The Leprechaun Who Wished He Wasn't

by Siobhán Parkinson

  Laurence thought this was a terrible waste. ‘What about all the words you would never think of looking up? You might never find out about them at all! No, no. That’s a very bad way to use a dictionary,’ he said. ‘I’m going to start at the beginning and read it all right through to the end.’

  So he started at the letter A and every day he read a page or two.

  Before long, he had got to the letter G.

  And there he found a word that really interested him.

  ‘I think I’ve found myself a new career,’ he announced to Phoebe that evening.

  ‘Well?’ said Phoebe. ‘Go on. What is it?’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘Hmm … for a person such as yourself. For a very, very small person.’

  ‘If you want to put it so unkindly, yes,’ said Laurence haughtily. ‘And of a certain character and background.’

  ‘Let me see. An elf? A pixie? A gnome? That’s it! You’d make quite a nice garden gnome, you know. You could sit by someone’s pond all day and fish.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, child,’ said Laurence. ‘Garden gnomes are slightly more awful even than leprechauns. No.

  My new career is much more modern than that.’

  ‘Well, what then? A TV announcer?’

  ‘No. Guess again.’

  ‘A waiter?’ Phoebe was guessing wildly. ‘A tax inspector? A bee-keeper? A fireman?’

  ‘The bee-keeping idea isn’t bad,’ said Laurence. ‘Maybe I’ll keep that in reserve. But I’m going to be a gremlin.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A gremlin,’ said Laurence. ‘Isn’t that a good idea?’

  ‘Emm, is that something in Russia?’ asked Phoebe.

  ‘Russia? No. You can be a gremlin anywhere,’ said Laurence. ‘That’s the beauty of it, you see.’

  ‘I see,’ said Phoebe, though in fact she didn’t see at all. ‘Do you need special training?’

  ‘No. That won’t be necessary,’ said Laurence. ‘Being a leprechaun for almost eleven hundred years should be enough. You see, to be a good gremlin you have to be as difficult, as awkward and as troublesome as possible. I think I have all the necessary skills.’

  For once, Phoebe didn’t argue. ‘Oh, well,’ she said, ‘if it makes you happy, whatever it is …’

  The very next morning, Phoebe’s father’s alarm clock went off at four o’clock. It was still dark. But as he was very sleepy, Phoebe’s father didn’t even notice.

  He stumbled out of bed, wriggled into his office clothes, knotted his beastly office tie, and went down to the kitchen to make breakfast.

  Then he noticed that nobody else was up yet, so he went back to the foot of the stairs and yelled, ‘Get up, you lazy things! Time for school!’

  And so the whole family got up.

  ‘How come it’s still dark?’ asked Phoebe’s brother, as he ate his cornflakes.

  ‘That’s because it’s so early,’ said Phoebe’s father looking at the kitchen clock. ‘After all it’s only … HALF PAST FOUR IN THE MORNING! Good grief! What happened to my alarm clock? Phoebe! Have you been messing with it again?’ And her dad rushed out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Sure enough, the alarm was set for four o’clock.

  ‘Don’t you ever touch my clock again, Phoebe,’ warned her father as they all went back to bed to snatch a few more hours of sleep.

  ‘But I never … ‘said Phoebe, yawning.

  And that was only the start of it. Over the next few weeks, things went mysteriously wrong in Phoebe’s household.

  Her mother put some potatoes in the microwave one day, and came back to find them smouldering and hissing. When she took them out, one of them actually burst into flames!

  ‘Have you been fiddling with the microwave, Phoebe?’ asked her mother. ‘Honestly, you’re a fire hazard.’

  ‘I didn’t touch it!’ said Phoebe. ‘Why’re you blaming me?’

  Another day, Phoebe’s brother turned on his computer to play a game of chess, only to find that all the pieces were kings! All thirty-two of them! ‘Phoe-be!’ he yelled.

  ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t, it wasn’t,’ cried Phoebe. How come she was getting the blame for everything? That’s what comes of being the youngest.

  Now Phoebe was a smart kid, and it wasn’t long before she began to realise that all these things had started to happen since Laurence had been around. Mischief. That’s what leprechauns were good at.

  This needed investigation! Phoebe marched to her bedroom and took her school dictionary off the bookshelf.

  Laurence peered out of his doll’s front door. (He still hadn’t grown much, though he’d certainly got plumper since he’d started sharing Phoebe’s food.)

  ‘What are you looking up?’ he asked.

