Ronan Boyle and the Bridge of Riddles

by Thomas Lennon

  I smiled and waved back, saluting him with my shillelagh.

  Then the child called out, “Eat this, ya skinny beefie!” as he threw a rotten cabbage straight at my head.

  The cabbage was a direct hit. I would love to tell you that some of this ancient cabbage did not end up in my mouth, but that would be a lie.

  I spat and wiped my face as clean as I could, and Captain de Valera patted me on the back.

  “Now, Boyle,” she said. “Now you truly know what it’s like to be one of us.”

  I managed to laugh at this and wiped the cabbage from my mouth as we started the journey back to Collins House.

  * * *

  1 Woodtrolls are cousins of bridge trolls that stand upright all the time and have antlers like a stag. They will perform certain kinds of work for gold or treasure without the need for chains.

  CHAPTER TEN

  RETURN TO KILLARNEY

  On the trip back home, I learned a thing or two.

  For starters, the Bridge of Riddles costs three euros and fifty cents going into Nogbottom, but it’s fourteen-fifty going out. This is madness. They know they’ve got you right where they want you. It’s like how gum always costs more at the airport. It’s not like you’re going to use a different Bridge of Riddles. There isn’t one. The chubby little far darrig who works the Nogbottom side of the bridge loves to make this joke, saying, “If you don’t like our prices, enjoy the competition!” There is no competition. You either use the Bridge of Riddles or you spend the rest of your days in Nogbottom, eating fake unicorn-and-chips and drowning in tears from the saddest musicals ever performed.

  This outgoing rate is not posted anywhere on the bridge, so don’t be surprised if you go there and get stuck. The riddle, however, was quite a bit easier on the way out. It went like this:

  Blind I am, with many eyes

  Me da gets mashed, while Mum gets fried.

  My brother often,

  turns au gratin.

  My sister quips,

  how oft she’s whipped

  into a side dish, for heaven’s sake

  her tots, alas, get boiled and baked.

  If you said “potato,” you were exactly right. Although it took me a few moments to think of this answer in my delirious state, perhaps because it was so deceptively easy. The far darrig never even got out of his chair. He just yawned, took a swig off of his ginger beer, and rudely shoved our twenty-nine euros into a pneumatic tube, where it was zipped away.

  The trip back through the Forest of Adair took ages. I accidentally stepped too close to a Kissing Colleen sprout, and it took a good little bite of my ankle, which required a medium-sized bandage and some antibiotic ointment back in the medical ward on the fifth floor of Collins House.

  An extra annoyance of the trip was that Wee Glen was venting off the last of his pickle toots. He also griped endlessly about the Oifigtown City Hurling Team, saying they were rubbish and wishing a pox upon them.

  At my other elbow, the captain would not stop pining for Lovely Liam and singing Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” which includes the lyric “I’m in love with your body,” over and over. This is an uncomfortable thing to hear your superior officer sing, and I tried to get it out of my head. At times, I saw the captain’s hand reach for the vastsack, and I could see she was thinking about taking him out.

  “I won’t really let him go,” protested the captain. “I just want to smell his hair for one second. I’ll put him back directly, I promise.” I stopped her at each attempt with a swift but not too hard bop to her knuckles from my hemlock shillelagh.

  By the time we got to the stream of whiskey, I was so fed up with both of my traveling companions that I let Wee Glen have a long sip from the ninety-proof stream, which made him promptly doze off. I was sick of hearing his nasty opinions about all of the Tir Na Nog hurling teams.1

  We passed through the Castleisland geata back into the Republic, and I ineptly drove us back to Collins House. Lily’s head was out the window, as was her custom, basking in the afternoon glow of County Kerry. It took us a wee bit to get home, as this was only my second time behind the wheel, and my glasses were shattered somewhere back at Bob and Thing’s. The situation was genuinely unsafe, and I grazed a few passing tractors, but the captain was too smitten to care.

  Captain de Valera sang the classified song to make Collins House appear, and she did it quite beautifully, as she was still in love, and when you are in love, your voice rings like a spoon against Waterford crystal. She especially nailed the high, tricky part, which I have never quite mastered.

