舍尔加尔：每日小说选秀

1。

我的祖父在星期日去世，这是最糟糕的一天。 牧师很忙，承办者可以放假。

RIP John F McGann。 顺便说一句，F是为菲亚克拉（Fiachra）设计的。 他七十三岁，我敢打赌，您认为这将是关于他以及他真正的好人的故事。 顺便说一句，当我父亲是一个绝对的混蛋时，他总是怎么说明智的话，并给了我很好的建议，以应对我的生活，并为我坚持下去。 那是祖父的意思，对吧？ 保护。 牵着我们的手，引导我们过马路。 使痛苦消失。

好吧，这是事实。 我很久不认识约翰·菲奇拉·麦甘。 实际上，仅仅一年。 他一天不在，第二天在那里，在西班牙度过了二十年之后回到了家。 我以为他死了。 我的意思是，我不知道这一点。 我只是假设，因为没有人告诉过我。

我的另一个祖父丹尼爷爷和他的妻子格蕾丝住在格拉斯哥，妻子格蕾丝并不是我的祖母（那是另一天的家庭传奇）。 但这就是我在祖父母部门的工作，直到有一天我放学回家，发现我的母亲坐在那位年长绅士的厨房桌子旁，那位白发浓密的老先生。 他穿着一件奶油衬衫和一双深绿色的大括号。

• 淡入我内心深处的阴影中，我不常去的那些部分，不是……
• 商业互惠
• 马林县的弗塞尔曼
• #STILLonthaBLUFF，作者：@RealCurtisSnow第16章：它们仍然处于停止状态
• 成为爸爸的女孩！

他们一定听说过我从后门走到花园小径上，因为当我走进去时，他们已经在看向门了。

“你到家了，”我妈妈离开座位说。 “进来，有人要我见面。”

约翰·麦克甘（John F McGann）站起来向我走来。 他的裤子高高地骑在腰上。 翘臀浮在他的脚踝上，炫耀着他打磨过的黑色靴子。 他看上去很稳健，控制力强，充满自信。 他本来可以是您在旧照片中看到的那些政治人物之一-穿着教堂装束的直截了当的男人从干草车后面讲课，告诉观众如何使爱尔兰变得更美好。

他像圣人一样对我微笑。 “你好。”

他的白色大爪子使我的手变得很小。

“这是约翰·麦甘（John McGann），”我的母亲说，然后：“我的父亲。”

她一定以为这听起来不对劲，因为她纠正了自己。 “我爸。 你爷爷。”

就是这样。 没有大戏。 不要在桑树丛或类似的东西周围跳动。 你爷爷 我的爷爷毕竟还没死。

我想到了我的弟弟西亚兰（Ciaran），他正在美国念大学，并且再也不能再呆六个月了。 他是一位跑步者-如果您一定要知道，他在上届欧洲青少年锦标赛上为爱尔兰跑了800米-而且比我聪明。 他本来会有很多问题，而不是无拘无束地站在那儿，握着这个陌生人的手。

“很高兴见到你…，”

我不知道该怎么称呼他。 他注意到我的犹豫。

“叫我爷爷。”

我做了我被告知的事情。 “爷爷。”这个词尝起来很苦，就像一个绿色的苹果。

我们坐下来聊了一会儿，我问他关于西班牙以及他住的地方。

“瓦伦西亚，”他说。

我妈妈同意。 “瓦伦西亚，”她说，尝试着扩大规模。

我们谈论了我的学校（圣尤南学院）和我的表现（很好，尽管我打赌那不是我父母会说的）。 他问我有关我的朋友和我喜欢什么运动的问题。 篮球和足球。

“盖尔足球？”

我摇了摇头。 “很棒的游戏，”他说。

顺便说一句，我对朋友很好。 我不是最受欢迎的人，也不是每个人都忽略的人，dweebs。 我就在中间，远离恶霸和校长。

当我母亲看着她的手表时，我感到很高兴，并说如果他想乘公共汽车去他可能要走了。 她总是说，我说话太多，听的不够，但是我的脑筋疲惫，试图思考一些事情以保持对话的进行。

约翰·F·麦甘（John F McGann）站起身，一口气将皮夹克从座位后部抬起。

“让我们成为朋友，”他说。

我母亲在我没有机会之前就讲话了。 “他当然会，你不会Declan。”

我点了点头，因为我别无选择（不要太语法化， 不要那么全，但那不是吗，Declan最后应该有一个问题，但是没有。）

我新成立的爷爷说：“我们当然会。”

在那之后，我没再见到他那么多，总共三遍，包括一次与乔纳森（Jonathan）的交流，稍后我会告诉您。

他住在七十英里外的都柏林。 他没有汽车，我也没有。显然。 但是，我认为还有另一个原因我没有看到他太多。 我父亲不喜欢约翰·麦克甘。 不是他告诉我这个。 但是，当您住在像我们房子一样大的房屋中时​​，您会听到声音，穿过墙壁，就在走进房间之前，人们并没有意识到您就在门外并且可能正在聆听，即使您没有不想。

不要误会我的意思。 我不从事间谍活动。 我不是偷偷摸摸。 但是有一次，我听到母亲告诉父亲她邀请约翰来参加周日晚餐，而父亲告诉她：“可以，但愿我不要在这里。” 而且他的说话方式-真是讽刺-很奇怪，因为我父亲从未与任何人交谈，尤其是我的母亲。 他是我父亲圣尤南（St Eunan’s）的副校长，在那种工作中，您不会被讽刺，

我的母亲没有回复，因为那是我走进去时的情况。一本沉重的书掉在地上后，Silent放弃了它的操作方式。 她问我是否洗过手，到此为止。

后来我不在时，他们在彼此之间进行了整理。 我父亲之所以走，是因为第二个星期天我母亲去了都柏林，他做了星期天的晚餐。 烧鸡，豆芽和土豆都坚如磐石。 如果世界上有比我父亲更糟糕的厨师，我真的很想见到那个人并向他们表示慰问。

葬礼在十天后的星期三发生。 我不想深入了解生活的意义，但是说实话，当您想到它时，这是疯狂的。 一分钟，一个人走来走去，呼吸着空气，想知道当晚在电视上看什么，然后又消失了。 死。

几天没有人提起我去葬礼的事，这真是一种解脱。 我们每个家庭都要在每个星期日去教堂，我不介意告诉你，这绝对是一周中最糟糕的时间。 而这并没有所有的哭泣和纸质手帕，让您在葬礼上感到悲伤。 那将是我的第一个。 我想象自己将棺材运出教堂，在到达灵车之前，膝盖屈曲。 如果您必须知道的话，我不是肌肉部门的Universe先生。 因此，当我父亲在早餐桌上宣布我在葬礼前不去时，这可能是最好的。 我会待在家里和乔纳森在一起。

我假装自己很失望，但乔纳森知道真相。 他把我的脚轻轻推到桌子底下，笑了一下，刚好使我成为唯一发现它的人。

“拜托，不，”他告诉我父亲。 “不在我的帐户上。 我知道Declan想要表达他的最后的敬意。 无论如何，我不需要保姆。”

我父亲摇了摇头。 “不，那是真的。 他说：“你没有，但迪克兰有。”

那使所有人都笑了，当然除了我和我父亲。 我，因为我14岁，可以照顾自己，所以非常感谢。 我父亲，是因为-恩，他并不是世界笑的冠军。

2。

关于乔纳森。

这听起来很疯狂，但是我知道在我遇见他的那天他将是我最好的朋友。

我知道那是绝望的。 您应该认识自己最好的朋友，因为您俩都在子宫里或处于一段悲伤的时光，例如我的父亲，因为他们去了英国的同一所大学，所以认识了乔纳森的父亲。 我不确定我的妈妈和她最好的朋友，或者她甚至没有。 可能不是，这让我很难过。 我敢打赌，她也是。 她曾经告诉我，当一切说完了，当我们去见见制造商时，唯一重要的是我们结交的朋友。 在这种情况下，上帝会喜欢我的。

我有足够的朋友，不是太多也不是几个。 当然有乔纳森。 然后我的朋友在学校。

我们的小帮派中有六个人。 帮派 ！ 我绝对会非常讨厌这个词。 这让我们听起来像伊恩·伦纳德（Eoin Leonard）和他的指关节小伙子，在操场上徘徊，从小孩子那里偷食物。 我们根本不是那样。 我们保持自我，除非有一场大型的足球比赛正在进行，而我们中的一些人加入了。尽管不是每个人。 我们中至少有一个人一直待在Sam身上，Sam出生时脚踝之一扭到一边，所以他的脚无法适当地支撑体重。 他可以with着拐杖走路，但不能踢足球或类似的疯狂动作。

我们体育课上的某些人不会介意的，但Sam会介意的。 他多次告诉我，我可以数出他有多讨厌他的“愚蠢的脚踝”。 他原本应该去美国进行修理，但是他的父母负担不起飞机的费用。 关于爱尔兰的医生，该死的白痴，你应该听山姆的话。 他们为什么不能做他妈的手术？

我不为萨姆感到抱歉，而我做到了。 我不是因为他不是太可怜-“我不想让你他妈的可怜，”他曾经告诉我（萨姆发誓很多，以防万一你没注意到）。 我之所以这么做是因为体育是我最喜欢的学科，如果我无法奔跑并成为第二年的最佳篮球运动员，我会讨厌它。 人们也对他不好，好像他不值得去打扰。 全部是因为他的脚踝痉挛，这甚至不是他的错。

伦纳德最糟糕。 他每天至少一次称他为“ spas”。 他的衣架都笑了起来，这是自从时间开始以来最大的笑话。 如果您问我，现在有很多痉挛。

好的事情是在塔拉林公园“事件”发生后停了下来。 此后，即使乔纳森（Jonathan）早已离开并回到英国故乡，伦纳德（Leonard）还是再也没有接近过我们所有人。

他在星期六抵达。 我知道这是星期六，因为我不得不像回家一样，而不是像放暑假的其他两周一样去推杆和推杆。 我对此不满意。 我的朋友Connail的父亲收取果岭费，他让我们免费玩。

我父亲说会有很多时间打高尔夫球。 我们仍然有六个星期的放假时间，因为他们要拆除旧的临时教室并建造新的教室。 我不想因为不得不照顾一些我从未见过的来自英国的陌生人而毁了我的夏天。

刚好学年结束后的一个晚上，当我们被告知我们有一个夏季的寄宿者时，我们就在晚餐桌上，他将在我哥哥的房间里睡觉。

他说：“他比布伦丹小几岁，所以你和他应该有很多共同点。” “他的名字叫乔纳森。”

很明显，我妈妈已经知道了。 “还记得爸爸的朋友劳伦斯·康兰吗？ 她在这里度过了一个漫长的周末……。布伦丹是多久了？”她说。

我爸爸已经在吃饭了。 他不喜欢自己的食物变冷。

“五六年，”他通过一口意大利面说。 “也许更长。 我们可以吃吗 这食物变冷了。”

明白了吗？

“是他的儿子。 他是一个很好的男孩。 他不是布伦登吗？”

我向哥哥发誓向上帝发誓，我从未听说过劳伦斯·康兰（Lawrence Conran），但我什么也没说，因为那不是我们家里的事情，特别是当我父亲那样的时候。 老大 我的兄弟肯定会有几个问题-比如这个人是谁，为什么他会来这里用他的英语口音破坏我完美的夏天，而他还有什么其他毛病？ -但不是我。 不，先生。

您知道在家庭中情况如何，父母告诉您每个人都受到同等的对待，没有人是任何人的最爱，但每个人都知道这不完全是事实，不是全部事实，而是事实。 这就是我们家庭的情况。 布伦丹是我父亲的最爱。 就像天空中的太阳一样明显。 我想你可以说我是我妈妈的最爱，尽管她尽力将它藏起来。 她不能骗我。 当我很小的时候，当我感到害怕或生气时，她让我在她旁边睡觉。 即使是现在，当我必须在圣诞节或她的生日拥抱她时，我仍记得她身体的温暖安全。 她看着我。

她说：“有一些公司对您来说很好。”尽管她可以像那些电视催眠师之一那样读懂我的思想。 我拥有所需的所有公司。

来自英格兰的神秘乔纳森·康兰（Jonathan Conran）没有我想象的那么高，而他比我大。 他有胡茬。 老实说 那种淡淡的那种，就像黑色的小羽毛随机地粘在他的脸上。 如果您不愿意照镜子，那会刮掉那种。 看起来不太好。 他的头发和衣服也一样，看起来都没洗过一个月。 他的T恤上有一张照片，一张卡通脸，黑底黑字，白色卷发，双眼交叉，脸颊上有雀斑。 标语下面写着“脑死了”。 他戴着一双蓝色的匡威（Converse），这是我很久以来一直想要的那种。

他有两个袋子-一个看上去新奇的棕色手提箱和一个大的黑色帆布袋，上面满是灰尘。 看起来好像是用卡车在世界各地旅行了十次。

我父亲在机场接了他，两个小时然后回来。 在他离开的整个过程中，我都在玩电子游戏。

我可以说我的妈妈对让一个陌生人住在我们的房子里感到很紧张，她试图为他找借口

她说：“他在学校遇到了一些问题。”

我专注于游戏。 FIFA17。 波希米亚人在世界足坛历史上最大的震撼之一就是击败皇家马德里，只剩下3分钟的Playstation比赛时间。

“我认为他只需要换一个场景即可。”

罗纳尔多以自己的方式编织了我的波西米亚人防线

“呃。”

她没有注意到我没有注意。 “就在我们两个之间，他在学校遇到了一些问题。”

罗纳尔多击中了横杆并抢到了篮板。

“什么学校？ 谁？”

目标！ 罗纳德在最后一刻扳平比分。

“妈妈，”我说。 “看看你做了什么。”

当您遇到新朋友时，我们会举手示意所有平常所说的假话。 他似乎没有那么兴奋，对我来说很好。

我妈妈对他的黑包一无所知。 “看西里安，乔纳森（Jonathan）也有高尔夫俱乐部。 你可以带他去推杆和推杆，”她说。

我可以看出这包不是用来装高尔夫球杆的。 里面的东西既长又瘦，可能重达一根羽毛，但我不想打扰，尤其是当她向他提供关于我们当地的高尔夫球场和推杆路线的整个旅游故事时，像是圆石滩。

“我不打高尔夫球，谢里丹太太，”乔纳森停下呼吸时说道。 “这是一个金属探测器。”

我妈妈看起来很惊讶。 并非每天都有人用金属探测器走进您的房子。

“一个金属探测器？”她说。 “很有意思”

乔纳森耸了耸肩，但并不冷静。 “我猜。”

我喜欢他对她说话的方式。 当她认为他的金属探测器很有趣时，他感到非常惊讶。

“这是做什么用的？”我问。

他把注意力转移到了我身上。 他的脸上有一个傻笑，我很熟识一个傻笑。 “检测金属，”他说。

有人告诉我要把乔纳森的行李拿到楼上，并给他看他的房间，否则我会留给他搬运自己的行李。 当他对我讲话时，我只对他讲话以讽刺他。 即使如此，也只字不提。

“通常这是你兄弟的房间吗？”

咕

“什么是美国螺栓海报？”

不知道。

他发现了我哥哥永远以来每天忠心练习的瑜伽姿势挂图。

“ Namaste。”

?？

那把他代替了他。

回到楼下，妈妈摆好桌子，准备上菜。 爸爸退缩在报纸后面

“你洗手了吗？”

“是的。”我撒谎。

“给我看看。”

抓住。

“我的手很干净，”我说着走开，在冷水龙头下运转它们。

乔纳森（Jonathan）是访客，尽管他的指甲看起来整日都在挖沟，但他还是得到了环卫警察的免费通行证。

晚餐是一场漫长的酷刑。 乔纳森（Jonathan）和我大部分时间都很安静，而妈妈则提出了关于未来六个星期我们可以做什么的建议。 她已经在通常用于购物清单的记事本中列出了清单。 实际的清单，她大声读出来，听起来像她希望自己的天才想法得到感谢。

循环。

一日游到海滩。

徒步旅行。

足球。

篮球。

都柏林-博物馆，邮局，三位一体，四个法院。

她说：“你和我父亲一直在研究Donegal的这个营地，在那里他们教你如何冲浪一周。”

就是这样。 我的生活毁了。 我要么淹死，要么被鲨鱼吃掉。

当我们吃完晚饭时，我问我是否可以看电视，电视像数学考试中的放屁一样摔了下来。

我的妈妈说：“这是一个美丽的夜晚，你应该到外面去呼吸新鲜空气。”

我父亲很自然地完全同意。 在历史上最糟糕的夏天，任何要绑黑蝴蝶结的事情。 “为什么不给乔纳森带去Ballytermin？ 给他十美分的费用。”

十美分之旅？ 我不是他在说什么。

3。

KA-BOOM！ 我的未来将成为Ballytermin市长，但事实是事实，事实是我的家乡永远不会被误认为巴黎，甚至马拉海德，至少在那里您可以看到大海。 难怪布伦丹迫不及待地想逃脱。 当我的时间到来时，看着我吓到。 你不会看到我的灰尘，没有先生。

“我们要去哪里？”我说。

我妈妈做了所有事情，只是把我们赶出了门。 “我不知道，”她说。 她翻了个白眼，看着乔纳森，仿佛他明白成为我父母的痛苦。 “给他看石窟。”

啊，令人惊叹的，惊人的加利翁石窟-巴利马汀的主要旅游胜地，上帝的母亲圣母玛利亚在这里拜访了当地铁匠皮尔斯·加利翁的儿子和女儿。 那是十九世纪的一个黑暗和寒冷的除夕夜，当两个加里翁的孩子在花园里，附近灌木丛发出的巨大光亮的时候。 显然，他们被吓呆了，但是当他们走进屋子时，发现他们的兄弟已经从痛苦中康复了，可以再次行走。

