Runagates

City Prison Island was known to be a hole. I mean, it was literally a hole. It had been dug down into the real ground by a real person, Jeffrey Runagates, one of the famous- or infamous- East Penfield Runagates. Several years earlier, Jeff’s father had purchased the delivery of a big pile of sand, and transported it to it’s place in the backyard, in a seldom used corner. After much use and many hosing downs, the sand pile was reduced to an uneven mostly dirt pile.

One day, Jeff’s Dad dug a hole, straight down, for about a foot. He piled the contents around the sides of the hill. He suggested this could be a cave. That seemed like a good idea to Jeff, who was now about seven years old. Jeff dug further down. Time went on. Jeff kept digging.

One night at supper, Jeff announced a great need he had to acquire a Lego City Prison Island Set. This idea was greeted with a fair amount of ridicule from his many brothers and sisters. Why, someone asked, were Lego minifigures kept in an Alcatraz - like prison? What had they done? Decapitated innocent city minifigs; That sort of thing?

One of his older sisters, Penny, had seen a horror movie called Shutter Island, about a prison on an island . She reminisced about how she had not slept for two nights after watching that movie.

Jeff intuited that this was going to be an uphill battle. “ I think it’s a great set, if you give it a chance.” adjured Jeff.

“Well, we’ll see, “ said his Dad; this was a statement that could be colored with optimism or pessimism, depending on the listener. Jeff chose optimism.

That night, Mr. and Mrs. Runagates did a little investigating on line. They went to shop.lego.com. Lego City Prison Island had been retired. Mr. Runagates imagines a dilapidated old folks home where dusty retired Lego sets sit on poorly kept furniture, solemnly sharing stories with other old sets that can’t hear very well.

Mr. Runagates then decided to scroll down and read some reviews of Lego City Prison Island. The first one included some damning condemnations citing multiple evidences of lack of care in planning and execution of set design by Lego designers. More surprising was the Lego Company’s response, which explained what the designers had been trying to do in each instance which had prompted that particular complaint. On the subject of two supposedly warped pieces included in the set, the reply was gravely apologetic: “ Warped elements is not a new feature on the otherhand and a call to Lego Consumer Services will be able to clear this issue up.”

At any rate, Mr. R. breathed a sigh of relief that he had a built- in reason to say no , without being the bad guy. The set was not available. While he was at shop.lego.com, he checked out his favorite area, Sales and Deals. Coincidentally, Lego City Prison Island Accessory Pack was on sale for $ 11.99 . When she heard this, Mrs. Runagates vowed to purchase said item at the Lego Store, after she went to Anthropology at the Mall tomorrow. He suggested using their $5 in VIP points, so that there would be less fallout from other children for getting Jeff something for no reason. She agreed on the wisdom of that approach.

Also, they were inspired to re- watch Escape from Alcatraz that night. It’s a taut thriller with Clint Eastwood, directed by Don Siegel. It wasn’t hard to find on one of their streaming services.

When Jeff came home from school the next day, Mrs. R. brightened his mood by tossing the Lego City Prison Island Accessory Pack in his general direction. He picked it up and studied it, intently.

Indeed, the arrival of a new Lego set, out of the blue, did much to alleviate Jeff’s disappointment at no prospect for City Prison Island.

Jeff immediately started making up a story. The prisoners, two surly types in striped prison garb, had concocted a plan. An aerial balloon ( in this case,it was Sensei Wu’s balloon from Tiger Widow Island) was used to transport fresh sets of guards to Prison Island( represented in this case by that hole in the backyard sand area). Then the hot air balloon left with the tired guards who were being replaced. The prisoner with the mustache and t shirt, code name Mustachio, hooked onto the imaginary basket of the balloon with his pry bar. The other, more handsome prisoner, codename Fuse-ee( due to his penchance for dynamite) , held onto Mustachio’s legs. The guards inside knew that something was wrong, because of the additional weight of Mustachio’s ball and chain. They landed the hot air balloon on an atoll- a nearby pile of bricks-to sort things out.

During the landing , the two prisoners let go before touchdown. They tumbled and rolled into a nearby grassy spot. They did dislodge one brick, which fell and pinned them down. The guards jumped out and ran over. However, just then they all were attacked by the owner of the small island, a Creator Three-in - One Mythical Creatures Troll named Trilll. ( at this point, Jeff ran back inside the house and found his Mythical Creatures Set. He was glad that he had allowed his sister Sara to build the troll version of that Creator 3-in- 1 set.

The troll named Trilll announced, “ You have failed to pay my Atoll Toll. 35 cents, please.”

The minifigs desperately searched their pockets. Between them, they only had 14 cents and a bus token.

“ Do you take credit cards? “

“ With a 5 dollar minimum charge.”

“ That’s a rip-off! “ insisted the frugal Prison Guards.

Trilll scooped up guards and prisoners with his heavy metal guitar. At this point, Jeff also scooped up his characters.

I hope you will forgive him for this next part. He did a very un- Lego -ish thing: he poured all of the minifigs into the hole in the sand pile.( he knew enough not to throw in the accessories, of course. ) The hole was dank and chilly .

“Welcome to my Island Prison Island, “ said the butt- ugly troll. “Stay here.” he growled/ purred.

“Where did he think we would go?” exclaimed the brave, but tired, Prison Guard.

Trilll left to play his guitar. Blaring notes of heavy metal music literally crashed upon them, in the form of crusty earth thrown in by Jeff. There was a lot of yelling. “Aieeeee!”

“Ah,” remarked the prisoner named Mustachio in his French accent, “I cannot help but notice that the guards have become the prisoners!” He smiled his sardonic smile.

At that point, Jeff’s two oldest brothers arrived at the sandplace and told Jeff to come inside and see the giant Duplo Prison which they had created on several large green Duplo base plates. They had named it Eyeball Prison, because of several Duplo eyeball pieces which adorned the roof.

They made him carefully wash the minifigs in the kitchen sink, en transport to their new prison digs.

Trilll returned to his Island Prison sometime around dusk, nonplussed at the escape of his Prison Island Prison prisoners. In order to console himself, he ate a potato bug, and a small worm. He was retrieved by Mr. Runagates at around dusk. In some sort of fitting revenge, he was rather unceremoniously turned into a giant spider by Jeff, right before bedtime.