  Sergeant O’Brien was at the front desk, muttering and juggling two telephones. She was especially annoyed, as she was between púca forms in her shape-shifting cycle. Currently, her head was a rabbit but her body was a horse, which was a strange sight and obviously made her feel uncomfortable about herself even though it was somewhat beautiful and certainly interesting to see her hold the phones with her floppy ears. When she saw us burst through the front doors, she thrust a hoof toward the Processing Department as if to say: Don’t even ask what kind of day I’m having.

  Captain de Valera entered Wee Glen and Lovely Liam into custody with the help of a trustee troll from the Joy Vaults named Dennis. Wee Glen, still passed out, was stuffed into a muskwrap, which is a humane but smell-proof plastic cling material used to transfer leprechauns in the event of musking.

  While Dennis was logging in the sheep, the Mercedes, and the wine, he accidentally glanced at Lovely Liam and fell madly in love. This was especially unfortunate, because when trolls fall in love, they get flushed, sweaty, and ravenously hungry to eat badly behaved human children, and there were none about. It took all of my strength to keep Dennis from devouring the flock of sheep, but by my last count there were still twenty-three of them, so thank heavens none were lost.

  The captain, Dennis, and I were taken into the subbasement for a debriefing session by the staff hypnotist, named the Mysterious Doctor Boiko. The Mysterious Doctor Boiko is not a medical doctor, but he is a hypnotist from a traveling circus in Romania. He works out of an incense-filled closet in the subbasement. Doctor Boiko was fired from his previous job for “conduct unbecoming a circus.” What that is I cannot possibly imagine. He is kept on staff by the Garda Special Unit for situations like the love-curse, when an officer has had a spell cast by the faerie folk that could be dangerous to his or her health and/or job performance. I’ve known the Mysterious Doctor Boiko for a bit and have been treated by him on three occasions, and even in a building filled with strange things, he is legitimately very creepy. The Mysterious Doctor Boiko’s mustache connects to his muttonchops in the most circuitous geometry, and he has nine earrings in each earlobe, representing the planets. I know this because they look like the planets. I did not choose to tell him that Pluto is no longer considered a planet, and you wouldn’t tell him that either if you gazed into his simmering red eyes that seem to be reflecting a fire that is not there.

  I underwent the “Doctor’s” hypnosis session, even though I had not actually looked at Lovely Liam directly. This is standard procedure, just to be on the safe side, and while I don’t remember the session, I do know that I slept like a baby afterward. It’s likely he had served me a Special Unit sandwich called the Irish Goodbye, which was invented in the very active Weapons Laboratory on the third floor of Collins House in 1988.

  The Irish Goodbye is a weapons-grade sandwich made with cabbage, spicy Irish mustard, lean corned beef, fear gorta breath, two [CLASSIFIED INGREDIENTS], mayonnaise, and the toenails of woodtrolls on buttered brown bread. Then it’s pressed on a panini machine until crispy. The sandwich is basically irresistible. (You can’t even taste the toenails, and yes, there is a vegan version.) Almost anyone will take the sandwich when offered, not knowing that it can cause intense short-term memory loss, and it is NOT CLASSIFIED when I tell you that the Special Unit often uses this sandwich to erase the memory of civilians who have had traumatic run-ins with the faerie folk. I
f you’re wondering why you don’t read stories of the wee folk every day on the front page of the newspaper, this military-grade, melt-in-your mouth sandwich is the reason. It’s also why all Special Unit vehicles carry a panini press.

  I don’t recall how I got up to my bunk in the barracks, but that’s exactly where I woke up that evening, still in my uniform with a bad case of Irish mustard burps. Someone must have put me in the unreliable lift that I do not like to ride in when I am awake. As a cadet, my bunk was now much closer to the potbelly stove, and Log had once again moved into the one directly next to me. Tim the Medium-Sized Bear was still coming and going on occasion, even though bears have been extinct in Ireland since the last Ice Age.

  I told Log all about the trip to Nogbottom, which left her unimpressed—she had been there many times as a young log. She was currently on a case in Westmeath and was sworn not to give anyone any details about it, so she only gave me some.

  “Hehehehehe,” said Log, as she starts most sentences like this. “There’s a wee man using rabbit tunnels to traffic stolen credit cards out of Westmeath.2 I’m trying to gain the trust of the local rabbits. A whole warren of ’em behind a pub called the Three Jolly Pigeons.”