所以他们说。

人们仍然在每个除夕朝圣。 我好一阵子没来过，因为我很无聊，和山姆一起去了，山姆笑着从灌木丛中吃了几片叶子，看看是否能使他的脚踝好起来。

我不得不和乔纳森谈谈，因为我还要做什么？ 我们只有两个人沿着基尔布兰南大街走。

我告诉他石窟的传说。

“听起来很棒。 我们去那里，”他说。

“你是认真的吗？ 这只是一座神社。”

“当然，”他说。 “我不会撒谎。 不适合你。”

他的口音不是典型的伦敦口音（Cockney）。 它不那么令人烦恼，更容易理解，就像读英国广播公司新闻的家伙一样。 事实证明，他一点也不讽刺。 那个“探测金属”的东西？ 我只是这么说，他只是紧张。 毕竟，他离伦敦很远。 顺便提一下，这是巴利特明的另一个地方。

石窟被修整了。 草坪看起来像是刚切开的绿色地毯。 花坛最近已除草并盛开。 我们是周围唯一的人。 只有我们，鸟儿和树木在风中摇曳，向两个会众低声祈祷。

充满传奇色彩的灌木丛本身破坏了宗教气氛，灌木丛上装饰着旧袜子，我注意到有两三对旧内裤。

“这是一种传统，”我解释道。

从理论上讲，如果您知道有人生病或残废，您可以将他们的衣服放在灌木丛上，然后将他们治愈。

乔纳森点点头。 “这行得通吗？”

这听起来很疯狂，但也许确实如此。 我实际上还没有亲眼看到证据，但是我听到过一些故事，说美国有病的人把衣服送过去，并将它们挂在Gallion的灌木丛上。 接下来您知道，他们可以走路或说话，或者他们以前做不到的任何事情。 山姆错过了，但这可能是因为他吃了灌木丛，而不是在其中一个树枝上悬挂了袜子。

甚至我妈妈都相信石窟。 布伦丹有一次因为拒绝与我们其他人一起参加除夕朝圣而被禁赛一个月。 他称其为“幻想天主教徒幻想幻想以使群众保持一致”或类似的疯狂行为，这使我父亲进入了轨道。 祭祀，他叫它。 我父亲每周两次去教堂。 他很圣洁。 我以为他要节制布伦丹，直到我的妈妈介入他们之间。

“够了，”她对我父亲说。 “所有人都应该了解布伦丹的信仰是他自己的信仰。 你不能告诉他怎么想。”

我希望你能见见我妈妈。 她也很圣洁，很聪明。

我没有告诉乔纳森布伦丹发生了什么事。 那是私人的东西，他不需要知道任何。 一个家庭应该有秘密。 这是使他们成为家庭的一部分。

最后，我不得不将乔纳森拖离洞穴。 他只是想坐在墙上，呼吸空气，看着树木。

他说：“你很幸运能拥有这样的地方。” “太精神了。”

我再次检查了讽刺。 没有。 我说：“是的，但这不完全是伦敦，对吗？”

他笑了，但是很伤心。 “谢谢。”

“但是伦敦很棒。 大本钟和其他所有东西。”

“这是一个老鼠洞，”他站起来说。

“我们走吧？”

我妈妈给了我十欧元买冰淇淋。 晶石在周日早些时候关闭。

到市区十分钟。 我们走得很快。 我问了他关于伦敦的事实，伦敦竟然是人间地狱。 每个街角都有俄罗斯黑帮。 富裕的小伙子以每小时100英里的速度将法拉利（Ferraris）赶到街上，撞倒了老年退休人员。 到处都是垃圾。 地下的扒手，在匆忙中相互绊倒以窃取您的钱。 没有人说“对不起”或“对不起”。

我说：“他们也不在Ballytermin。”

在牛津街上买一个三明治要花十英镑。

乔纳森说：“大约是十四欧元。”

我以为Ballytermin的小巧会让我感到尴尬，但乔纳森（Jonathan）已经很高兴来到这里。 我可以从他的脸上读到它，这是他真正关注一切的方式。

我们走过Gardai车站。 “警察是什么样的？”他说。

老实说，我不知道。 我听到过类似的声音，它们都厚了，当他们回到车站时，他们就把人们拍打在头上。 但是然后，当你是我的年龄时，你会听到各种各样的事情，并且遇到的大多数人都试图像他们一样强硬。 事实是我认识几个保镖，因为他们是我父亲的朋友。

很显然，我不想听起来像个好人，所以我说：“他们比罪犯还差。”

乔纳森（Jonathan）喜欢我的回答。 “就像伦敦，”他笑了。

Aine D’Arcy在Spar柜台后面。 她在我的美术课上，是我这一年中几乎可以忍受的少数女孩之一。 她没有和我说话很多，但是当她这样做的时候总是关于理智的事情，关于她多么喜欢我的拼贴画，或者我认为她在最新的绘画中使用了太多的红色？ 我喜欢她的头发。 它被剪短，像士兵的头盔一样适合她的头部。 那一周，它被染成粉红色。

我从不知道她是否喜欢我，所以当我们到柜台前为冰淇淋付款时的微笑使我感到惊讶。

“ Howya Cillian，”她说。 “夏天过得好吗？”

“好吧，”我说。 “我不知道你在这里工作。”

“今天是我的第一天。”

我的举动似乎令世界震惊，只是让她感觉更好。 然后，我向她展示了我们从冰箱中取出的巧克力三明治和Solero，并说：“我真的很高兴。 我可以付钱吗？”

我递给她十欧元的钞票。 她打开储物柜，将其放在一个托盘中，然后从另一个托盘中取出两张五欧元的钞票交给我。

“你的零钱，”她说。

“谢谢。”我说。 我给她一个秘密的微笑，但乔纳森看到了。

我们走出商店。 “看着你，罪犯大人，”他说。 “您最好看一下，否则警察会成为冰淇淋抢劫案的附件。”

那使我发笑，但内心感觉并不好。 他是对的。 我没有付冰淇淋费用。 从技术上讲，我犯了罪–这是我生命中的第一个犯罪。

这是我无聊时想到的事情，没有比生活在自己的大脑里更好的事情了。 如果我做了“这个”而不是“那个”怎么办？ 如果发生X而不是Y怎么办？ 如果我问妈妈而不是父亲，我会玩电子游戏怎么办？ 她肯定会说是的。 或者，如果我在C地理范围内获得了B，又如果我获得了B，那么我父亲会如此疯狂以至于他让我在星期六早上不做球场和推杆就做额外的功课吗？ 如果我父亲是别人的父亲怎么办？ 如果John Fiachra McCann不是我的爷爷怎么办？ 如果他不是我妈妈的父亲？ 面对现实吧。 然后这一切都不会发生，我不会坐在这里告诉你这个故事。

萨姆（SAM）和他的兄弟克里斯蒂（Christy）在塔勒林公园（Tallerin Park）。 我以为他可能会。 他们生活在街对面，他们的父亲有时有些疯狂，公园是他们逃亡的地方。

我很高兴他是我的第一个认识乔纳森的朋友。 他对每个人都很好，甚至陌生人。 甚至带有口音的人。 我认为他就是那样，因为他的脚。 他知道当所有人和所有人都反对您时会是什么样。

如果我付他一千欧元，他就不会变得更友善了。 克里斯蒂是个白痴-每个人和他们的宠物仓鼠都知道这一点-因此，当乔纳森对他打招呼时，他用一种听起来并不像什么的愚蠢声音打招呼。

无论如何，乔纳森不在乎。 “你是挪威人吗？”他说。 “来自诺尔雪平的克里斯托夫？”

这让克里斯蒂闭上了嘴。 他不在挪威，也不在乎诺尔雪平。

我们讨论了一段时间。 Sam向Jonathan询问了有关伦敦以及他在Ballytermin时将要做什么的一系列问题。 山姆在生日那天接到电话。 乔纳森说，他曾经有一个电话，直到他的父亲把电话从他身边拿走，但他知道他应该下载很多很酷的游戏，他给他写了一张清单，萨姆对此感到高兴。 乔纳森一定注意到了山姆的脚，但他什么也没说。

当Eoin Leonard和他的朋友出现时，我们到那儿没多久了。 我们坐在秋千上，背对着大街，所以我们没有看到他们从那个方向朝我们走。 乔纳森站起来面对那一面，但他不知道他们是谁，那他为什么要说什么呢？

我首先知道的是一块石头落在后面并从我的腿上滚过。

刚才我转过身去，看到伦纳德（Leonard）向我的另一只石头扔去。 实际上，这不是石头而是石头。 我不认为他打算打我。 同样，否则我会死的。

“看，这是Ballytermin dweebs，”他说。

如果您问我，与伦纳德打交道的最好方法就是让他说出他想说的话，做他想做的事，然后尽快离开他。 山姆也知道这一点。

“实际上，我们最好走了。 快点克里斯蒂，我想我听到我爸在为我们喊，”他撒谎。

“是的，您可以去温泉，”伦纳德说。

他将手臂举到胸前，让他的手往下翻，然后开始愚蠢的li行。 他一直在做这种事情，小丑。 伦纳德的两个小伙伴开始大笑，但是他们并没有走很远，直到有声音告诉他们闭上他们那肮脏的小他妈的嘴巴。

起初我没有认出声音，因为有重音，但后来我听了。 当然是乔纳森，现在他在谈论伦纳德。

他说：“如果您停止像个混蛋一样向我的朋友道歉，我将非常感激。”

伦纳德并不完全是奥斯卡·王尔德（Oscar Wilde），所以在想出回应之前，他停了好长时间。

“你是英国人吗？”

乔纳森翻了个白眼。 “很好，爱因斯坦。”

他走向伦纳德。 他的脸上是这种表情，而不是想要握手时的表情。

伦纳德（Leonard）是个欺负者，但他不是普通的欺负者，他说话很多，但从未对此做任何事情。 实际上，我已经看到他只是为了娱乐而踢人-就像在电视上一样，也要进行适当的拳打。

山姆可以感觉到将会发生什么。 我也可以。“就把它留给乔纳森吧，”他说。

伦纳德迈向乔纳森。 “闭嘴，是的……”

我可以猜出伦纳德会叫Sam的名字，但我永远无法确定，因为在他说出这些话之前，Jonathan朝他迈出了两个迅速的步骤，将他踢了疯。 我的意思是踢他。

让我解释一下我的意思。 当我们等待足球练习开始时，我们会玩这个游戏，在该游戏中，我们将球尽可能高地踢向天空，看看谁能在回到地面时接住球。 我们踢球的方式-这就是乔纳森（Jonathan）用力踢伊恩·伦纳德（Eoin Leonard）的方式。

他倒在地上，就像被卡车撞倒一样，喘着粗气，就像他最后一次呼吸一样。 然后他将自己折叠成一个球，然后越来越快地喘着粗气。

山姆和我分别看了一下，然后看了乔纳森，乔纳森耸了耸肩，好像刚刚发生的事与他无关。 然后我们都看着伦纳德，他没有动，也不再喘着粗气。 老实说，我以为他死了。 就在我的胃里惊恐起来时，他退缩了一下，然后翻到身旁。 他的身体开始松开。 他低声说。

“你知道吗，Eoin？” Sam说。

伦纳德深吸了一口气，再次哭了起来。 至少他还活着。

乔纳森说，他的脚在伦纳德的后侧轻拍，引起了他的注意。

伦纳德睁开眼睛，先是慢慢地，然后更快。 当乔纳森弯下腰来时，他们充满了恐惧，使他的脸靠近，直到它足够接近以闻到他的呼吸。 “永远不要再靠近我的朋友山姆，下次再也不会更痛苦。”

4。

一回到屋子，烘烤蛋糕的甜味就打了我的鼻孔。 我妈妈在厨房里。 她的衣服上撒了面粉。

“准时，”她说。

我们从公园吓到了。 乔纳森（Jonathan）没想到要迅速逃离犯罪现场-如果我们坚持这里的事实，那就是他的犯罪-但我坚持认为。 他不像我那样了解伊恩·伦纳德（Eoin Leonard）和他疯狂的家庭。 不管疯与否，Eoin都可以轻松地站起来，进行迅速而痛苦的报仇。 如果他不这样做，那么他的一个哥哥会。

乔纳森在我身后约二十码处慢跑，直到我们到达了从公园通往市中心的山顶，然后停了下来。 如果您能理解我的话，他还没有为奥运会做好充分的准备。

我也必须停下来，以防万一他不知道回我家的路。

“怎么了？”他问。

这是奇怪的事情。 我很难解释问题所在。 刚开始时，当我告诉他我刚刚告诉您的内容时，并不是这样。 但是后来他问我伦纳德是否值得，我不得不承认，是的，他有。

“山姆是个好人吗？

当然。

“他值得被这样的白痴嘲笑吗？”

不要荒唐。

“那又是什么问题。”

我们一直聊到家。 我试图告诉他，他可能会遇到麻烦，但我承认我的内心不在。 我和你彼此诚实。 我很高兴他做了他所做的。 我以为真棒。 疯狂棒极了。 我在周围时从未发生过的那种事情。 即使我的胃有一种奇怪的感觉，感觉也很好，就像那儿有一块石头在周围滚动一样。 他看起来很镇定，这有所帮助。 这也让我感到平静。

当我们回到家的时候，我几乎已经说服自己，所发生的一切实际上根本没有发生。 这样我就不用担心了。

“你们男孩们一直在跑步吗？”我的妈妈说。 “你的脸是红色的。”

她在和我说话，是因为我能感觉到我的脸发红，但乔纳森回答了她。 “一点也不。 我们刚刚度过了一个愉快的夜晚。 那不是吗，西里安？”

我是世界冠军，可怕的骗子。 “什么？”

“你给我看了石窟，”乔纳森说。

我记得什么都没发生。 “我做到了。”

这使她高兴不已。 那，和乔纳森的声音熟悉。 她可以看出他已经感到安定下来了。

“你是怎么做的？”她问他。

“我喜欢它，”他说。 “这是非常精神的。”

“我有时喜欢去那里。 这是逃避您想法的好地方，”她说。 “我希望西里安讲述有关圣母玛利亚和这次访问的故事。 这是一个奇怪的故事，但后来这些故事总是如此。”

乔纳森朝我的方向笑了，只是想让我知道现在一切都好了，我的父母将永远留在黑暗中。 “如果人们想相信它，那么对他们有好处。”

电饭锅上的计时器关闭了。 D！ 我妈妈戴上烤箱手套。 “灌木丛上有装饰吗？”

我在乔纳森讲话之前就加入了。 毕竟，她是我的妈妈。

“有些袜子。 几双内裤。”

乔纳森说：“并不是所有人都干净。”

那让我妈妈笑了很多。 她从烤箱中取出一盘蛋糕，“我能不能让您的男孩喜欢一些果酱椰子馅饼？”

卫兵大约九点钟敲了敲我们的门。 重击，用拳头重击，不用管门铃。 他们太懒了，无法推动。

我们也将观看每日比赛。 有时候，这是星期六晚上在我们家举行的仪式-当我的父亲心情愉快，或者如果我以某种方式在科学考试中取得好成绩并且被允许熬夜的时候。 屋子里的访客是一个很好的借口，可以推动我的运气。 乔纳森（Jonathan）可以感觉到我在说什么，并说我也是英超联赛的忠实拥护者。

我的妈妈说：“晚上的这个时候谁来门？” 她在编织衣服，膝盖上有一个大羊毛球。 “谢谢你，Cillian。”

我知道那是谁，或者至少我以为是我。 石头又回到了肚子，但这次是大石头的大小，这使我很难离开座位。

我走进大厅，透过门玻璃可以看到他们。 两个黑色的阴影人物。 他们的帽子的轮廓。

并不是说我会逃跑或其他任何事情，所以我做了我唯一能做的事并打开了门。

“你好，”第一后卫说。 “你父亲在吗，儿子？”

我认出了他 他曾经来我们学校作关于道路安全的演讲。 可怜的家伙，没人听他说的话。 在谈话结束时，当他问是否有人有任何疑问时，如果没有人举手，卡瓦纳先生必须威胁我们所有人被拘留。

我让他们在门口等着去找我父亲。

“卫队？ 他们到底在做什么？”他说，从椅子上站起来。 他看起来很脾气暴躁，那是在他甚至不知道发生了什么之前。

我坐在椅子上，等待世界的终结。 乔纳森吸引了我的目光，傻瓜混蛋笑了。 他不认识我父亲。

通往走廊的门仍然是半开的，所以我们可以听到他们在说话，但听不到他们在说什么。 好奇心使我妈妈更好。 “到底发生了什么？”

她站起来，走向走廊。

“这与公园里发生的事情有关，”我对乔纳森小声说道。 “我们有麻烦了。”

接下来我知道他们都在客厅里，妈妈，爸爸和两个卫兵。 我承认卫队吓坏了我。 深蓝色和银色纽扣的制服使他们拥有将人的腿变成果冻的超能力。

我爸爸看起来他的头快要爆了。

“关掉电视，”他说。 他的声音很平静，就像他开始大喊之前一样。

当我从自行车上摔下来摔伤了手腕时，我没有哭泣，疼痛的感觉就像是被一把毒药般的武士刀刺伤了。 但是我承认我正处于一些严重的自来水厂的边缘。

两个卫兵中年纪较大的人讲话，他可以看到他有多害怕。 “别担心儿子，”他说。 “我们只想和您两个男孩谈谈今晚在Tallerin公园发生的一起事件。 我们认为发生了所谓的事件。”

据称，我的屁股。 我就在那里，亲眼所见。 没有任何指控。 我以为如果我拥有警卫队，他可能会怜悯我们俩，并警告我们。 但是在我能说一句话之前，乔纳森说了一下。

“我能解释一切。”

