Riddla Never Says the Name

The cage rolled out in a plaza in Mexico, where a fair was strung with paper flags cut into lace. People sat at long tables with picture cards in front of them: a rooster, a moon, a little boat, a ladder. Each picture had a few pinto beans beside it, waiting.

The caller was a boy about Tam’s age in a knitted beanie, standing on an upturned crate. His name was Riddla, and he had one rule. He never, ever said the name of the card.

He drew a card from the deck, hid it against his chest, and called out a riddle instead.

“I wake up the whole village, but I’ve never owned a clock.”

For a moment the tables went quiet. Then a girl near the front laughed and put a bean on her rooster, and everyone with a rooster did the same.

“He’s the cantor,” Rima whispered. “In lotería the cantor calls the cards, and a good cantor riddles them. You don’t just listen, you think.”

Between games, Riddla jumped off his crate and sat on the edge of the fountain beside them.

“How do you make them?” Ama asked.

“Carefully,” said Riddla. “A riddle has one job. It has to point at one card, and only one.”

He told them about his very first night. He had called out, “I shine in the sky at night.” Two players had jumped up at once. One had the moon. The other had the star. They both thought they’d won.

“And they were both right,” said Riddla, and he pulled his beanie down over his eyes, remembering. “My riddle was broken. My whole face went hot.”

“What did you do?” asked Tam.

“I called it again with another clue. ‘I shine in the sky at night, and I change my shape every week.’ Only the moon does that.”

Tam grinned. “So you keep adding clues until only one card is left.”

“Exactly. Every clue closes a door. A good riddle closes doors until there’s one door open.”

He let them try. Ama picked a card in secret: the boat. There was a fish card and a river card in the deck too.

“It’s on the water,” Tam began.

“So is the fish,” said Ama.

“It’s on the water, but it doesn’t swim.”

“So is the river,” said Riddla. “The river doesn’t swim either.”

Tam thought hard. “It’s on the water, it doesn’t swim, and people sit in it.”

Ama turned over the boat. Riddla drummed his hands on the fountain, and Tam felt a warm, proud glow spread from her chest right up to her ears.

“Now you know a cantor’s secret,” said Riddla. “The fun of a riddle is the thinking. The fairness of a riddle is that, when you finish thinking, there’s only one answer.”

That night Ama wrote in the call book: Lotería. A good riddle points at one card. If two cards fit, add another clue.