  “So, gaining their trust? Are you undercover?” I asked, confused.

  “Hehehehehehe—no, don’t wear a rabbit suit, but I probably could and it would fool them. Rabbits are so, so dim,” giggled Log. “They don’t even have names, they just call each other ‘Kevin’—their mums, das, everybody is a Kevin to them.”

  “Kevin?”

  “Yes, but in the language of the animals ‘Kevin’ is the word for ‘rabbit,’ so to them it makes sense.”

  Log’s psychotic giggle could now get me to fall asleep like the most pleasant lullaby, or maybe I was just more tired than I had ever been in my life.

  The following day I volunteered to be on the team to transfer Wee Glen and Lovely Liam to the Joy Vaults in Dublin.

  Dermot Lally drove, and somehow he is an even worse driver than me, perhaps because of his dashing eye patch or his main focus being singing along to the radio. Log sat up front with him in the Riot Van, which is a repurposed human vehicle that the Special Unit uses to transfer wee folk. The prisoner compartment has been faerie-proofed and is engraved with thousands of filthy limericks, which the faerie folk love to read and which can keep them occupied for hours. The driver’s compartment up front holds six humans and two electric shillelaghs in the event of emergency. Sitting next to me was a nine-foot-tall trustee troll named Carol, who was along in the event that we needed a troll. Carol’s nose was blocked up with two small corned beefs, which is standard procedure when traveling with a troll, so that they do not accidentally devour any human children along the way.

  Dermot was singing along to Ed Sheeran on the radio as he drummed on the steering wheel. Log joined in with him, even though she did not know the words, she just Hehehehehe’d her normal psychotic giggle that just happens to fit pretty well with this particular song.

  “Hehehehehe, I’m in love with your body,” they sang, now as a duet. “Hehehehehe, I’m in love with your body.”

  I tugged at my hair. I don’t know why, but these lyrics make me very uncomfortable, and everyone I knew seemed to be singing them on a regular basis. I stared out the window, trying to act like I was not with Log and Dermot. Carol was now dead asleep on my lap. Her head was hot and heavy. As we passed through Kildare, I thought I saw a pair of bright red eyes looking right at me as we passed under a bridge. My mind was playing tricks on me. At least I hoped it was.

  After the prisoner transfer, we had an hour to spare before we were due to head back to Killarney. Log had been begging to see the wax Liam Neeson on display in Dublin’s Wax Museum Plus. While I certainly was open to the idea of meeting a wax Liam Neeson, it wasn’t as significant to me as, say, a wax Dame Judi Dench would be. And for that, I would have to go all the way to London—trust me, I have planned this hypothetical London trip to see wax Dame Judi in my head many, many times.

  So I let Log and Dermot go across the Liffey while I stayed behind at the Joy. I was anxious to see my parents, to make sure they hadn’t gotten gang tattoos and to relate to them the story of my bizarre attack at Lord Desmond Dooley’s gallery.

  I didn’t have time to collect falafels, so my parents and I split a Lion Bar that I purchased from the vending machine that rips you off in the visitors’ ward. I told Mum and Da of the attack in Dooley’s gallery, and the red-eyed wee woman who smelled of fish heads and bit my nose.

  “She must be one of Dooley’s accomplices,” said Da. “He certainly could have had help in stealing the Bog Man. Dooley himself can barely lift a cup of tea.”

  “Dooley’s accomplices are wee folk?” said Mum, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “The wee folk are quick and sneaky, and they love crime and a quick profit,” I said. “Dooley’s in league with this red-eyed woman, possibly others as well. I suspect his crimes go beyond just your case, and further back than we know!”

  “Ronan, this is all so much to take in,” said Da.

  “I know. But Dooley and his little crew are not safe anymore. Now that I’m with the Special Unit!”

  My parents beamed with pride; Mum wiped a tear from her eye. I twirled my imaginary shillelagh and pretended to tap my Special Unit badge. This move confused my folks, so I explained what I had just been trying to pantomime.

  “Ah, indeed, very good, Ronan,” said Da. “Our boy can pantomime with the best of ’em.”

  “I’ve started a file on the wee woman,” I said, proudly handing over a folder of evidence I had started to collect. Or course, a surly guard blew his whistle and forbade me from actually handing the file to my parents. So I described its contents to them.

