, Boyle,” whispered Log, leaning in close. “I’m from Tir Na Nog.”

  My mouth went slack. “Seriously . . . how?”

  “I was a changeling, Ronan. Raised in Tir Na Nog by leprechauns.”

  I looked down to see that what she had been carving into the post of her cot was the very realistic face of a human baby.

  “That’s how I learned the language of the animals. As an infant, I was stolen and replaced by a changeling. But they forgot that they stole me, and for a couple of years the wee folk thought I was just a lifelike log, and so they raised me as one. That’s why I go by Log, and not my real name, Lara.”

&nbs
p; “Mistaken for a log? But how could that even happen?” I asked.

  “Sure, seems impossible to you. But the wee folk drink way too much, and this kind of thing happens all the time. One of me mates back then when I was a log in Tir Na Nog was just a pile of cabbages that a wee man had taught how to dance with some kind of spell. He was the best student in class. His name might have been Ronan also. Trying to remember. No, now that I think of it, we just called him Pile of Cabbages.”

  “So, wait, how did you end up here?” I asked, my brain quietly exploding in my head.

  “The human Republic had an amnesty treaty with the wee folk a while back to return changelings that had been stolen. As part of it, the humans are obliged to help us ‘changies’ find decent jobs. I worked at the Department of Transport, Tourism, and Sport before coming here, but I wasn’t a good fit for desk work, and I kept throwing people at things. Especially right before lunch.”

  “Ah, I see. Wow. That’s quite a story, Log. I mean—Lara, or I mean . . . Which do you prefer?”

  “I like you, Boyle. But never, ever call me Lara, or I’ll eat your face,” said Log, as sincerely as anyone has ever said anything to me, while tapping me lightly on the nose with the tip of her switchblade.

  Despite appearances, Log is actually very intense. Best not to ever look at her funny, make any sudden movements, or cross her in even the most minor way. Or call her by her human name of Lara. She will also take anything of yours that’s not nailed down. She can’t help it—the poor girl was raised as a log. Also, as I mentioned, she laughs under her breath while awake and asleep, which is very unsettling. That said, if I had to pick any of the trainees to be on my side in a fight, it would certainly be Log MacDougal. And also, she would probably be the one who started that fight, because she has major rage issues, drinks like a leprechaun, and loves to make rude jokes.

  When I awoke that afternoon, I could feel that my nose was getting stuffed up, and perhaps I was coming down with a cold after all of the shivering I did on Frolic Day. My new friend Log came to my rescue yet again.

  “Want to know how the wee folk fight off a cold?” she asked with a sly wink and the low, insane chuckle that accompanied everything she said.

  “Um . . . yes?” I replied.

  And with that Log licked her finger, stuck it into my belly button, and slapped me across the face with my own shoe. Then she laughed like this was the funniest thing that had ever happened. Remember, Log was raised as a log, and sometimes she doesn’t know any better. But I should add I was so confused that I immediately became flushed and sweaty, and whether it was the sheer annoyance or the boost of endorphins, I actually did feel much better ten minutes later, with zero symptoms of a cold. So, while possibly a legitimate psychopath, Log isn’t always wrong.

  Trainees must complete four courses to qualify for cadet, which is the first rank of the Special Unit. Cadet is followed by detective, sergeant, lieutenant, captain, and commissioner. The classes are: Weaponized Poetry, Shillelagh Safety and Combat, Practices of Irish and Faerie Law, and Tin Whistle for Beginners. Honestly, Tin Whistle for Beginners is probably the hardest of the four, and it’s only required because certain faerie folk in the Undernog—the southernmost tip of Tir Na Nog—speak using only tin whistles. It’s a pleasant but grueling language to learn. Luckily, trainees are only required to play a few dozen basic phrases like “Do you understand your Republic rights?” and “Help, I am lost in Undernog.”

  At dawn on my second day at Collins House, my first Shillelagh Safety and Combat class began with zero warning when someone kicked over my cot and dumped a can of Schweppes on my face.

  “What is the opposite of failure, Boyle?” asked Yogi Hansra as she choked me with an advanced type of double shillelagh she carries that looks like nunchucks—two short shillelaghs connected by a chain. It allows for amazing speed and fancy moves. It’s also perfect for simply choking a trainee in an attic, as she was doing right now.

  Yogi Hansra is four feet, ten inches tall. She might have the most magnificent head of blue-black hair, but we will never know because she keeps it buzzed short. She is quite pretty and probably would have been a star in the Bollywood film industry if she had not been called to a life of whacking the daylights out of people with sticks.

  “Um . . . The opposite of failure is success?” I sputtered. “Right?”

  “Wrong, Boyle! The opposite of failure is readiness.” With that, she leaped up and landed in a rather spectacular split, her bare feet far apart, holding her on two beams that support the roof. She twirled her nunchuck-shillelaghs until they were only a blur. I did the kind of stupid thing Ronan Boyle does.

  I applauded.

