One morning in the mess hall, one of the squires ran up to Fie’s table and shrieked, “I saw him! I swear I did!”
Fie and her friends, indifferent to the outburst, continued to spoon up potato soup. “But did you really?” she asked. “Are you sure you aren’t seeing things?”
The shouting boy glared at their lack of reaction. “I thought you of all people would believe me!” he snapped. “You’re all a bunch of idiots!”
Fie put down her spoon and looked at him. “Hey now, that’s rude. I’ll have you know I got the third highest score in the whole class on the final exams. Anyway, he’s just an urban legend, isn’t it? That means he’s not real.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” the boy insisted. “I swear I saw him.”
Queen, sitting next to Fie, was so single-mindedly focused on his food that he had missed the earlier conversation. “Who are you talking about?” he asked. He tilted his head doggishly.
Fie shrugged. “Bruce M’chouchouteman,” she said. “He’s just an urban legend. Don’t pay any attention to it.”
The boy howled again. “I’m telling you, I saw him!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Bruce M’chouchouteman was a figure of legend in Wienne. The stories claimed he roamed the city streets at night searching for unsuspecting pedestrians to blow a blast of a mysterious liquid on. His victims ranged from criminals to innocent school girls. No one knew if he was a force of good or a force of evil. He was the mystery man, the staple of countless stories in the popular boy’s magazine, Nu: Believe it or Not! He was...Bruce M’chouchouteman.
After breakfast, the boys went into the recreation room, where Fie tried to explain the phenomenon to Queen with the help of a magazine she borrowed from Slad.
Queen listened blankly and then said, “Now that you mention it, this does ring a bell.”
Well, of course it did. Bruce M’chouchouteman was a constant subject of conversation for the boys, and Fie wondered how in the world Queen had managed to avoid hearing talk of him thus far.
Queen’s face wasn’t very expressive, and he looked quite well put together at first glance, but she knew all too well that half the time he was off in his own little world. What made him space out like that? She took this opportunity to scrutinize him. He stared back at her blankly for a few moments before his cheeks turned a brilliant, bashful crimson.
Remie noticed Queen sweating bullets and rushed to step in. “I mean, Queen prefers stories about knights, right? I don’t think he’s a big fan of urban legends, and if he isn’t interested, then it makes sense that he’d forget that he ever heard of one.”
Pacified, Fie nodded. “You make a good point.”
Slad exclaimed, “So what’s next? Are we gonna go look for him too?”
The trilogy of lackluster responses went as follows:
I Bet His Eyes were Only Playing Tricks on Him by Fie.
We Have Homework... by Gees.
Talk About a Waste of Time by Gormus.
Queen looked around at the others and added, “If Heath’s not going, then I’m not going.”
Left in the minority, Slad whimpered, his shoulders slumping. Remie tried to comfort him by saying, “It’s okay. I’ll help you with your homework.”
“I don’t want to do my homework!”
That cleared up the mystery, Fie thought. It was only another procrastination technique of Slad’s. The Bruce M’chouchouteman rumors would die down any day now.
And yet...
✦ ✦ ✦
Two boys burst into the mess hall at breakfast time, and one wailed, “I saw him too!”
“It’s true!” yelled his companion. “You have to believe us!”
Naturally, neither boy was the same one from yesterday, but yesterday’s boy stood up and cried, “See? I told you he’s real!”
Suspicious, another squire asked them, “Hey, are you guys trying to pull our legs? That’s an infringement of the Squires’ Rules and Prohibitions, Squirely Made, Squirely Upheld, and For Our Own Squirely Good, Article 38: ‘Lame pranks are prohibited’ and Article 4: ‘Getting our hopes with promises of adventure is prohibited.’”
“Since we happen to be on the subject,” Fie put in with a grin, “Article 4 was made ’cause of me.”
“Quit bragging,” said Gormus.
The north dorm was nothing but a collection of problem children, but in an effort to dissuade themselves from inconveniencing each other, the boys had created a series of articles to govern themselves. (Incidentally, the impetus of this was Fie’s behavior.)
The first boy swore. “Why doesn’t anyone believe me?”
“Are you still going on about this?” one of the other squires said. “C’mon, boys, let’s get him out of here.”
“On it!” said his friends.
Two of the squires grabbed the Bruce believer by the arms and held him tight.
“Stop trying to trick us,” one of the restrainers said. “Sure, we all had a lot of fun wondering if the legends were true back when we were all still wet behind the ears. But we’ve been squires for ten months now. That means we’re practically adults. We all know that urban legends aren’t true; sure, they’re fun in their own way, but it’s time we showed some maturity. That’s why you shouldn’t try to trick us! It’s the sand punishment for you now.”
“No! That’s not fair!” the boy pleaded.
The sand punishment was quite a grave punishment indeed. It entailed being tied up with ropes and left to lie out on the training grounds, and if anyone complained that the punishment wasn’t fair, they’d be dragged through the sandy dirt. Autumn was the best time of year for great gusts of wind to whip the sand up in everyone’s face, so the punished and punisher alike were liable to get a healthy dusting.
Fie watched them go, puzzled. “I don’t get why he’d stick to his guns to the point where he’d get covered in sand,” she said. It was clear to her that anyone being so persistent about this would receive at least some form of punishment—as she was well aware, having just caused trouble of her own.
“Who knows?” Gormus said with a shrug.
Up until now, Fie and the others thought this whole thing was only a joke or some kind of misunderstanding. But were those claims of seeing Bruce M’chouchouteman actually sincere?