警卫队在半小时后离开，很高兴能消除所有的误会，而不必写报告或要求任何人到派出所进一步询问。

当然，发生了“事件”，但这不是无端的攻击。 实际上，所谓的受害者实际上是有罪的一方，他口头上和在一定程度上以肢体方式攻击了残疾人，没有比他是一个无法忍受的恶霸更好的理由了。 发生了争执，但双方都遭到了拳打。 责任归咎于所有人，不要误会。

“这是真的吗？”我父亲问我。

正如我告诉你的那样，我是世界上最糟糕的骗子-耳目一新的时候我的耳朵变亮了-但乔纳森再次将我从自己身上救了出来。

他说：“西里安实际上并没有看到发生了什么。” “他在树林里放松了自己。”

我知道以后在公共场合撒尿会惹上麻烦，但甚至连我父亲都不会说这是一项轻罪。

听着乔纳森·布拉伯的声音，很难阻止我的下巴在地板上折断。 他所说的是从头到尾的谎言。 最后一句话。 但是，他的说话方式，就像他从剧本中直接阅读一样，使我想起了我在美国电视节目中见过的律师，把他们的罪恶客户拒之门外。 我不介意告诉你，我希望有时我可以那样撒谎。 他只比我大两岁，但老实说，这就像他是一个适当的，成年的成年人。

如果让我流连忘返，我的妈妈不是一个疯子。 她睁着眼睛看着他几次，嘴角微微的扭曲，告诉我她知道他在说谎。 她什么也没说。 我父亲也一样，只是他一次问我乔纳森的话是否正确。 我点点头，尽我最大的努力，以防止我听到事实。

这是我的猜测。 卫队知道乔纳森做了他所做的事情，但他们也知道伊恩·伦纳德（Eoin Leonard）是一件令人讨厌的工作，得到了他应得的。 只要没有人死，他们就可以了。 另外，我父亲是St Eunan’s的副校长，而不是一个被推销的人。

年长的警卫说：“我们与这个特殊的男孩有一些问题，因为我相信你也有谢里登先生。”

我父亲从来没有在我或我兄弟面前谈论任何与学校有关的事情。 他说：“好吧，我们现在不讨论这一点。”

年龄较大的卫队戴上帽子，拉直夹克前面的折痕，表示他准备离开。 他直接看着我和乔纳森。 “现在，我希望您有两个男孩知道，如果您遇到这个伦纳德孩子的任何问题，您就来我车站看我。 如果您不把事情交到我们手中，我将非常感谢。”

“绝对是，”乔纳森一对一说。

“是的，”我说，尽管那不是那样。 我几乎无法呼吸所有这些质疑，而当该说出最好的话时，我要做的就是高声说悄悄话。

年轻的警卫看上去很担心。 “你还好吗？”

“是的。”我说，这次听起来不错。 我只是想让他们走。

我父亲也受够了。 “让我向您展示先生们到门口。”

“不，没关系。 我们可以找到出路，”年纪较大的警卫说，但我父亲还是跟着他们走进了走廊。

我的妈妈，乔纳森和我默默地站着，听爸爸和警察交换欢乐时光，等着关上前门。

我父亲花时间回到客厅。 他在提醒自己我们在房子里有一个访客，如果他和我都是布伦丹，他不会发脾气。 即便如此，我仍然可以感到他仍然生气，下巴肌肉在抽动。 但是至少他没有对我们大喊大叫。

他开始说：“我不知道今晚公园到底发生了什么，我不确定我想知道什么。”

我听了他说的每句话。 我确定他知道我在适当的时候点头，也许是不合适的时候在听。 我知道我比他更快乐。 但是乔纳森看起来他不在乎。 他的手臂一直被折叠着。

当我的父亲终于对自己的声音感到厌倦，并说最好的情况是我们上床休息一下，我的妈妈说她同意了。 明天是新的一天。 我们都可以醒来，重新开始，把这项业务抛在我们后面。”

乔纳森看起来他已经从口袋里掏出了所有的钱。 “已经上床了吗？”他说。 “我真的很想看当天的比赛。”

5，

乔纳森和我被送上床后，我在楼下的走廊里听到了我父亲的声音。 他在打电话。 已经很晚了，他在轻声说话，所以我不知道怎么说，但是我想那一定很重要，因为我父亲不是那种认为手机被发明为在深夜使用的人，除非是在紧急情况下。

第二天早上我们起床吃早餐时，他已经在餐桌上了。 他放下报纸，邀请我们两个人坐下。

我系紧了想象中的耳朵，准备上课，这是关于让守卫走到我们家门口来羞辱这个家庭的好名声，以及在别人走过来之前，我们会如何谈论邻居，并给闲聊的人耳语。关于。 但是您会相信吗，他更担心乔纳森，以及昨晚毕竟“做那件事”后他是否还好。

乔纳森看着我父亲，就像他想问他是否还好。 “我很好，谢谢。”他咬了一口吐司，说道。

如果我那样做的话，我父亲会做些疯狂的事情，例如中风-绝对没有任何反应。 相反，他一直在说话。 他说：“昨晚我和你父亲谈过，我们一致认为最好的做法是坚持我们原来的计划，而你度过整个夏天。” “我希望你对此表示满意。”

乔纳森点点头。 “听起来对我很好，”他说，就像他在跟我说话，而不是我父亲说话。

至少他没有称呼他为花花公子。

现在一切都解决了，我父亲说乔纳森应该给自己的父亲打电话。

他说：“他想和你说话，只是为了保持直率。” “走廊上有个电话可以使用。”

乔纳森（Jonathan）离开房间时，我父亲更像他的老自我。 他的脸变得严肃，声音降低了，几乎是耳语了。 他没有生我的气，他只是想让我知道夏天或剩下的时间会有些棘手，他想让我知道我站在哪一边。

他开始说道：“我想我们会和这个男孩在一起。”

“谁？”

“乔纳森，当然。 你以为我是谁？”

我不确定让乔纳森全力以赴是好事还是坏事，但我不想问。

“好吧，”我说。

他对此回答感到满意。 “您的妈妈和我今天早上已经谈论过这个问题，我们希望您对他保持警惕。 大多数时候你会和他在一起。 如果他开始采取任何不良行为，您只需告知我们，我们就可以解决。”

不良行为。 我知道那是什么意思，尽管不完全是。

“你是说像间谍？”我说。

有时候，即使我很认真，我父亲也会很有趣。 他说：“邦德先生不必如此戏剧性。” “我们希望您保持警惕。 他最近过得很艰难，我们都需要照顾他。”

Mindlab GX45000是劳斯莱斯金属探测器，是金钱所能买到的最好的东西。 它具有精确的检测功能，并且在发现某些东西时会像烫伤的猫一样哭泣。 这是因为它具有DD线圈系统，众所周知，该系统比同心线圈系统好得多。 它可以找到埋在地下至少一英尺远的东西。 它甚至可以告诉您发现了哪种金属-是铁，银还是希望的金，这在您考虑时会非常聪明。 这称为“歧视”功能。 实际的按钮。 便宜的金属探测器没有一个。 这一点很重要，因为如果您不小心的话，可以用一生来挖生锈的钉子和旧的锡罐。

乔纳森（Jonathan）告诉了我有关他的金属探测器的更多信息，但就我所记得的一样多。 在技​​术方面，我并不是电子向导，我只是喜欢玩玩。

我以前从未握过一个。 它几乎没有重量，几乎没有高尔夫俱乐部那么重，当您意识到它的成本超过两千英镑时，这简直是疯了

他打开控制面板，将两欧元的硬币放在起居室的地板上，然后将其隐藏在靠垫下面。

探测器开始嗡嗡作响，就像一只苍蝇在隔壁房间里嗡嗡作响。 他说：“将其悬停在离地面约一英尺的地方，然后在垫子的顶部缓慢挥动。”

我照我说的去做，探测器发出了高音喇叭。 控制面板上的LED屏幕闪烁了一些数字。

“这些是什么意思？”

乔纳森说：“这就是说您找到了银。”

“凉。”

接下来，我们将硬币隐藏在沙发下面，然后我在沙发垫子的顶部挥动了金属探测器东西（如果想成为专业人士，则称为魔杖）。 检测器再次发出声音，即使它在沙发上并且硬币也只有两英尺远。

乔纳森说：“沙发材料不是很稠密。” “您搜索的材料密度越小，Mindlab GX4500的范围就越大。”

那也很酷。

我父亲去了议会办公室开会。 即使在暑假期间，他也总是外出参加会议或熬夜开会。

只有我们两个和我的妈妈，他们在楼上整理床铺和做妈妈做的其他事情。

就在我们搬沙发拿回两欧元硬币时，她下楼了。

她说：“最好不要把我的客厅弄得一团糟。”

一开始她甚至都没有注意到金属探测器，然后她注意到了。 “天上的天堂，你在家里的东西做什么？？”

天堂之上 。 我妈妈在现实生活中不会像在有访客的情况下那样讲话。

乔纳森（Jonathan）告诉了她一些关于Mindlab GX4500的东西。 她听了，但我可以说她真的不那么感兴趣。 她只是在等他停止说话，所以她可以跳进去，说金属探测器一定一定会使生活变得有趣，但是客厅可能不是最适合的地方。

她说：“为什么不出去到花园里转一圈呢？” “然后，也许你可以把乔纳森带到球场上，推杆。”

下雨开始时，我们在后花园里。 我们没有找到失落的约约，但我们确实收集了两个瓶顶，一些钉子和一个50美分的硬币，这些硬币一定是从我妈妈挂在晾衣绳上的一条裤子的口袋里掉下来的。 检测器出现故障时，IT感到非常激动。 我的脑海so翔，想象着我们发现的无价之宝。

乔纳森（Jonathan）直到探测器在草坪中间的一个点发出哔哔声之前，才打开区分模式。

他说：“让我们找出是否值得挖掘的东西。”

“怎么样？”

“好吧，探测器能够分辨出那下面是哪种金属”

他把魔杖在草地上的同一位置挥了挥，没有发出声音。 就像我想的那样-铁。 可能还有另一个钉子，”他说。 “如果我们只是为了钉指甲而挖草坪，我不认为你的妈妈会喜欢。”

他是对的。 我妈妈花了几个小时修剪花，用小剪刀修剪草的边缘。 她为她的花园赢得了奖品。

没关系，我们只是发现一文不值（除了五十美分的硬币）。 乔纳森说，这与狩猎有关。 的可能性。 未知。 他说探矿有点像钓鱼。 有很多等待的地方，希望找到大的东西。 钓鱼时是鲑鱼。 在寻宝中，它是罗马的中世纪金币。 他告诉我一个有关什鲁斯伯里部落的故事，他是英格兰的一个农民，他挖了15,000枚维京银币，价值500万英镑。

我说：“也许我们会找到类似的东西。”

他笑了，但没笑。 “也许我们会。 但不在这里。”

雨太大了，打不起来。 我非常喜欢高尔夫，甚至我不想玩。 Jonathan said golf was a sport for old men in cardigans so you can imagine how happy he was not to play. Instead, we played FIFA17. It was Jonathan’s first time so I had to show him what controls did what. I didn’t let him win the first game but I didn’t exactly try my absolute best, just to be friendly. The second game was a draw. He won the third game 11–2. Then my mum came downstairs and made a big fuss about us playing video games instead of doing something useful with our lives.

“The world needs saving and you two are sitting on your bums,” she said.

She was only messing but she was a little bit serious too. My mum is like that — nice but sometimes serious.

“There’s nothing else to do,” I said. ‘It’s raining.”

The truth was the rain had almost stopped. Jonathan didn’t pretend otherwise.

“Let’s go on a treasure hunt,” he said.

When he said it like that, it sounded amazing .

“You mean like the English farmer who found the Viking coins?” I said.

他笑了。 “我想是这样。 Not sure we’ll find five million quid’s worth of loot, though.”

MY MUM came up with the idea of going to the beach at Malahide. “It’ll blow the cobwebs out,” she said.

I pretended this was the worst idea in history but I knew we would be going anyway. My mum is the opposite of the other mums, who just think they should just stay indoors all the time and do mum stuff like telling everyone else in the house to pick their dirty clothes up off the floor. She likes to do things and she likes to get other people to do things, especially me.

“How do you know you hate it unless you try it.”

If I had eaten a bar of chocolate every time she told me that I’d be the fattest fourteen year old in Ireland.

Jonathan said the beach was a perfect place for treasure hunts.

I didn’t want to sit in the car for an hour. My mum wouldn’t let us play on the iPad because she never does. She wanted us to do something demented, like have a conversation about what’s going on in the news in Syria or somewhere crazy like that.

“What about going to Gallion’s Grotto? I bet there’s all sorts of treasure buried there,” I said.

Jonathan shook his head. “Too much footfall over time. The place will just be covered in trash.”

I didn’t know what footfall was but nodded like I understood.

“The thing about the beach is that people are always losing stuff there like jewellery and watches and then it’s quickly covered up by the sand,” Jonathan said. “I found a diamond engagement ring once at the beach in Margate.”

My mum got all sad about this. “The poor woman — she must have been distraught when she found out she had lost her ring.”

Jonathan shook his head. “She got it back. I handed it into the police station and they got it back to her,” he said. “She gave me a reward. A hundred pounds.”

Supposing he had saved a million orphans in Africa, Jonathan couldn’t have been more in my mum’s good books after he told this story. I thought he might have made it up just to impress her but the look on his face told me otherwise. It didn’t occur to Jonathan to make stuff up. He wasn’t like that.

JONATHAN asked if he could drive, which made my mum laugh.
“You’re only sixteen. You don’t have a licence,” she said.

“I know, but I can drive. They teach us at school,” he replied.

My my mum wasn’t impressed. “What kind of school is that, where they they teach underage children to drive?”

“St Martin’s Preparatory School for Boys,” he said. “ I started learning when I was twelve. They have school cars that they let us drive around the grounds.”
This school sounded a lot cooler than my school. “Why don’t they teach us how to drive at St Eunan’s?”

My mum thought this was gas. “Can you imagine you and your friends driving cars up and down Donegal Street? The damage you would cause. It would be like that film you’ve watched a hundred times, what’s it called..?”

I didn’t know what film she was talking about but I knew what she meant.

“Crashing cars on Donegal Street would be fun,” I said.

Jonathan said, “I crashed a car once and broke my collar bone. It hurt like hell.”

“My God, were you all right?” my mum said, and then when Jonathan replied that he was: “And you want to drive us to Malahide? 我不这么认为。”

She agreed that the best place for Jonathan was in the back seat with me.

The metal detector sat in the space between us, our long skinny friend.

We talked about what was going on the Syria and when that got boring, which was pretty quickly to tell the truth, we talked about what Jonathan and if he had any brothers or sisters.

He was an only child. His mother had a baby who died from some of coughing fit before it was even a year old. The baby’s name was Caroline and his mum never forgave herself for not bringing a healthier baby into the world and that was why his mum and dad got divorced. This was an awful lot of personal information about Jonathan’s family. I felt sorry for his mum and his dead baby sister but I wish he hadn’t told us any of it. Nothing bad had ever happened to my family but even if it had I would never have told anybody and I bet you’d be the same too. 是私人的

I didn’t know what to say and neither did my mum. She stared ahead, watching a black van coming towards us on the opposite side of the road. There was silence until eventually she said,”So tell me Jonathan, what are your interests?”

‘What do you mean?” he said.

“What do you like to do in your spare time? Do you have any passions?” She eyed me up in the rear view mirror. “Cillian likes to play on his Playstation. He’d like to break the world record for non-stop Playstation playing. Isn’t that right Cillian?”

My mum teased me sometimes and I liked when she did it. She was my mum and all but sometimes it didn’t feel like that. It felt like she was my sister, just like Brendan was my brother. She was better than Brendan though. She didn’t knuckle me on the head or steal my headphones or any of that stuff.

Jonathan laughed, which was okay by me, but then was serious.

“Military history,” he said. “I’m passionate about military history. That’s what led me to prospecting with this.” He tapped the metal detector with the back of his hand.

I had never met anyone before who was passionate about something super intelligent like military history. But I had never met anyone like Jonathan.

Come to think of it, he even looked like a young soldier. Not just any kind, but the officer kind, with strong blue eyes and wavy, sand-coloured hair. He could have been a tank commander in another life, rolling his tank through Sahara Desert in search of the Nazis.

I guess it won’t come as a surprise if I tell you I didn’t know much about military history, not even the Irish kind. I knew we’d fought against the English a bunch of times and I knew there was a First World War and a second one, too. But please don’t ask me to name a general or give you directions to the nearest battlefield.

I couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say about military history so I didn’t say anything at all.

This was fine, because my mum and Jonathan talked about it enough for twenty people.

Apparently, he had once found the buckle from a Roman soldier’s belt in the grounds of ancient fort on the border with Wales. It was a nice artifact, he said, but not exactly worth a fortune. Even if it was it wouldn’t have mattered. Real prospectors aren’t interested in uncovering history not making money. He gave the buckle to a museum — not a big one in London but small one in the town next to where he found it.

“Very generous,” my mum said.

It was easy to see she was impressed by all Jonathan’s stories about going to battlefields in Wales and France and Belgium and other places. I wasn’t jealous. I think what she was trying to do was let him know everything was fine, that what happened with Eoin Leonard and the Guards coming to our door was forgotten about. That he wasn’t in anyone’s bad books.

雨停了。 I stared out of the car window for a while, watching the countryside go by and wondering how Leonard was feeling today, if his nuts had swollen to the size of two basketballs. My mum and Jonathan jawed on. The best thing about that was it made the journey to Malahide go a hundred times faster than usual. Conversations are like a time machine sometimes.

SO WE got to the beach and parked the car. First things first, we wrapped up in jackets and hats scarfs like we are heading off the Arctic for a month. It was July but felt like November.