  This was a weird move, but it just happened. Her eyes tightened, and I got the point: This wasn’t a performance; it was a fight. I rubbed my throat and grabbed my training shillelagh from under my cot as she leaped toward me, driving me backward down the spiral staircase with a dizzying series of whacks.

  “I’m Yogi Hansra, your Shillelagh Safety and Combat teacher, Mr. Boyle,” said the yogi. “When you’re in my class, check your attitude at the door. Shoes are okay but not preferred; if you have to go to the bathroom, just go, you don’t have to ask permission. There’s no such thing as a dumb question. If you don’t understand something, raise your hand.”

  “Um. Okay.” I stopped fighting and raised my hand.

  The yogi bowed and rested her shillechucks on her hip.

  “Namaste, Mr. Boyle,” she said. “That means ‘I bow to you.’”

  “Oh. Okay. Sure. Neat,” I said, bowing back at her and gasping for air. “And when, exactly, is shillelagh class? I didn’t see it on my schedule.”

  “Shillelagh class is always happening. It’s happening right now. In the future. In the distant past,” said the yogi without trying to be funny. “Or possibly it’s never happening, because where we live is a construct of the mind. The only real thing is the breath. Understand?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said genuinely.

  “You will understand, Boyle. I promise you will understand. Now, what is the only real thing?”

  “The breath?”

  “Good. Because we may exist in a . . .?”

  “Construct of the mind?”

  “Excellent.”

  She spun her shillechucks around her body as she whacked and chased me down the hall and through the astonishingly bad cafeteria. The tables were crowded, but nobody even looked up. Apparently, this was a normal type of occurrence with the yogi. Eventually I made it to the basement and eluded her long enough to hide in a large dryer in the laundry cave. I waited almost an hour to be sure that she was gone. When I climbed out, I was covered in a copious amount of lint. I don’t know if my shillelagh class was over, because to quote the yogi herself, “Class is always happening, or maybe it’s never happening.” I was very confused.

  The yogi’s class was different every day. Monday, you climb a very tall tree, and you can’t come down until you’ve written a letter to yourself in the future. Tuesday, you balance on a fence post for many hours while she throws plates at you. Often there is real shillelagh fighting against the yogi, yet many more days are devoted only to breathing. The only thing about her class that can be expected is the unexpected. And of course—the breathing stuff. So much breathing stuff.

  If you’re wondering why the yogi is so intense, perhaps it’s because of her complicated life story: She was born in Mumbai, India, in 1989. At age six, she began working for a medicine man who would perform “brain surgery” on her in public squares. Really he was just pulling a bunch of spinach rigatoni out of her ear. She was rescued by the monks of the Boudhanath Temple, who smuggled her to Nepal. Every day, she tried to escape from the monks using the only things she could find, which were often just sticks or her own elbows. She battled dozens of annoyed monks every day until they just gave up and let her go. The short version: Do not mess with Yogi Hansra. She loves to fight. She also teaches an amazing hot yoga class
at Collins House, Mondays and Fridays at two P.M. Bring lots of water. Her motto, “The Opposite of Failure Is Readiness,” can be purchased on tank tops she sells after class, but they’re not as popular as the ones that say “Sometimes Karma Comes on a Stick.”

  Weaponized Poetry—my best subject—is taught outdoors in an obstacle course in Killarney National Park. The instructor is Pat Finch, the single most horrible man on the island of Ireland. The class is exactly what it sounds like: coming up with rhymes in confusing situations. The most stressful of the obstacles are the Buttered Wall (self-explanatory) and something called Pig Maze.

  “Why is it called Pig Maze, sir?” I dared to ask Pat Finch as we stood at a heavy wooden gate, him scratching his belly underneath his belt with an old fork.

  It was a rare sunny day in Killarney, which made Pat Finch look more out of place than normal, as his face is like something you’d expect to see peeking out of a coffin.

  He responded in classic Pat Finch style by plugging one nostril and blowing snot onto the ground. “Grab a belt and put ’em on, noobsters. See you on the other side. Or maybe not.”

  Pat Finch approached the gate that leads into the maze itself, a labyrinth of hedges four square kilometers wide.

  Dan the Troll passed out the belts, which were really just rope strung with cinnamon-flavored apples. He tied them onto our waists, tight. Pat Finch took several minutes to climb up into the crow’s nest, which is a sort of lookout tower above the maze.

  Dan the Troll opened the gate and ushered us into the maze, bolting it behind us.

  “Maybe the apples are a treat? They do smell awfully good,” I said, bending down to try to lick one of them and immediately getting a cramp in my side.

  Log giggled, but in her most serious way. This was her fifth time through the trainee program. She knew the apples weren’t for us.

  When pigs arrived, I understood the name of the maze. A dozen of the largest, friendliest pigs you’ve ever seen in your entire life were barreling down on us. These pigs really want to get a bite of those apples and to snuggle. Snuggling a four-hundred-pound pig—even a friendly one—would be painful and possibly fatal.