  The file currently contained three things: a photo of Lord Desmond Dooley that I had downloaded from the Internet; a description of the umbrella that I had lost at his gallery; and my first major break in the case: an almost complete shoe print of the red-eyed wee woman who smelled of fish heads.

  “How did you get that, Ronan?” asked Mum.

  I said nothing, just lifted my chin to show where the stinky woman had kicked me, hard enough to leave a mark. The impression on my chin was incomplete but close enough to show that it was the symbol of a sheela na gig, a creepy ancient pagan fertility goddess with strange parts. She’s said to ward off evil, which in the case of the Red-Eyed Woman the sheela na gig was clearly failing at pretty badly. As no two leprechaun shoes are alike, the print was at least somewhere to start.

  My evidence so far was scant, other than Dooley’s own admission that my parents were innocent, but who would believe me on that? I stuck the file back into my jacket.

  “Bless you, son,” said Da. “We’re so proud of you.”

  “I will say, I hope you don’t get us out of here too soon,” chuckled Mum. “I wouldn’t want to miss your father’s big night!”

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Don’t be bragging on me, Fiona.” Da blushed.

  “Tell him!” said Mum.

  “Well, you know how I’m in the top gang, the Kinahans, and your mum’s in the Hutch Gang?” said Da.

  “Yes, and you know I don’t approve of this at all,” I said sternly.

  “Well, I’ve gotten a little art show organized, showing off the paintings and ceramics of both gangs!” said Da proudly. “There’s no gap that art cannot bridge!”

  “That’s grand,” I said. “I’m happy for you, Da. Well done.”

  The guard tapped me, signaling it was time for me to go. I hugged my folks.

  Mum hung back and whispered to me. “Good luck, Ronan. And the Hutch Gang is coming to the art show just to rumble. To show the Kinahans who runs this joint.”

  “To fight? A gang fight? Mum! Does Da know this?” I asked, annoyed.

  “He’ll be fine. I’ll protect him. I’m a pretty big wheel in the Hutch Gang, as I’m the strongest reader and typist. I’ll look aft
er your da, I promise,” said Mum. “I just thought you should know. Love you, boy. Be safe.”

  I shook my head and headed back to the Riot Van.

  On the trip back to Collins House, a very amped-up Log MacDougal told us all about the wax Liam Neeson she had just seen, in greater detail than anybody would ever want.3

  My patrols with the captain over the next few days mostly involved misdemeanor cases, one in which the locals up in Guidor thought that their well had become bewitched and was speaking to them directly. In fact, it was a clurichaun at the bottom, trying to convince the townsfolk to throw their coins, pipes, harps, and mobile devices down the well to him. Wee folk have no use for mobile devices, as there is zero roaming coverage in Tir Na Nog, but they do love fancy human items and pretty much anything with the Apple logo on it.

  Another case involved a púca who had infiltrated an elementary school on the north side of Dublin. She had taken the form of a fox, which children love and can relate to. In secret, she was teaching the children how to rig the video poker machines in the local pubs. The children were just pawns in this game, and the púca was keeping all of the profits. By the time the captain and I arrested her, she had eleven thousand beer-soaked euros in her tiny fox pants, and she owed the pub owners of the north side of Dublin over three hundred euros in unpaid drinks.

  The púca tried to shape-shift into a horse while in custody in the captain’s jeep, but under stress a púca can’t choose her form—so she ended up turning into a cat, which Lily easily snapped up and held in her teeth until the transfer was complete.

  * * *

  1 Hurling is a popular sport in the human Republic of Ireland and even more popular in Tir Na Nog. If you don’t know the game, it’s as if baseball were played on a soccer field with thick hockey sticks. You might as well call it EVERY SPORT ALL AT ONCE. All of the Tir Na Nog cities have official hurling teams. Lake City Unified combines the three major towns of the Floating Lakes, and it has a stranglehold on the league, with many of the best and most expensive players. The wee folk take their hurling very seriously. Disputes between teams have led to murders, kidnappings, extortion, machine-gunnings, bombings, garrotings, mass poisonings, divorces, stabbings, and even referees being launched out of cannons onto faraway spikes. There have also been more serious offenses that I will not mention here.