The sun is like make-up for a town like Malahide. It makes everything look better than it really is. There was no sun so everything looked like it was really was — peeling paint, scraps of litter chasing each other up the road, cigarette ends scrunched into the pavement outside a pub called McFadden’s. The sky looked like a big grey desert, stretching for mile and miles. The beach was the colour of concrete.

There weren’t many people around. An older couple walking arm-in-arm on the opposite side of the road from where we parked watched Jonathan take the metal detector out of its carry bag. He put me in charge of the rucksack that came with it. Inside was the battery pack, an extra battery and three grey felt collection pouches (small, medium and large) where we could put our treasure.

We walked along the promenade. People stared. They had never seen a metal detector before. I’m not going to lie. I felt exotic.

Jonathan stopped at the set of stairs leading down to the beach and surveyed the scene. My mum and I were already down on the sand.

“Come on, let’s get started,” I said.

他摇了摇头，笑了。 “Wait on,” he said. “We don’t just run around like headless chickens. That’s not how prospecting works. We need to make a plan.”

So we made a plan. And then all of our lives changed forever.

6。

RULES for using a metal detector on the beach:

1. Don’t run around like a headless chicken.
2. Find the places where people spend time on the beach, like in the dunes or what Jonathan called it “towel line”, the stretch of higher sand that stops waves coming in any further.
3. Stay away from wide open spaces. There might be treasure there but it will take too long to find it.
4. Look for shells. If the waves have pushed a lot of shells into one spot then they have probably pushed some good stuff there too.
5. Check the exits. People always dropping stuff on the way home.

WE STAYED on the beach until my mum remembered she had to be home in time to cook dinner. Ninety minutes in all.

This is what we found. A ladies watch, five beer bottle tops, a screwdriver, assorted coins worth a total of one euros and fifty cents and a copper-coloured 20p coin with a harp on one side and the figure of a horse on the other, dated 1985. No gold, no jewellery. No treasure.

Jonathan turned the discrimination mode off to start with.. The detector would go off at absolutely every piece of metal it found, which would make the search more exciting. The only problem was we would find a lot of trash. I didn’t mind that and neither did my mum, not straight away.

My mum was first to take a turn. She found the watch in the wet sand where the tide had gone out. The face was broken and the gold-coloured bracelet had turned a watery shade of green. You could tell it was worthless. I found most of the coins and the beer bottle tops and then it got kind of boring, if I’m honest. Jonathan told us to be patient but that was okay for him to say. At least he had once found an ancient Roman belt buckle.

When he took over he turned the discrimination mode back on and moved more slowly than either me or my mum. 他是对的。 Prospecting was just like fishing — boring.

He found the screwdriver. It had a red plastic handle.

“As used by cavemen back in the good old days,” my mum said.

We all laughed at that and then my mum said it was time to head back to Ballymarin.

I took charge of the metal detector as we walked across the beach and back towards to the car. I walked slowly and scoped the sand carefully, just like you are supposed to. My mum and Jonathan walked ahead. When I eventually looked up they were a hundred yards ahead of me. My mum shouted at me to get a move on. I pretended not to hear her. This was my last chance of the day to find some treasure and I wanted to make the most of it.

THOSE rules for prospecting on the beach are followed by all serious prospectors but it turns out they are not the Gospel of St Matthew or any of the other saints. And here is the evidence to prove it.

I found the coin in a random place. There were no sand mounds and no shells. It wasn’t in the dunes, or near the towel line or any of the places where people leave the beach. Jonathan said afterwards I had written my own rule number six: Be Lucky.

It was buried deeper than the other things we found, three or four inches beneath the wet sand. My mum had left a footprint right on top of the exact spot. At first I thought it was just another coin like the ones we had already found. When I wiped the wet sand off with my finger I didn’t recognise the the markings on either side. It was only after a clean it thoroughly on the front of my hoodie that I saw the date. 1985. Before I was born. That explained why I had never seen one like it before. I was disappointed. Old coins might be treasure but 1985 wasn’t old enough.

My brother Brendan says my mum is Mrs Zen. She doesn’t lose her temper when she is angry, she gets calmer and talks more softly.

I was too busy examining my find to notice her walking back across the beach in my direction. “Did you not hear with shouting on you get a move on?” she said.

“Sorry.” I held up the coin for her approval. “看。 An old coin. Old money.”

She took it and held it in her palm, examining one side and then the other. “Nineteen eighty-five,” she said. “Twenty pence. That’s worth about twenty cents in today’s money.”

I think she had done enough prospecting for one day, maybe even for a lifetime. “Come on, we have to go. Your dad will be wondering if we’ve run away to America to see Brendan.”

Jonathan was waiting for us at the top of the stairs. “What did you find?” he said.

I showed him the coin. He was more impressed than my mum even though he had never seen an old 20p Irish coin before, what with him being English and all. He held it in his palm and then in between his fingers, trying to get more light on it. “Nice condition. Unblemished,” he said.

“Does mean it’s worth something?” I said. “It’s not as old as a Roman coin but it’s older than me.”

他笑了。 “我不知道。 I doubt it but we can check when we get home.”

Before we got in the car, I emptied the contents of the collection pouch into the rubbish bin outside the Malahide Cafe and slipped the coin into my pocket.

I WAS sent to the Spar for a carton of milk as soon as we got back. Jonathan didn’t come because he wanted to search the internet for information about the coin. I noticed he said “we” and not “you” but didn’t say anything because it was his metal detector after all and without it I wouldn’t have found anything.

I was gone for ten minutes. When I got back he was still sitting in front of the computer.

The coin was on the desk, next to the keyboard.

“Come and look at this,” he said.

The light from the computer screen made his eyes look brighter than they really were. He nodded towards the screen. “Read that.”

It was a page from an entertainment news website. The headline read, “Your Old Irish Coins Could be Worth a Serious Amount of Money”. The photograph underneath showed two sides of a coin. On one side, the figure of a horse with “20P” floating above its back, on the other, a harp and the date, 1986.

“And now look at this.”

He picked up the coin from the desk. It looked exactly the same, except for the date.

My heart thumped harder and harder as I read down the story. It felt like it was going to burst through my skin when I got this paragraph: For example, the 1985 copper-colored 20p piece that depicts a horse could be worth at least €10,000 in auction. Similarly, the 1992 10p coin could bring in between €5,000 and €10,000. Both of these coins were only produced in very small quantities, making them rare today.

“Does that mean…”

“I don’t know,” Jonathan said. “I’m not sure”

Ten thousand euros. I had twenty-seven euros in my building society account. I knew that for a fact because I had recently spent the rest of my money — my life savings, you could say — on a Barcelona soccer strip.

“Why are you not sure?”

With ten thousand euros I could fly to Spain and watch Messi play in flesh and still have enough to buy a flat-screen television for my bedroom and a pair of Beats 2 headphones. 我在跟谁开玩笑？ My dad would never let me do any of that. But I could dream, couldn’t I, which made it kind of annoying that Jonathan couldn’t tell me there and then whether or not I was rich.

“The picture shows a 1986 coin but the story says the 1985 coin is the valuable one. It’s confusing,” he said.

“But I thought you knew about this kind of stuff.”

Now it was his turn to be annoyed. “Rare Irish coinage of the late 20th century isn’t exactly my specialist subject,” he said. “Maybe your mum and dad will know something about this.”

Let me be honest here. The thought did cross my mind that we should keep my parents out of this . That way I could sell the coin and spend the money any way I liked and they didn’t have to know. Then again, they would notice the headphones on my ears and the ginormous TV screen on my bedroom wall. And how would I explain a trip to Spain? My dad gets lost in his own world sometimes but I’m sure he’d get suspicious if I disappeared off to see Lionel Messi for a couple of days.

My mum was in the kitchen. She had already forgotten about the coin.

“Mum can you come and have a look at this,” I said.

“Have you washed your hands? Dinner’s ready,” she replied.

“It’s important.”

She was putting food on plates. “Can you ask Jonathan to wash his hands, please.”

Washing your hands. Now that’s important in our house.

The back door opened. In stepped my dad, red-faced and breathing heavily. His running top was stained with sweat. Did I mention in his spare time he is a marathon runner, a disease he passed on to Brendan but fortunately not me. I can’t stand running.

“There you are,” my mum. “I was wondering where you were. Can you please not walk through the house with those running shoes. I spent all morning Hoovering.”

My dad stepped back outside and took off his shoes. “Actually, I was wondering where you lot where? The house was deserted when I came home.”

“We went to Malahide.”

“Malahide?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “We went treasure hunting, don’t you know.”

My dad looked confused. Malahide isn’t widely known around this planet earth as a destination for treasure hunters.

I saw my chance. “Mum…”

She’d forgotten I was there. “Have you washed your hands yet?”

“It’s ….”

“Can you please do what your mother tells you,” my dad said.

Fed up at being interrupted, I did the only thing I could do. I blurted it out.

“It’s about the coin we found at the beach — the coin I found, I mean. It’s worth a fortune.”

THE food was cold when we finally got to the dinner table but no-one cared. We were too excited to eat, even my dad. He asked at least five hundred times to tell him where and how I found the coin. The one problem was no matter how many times I told the story I couldn’t really make it that exciting and that’s the truth. All I did was wave the metal detector wand over the sand in front of me and there it was.
Jonathan had an explanation. “Beginner’s luck,” he said. “Pure and simple. Some people spent a lifetime prospecting and never find very much worthwhile. And then there’s people like you.”

He was happy to let me have the glory and I was happy to take it.

The only problem was we weren’t one hundred percent sure the coin was genuine. We found other stories about the 1985 20p. One of them said it was the rarest coin in Ireland. Another described it as legendary. But was it the real thing? For one thing, the colour didn’t match the colour of the coin in any of the photographs we found on the internet. Jonathan said we shouldn’t worry about that because the coin was a different colour in all the photos. “If they are all the different colours then how do we know which is the right colour?”

Not even my mum had thought of that and she’s pretty smart.

My dad had a friend in Dundalk who collected old stamps. He phoned to ask him if he knew anything about old coins. He said he didn’t but he knew a man in Belfast who did and so my dad called this other man but he wasn’t home because he had gone to a coin auction in Vienna, Austria. So we were left looking at the coin on the desk, the four us staring at this mystical object, waiting for it speak up and solve the mystery.

“Do you think we should polish it? It’s quite dirty.”

My mum was always polishing things in our house, even when they didn’t need polished. It was like an addiction.

Jonathan shook his head. “可能不会。 Probably best to leave it as it was found until an expert takes a look. Condition is very important with artefacts like this.”

This sounded very wise and so the coin remained unpolished for the time being. My mum went upstairs and came down a minute later with a jewellery box. It was blue velvet and lined with silver silk on the inside.

“Let’s put it in here for safe keeping,” she said. She picked up the coin like it might fall apart and put it in the box. Then she put the box in the drawer of my dad’s desk.

“Will it be okay in there?” I asked.

This didn’t sound like a daft question when it came out of my mouth but on second thoughts maybe it was. After all, if someone out there was hoping to get their grubby hands on a rare 1985 20p coin I expect the last place they would look was the drawer of my dad’s desk.

I COULDN’T sleep. It was like Christmas Eve times a thousand. My head was like the inside of a wasps’ nest. Possibilities buzzed back and forth along honeycomb passages of my brain.

We watched a film on television after dinner, a science fiction mystery starring a bald woman who could see into the future and stop murders before they happened. Now that’s a talent I could have done with. I would have known how it all was going to turn out. If the coin was the real thing or if the internet had made a terrible mistake. If I was ten thousand Euros richer or if I was just as broke as I was before we went to the beach. That was another thing. No-one talked about the money. Who owned the coin? I found it so you could say it was mine, and if It was mine then surely I should get all the money? But I found it using Jonathan’s metal detector, which could mean he should get a cut? And if he got a cut, how much should he get? Half? Maybe the real owner was out there waiting for someone to return the coin to them. There were hundreds of questions and I nursed them until the sun rose the next morning.

7。

THE secret of pitch-and-putt is the putting and that’s just the truth. The pitching part is important but if you want to make a great score you have got to be some kind of demented wizard on the greens. All the great champions like Rory McIlroy and Jack Nicklaus and Christy Toye’s older brother, Noel, who won the Ballytermin Golf Club summer pitch-and-putt championship four years in row, understand this. There’s no point in pitching to two feet if you miss the putt. You might as well hit your pitch shot in the brambles if you are going to do something crazy like that.

Alternatively, if you want to be great at pitch-and-putt you could cheat. You could hit two balls on every hole instead of one and only count the ball that scores best. You could move the ball into a nice clump of grass whenever you wanted instead of hitting the ball where it lies. If you felt like it, you could just ignore all the rules of golf. Or how about this — you could just lie about your score. Plenty of people do. I’ve been there to see them do it.

The thing about me is, I don’t like to cheat. The way I see it, if you cheat then you’ll never know if you’re getting better and if you don’t know if you are getting better then you’d might as well give up because what would be the point? 我知道。 Call me Saint Cillian.

THERE’S no nice way to say this so I won’t even try. Jonathan had the worst golf swing I ever saw. It was like a caveman killing his dinner. Someone else said that first, not me, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I tried giving him golf lessons but he wouldn’t listen. Whenever I offered him a swing tip — don’t move your head in the back swing so much, for one very good example — he never failed to point out that if my swings tips were so great how come my name wasn’t Rory Woods or Tiger McIlroy?

“TIger Woods or Rory McIlroy,” I corrected him.

“Yes I know,” he said. “Tiger Woods — what kind of stupid name is that?”

The kind of stupid name that makes you world famous celebrity golfer? I knew he was only messing around. Actually, I think that was his problem — he thought pitch-and-putt was a big joke. Maybe it was when he came from but not in Ballytermin, let me assure you of that.

WE PLAYED a lot of pitch-and-putt that demented summer. I would have played more but with Jonathan not exactly being Mr Golf my mum said I should find other things to do. 而我们做到了。 Obviously, we spent hours prospecting with the metal detector. We covered every square inch of the town, from up on Horse Hill to the soccer field at the southern end of the Dublin Road housing estate. We got chased off a couple of farms for scaring the cows. In our defence, cows are too easily scared if you ask me.

I was right all along about prospecting. It is boring, just like fishing. It’s just hours and hours and hours of walking around slowly, looking at the ground and waiting for the detector to find something. I would have enjoyed it more if I had my own metal detector and didn’t have to wait until Jonathan gave let me use his, which I have to say, wasn’t that often. This sounds really ungrateful, especially after what happened with the 20p piece we (me, actually) found on the beach, but walking around with Jonathan as he scoped the ground in front of him wasn’t exactly a thrill a minute. Imagine watching your brother do his maths homework. That’s what it was like.

Finding the 20p coin was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me but Jonathan was right when he said it was beginner’s luck . I didn’t find anything valuable after that, not even when we went on a day to trip to the Rock of Cashel. Oliver Cromwell’s forces laid siege there in 1647 and killed a lot of Catholics. They didn’t leave anything behind, though.

We played pitch-and-putt the day after that. It was hot and sunny and I got really sunburned. The course was busy. We had to play with Mairtin O’Nuallain and Gerry Whyte — Mr O’Nuallain and Mr Whyte to you and me. I was in the same Irish Studies class as Ciara, Mr O’Nuallain daughter. Mr Whyte was something at the town council and knew my dad. I had played with both of them before though not at the same time. They were excellent golfers in their own minds, the kind who could hear the commentator’s whispered voice at the top of every backswing. The serious kind. There were plenty of them around Ballytramon and the best thing to do when you found yourself playing with them was stay out of their way. Speak when you are spoken to, say “good shot” even when it wasn’t. So that’s what Jonathan and I did.

I warned Jonathan before we started and he took my advice. He didn’t hit four balls off the tee, or try to throw his club further than he had hit the ball. He tried to play properly and the crazy thing is he was quite good. He even had a par at one hole.

We didn’t keep score but Mr O’Nuallain and Mr Whyte were playing a match and were counting every shot as if the future of mankind depending on it. There were a couple of what you could call incidents (can you see me making air commas?) concerning the blessed rules of golf along the way. I won’t bore you with the details because I think you would be more interested in what happened at the end, when Mr Whyte holed a five foot putt and did this little jig across the green towards the hole.

“That’s a four for me,” he said, bending down to pick his ball out of the hole. “I win one-up.”

I wasn’t paying attention to their match, especially after what had happened earlier in the round. I was just glad it was over we could maybe go round again, this time on our own and be able to speak without disturbing Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods.

Mr Whyte flipped his ball in the air, let it bounce off the back of his hand and then catch it in his palm. The smile on his face lasted only as long as it took Jonathan to utter four words.

“That was a five.”

Mr Whyte froze exactly where he stood. “劳驾。”

Jonathan smiled at him. “That was a five.”

“It was a four.”

Mr O’Nuallain was off to the side of the green. He had a wallet in his hand but he stopped whatever he was doing when he heard Jonathan and Mr Whyte arguing. I glanced back towards the tee. There were three people, all staring in our direction and no doubt wondering what was going on. If only the knew, I could have sold them tickets.

“No it wasn’t. It was five,” Jonathan said. “When you put your putter behind the ball you nudged it a little closer to the hole — accidentally, but that still counts as a shot. 对？”

The back of Mr Whyte’s neck was sunburn red, the colour of rage..

“I did no such thing.”

“你做到了。”

Jonathan smiled when he said this, which was guaranteed to make Mr Whyte crazy. No-one talks to the man from the council like that, not in any corner of Ireland. Even I knew that and I didn’t know very much.

“Listen, sonny….”

Mr Whyte narrowed his eyes and took a deep breath, like he was sucking every last ounce of air before diving off a cliff.

“Are from around here?” he said, not waiting for an answer. “I don’t think so…”

“London, actually,” Jonathan said.

“Well, I don’t know how they do things in London but in Ballytermin you don’t go around accusing people of doing things they didn’t do. How old are you anyway?”

“Sixteen. What’s that got to do with anything?”

The wait proved too much for the people on the tee. One of them shouted for us to get a move on.

Mr O’Nuallain had his say. “Gerry, let’s just leave it for now. Come on, let’s go. 没关系。”

“It does to me,” Mr Whyte said. “I won’t be accused of cheating by anyone.”

I don’t mind telling you I was scared. I wanted Jonathan to shut up so all the unpleasantness and fear would go away.

“I didn’t accuse you of cheating. I just pointed out you took five shots and not four,” he said. And then he said the worst thing he could have said. “You saw what happened, didn’t you Cillian? The gentleman here did take a five. 对。”

I have to confess I did see him nudge the ball forward just before he hit his putt. It was an accident and I wished I could un-see what I saw, but there it was. 我不能

All eyes were on me now. I had the casting vote in an election to decide who was telling the truth. Jonathan was in the right but it wasn’t as straight-forward as that, not with Mr Whyte from the council standing right in front of me. He knew my dad.

“I’m the Lord Provost of this town,” Mr Whyte said.

This was news to me. The bad kind of news. Turns out I was being asked to call the most important person in Ballytermin in town a cheat at golf. No wonder I wanted a hurricane to arrive and blow me into the next county, the sooner the better. Like right then in fact.

“Weeeell….,” I began.

I’m pretty good with words even though I say so myself but there were none in the dictionary that could get me out of the fix. Either Mr Whyte was going to go crazy at me, or Jonathan would think I was a coward.

“Don’t be scared. Just tell the truth,” he said.

This was easy for him to say but, still, it made me think. Maybe my dad wouldn’t be so upset after all, not if he found out I told the truth. He wasn’t keen pitch-and-putt but he was a big fan of being honest. Mr Whyte would give me credit for being polite, even if he didn’t like what I said. Then again, probably not. Perhaps I should do what Mr O’Nuallain did and have no part of the argument. He walked back up the hill towards the clubhouse.

All of this could have happened but none of it did. The group on the tee behind us got fed up waiting and one of them hit a shot towards the green. The ball landed in front of the green, bounced hard a couple of times and rolled towards Mr Whyte. It stopped five feet away from — far enough away to not bother a normal person but close enough to send a raving cheating like the Lord Provost of Ballytermin crazy. Off he stumped towards the tee to speak to whoever hit the ball in our direction.

I took my chance while he was distracted and headed back past the clubhouse and home. Jonathan followed but at a much slower pace. Mr O’Nuallain was in the car-park, sitting on the ledge of his open car-boot changing his shoes.

“Don’t worry about Gerry,” he said. “He’ll calm down in a bit.”

I slowed down for a couple of steps, just long enough to say thank you

“Have a nice day,” Jonathan said.

祝你今天愉快。 Only American talk like that, at the start of movies before the axe murderer appears and chops everybody’s head off.

The good news is nothing bad happened with Mr Whyte. I never saw him again that summer, except once when I was coming out of the dentists and he was parking his car across the street. Luckily, he didn’t see me. The worst thing was the waiting for him to speak to my dad. If he had, I would never have heard the end of it. I would be been sent to my room for fifteen years, what with Mr Whyte being the Lord Provost and all. Every morning for the next two weeks I woke up and that was the first thought in my — that this was the day.

Johnathan, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less. He forgot all about Mr Whyte by the time we got home from the pitch-and-putt. He never mentioned it again, except when we played pitch-and- putt and he scored about a 25 on the nine hole one afternoon. “That’s a four for me,” he said. We both had a good laugh at that one.

8。

I’M NOT supposed to know what I’m about to tell you but Jonathan told me himself so I guess it isn’t some great big state secret. The ‘trouble’ he had been having at home — the “trouble” that caused him to spend the summer with us — was pretty bad. Crazy bad, in fact, but in a good way, if that makes any sense.

首先是第一件事。 He didn’t like his dad. I know most of us don’t like our dad but that is only sometimes, like when they’re telling you to do stuff you don’t really want to do such as signing up for the school orchestra because it will help you get into Trinity College when the time comes, even though if anyone from Trinity College heard you playing the trumpet they would make sure you weren’t allowed within fifty miles of the place.

Jonathan was different. He was serious about not liking his dad, like it was a full-time job. He never really explained why but my guess it was because his mum died and then his dad married someone else. Then he got sent away to boarding school, and that’s when the trouble started.

Please God, don’t ever send me to boarding school. Everything you hear is true. The food is terrible and the teachers are cruel. The kids are even worse. We read this book in language arts last year called Lord of The Flies , about all these kids on a desert island who end up hunting pigs and trying to kill each other. That’s what boarding school is like, except everybody wears uniforms.

No wonder Jonathan hated it. The problem is his dad wouldn’t let him leave, even though there were dozens of schools near his house where the other kids weren’t completely crazy. So he did what anybody would do when they are trapped in a prison — he tried to escape. It’s not like he could just run away, although he did do that at least six times. They just sent him back, only then he was put under curfew and had to report to a counsellor at least once an hour.

The secret was to make school kick you out. This is harder than you think because the people who run these prison camps aren’t exactly stupid. They want your dad’s money so they will put up with just about anything, which in Jonathan’s case meant letting down the tyres in headmaster’s car, refusing to get out of bed for three days, a hunger strike, leading a pupil revolution against playing rugby on rainy days, throwing the remote control for the TV in the teacher’s common room into the rubbish skip. He was the biggest pain in backside and the worst they did was phone his dad, who had to drive down to the school and sit in the headmaster’s office and tell Jonathan to say sorry for everything he had done.

The end came just after the Easter holidays, when he broke into the headmaster’s office in the middle of the night and stole his chequebook and bank card. Next day, he caught the bus into the London and went to the Apple store and bought thirty iPads. Then he took tube to Waterloo Station, where people live under blankets in the the arches and underpasses nearby. 那是午后。 He gave an iPad to the one and only homeless person he could find but then word got and it wasn’t long before every tramp in Waterloo station was selling someone a brand new iPad, still in the box.

Jonathan went back to school as if nothing had happened.

He didn’t get caught until the following day when the bank called and asked the headmaster if he had recently written a cheque for five thousand pounds at the Apple store in London.

The police arrived at school and Jonathan was called into the school office, asked to take a look at the security video footage from the Apple store and invited to identify the person in school uniform buying a job lot of iPads.

“That would be me,” he said.

I can imagine how he said that, like it was something to be proud of. And maybe it was. After all, who doesn’t think it’s a good thing to give a homeless person a new iPad? 不是我。

Jonathan’s dad is a big man in the oil industry with yellow sports car and a spare house near the beach in France so didn’t care that he had to repay the five thousand pounds. What mattered to him was the police agreed the school should deal with Jonathan and not m’learned judges at the Old Bailey. That way everybody’s name was kept out of the newspaper and the judges could get back to work putting innocent people in prison, Jonathan said.

He wasn’t even expelled. He was ‘invited to pursue opportunities at a different educational establishment” or something demented like that. He went to the local school until the end of term. His dad looked for another boarding school, this time the other end of the country, and while he did that, Jonathan came to live with us for the summer.

I’m not complaining about that, no sir. I’m just telling you what happened with Jonathan just in case your dad is the devil and your life feels as bad as a twenty years in Portlaoise Prison. The way I see it, you don’t know how lucky you are. None of us do, including me.

9。

9。

A YEAR AGO I lost my sense of smell. Three doctors attempted to solve the medical mystery of me and my useless nostrils. One said it was just one of those things that happened and nothing to be worried about. I was going to live a long and healthy life. “At least you’ll never have to worry about who is sitting next to you on the bus,” he said. Funny ha-ha. Another doctor got me tested for something called multiple sclerosis, which sounded scary until the results came back negative and we all breathed a sigh of relief. The last doctor was the real inquisitive kind. She asked me how I was getting on at school and if I had lots of friends and did I have a girlfriend (as if) and when the Spanish Inquisition was all over she said I was suffering from something called puberty and that I wasn’t to worry, my sense of smell would come back soon.

“Puberty — what kind of disease is that?” I said.

The doctor smiled and asked me if I could leave the room for a minute. “I’d like to have a quick chat with your mum.”

So my mum and I had the “talk” and, yes, I know that puberty isn’t a disease but, no, I’m not going to discuss this subject any further. The only thing you need to know is the doctor was almost right. My sense of smell did come back, but not like before. It is hard describe but maybe you would understand if I said some days the world smells grey, like an old-time photograph, and other days it smells dayglo green, the colour of Shamrock Rovers.

The day we went to the George Street Arcade to meet the coin dealer was a Shamrock Rovers day. I could smell the roasting coffee and perfume when we were outside on the street. The smells of colour and excitement. It was busy inside, tourists mostly, judging by the accents. I heard French being spoken by real French people. It sounded nothing like the caveman grunting in second year French at St Eunan’s.

The arcade was two stories high. It had a brown tiled floor and a glass roof. At ground level, the floor space was taken up by brightly coloured wheelbarrow stalls. One sold mobile phone cases. Another sold postcards and birthday cards. There was a flower stall and a coffee stall. Shops lined either side of the building. They weren’t like the shops we had in Ballytermin that sold groceries and hardware. These shops sold stuff people didn’t really need, like brass antiques and old toys still in their original boxes. There was a cake shop and next door to a shop called “The Grateful Dead Clothing Emporium”.

Jonathan wasn’t impressed. “Hippy shit,” he said. “London is crawling with places like that.”

The coin shop was one flight up, at the top of the fancy iron staircase. It was the only one of its kind in Dublin city centre. My mum found it on the internet. She phoned and left a message. The owner called back two days later. He was at a coin fair in Bournemouth, England. By then, she had found another dealer but he was based in an industrial estate on the southside of Dublin, where there was an exceptionally strong chance my mum would get lost.

The dealer at Arcade Collectibles was always apologetic, especially after my mum told him we had found a 1985 20p Irish coin.

“I have never seen one of those in real life,” he said. “It’s the Unicorn of Irish numismatics.”

( Numismatics : The study or collection of coins, paper money and medals. )

通常，他在星期四不营业，但他说他会专门为我们开放。 我们安排十一点钟到那儿，由于我妈妈的地图阅读，十一点三十分到达。 不用说，他不介意。

硬币已经藏在我妈妈的珠宝盒中四天了，藏在她的床垫下面。 乔纳森和我发誓要保密。 如果我们的房子被友好的邻里窃贼拜访，我父亲不愿在巴利特尔梅语。

“妈妈别说那样的话，布伦丹，甚至都不是在开玩笑。”我的妈妈抗议道。 “你会吓到男孩的。”

很难不告诉我的任何朋友，因为没有自夸或类似的疯狂，这是我们一生中发生过的最愚蠢的事情。 甚至乔纳森（Jonathan）也说这很酷，他知道他在说什么。

投币商的名字叫爱德华·温莎（Edward Windsor），与亲王同名，英国人与皇后同为妈妈。 他看上去不像王子，穿着宽松的旧外套和疯狂的梳理头发。 当我老了时，让我告诉你，我没有办法假装我有很多头发。 我将把所有事情都剃光，让全世界知道真相。

当他打开珠宝盒并看到里面的东西时，他的眼睛看起来像是白​​色的大盘子。 我以为他会吻我妈妈，别开玩笑。 幸运的是，他没有。 “你介意我仔细看看吗？”

看到他很兴奋，我感到很兴奋。 一切似乎突然变得真实。 我已经在互联网上读过一枚硬币，价值一万欧元，但我不相信我在互联网上读到的东西的一半。 主要是垃圾。

温莎先生向我们介绍了有关硬币的故事以及它如何变得如此罕见。 他一直坚持不懈。 然后他用放大镜发誓，我发誓它像平底锅一样大。

“状况很好。”他一直说。 “不是薄荷。 但可以使用。”

1984年，政府决定是时候引入新的20p硬币了，并要求一群艺术家提出一种与英国20p不同的设计，该设计很小，只有7个面，没有英国思想的人看起来很酷 它是黄铜色的，一侧有一匹马，另一侧有一爱尔兰竖琴。

是的，我知道–并不完全令人着迷。 但是，这里变得有趣。

硬币要到1986年才发行，但在1985年，政府给了电话公司一堆硬币。 当时的收费电话比现在多得多，并且需要固定它们，以便在第二年面世时能处理新的20p硬币。 没有人确切地知道1985年制作了多少枚硬币，但总数不超过500枚。 电话公司的工程师应该在修理完所有电话后退还硬币，但他们没有。

我的妈妈说：“也许所有的工程师都知道有一天这种硬币会很少见。”

爱德华·温莎先生看着她的同情心，就像她病了一样。 他说：“如果他们这样做了，那么他们在照顾他们方面就不会做得很好。” “据我所知，只剩下大约十个了。 这将是十一号。”

一件事困扰了我四天。 谁拥有硬币？ 是我的发现者，是我的吗？ 没有人说过一句话，但现在我们知道只有十个人存在，我知道真相的时刻即将到来。

温莎先生以一种非常卑鄙的方式问我的妈妈，她是否有硬币的“计划”。

“您有兴趣出售它吗？ 我很乐意给您一个好价钱，”他说。

也许他认为她太笨了，以二十便士的价格卖给他。

她说：“实际上，我和我的丈夫希望它能在拍卖中出售，前提是对所有权没有争议。” “也许您可以指导我们完成该过程。”

我知道那一切都已经决定了，我的妈妈和爸爸已经确切地讨论了会发生什么。 典型的成年人，即使不被要求也要负责。 这不公平。 我找到了硬币，我是最后一个知道发生了什么的人。 我要说些什么。 我肯定会说些什么，只是那时候不对，尤其是当我的妈妈把卑鄙的爱德华·温莎先生代替他时。

他说：“我认为所有权不会有任何争议。” “这并不是说您在私人财产或政府土地上发现了硬币。 您是在公共海滩上找到它的，所以除非别人能毫无疑问地证明他们拥有硬币，否则它就属于您。”

我妈妈摇了摇头。 她说：“这枚硬币不属于我，它属于我的儿子。” 她伸出手，轻轻地抚摸着乔纳森的肩膀。 “还有乔纳森，当然。”

我爱我妈妈 我有跟你说过吗

温莎先生盯着我们两个人。 他看上去并不十分高兴，让我告诉你。

“幸运的男孩。”

我不介意给乔纳森一半的硬币。 那是他的金属探测器，所以他应得的。 我只是希望他不要像将其交给博物馆那样的疯狂想法。 博物馆无罪。 我知道很多人都喜欢在他们周围走来走去，虽然所有的旧东西都是这样，但钱币属于我。 为了乔纳森和我。

现在已经回答了一个大问题，我对问下一个大问题并不感到难过。

“这个值多少钱？”

温莎先生又给您带来了另一个漫长的话题：硬币的状态通常是最重要的，以决定其对收藏者的价值。 我们的硬币并不完美。 两侧各有一些划痕，边缘上有一个小缺口。 但是，考虑到这种特殊硬币的稀有性和利息的数量，条件毕竟可能并不那么重要。

他说：“很大程度上取决于营销和宣传，以及拍卖行会产生多少兴趣。”

“公开？”我妈妈说。 “我不确定我们是否要进行宣传。 我丈夫不希望我们的名字在报纸上广为流传。”

我在报纸上看到过我的名字很多次，但只在Ballytermin论坛上见过，当您想到它时，它甚至还不是合适的报纸。 这只是体育比赛的比分，还有我们镇上一些人为慈善事业做蠢事的照片。 我什么也不想说，妈妈不会为宣传而疯狂，但是我不会成为明星。 最好是留在适当的报纸上，而不是星报或类似的疯子。 爱尔兰时报会很好。 我父亲每天都读《 爱尔兰时报》 。

温莎先生说，在不让人们知道是你的情况下，拍卖行非常聪明。 他们可以让每个人都知道他们在出售爱尔兰最稀有的硬币之一，而没有实际告诉任何人他们出售它的目的。 更好的是，他可以担任我们的代理人并代表我们与拍卖行打交道。 这样，他们甚至都不知道谁拥有硬币。

他说的越多，我对温莎先生的信任就越小，但是我们别无他法，除非我们想开车去都柏林的南边，我妈妈会迷路。 至少知道他在说什么。 他在乔治街拱廊有自己的商店。 我们将永远知道在哪里可以找到他。

他仍然没有回答我原来的问题。 乔纳森（Jonathan）也注意到了这一点，只是在他说话的时候就加入了。

“那么值多少钱？”他说。

您可以说温莎先生不喜欢被他挤压在一起的方式被打扰，但是有了我和乔纳森拥有的硬币，他知道他最好对我们好。
“哈哈，我看到我们还有另一个直接的年轻人，”他说。 他给我妈妈一个大大的假笑，就像她站在他身边一样。

她没有回笑。 “好？”

他将手举到下巴，用拇指顶部抚摸下巴。 他说：“糟糕的一天，介于七到一万欧元之间。” ““天气好，最多十五点。”

我无法阻止自己。 “哇。”

温莎先生假装他没听见。 “当然要减去我百分之十的佣金。”

10。

我答应告诉你我在都柏林与乔纳森（Jonathan）遇见约翰·麦克甘（John F McGann）的那天。 好吧，那天是疯狂的一天，我们走进了乔治街拱廊，发现这枚20便士硬币很值得。

之后，当我走到乔治街时，好像世界已经改变了。 我从一个有钱人的眼中看到了一切。 汽车以慢速运动。 每个人都在微笑。 我沿着脚下的人行道漂浮着光滑的银色光芒。

“到现在去哪里？”乔纳森说。

我妈妈去过都柏林一百万次，但她的举止像个游客，站在人行道中间，其他人想走路，她的头转过身，就像被扔在火星上，被告知要回家。

“现在几点？”她说。

街对面有个时钟，它插在庄家门口的墙上。 脸裂了，三点钟的双手说了出来，这使我妈妈感到恐慌，直到她拿出手机。 正确的时间是11.45。

她说：“来吧，我们最好搬家，否则我们会迟到。”

迟来了什么？ 我说。

她已经朝着相反的方向走了。 我们几乎不得不跟上她。 “我们必须在中午在格拉夫顿街的Bewley’s Cafe外面见一个人。”

“谁？”我说。

“这是个惊喜。”

我妈妈喜欢惊喜。 她说，他们使世界变得有趣。 他们不适合我。 惊喜从来都不是好惊喜，它们总是您不想要的东西。 就像我上个生日得到的格子外套和《星球大战》拼图一样。

“请告诉我。”

她屈服了。“你的爷爷。”

“爷爷丹尼，”我说。 我的意思是我没有说。 我有点喊。 最后，一个很好的惊喜。

她像我说的那样看着我****。

她说：“他住在格拉斯哥。” “我们要见约翰爷爷。”

“谁？”

是的我知道。 给我一枚奖牌，将其挂在脖子上。 世纪的孙子，就是我。

他在咖啡馆外等我们。 他没有我记得的那么瘦，他也没有尝试变得如此友善。 他摇了摇我的手，并没有坚持下去，就像那是他一生中最伟大的时刻，这对我来说很好。

“你过得怎么样，年轻人？”他说。

在那个确切的时刻，如果他想知道诚实的真相，那我就是我一生中最快乐的时候。 “很好，谢谢。”

我妈妈把他介绍给了乔纳森，然后我们大家走进咖啡馆，在游客中间发现了一张大桌子。 我的妈妈和麦甘先生-现在下想起他是我的祖父-为时已晚-下楼去拿食物，而乔纳森和我守着桌子。

“所以他是你的爷爷？”乔纳森说，然后当我点点头时说：“你的举止就像你几乎不认识他。”

我说：“那是因为我几乎不认识他。”

“怎么了？”乔纳森说。

我说：“他已经在西班牙生活了很长时间。”

“有趣，”乔纳森说，尽管我认为他不是这个意思。

我们讨论了如何使用硬币中的钱。 我已经列出了清单-Beats耳机，Fitbit，PS4，游戏，去巴塞罗那看梅西，iPhone 8等等，但更多-但我知道我不会被允许获得任何东西，除非也许一件事。 爸爸会让我对自己的钱做些明智的事情，比如存上大学。 但是做梦很好。 有时我认为梦到某事几乎和得到某件事一样好。

乔纳森毫无疑问会得到什么。 “ Draganfly X8，”他说。

“什么？”

“一架无人驾驶飞机，”他说。 “碳纤维车架，八个电机，推力高清晰度视频，GPS卫星跟踪系统-仅七千英镑的便宜货。”

我很高兴我妈妈带着一盘食物回来了，否则乔纳森就可以继续研究这种壮观的无人机以及它所拥有的所有疯狂的东西，而我却没有第一条线索。

我有鸡肉嫩肉和薯条，还可以。 乔纳森也是如此。 其他人吃意大利面。 我妈妈说天气很冷，煮得太烂了，几乎不吃任何东西。 约翰·F·麦甘（John F McGann）说，她应该把它带回柜台，要求退款。 她不喜欢大惊小怪，所以当她说这不值得让他麻烦的时候。 “过一分钟再回来，”他说，就是那样。

他把退款中的钱交给了我妈妈。 她说谢谢，但我认为她不是那么重要。 就像我说的那样，她不喜欢大惊小怪，即使她坐在桌子旁而大惊小怪在食品柜台里忙乱也是如此。 我告诉她她可以吃一些薯片，她说应该吃，但她没有吃。 如果您想知道诚实的事实，那真是尴尬。

我保证，接下来的一个小时是人类历史上最长的一个小时。 去年，我观看了这个YouTube视频，讲述了我的兄弟在爱尔兰青少年全国锦标赛800m比赛中排名第三的情况。 那使我观看了其他所有正在播放的视频，其中大部分是有趣的视频，在跳高架上人们首先掉入水中，像这样的愚蠢的东西。 曾经有一位马拉松运动员精疲力尽地从家中直下，以至于他躺下睡觉。 有人试图叫醒他，但他不想。 最终，他们让这个可怜的家伙站起来，将他指向终点线。 但是他走了几步，然后跪了下来。 他凝视着前方几秒钟，就像他试图弄清自己在那儿所做的事情，然后重新站起来。 然后他又走了两步，又跌倒了。 我不知道那之后发生了什么，因为我关闭了它。 看起来太痛苦了。 这个可怜的家伙可能仍在努力，试图到达终点。

无论如何，那就是Bewley’s Cafe里的对话。 就像它永远不会结束。

这不是我妈妈的错，不是乔纳森的错，而且绝对不是我。 我也不会怪约翰·麦克甘。 有时会发生这种情况，当您进行对话时，涉及到的每个人都在尝试思考要说的话，以确保桌上没有任何沉默。 每个人都知道发生了什么，他们可以感觉到。 但没人说什么。 他们只是继续挣扎，就像那个可怜的家伙试图到达终点。

至少我们有讨论的话题。 约翰·F·麦甘（John F McGann）提出了一些问题，然后妈妈问了一些问题，尽管她知道一切都知道发生了什么。 她只是想确保没有尴尬的沉默。

我理解了这一点，但我并没有说太多。 您知道他们在学校考试中说的“给出完整答案”的方式吗？ 好吧，尽管我可以告诉妈妈真的希望我这么做，但我没有。 我希望我能说这是因为，即使那时我仍感觉到约翰·F·麦甘（John F McGann）的某些观点还不太正确，他也许有一些自己的疯狂故事，但他没有告诉我。 但事实是我只是不想说话。

之后，我们去了市中心散步。 因为成年人继续前进，所以我们不必再与他们交谈太多了。 我和乔纳森（Jonathan）想在格拉夫顿街（Grafton Street）尽头的一家视频游戏店里逛逛。 我妈妈说我们可以，因为她想看看对面那家名为布朗·托马斯（Brown Thomas）的大型花店里的好东西，但是只看了十五分钟。 一旦硬币被卖出并且我很富有，现在还没有足够的时间找到我要购买的所有视频游戏，但我至少开始了。 我喜欢25场游戏，每场乘以五十欧元，相当于一千多欧元。

我们最终到达了O’Connell街，站在拥有所有手机摄像头的所有疯狂游客中的GPO外面。 我妈妈没有告诉我这将是一次教育性的一日游，但事实证明确实如此，因此没有理由抗议。 至少她没有带我们参观三一学院，我们是从格拉夫顿街（Grafton Street）途中经过的。 我不得不说，看上去很豪华。 也许我想有一天在那儿当学生，但不要告诉我爸爸我这么说。

我不会向您介绍整个爱尔兰历史故事，复活节起义以及1916年的所有疯狂事件。您可能已经知道了，但是如果您不知道，我只是想告诉您关于这个人的一件事叫帕德拉格·皮尔斯（Padraig Pearce）的人，在复活节起义时站在邮局大楼外，宣读了爱尔兰共和国宣言。

我们将爱尔兰共和国的事业置于至高的上帝之下。

我们在学校里从心底里学会了宣告。 可怜的老帕德拉格·皮尔斯（Padraig Pearse）站在街上，向所有人讲述最高神以及他将如何照顾爱尔兰共和国，然后他最终被英国射击队开枪。 至高无上的上帝那天一定忙于做其他事情来烦扰可怜的老皮尔斯先生。

里面陈列着《宣言》的原件。 我们和所有其他人一起排队，因此可以看一下玻璃盒子中的这张纸。 我不会说谎-看起来不多，只是一张旧纸上有一些文字。 但这是在你我之间。 我父亲会杀了我，如果他知道我说的话，不是说他是Padraig Pearse或爱尔兰叛军的忠实拥护者。 这是他喜欢的历史，所有的一切都是“如果您不知道自己来自哪里，就永远不会知道自己要去哪里”。

Shenanigans-这是我父亲有时使用的一个单词。

当我们看到宣告后回到外面时，发生了一件奇怪的事情。 乔纳森（Jonathan）和约翰·麦克甘（John F McGann）吵了一架。 他们没有对对方大喊大叫或类似的疯狂，但您可以告诉他们他们很烦。

它始于当我们看着邮局墙壁上的弹孔时，约翰·F·麦甘（John F McGann）说，两千名无辜的爱尔兰英雄被英军杀害，这是历史上最野蛮的罪行之一。

乔纳森凝视着子弹孔。 他最终说：“ 1916年-那是索姆河战役的同一年。”

你还记得我告诉过你军事史是他的爱好之一吗？ 好吧，他对索姆河战役了解很多，而我恰巧知道（没有在互联网上查看它）发生在第一次世界大战期间。

他说：“在索姆河战役中，超过一百万人死亡，其中包括来自第36阿尔斯特分部和第16爱尔兰分部的三千名士兵，”

“更愚弄他们，”约翰·麦克甘（John F McGann）说。

就是这样。 可能还有更多，但我妈妈正在听。 她不喜欢对话，所以她在手机上进行了看时间的大秀。

“圣玛丽，上帝的母亲，”她说。 ‘我们需要走上道路。 布伦丹会认为我们已经带着他的珍贵硬币逃到了美国。”

我想告诉她这是我的珍贵钱币，但我知道她在做什么，所以我什么也没说。 像她一样，我不想破坏我一生中最美好的时光。

那天晚上，当爸爸妈妈在厨房的桌子上玩纸牌时，我和乔纳森一起看电视上的夏洛克，他问我约翰·F·麦甘在那天下午回家之前住的地方，发现他和妈妈坐在一起。

“我想是西班牙，”我说。

乔纳森想了一秒钟。 “多长时间？”

“我想我妈妈说了三十年，但是你可以问她自己是否喜欢。”

他摇了摇头。 “没关系。”

我知道那只是一个愚蠢的电视节目，但是福尔摩斯确实是个天才，他通过发现别人没有注意到的东西来思考事情。

“你为什么要问他住在哪里？”我说。

想一想，乔纳森看起来有点像扮演夏洛克·福尔摩斯的演员，又高又瘦，头发蓬松，脸上遥不可及，就像他知道你会做什么或者甚至在你之前就说过做到了。

他说：“真的没什么。” “只是他的手。”

“他们呢？”

“它们非常白，”他说。 “不是在西班牙生活了三十年的人的手。”

11。

我的照片在头版的爱尔兰时报 （ Irish Times）上，旁边是一个故事，讲述道伊萨赫（Taiiseach）与工会就公共部门工资冻结达成协议的谈判，无论那意味着什么。 我希望我戴上眼镜。 我只在阅读时需要它们，但它们使我看起来很聪明。 如果您在《 爱尔兰时报》的首页上，则最好看起来尽可能聪明。

我父亲很自豪。 他没有这么说，但是我可以说，他举起头版并着眼睛的方式，就像他在画廊里看画一样。 我的兄弟布伦丹（Brendan）曾经参加过体育比赛，但是那只是在结果部分。 印得太小了，我父亲不得不借用我的眼镜来阅读。

乔纳森（Jonathan）也在照片中，即使他不想成为。 他说我应该得到所有关注，因为我是发现硬币的人。 我妈妈说服了他。 “出名的一天，”她说。 “这将保留并展示您的孙子孙女。”

自著名的日子以来，这是我第一次回到马拉海德的海滩。 摄影师来自苏格兰，他的名字叫Murdo。 他很好，有点发疯，尤其是当他发现我们没有带上金属探测器并且没有硬币时。 它已被存放在都柏林拍卖行的保险箱中。 他使我们的鼻子抚摸着彼此面对面。 乔纳森的呼吸闻到了烤面包的味道。 在任何情况下我们都不会笑，我必须说这很难。

“我们来了第23页，”默多说，声音刚好足够大，我听得到了。

向您展示他所知道的。

第一页

我的父母买了《 纽约时报》的十二本，装在一个盒子里，连同童年时代的所有其他东西一起存放在车库里。

我们也将《 星报》列为第七页。 照片上方的标题为“ COINING IT IN”。 这和《 纽约时报》的标题完全一样，只是文字在照片下方，而字母则小得多。 也许《 爱尔兰时报》和《 星报》并没有太大的不同。

没人能告诉你的名声就是它让你多么紧张。 您担心别人会说些什么。 他们会以不同的方式对待您吗？ 我应该告诉人们我在报纸的首页上，还是最好等他们说些什么？ 我不想让任何人认为我在吹牛。 最重要的是，我担心自己会闭上眼睛，当我再次睁开它们时，所有这些都是我想像力的疯狂把戏。 没有硬币。

我妈妈和爸爸很快恢复了正常。 我妈妈提议做更多的烤面包。 我爸爸读了我告诉妈妈的其余部分，内容涉及我的Apple Watch，巴塞罗那之旅和电子游戏，但我爸爸没有读过。 这似乎和他一样好，因为他心情愉快。 在妈妈加入之前，我几乎一言不发。“让我们看看是否有人首先购买硬币，然后再开始考虑如何花这笔钱，”她说。

那也让我感到紧张。 “但是我们在报纸上。”

乔纳森比我们所有人对这种东西了解得更多。 他说：“不用担心，它会出售的。” “您会对世界上有多少人为这种事情感到疯狂而感到惊讶。”

爱德华·温莎先生打电话给我父亲。 我只听过对话的一侧，但听起来很疯狂。 很多“好”和“了不起”，以及至少一个“我”，这是个好消息。 那不寻常吗？……（暂停）……。 嗯”。

如果我父亲知道我在听，我会很生气的，所以当他挂断电话时，我什么也没说。 他坐在桌旁，拿起纸。 他什么也没说，除了我妈妈，也许什么也不会说。

“那么？”她说。

他抬头。 “所以呢？”

“电话吗？ 与拍卖有关吗？”

有时我担心我父亲和他的记忆。 我妈妈说他很好，他只是有很多想法。 希望如此。 我不希望他患上老年人遗忘的疾病。

“哦，是的，很抱歉，”他说。 “拍卖行对所有宣传都很满意。 这是他们出售ÉamonDe Valera眼镜以来的最高收入。”

我的妈妈说：“这听起来很有希望。”

“他们已经收到了十个兴趣通知和几个报价。”

我只有14岁，请原谅我不知道整个拍卖业务如何运作。 甚至在不发售时，人们如何竞标呢？ 拍卖距离三个月了。

我妈妈说：“优惠吗？ 怎么样？”

乔纳森（Jonathan）反对。“来自那些不想参与拍卖的人。”

我父亲渴望回到他的报纸。 他总是说，除非他知道世界上正在发生什么，否则他的日子就不会正常开始。

我无法阻止自己。 “多少？ 报价是多少。”

“八千欧元，”我父亲说。 “另一个是七千零五百。”

感觉好像有人在punch我的肚子，但是很好。 我妈妈笑了，但只通过她的鼻子笑了，所以这不是一个适当的笑声。 “八千欧元，”她说。 “’那你什么时候要告诉我们？”

我父亲看上去很生气，就像我哥哥声称自己没做错任何事，但意识到自己有做错事时的举止一样。 “很抱歉，爱德华说我们应该忽略这些，因为它们来自只是为了碰运气的人。 我们坐下来等待拍卖。”

“我们呢？”妈妈说。 “八千欧元是很多钱。”

但愿如此。

我父亲摇了摇头。 “爱德华说，由于所有的兴趣，他认为这可能会高达两万欧元。”

甚至乔纳森都留下了深刻的印象。 他用手指在手臂上甩了我一下。 他说：“对于您在海滩上发现的一枚小硬币来说，还不错，孩子。”

他比我大两岁，他叫我小孩。 我不喜欢它，那只是诚实的事实，但这是乔纳森，所以我随它去吧。

没有人告诉您出名的另一件事是它不会持续很长时间。 至少在发现稀有硬币然后在“ 爱尔兰时报”的头版上拍摄照片之后，这种名望不会发生。

即使我们可以在会所买巧克力，我们在去球场的路上在Spar停下来买些巧克力。 真正的原因是因为我们希望看到一堆报纸坐在架子上，而我们的脸却凝视着我们。 拥有商店的博伊斯先生见到我时大惊小怪，但他仍然让我们为我们的火星酒吧付款。

在球场上没有人说一句话。 乔纳森说，令人惊讶的是很少有人看报纸，我想他是对的。 我也不怪他们。 所有这些墨水会使您的手变脏。

那天晚些时候我见到山姆。 他也没有看过报纸，但是一旦我向他展示他对我真的很高兴，尤其是当我秘密地告诉他某人已经出价八千欧元，而当真正的拍卖开始时，我们可能会得到两倍。

“你打算用这笔钱做什么？”他说。

那是人们最感兴趣的东西。我并不是在抱怨，但您可能会认为他们可能还会问我一些其他问题，例如，疯狂的20p旧硬币竟然变得那么值钱。 只有一个人问我这个问题。

报纸发行后的第二天，我参加了一个名为《最后的话》的广播节目。 我非常紧张，但主持人告诉我不要担心，因为正在记录采访，如果我说错了话，我可以重新开始。 我给他讲了一个故事，讲到只制造了500枚硬币，却只给了电话工程师。 我什至没有犯错，所以只需要告诉他一次。 当他终于问到钱的时候，我说我想去巴塞罗那看梅西的比赛。 我知道我父亲会在听。 我以为如果他知道全世界都知道那是我想做的事，也许他会让我走，否则人们会以为他对儿子很卑鄙。

我们在厨房里听了采访。 听到我自己的声音很奇怪。 我听起来很年轻，但也很有趣。 我妈妈说我很清楚。 我父亲说：“让我们先看看一切如何，然后再考虑莱昂内尔·梅西。” 这是他拒绝的方式。

什么都没发生几周，然后一切都发生了。 一切。

我将从一无所有开始，如果您想了解诚实的事实，那并不是一无是处。 我的意思是什么都没有发生。 我们只是呆在Ballytermin，玩推杆和推杆直到天黑，然后和Sam和其他一些人一起在公园里闲逛。 我们晚上玩足球。 我认为乔纳森很无聊，尽管他没有说自己是。 他只是没有像以前那样多说话。 也许他刚刚用完所有的东西来教我，或者也许他只是因为我不像他那么聪明而受够了我。 我承认我一开始并不了解很多事情，特别是如果它们很复杂，但是问任何认识我的人，他们会告诉你我通常到那儿。

不要误会我的意思。 我并不是说乔纳森不再对我好，或者我们不再是朋友了，只是有时候觉得他想一个人呆着。 我明白了 我哥哥有时就是那样。 我敢打赌，他会比我更喜欢我的兄弟。 他们差不多是同一年龄。

即使在我身边，他仍然喜欢做的一件事就是使用金属探测器进行勘探。 我发誓，没有我们不会涉及的Ballytermin的一个角落。 山姆和我们一起来了几次。 他在长草丛中的Connaghan木头上找到了一只手表-也是一种合适的手表，实际上是可行的。 它只是躺在草地上，因此从技术上讲他不需要金属探测器就能找到它。 尽管如此，他还是很高兴，我们为他感到非常高兴。

另一个消息是我决定下个生日要一个金属探测器。 乔纳森说，建立顶级模型没有任何意义，因为它对我来说太复杂了，并且有很多功能对于我来说是多余的。 我不确定他的意思，但我同意他的意思，这也是因为我妈妈说我花不了一百欧元。

乔纳森说，我应该买一个我们能找到的最便宜的赏金猎人追踪器1检测器。 “每个人都必须从某个地方开始。”

它是在我生日前两天到达的，那时我决定要一副无线耳机而不是金属探测器。

我可以通过盒子的重量看出它脆弱，知道我的运气，一周后可能会折断。 至少我妈妈为我感到兴奋。 她说，即使还不是我的生日，我也可以打开盒子。

一旦我把东西拿到手中，我就会感觉好一些。 据我所知，我是Ballytermin中唯一拥有自己的金属探测器的人，当然，乔纳森除外，但他要在三周内回英国，所以他不计算在内。

这很容易操作。 您只需打开和关闭它就可以了。

我妈妈在厨房里转了一圈。 她把勺子放在地板上，然后在上面挥动魔杖，这使闹钟响了。

哇，哇！

这并没有完全震耳欲聋。

“看，它行得通，”她说。

她的热情使我受益。 她比任何人都更了解我，可以说我改变了对金属探测器的想法。 我感到内，所以即使我并没有完全兴奋到死亡，我仍然兴奋不已。 乔纳森（Jonathan）没有注意到任何事情。 如果您知道我的意思，那完全是家族生意。

他说：“让我们在这里不要太被带走。” “We should see if it actually works when, you know, the metal isn’t just lying there on the floor where we can see it.”

My mum said we should try the garden but we had prospected every inch of it and knew for a fact there was nothing there.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s try the field.”

I DON’T think I’ve mentioned the field before so the first thing you should know is that it wasn’t field. It was just a piece of land behind our house about a quarter the size of a soccer pitch. The road to Dublin ran along the side opposite our garden.Once upon a time the council looked after it, cutting the grass and picking up the sweet wrappers and coke cans people left behind. I called it the Battlefield back then because that’s where me and my brother played war games with our toy guns. I don’t do that any more because I’m older and I don’t like war.

The council gave up on the Battlefield about the same time as I did. My parents weren’t happy about this and neither were the neighbours. It was an eyesore, a place where people dumped all kinds of rubbish, like shopping baskets stolen from the Spar and, one time, an old fridge. The grass — it was more like weeds, really — sometimes reached waist height. Every so often Mr Darcy, who lives two doors along from us and has one of those petrol grass-cutters that would slice your fingers off is a nano-second, cut it all away. He must have been out there recently, otherwise my mum would never have led us out there that day.

The Bounty Hunter Tracker 1 didn’t have the discrimination mode function so the alarm went off virtually every step she took. It was hopeless unless you were an avid collector of old nails and the ring-pulls from beer cans. We could have been there all week digging up random scraps of worthless metal.

My mum found the bullet casing, although it was Jonathan who realised what it was. To her it just looked like another piece of junk. 我也是。

“Can we go back to the house. It’s going to rain,” I said.

My mum told me not to be daft. Jonathan wasn’t listening. He was preoccupied with what my mum had uncovered. It was a small cylinder, about half the length of my middle finger and skinnier. It was rusty and coated in mud but once he cleaned it with a bit of spit and his shirt sleeve it came out a dull brown.

The way he examined it, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, I thought something crazy had happened again. “Is it gold?”

“No, it’s copper-plated,” he said.

My mum stopped scanning. She looked scared.

“A bullet casing,” he said. He showed it to me. “看。”

I didn’t know what I was looking for until he pointed to some markings on the underside of the cylinder. I could hardly make them out.

“That’s a serial number,” he said. “And that is a Russian stamp.”

“What is it?” my mum said.

Jonathan looked straight at her. His face beamed with pride. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s a bullet casing from a Kalashnikov rifle.”

12

I’M AN honest person — I think you know that by now — so you can trust me when I tell you I never had any interest in horse-racing, even though it might seem like I’m an expert after I’ve finished telling you what I’m about to tell you.

It has always been a big deal in Ireland. The Sport of Kings. That’s what they call horse-racing. The Sport of Kings. Except never in our house. One time, my mum told me a story about going for donkey rides on the beach in Malahide when she was a kid and how much fun she had. The thing is, donkeys aren’t horses, even though they almost look the same. 但事实并非如此。 Donkeys are smaller and have bigger ears and flatter backs. They also have sixty-two chromosomes. Horses have sixty-four. Don’t ask me why two chromosomes makes such a big difference but it does.

My dad never said if he liked horses or not, at least not to me, but he did have plenty to say about horse-racing. Not so much the racing of horses, although he called it animal cruelty, being that jockeys sometimes whipped the animals in order to make them run faster for no better reason than the puerile entertainment of grown men. Puerile. That’s how much he didn’t appreciate horse-racing.

What he liked even less was that people gambled on horse-racing, specifically people whose kids went to St Eunan’s and who lost money on horses when they should have been spending it on more important things like school blazers for their kids and shoes that didn’t have holes in them and could keep out the rain in winter.

There was a bookie shop in Ballytermin, an old-fashioned place on the main street with a brown pebble-dashed wall and a black door. I swear on my brother’s life it was the ugliest building in Ireland. The paint was flaking off the door and pebble-dash looked like it hadn’t been washed since the day it was stuck to the wall. The windows were small and dirty and high up on the wall, just like a prison. I asked my mum why the windows were so high and she said that it was so that people my age couldn’t look inside and think, ‘Oh man, that looks like a really glamorous, I wish I could be in there.’ She really did say that.

The sign above the bookies’ door said Ballytermin Turf Accountants but everyone called it Terry’s because it was owned by a man called Terry. I never saw this famous Terry but I saw his car parked outside his shop sometimes, a silver Mercedes that always looked like it had just been washed. The way my dad talked about him you would have thought Terry was the biggest criminal in the country.

One time we were walking down to church for confession, me and my dad and Brendan, and we walked past Terry’s car and the sun was glinting off the polished chrome bumpers.

“Sweet car,” Brendan said, which was absolutely the wrong thing to say in front of my dad.

“It’s nothing of the sort,” my dad said. “It’s the devil’s reward.”

Brendan made the seriously crazy mistake of asking what he meant by that, so my dad explained that Terry was selling people hope when there was none. Gambling on horse-racing was for fools. It was fixed so that in the long-run there could only ever be one winner.

“How many people coming out of that place and drive away in a flashy car?” he said.

I answered before Brendan could. “Terry does.”

My dad looked like he wanted to pat me on the back for being a good boy, which didn’t happen very often, let me tell you.

“Exactly, Cillian.”

I believed him when he said that the whole gambling business was a mug’s game because, let’s face it, he knew a lot more about that kind of stuff than I did. Everybody did. But that was before I heard the story of Shergar, which gave me this idea about what we could do if we wanted to to drive a big fancy car like Terry the turf accountant. All we had to do was gamble every last cent we had on Shergar. Before you know, we would all be millionaires.

I FEEL silly telling you this because it sounds so crazy and you’ll probably think I’m lying to you but here goes anyway. Every racehorse in the world has the same birthday. It’s January 1st, unless they were born in the Southern Hemisphere, which makes their birthday on August 1st. This means that a horse born on December 31st is one year older than a horse born on January 1st, even though they were born only one day apart.

Here’s something else you probably don’t know about racehorses. They are all related to each other, most of them. That’s because they are all descended from one of three horses who came to England in the seventeenth century. Byerly Turk, Darley Barb, Godolphin Arabian. That was the horses’ names. 老实说 我查了一下。

I bet Shergar was related to Byerly Turk because it was the bravest and strongest of the three. It fought in a war, carrying some crazy English soldier called Captain Robery Byerly, who thought his horse was the greatest thing since chocolate. Byerly brought the horse home with him after he finished roughing up the locals in the Middle East and set him up in a stable with a bunch of lady horses. And that’s how this whole thoroughbred horse-racing business got started and guys like Terry the turf accountant got rich at everybody else’s expense.

SHERGAR was born on January 1st, 1978, (though it was March 2nd, if you want to be strict about it). His mum was called Sharmeen and his dad was called Great Nephew. He was a beautiful looking horse, with a light-brown coat and a white slash down the front of his nose. It was like someone had painted his face just so they’d been able to pick him out in a crowd.

He was bred to run fast. All of those horses are but I guess a lot was expected from Shergar because his dad had been a big hot-shot in France. He lived in England and was trained by a man called Michael Stoute.

Shergar was a stallion, which is a another name for a male horse in case you didn’t know. He was two years old when he raced for the first time He came first and set the record for the fastest run round the course in the English town of Newbury. He lost his next race to a horse called Beldale Flutter, which was a pretty good horse itself until it got injured.

If you know anything about racehorses then you’ll know that three is the most important age. If you don’t, then let me tell it that it is. When racehorses are three they get to run in this really special race called the Epsom Derby. Not every racehorse, mind you. Only the good ones. Beldale Flutter would have been there but as I said he got injured, so that left Shergar and a bunch of other horses whose names I won’t bother mentioning because, honestly, they might as well stayed at home eating a bunch of hay.

Shergar won the Epsom Derby by twelve lengths’, which is the length of twelve horses lined up nose to tail. When I said the other horses should have stayed at home, well, obviously they didn’t. So I can tell you this crazy story about the horse that finished second. It was called Glint of Gold and when it crossed the finishing line the jockey thought he had won. His name was John Matthias, the poor guy. “I thought I had achieved my life’ ambition,” he said. “Only then did I discover there was another horse way out in front of me on the horizon.” That made me laugh the the first time I read it but I feel bad now. Poor John Matthis, all he wanted was to achieve his life’s ambition.

Shergar won the Irish Derby, too. Only by four lengths this time because it didn’t need to try so hard. The TV commentator said he ran like it was a training exercise. There was another race after that. It wasn’t Shergar’s fault he lost. Some racehorses don’t like to run too far even though their owners might want them to, so the less said about that the better, if you get my drift.

The next part I don’t even want to talk about because, well, it just sort of embarrassing. What you probably need to know is Shergar retired after losing that last race and went to a place called the Ballymany Stud in County Kildare. They had a big welcoming party for him in the streets of the town and after that it was down to business. Do you really need me to tell what goes on at a place like the Ballymany Stud? 我不这么认为。

Shergar was the father to thirty-five horses and all in the one year. The technical term is ‘sired’, which sounds kind of creepy until you find out it cost at least fifty thousand euros if you wanted to buy one of Shergar’s foals. I guess the plan was all thirty-five would be able to run as fast as their dad, except it didn’t work out like that. None of them were fast runners except maybe one, a horse called Authaal, but even that didn’t do anything crazy like win the Epsom Derby or get a welcome home parade at the Ballymany Stud.

YOU would think all of that was enough for any horse, winning all those big races and all, but none of what I’ve just told you was the most fascinating thing about Shergar. No. The most fascinating thing about Shergar was it was kidnapped. 那就对了。 Kidnapped, just like it was a real person, a politician or someone really important.

On February 8th, 1983, a gang of men turned up at the Ballymany Stud at night with guns and ordered the stable lad to load Shergar into the back of a horsebox. He was the only one who could do that because the one thing you should know about racehorses is they’re bad-tempered as hell. They don’t like being handled by people they don’t know. The stable lad was okay, though. He just led Shergar into the back of the horsebox, locked the padlock and off it went.

The saddest thing was that was the last time the stable lad saw his precious horse. It was the last time anyone saw Shergar, except the kidnappers of course.

For the next week Ballymany was the capital of world. The town was overrun by TV cameramen and reporters from all over the world. I guess you could say it was because only in Ireland would someone be crazy enough to kidnap a horse, although let’s face it they do some pretty crazy things elsewhere in the world.

A couple of days after Shergar disappeared later a ransom note was sent to the owners of the horse. The kidnappers wanted two million pounds Sterling. They refused to pay and that was that.

Years went by but people still kept wondering what happened to the horse. There were a million theories, most of them crazy. Some people said it lived the happy life in another country, others said it probably spent the rest of it days working on a farm up north. People wrote books about the kidnapping. There was a TV documentary. There was an even a Hollywood movie, a terrible one, though I’m maybe not the best person to ask about that because I don’t really like to watch movies. They’re boring, especially if you’re like me and don’t like to sit in one place for too long.

The favourite theory on what happened to Shergar is most depressing one, I guess. That the kidnappers just did what they said they would do in the ransom note if they didn’t get their money. They just killed it. Shot it straight between the eyes and washed their hands of the whole thing, like the cruel and heartless bastards they were. What a way to end it all.

SO THERE it is, the story of Shergar. I think you’ll agree it was one of the fascinating stories you’ll ever hear, being that it’s not often horses get kidnapped, especially not horses as famous as Shergar. I guess, too, you’re also probably wondering why I spend all my time learning about a crime that happened more than thirty years ago, long before I was born. I promise you, I didn’t just to do it so you’d think I was some kind of excellent story-teller. 不，先生。 I did it because the very next day, the day after we found the bullet casing from a Kalashnikov rifle using my Bounty Hunter Tracker 1 metal detector, the Guards dug up Shergar’s bones in the field at the back of my house.

13

WE FOUND another bullet casing in the same place as we found the first one. And another after that. Three bullet casings, all of them spent. That meant they had all been fired. I was pretty excited because, let’s face it, life was getting boring, playing soccer in the park and waiting for our coin to come up for auction.

“We should go,” my mum said. “It’s getting dark.”

It was five o’clock on a summer night. It wouldn’t get dark for another four hours at least.

“但…”

She didn’t even let me get more than one word out. “Will you listen to me, Mister.”

She never called me or my brother ‘Mister’ except when we had done something really wrong, like that time Brendan ran his skateboard right into the side of Mrs. O’Riordan’s car, scratching up the paintwork and all. He didn’t tell anyone, that’s where he went wrong. My mum only found out when Mrs O’Riordan knocked on the door and said someone had left a note on her car saying what Brendan had done.

Mister.

I held the three bullets in the palm of my hand.

“I’ll take care of those,” she said. “They’ve probably been left by the farmer.”

“但…”

It was like all of sudden our house was on fire, the way she couldn’t wait to get back inside.

“I think I might have left the oven on,” she said.

I was almost certain she hadn’t left the oven on but I didn’t say anything because she was

always such a calm person. The way I saw it, if she wanted to go home then it must be for a good reason. But that didn’t stop me wishing we had kept digging, just to see what else was down there. Another thing I wished was, I wished I knew what kind of farmer would have a Kalashnikov rifle one minute and then bury it the next?

Her mood got a lot less jumpy once we got back to the house. “Why don’t you boys play some video games while I’m getting the dinner ready,” she said, like nothing in the world made her happier than me playing video games when I know for a fact she really feel like that at all.

We played video games for a bit and then Jonathan said he had to go to the bathroom. That was when my mum came through from the kitchen and asked me not to say anything to my dad about what we had found out on the field.

“He’s got a lot going on right now and I don’t think he needs anything else on his mind,” she said.

“What about Jonathan?” I said.

She had already spoken to him, she said, although God knows when. He’d been playing video games with me since we came back home. Unless she said something while I was upstairs putting my metal detector back in its box, like she told me to.

My mum and I didn’t have many secrets, not real ones. I mean, she probably wouldn’t want me to tell my dad that she let me open my birthday present before it was my birthday. This felt different, like it really meant something to her, so I did what she asked. I didn’t say a word to my dad. I wanted to make her proud of me, let her know I was the kind of person she could trust. I didn’t even speak to Jonathan about it either, not until he came into my room after everyone had gone to bed.

The entire house was quiet and dark so we had to whisper.

“That was weird,” he said.

All we were trying to do was not wake up everybody but, whispering and all, it felt like I was letting her down. 但是我还是这么做了。

“I wonder what she did with the bullets?” I said.

“She put them in a drawer in the kitchen,” Jonathan said. “看。”

He held out his open hand and showed me the three casings.

We studied them for a bit. Jonathan told me this story about the Kalashnikov rifle and how it was designed to survive the cold Russian winter. It was the most popular weapon in the history of weapons but the guy who invented it never made a penny, not until he started selling Kalashnikov t-shirts with his face on it, which is kind of crazy when you think about it.

“Tomorrow, let’s see if we can find some more bullets,” Jonathan said.

“我不确定。”

I really wasn’t, not because I didn’t want to find more bullets — of course I did. I just didn’t want to do something my mum didn’t want me to do. Like I said, I wanted her to know I was someone she could trust. So I told Jonathan about her asking me not to say anything to my dad and how I didn’t want to let her down. Some people I know would probably have teased me or told me to stop being such a mummy’s boy, but not Jonathan. He was smarter than that, and nicer.

“All she said was don’t tell your dad, right? She didn’t say you couldn’t go back and see if there were any more bullets to dig up,” he said. “Besides, she doesn’t need to know and what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. It’ll just be me and you.”

WE DIDN’T get a chance to go back out into the field for another two days. The problem was my mum and dad were around all the time. We played video games and this goofy old board game called Monopoly that my parents loved. Jonathan kept winning. He lived in London and game was about buying property in London so obviously he had all the advantages. How was I to know the Old Kent Road was such a gold mine?

At last, my reclusive parents finally decided to go out in public again. There was a film on at the cinema in Dunkenny they wanted to see. Don’t ask me what it was called because I wasn’t listening when they told me, I was too busy thinking about what else we might find when we started digging again.

It had been all I could think about, if you want to know the whole truth. Jonathan was the same. Secretly, I hoped we would dig up something really cool, though I didn’t know what. I didn’t say anything to Jonathan in case he thought I was just being a stupid little kid, which I was, when you really think about it. Really stupid. The best thing would have been to dig up a big fat nothing, that way we would have stayed out of trouble.

WE WAITED ten minutes just to make sure they were really were gone, that they weren’t going to come back suddenly because my mum forgot her purse or something crazy like that. She was always forgetting stuff, let me tell you.

Once we were sure we were alone, we went straight to where we found the bullet casings. We didn’t bother with my metal detector this time. Jonathan’s was a million times better. Anyway, mine’s was still in the box. We also took a spade I got from the garden shed.

Actually, we didn’t even use Jonathan’s metal detector. It wasn’t like we had to search for what we were looking for. We’d already disturbed the ground the last time we were there. Jonathan just started digging in the same spot, but in a careful way, like an archeologist. He dug up a spadeful of dirt and turned it over, then we sifted through it with our fingers. It took about twenty spadefuls before we found another bullet casing.

Then It was my turn to dig. I didn’t just take up the surface soil, the way he had done I went straight down. I don’t why I did that, I just did, and believe me I wish I hadn’t.

You know that way in soccer matches, when one team is losing and then they score with the last kick of the ball and then everything changes. Well, that’s what happened with me. I was thinking about packing in with the crazy digging business. It was getting boring and I hadn’t found anything. Plus, it was muddy in that hole because of all the rain and my shoes were getting really wet and messy. They were Nikes. I’d only had them a month. Anyway, I’m not saying the next shovel of dirt was going to be last. I’m just saying it could have been.

I almost broke my hand when blade cracked right into something solid. I thought it was rock, if you want to know the truth. I tried again and then Jonathan told me to stop.

“I’ll try and dig it out with my hands,” he said.

I watched him brush away the dirt until he finally got his hand on whatever I’d hit with the shovel. It wasn’t a rock, let me tell you that. But I wasn’t exactly sure what it was either.

Jonathan did. Of course he did.

“It’s a magazine,” he said.

My mind struggled to catch up. At first I thought I misheard him. Magazines are made of glossy paper and filled with photographs. My mum has hundreds of them. What he had in his hand was a slim, curved metal box, about six inches long, two inches wide.

Jonathan cleared everything up. “If I’m not mistaken this is a magazine for a Kalashnikov.”

当然是。 He had shown me pictures of Kalashnikovs on the internet and explained what all the various parts were. The magazine slotted in underneath the rifle barrel. It was where the ammunition was stored.

“You think there’s an actual rifle buried here as well?” I said.

I was still excited but not in a good way any more. Excited in a good way means you just can’t wait to find out what happens next. This didn’t feel like that, not in the slightest. This felt — what’s the word? — ominous. 而已。 不祥的。 I could wait to see what happened next but I was dreading it, too.

If Jonathan felt the same, he didn’t show it. He couldn’t wait to start again. “只有一种发现方法。”

Ten minutes later, and six inches deeper in the hole, he found the rifle. “Look at this,” he said.

He had a Kalashnikov in his hand. The barrel was a little bent. Once he scraped the dirt away you could see patches of rust. But it was definitely a Kalashnikov. I recognised it from the pictures.

“It’s a beauty,” Jonathan said. His eyes were shining.

我什么也没说。 Instead, I did the craziest thing. 我开始哭了。 It felt strange because I usually only cry when I’m sad about something, like when my mum made me watch this documentary film about all these starving kids in Africa, or when Barcelona lost that one time in the Champions League. Even then I usually manage to keep it in, or if I can’t do that, then I cry so quietly you wouldn’t even notice, not unless you were listening very closely. 这是不同的。 You could probably hear me crying from the other end of Ballytermin.

The thing was, I was scared.

Jonathan didn’t laugh or anything, like some people I know would have.

“Are you okay?” he said. “Why are you crying?”

很难解释。 Luckily, Jonathan worked it out pretty quickly.

“不用担心。 You haven’t done anything wrong.”

I knew that, but hearing him say it didn’t make me feel any better. “Can we not just put it back and forget all about it?”

This was a stupid idea. I mean, we could put the rifle back where we found it and cover it up again but then it would be on our minds for God knows how long, maybe forever. Let’s be honest here — I couldn’t keep a secret for a day, never mind forever. It would keep me up at night and if you know anything about me, you’ll know I like to sleep a lot or I get kind of bad-tempered and forgetful.

Jonathan made a good point, too. What if this rifle had been used to commit a terrible crime?

“If we bury it again, we’ll be helping whoever committed the crime to get off with it Scot-free,” he said. “Do you really want that on your conscience?”

When he put it like that, there was only one answer.

“But what will my mum and dad say?” I said. “My mum will be really angry. She told me not to saying anything to my dad.”

Jonathan disagreed, you won’t be surprised to know. “ I don’t think so. She’ll be proud of you. You never know, we might even get a reward from the cops.”

He laughed at idea of us getting a reward. 我也是。

“At this rate, we’ll be the richest men in Ireland before the summer’s finished,” I said.

I felt better after that. Not great, but definitely better.

WE DIDN’T take the Kalashnikov inside the house. 感觉不对。 We just laid it on the ground outside the back door and covered it with a towel I found in the dirty washing basket. It was still light and you never knew who could come walking through the garden gate

Jonathan and I sat on the back steps, keeping watch under the pale blue light of a summer moon.

The film must have been a Hollywood epic because it was hours before my mum and dad came home. They must have liked it, too, because they were in a good mood. I heard them laughing as they got out of the car. A few seconds later, the front door opened.

“Yoo-hoo, we’re back,” my mum yelled. Her voice carried down the hallway, through the living room and into the kitchen, where it spilled out through the back door. “Anybody home?”

14。

I RECOGNISED the Guard. He was the same one who came to our house after Jonathan had been reported for kicking Eoin Leonard in the nuts. I could tell he was grumpy. My dad noticed too.

“Sorry, for calling you out so late.”

The Guard nodded.

My mum looked over his shoulder to the open front door and blue darkness beyond.

“On your own?” she said. “I thought you all worked in pairs.”

“Budget cuts,” he said. He took his hat off. “有什么问题？”

My dad looked at Jonathan and me. “It’s these two…,” he began

The Guard smiled, but not a real smile. “I remember these two. What have they done this time?”

I still couldn’t tell if my dad was angry, or proud. Earlier, when we showed him the rifle and told him where and how we found it, the first thing he said was, “Have you boys got some kind of special powers?”

“It was Mrs Sheridan this time,” Jonathan said. “She was the first one to find the spent bullet casings.”

He was just being nice, I guess, but I felt terrible when he said this because of my mum. The secret we had was a secret no more.

The Guard followed my dad into the kitchen and we followed them both.

“Oh my,” he said when he said when he saw the Kalashnikov lying on the table. “What have we here?”

“A Kalashnikov AK-47,” Jonathan said before anyone else could answer. “Probably Russian made, judging by the markings. Look -.”

He pointing to the markings on the barrel, just above the trigger casing. They looked like words, though not words I could read or understand. Jonathan couldn’t wait to show off how much he knew about Kalashnikovs.

“A lot of these rifles were made in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria, which used to be part of the Soviet Bloc, but that wasn’t until later, much later, when the Soviet Union licenced production out to other Communist countries. You can tell by the date stamp. 看…”

He pointed to the markings again. “1954.”

I’m not going to lie. I never knew there was a country called Czechoslovakia.

The Guard took out his notebook. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “So tell me — where and when did you find the rifle? Slowly, mind. I don’t write quickly.”

My dad did most of the talking. He mostly just repeated what we had already told him. The Guard didn’t seem to mind. He just wrote down what he could, pausing a couple of times to ask my dad to slow down. He was using a white plastic pen.

I listened and stared at the floor. A couple of times I looked up at my mum, just to check she was okay. She caught me once and smiled, the way she always did when she wanted me to know everything was going to be fine.

If I was a detective I would have asked Jonathan and me to show him where we actually found the rifle. We were the the only witnesses, after all. But no, he was happy to take my dad’s word for everything. I bet he’d forgot to bring a torch and didn’t want to wander around in the dark.

“You know the field out there.”

My dad pointed towards the back door.
“Mulgrew’s farm?” the Guard said.

“没有。 The land next to the road, where people dump all their junk.”

The Guard looked grim. “Aye, we’ve been trying to clamp down on that.” He made another note in his book. Finally, he spoke to me, words that felt like electricity.

“Why did you to go down there and start digging around?”

My mum answered before I could. ‘It was my idea.”

“I got a new metal detector for my birthday,” I said.

The Guard shook his head and smiled at my dad. “When I was his age I was happy if I got a football strip for my birthday,” he said.

A Barcelona strip costs more than the Bounty Hunter Tracker 1 and that’s a fact. I kept that to myself, though, because I didn’t want my mum and dad to feel bad about buying me a cheap and crappy metal detector.

My dad told the Guard exactly what we had told him — that we weren’t looking for anything in particular, that we just picked a random spot to start searching and then next thing we found a couple of bullet casings.

“It’s been quite a summer for these two,” he said. “I don’t know if you read about in the paper but they also found a valuable coin over on the beach in Malahide.”

The Guard looked blank. “Did they?”

He closed his notebook and slipped his pen into the inside pocket of jacket. He said to my dad, “I wonder if I could have a word with you and Mrs Sheridan?”

My dad nodded and then spoke to Jonathan and me. “Just got through there for a couple of minutes.”

We waited in the living room. We didn’t speak, except when I asked Jonathan if he knew what they were talking about next door.

“Nope.” He looked kind of nervous, which made me feel nervous, too. 我不知道为什么 We hadn’t done anything wrong. All we had done was find the rifle. We weren’t the ones who hide it there in the first place.

THE Guard finished talking to my parents and then left. He didn’t say anything to us. It was my dad who told us we were to go to bed and get some sleep.

“But what about …”

Jonathan didn’t even get his question out but I knew what he wanted to know. 我也是。

“We are just going to leave things as they are until the morning,” my dad said. “It’s late now and there’s no point in waking up the whole town at this time night. The Guards will be back in the morning.”

“What time?” I said.

My mum looked tired. Everybody did.

“We’re not sure. Early, probably. Before people find out what’s about there.”

“What do you mean ‘what’s out there’?”

My dad sighed. “Technically, it’s a crime scene.”

“什么是？”

“Where you found the rifle and ammunition.”

Crime scene. The words made me feel cold and hollow, the way I felt when I’d done something wrong and knew my dad would be home soon to tell me off. I started crying — not because I was scared but because we were now in trouble and the Guards were coming back in the morning and we had done nothing wrong. That’s something you should know about me. I don’t like injustice. It’s so unfair.

MY MUM came into my room after I went to bed. I pretended I was asleep. I didn’t want to start crying again. I tried to keep my breathing even as she stood still, watching me. She padded across to the windows and closed the curtains. In, out, in, out. Like I was off in dreamland.

她关上了身后的门。 “Try and get some sleep,” she said.

I opened the curtains again when she was gone. There was no way I could sleep in the darkness with just me and my thoughts.

I had a good view of the night sky from my bed. Dark blue and black, with silver sprinkles. I found an old school jotter on the top of the bookcase and made a note for myself: Christmas — telescope.

My dad would like that, if I asked for a telescope for Christmas.

Sometimes you could see the airplanes overhead, heading across to America. 但不是那天晚上。 已经太迟了。 They were long gone, probably over Greenland or somewhere like that. It made me think of Brendan and what he was doing at that exact moment, if he was out running or with one of the gorgeous American college students he once told me about. I wished my brother was with me.

WHEN my eyes opened I found myself staring into a smile as soft as a cloud.

“Cillian, you need to get up,” my mum said. “The Guards are here.”

It took me about ten seconds to realise what she was talking about. Ten glorious seconds before that lead weight kicked in.

I lay back in my bed and looked at the ceiling while she moved around the room, picking up dirty clothes and tut-tutting at the mess.

I forgot to take my watch off before I feel asleep. It said 6:33.

“Where are they?” I said.

“Come and look,” she said. “They’re already out in the field.”

The sun was already up, painting the world outside a pale, dusty yellow. There were six Guards. Two were hammering wooden stakes in the ground around perimeter of the field, two were attaching orange tape from one post to the next and the final two were just standing around watching.

“They must be the bosses,” my mum said.

我们俩都笑了。 She put her arm across my shoulder. 我没动 The warmth of her made me think everything was going to be okay. Finally, she spoke and the spell snapped.

“Can you get dressed. There is a detective downstairs who wants to speak to you and Jonathan.”

HIS name was Detective Sergeant Nigel MacGuire. I’ll never forget that name. I had never met a Nigel before. He was serious but calm, tall and silver-haired. He was wearing jacket and a dark blue tie, straight and tight against the collar of his pale blue shirt.

Jonathan did most of the talking, which was probably the best thing because he was less nervous than me and had a better memory. For instance, I’d forgotten that my mum wasn’t with us when we found the rifle. He also remembered it was her idea to test out my new metal detector out in the field.

The uniformed guard had asked us the same questions the night before and our answers were the same. Afterwards, Jonathan said maybe Mr MacGuire was trying to catch us out in a lie. Detectives were sneaky by nature, it’s what made them want to be detectives. My dad said don’t be so daft. “They just need to make sure all the facts are straight. As long as you keep telling the truth everything will be fine.”

We spent the rest of the day at the pitch and putt. I think my dad just wanted us out of the way. Detective Sergeant MacGuire didn’t have any objection to us leaving the “crime scene”. Apparently, he was satisfied with what we had told him.

“Maybe I’ll come with the two of you. I could do with a bit of rest and relaxation,” he said.

He smiled for the first time since I’d set eyes on him. It wasn’t much of a smile — he had stained, teeth — but it stayed with me for the rest of the day, a hint perhaps that everything was going to turn out okay after all.

My dad offered to drive us to the course but MacGuire said it would be better if he and my mum stayed around and helped the Guards get organised. We walked instead, throwing our bags over our shoulder and heading off down the street in the direction of the golf course, like we were playing a mile-long par-five.

There were a few uniformed Guards milling around on the pavement outside our house and a couple of sightseers across the street, Mrs Sweeney, our neighbour from two doors down, and another older woman I didn’t recognise. Mrs Sweeney lived on her own — her husband died a few years ago — and was nosey, the way people are when they don’t have much going on in their life. My mum said we should all make allowances for Mrs Sweeney and we did. Brendan and I sometimes cut her grass. We always tried to have a conversation if we met her on the street. But that day all I did was wave and smile.

“We’re away to the golf,” I told her, swinging the golf bag around my body so she could get a better look.

她笑了。 “Beautiful day for it,” she said.

We were under instructions not to tell anyone what was going on. Not a word, not even to my friends. If they asked, we were to plead ignorance. I hate lying to my friends except when I don’t want to hurt their feelings, like when I say they played great at soccer when they were terrible.

The golf course was busy, but with older regulars who met at the clubhouse every day at the same time, played in the same groups and talked about the same things. They weren’t interested in us so long as we kept out of their way.

We went round twice before lunch, just Jonathan and me. I didn’t play great. I was too busy wondering if the Guards had found anything else in the field..

We left our bags outside the clubhouse and walked back into town to buy some chips. The plan was to return to the golf course and play another nine holes, maybe have a putting contest and then head home.

Derri, who worked behind the counter and sometimes let us play for free, asked if I knew what was happening over at Mulgrew’s farm. “Apparently, the place is crawling with Guards.”

I looked at Jonathan, who looked at Derri and shrugged. He was a terrific liar. If I didn’t know better I would have sworn he was clueless. I could feel my face reddening.

“Where did you hear that?” I said.

I could feel my face reddening, like when I talk to a girl I like.

Derri didn’t notice. “It was just on the radio news. The big news, too — RTE,” he said. “A massive Gardai search.”

Jonathan couldn’t help himself. “为了什么？”

Derri shook his head. “They didn’t say.”

I held out my hand, offering him the ten euros for another nine holes.

He shook his head and waved me off. He eyes stayed on Jonathan, bright like a lightbulb, and he smiled. “Maybe they’ve found Shergar.”

I SWEAR on my mother’s grave I have not made this up. My brother’s grave, too. Derri made a joke about Shergar, only Jonathan and me didn’t know it was a joke because we had never heard of Shergar. That didn’t happen until later.

I smiled anyway, just to be polite, and said thanks for letting us play for free even though we ended up not playing. We putted around aimlessly for ten minutes and then Jonathan said, “Bugger this. Let’s go back to the house.”