  ‘Gremlin,’ said Phoebe grimly. And then she read out what it said: Mischievous sprite that interferes with machines such as computers, telephones or televisions, and makes them go mysteriously wrong.

  ‘So it was you, Laurence. This is your famous career! You’ve been gremling around the house, haven’t you, and I’ve been getting the blame.’

  ‘Me?’ said Laurence.

  ‘Oh come on, Laurence, admit it.’

  ‘Well, all right. I have. But wasn’t it fun!’ Laurence’s eyes were shining. ‘There you all were, having your breakfast at half past four in the morning! It was so funny! And you should have seen your brother’s face when he tried …’

  ‘Laurence!’ snapped Phoebe. ‘This just won’t do. You’ve been getting me into heaps of trouble, and now you’re making it worse by laughing! Oh, you are a nasty little … a nasty little … a nasty little leprechaun!’

  ‘Ooh, don’t say that, don’t say that,’ Laurence pleaded.

  ‘I will,’ said Phoebe. ‘You’re just not being fair.’

  ‘Fair?’ said Laurence, puzzled. ‘What has that got to do with it?’

  ‘Look, Laurence,’ said Phoebe. ‘You think being human has to do with size. Well, it hasn’t. It has to do with things like playing fair and sticking by your friends and not getting other people into trouble.’

  ‘Has it?’ asked Laurence in surprise. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite sure,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘Oh,’ said Laurence, feeling extra small all of a sudden. How was he ever going to get to be human?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A Golden Opportunity

  ‘Where do you go when you disappear?’ Phoebe asked Laurence one day.

  ‘Nowhere,’ he said.

  ‘But you must be somewhere,’ she argued.

  ‘I’m there all right,’ said Laurence. ‘But you can’t see me.’

  ‘You mean you’re invisible?’

  ‘No. I can see me, so I can’t be invisible. Disappearing has to do with making people believe I’m not there. Seeing is believing. Not believing is not seeing.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Phoebe. ‘You make it sound worse than grammar. And that’s the very worst thing. Except for long division of course. Long division is the very, very worst thing in the whole world.’

  ‘Anyway, why do you want to know about disappearing?’ asked Laurence.

  ‘Well, I’d like to learn how to do it,’ said Phoebe. ‘Or at least how to partly do it.’

  ‘What do you mean, partly?’ asked Laurence.

  ‘I want to make some of me disappear. There’s too much of me, you see. If I could get rid of some of it, there’d be less.’

  ‘Are we talking about being thin again?’ asked Laurence.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘Have you tried dieting?’

  ‘My mother says I’m too young to diet. I tell her I’m big enough, but she says it’s not the same thing.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean serious dieting like eating only grapefruits for a month. I mean just not eating sticky buns and milkshakes and chocolate bars and cherry log and chocolate mousse with whipped cream and slabs of toffee with roasted almonds in them and big fat chips with tomato ketchup and baked Alaska an
d sherry trifle and ice-cream sundaes and …’

  ‘Of course I haven’t,’ said Phoebe. ‘Life wouldn’t be worth living!’

  ‘How right you are!’ said Laurence. ‘You’re a more sensible girl than you seem at times.’

  ‘So will you teach me to disappear?’ asked Phoebe.

  ‘I don’t think I can,’ said Laurence. ‘It’s like being able to sing or being able to see colours. You either are or you’re not. You can’t learn it. If someone is tone-deaf or colour-blind, they just have to live with it.’

  ‘Do you think it’s something only leprechauns are able to do?’

  ‘Yes, I think maybe that’s it,’ said Laurence.

  ‘So being a leprechaun is quite useful sometimes?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Laurence reluctantly. ‘But being huming is very nice too. Humings are cool.’

  ‘Not fat ones,’ said Phoebe sadly.

  Laurence tactfully changed the subject. ‘Let’s get on with our Irish lessons,’ he said.

  But Phoebe wasn’t listening. ‘My Uncle Joe is coming to stay with us tomorrow,’ she announced. ‘He’s American. What do you think of that?’

  ‘A Murrican?’ said Laurence. ‘Hmm.’ Now I wonder, he thought to himself, what kind of trick could I play on a Murrican?

  Uncle Joe arrived the next day. He was very tall and thin, not a bit like a normal American. But he did have three suitcases, check trousers and a very loud voice.

  ‘You’re just cute, honey,’ he said to Phoebe, pinching her plump cheeks.

  Nobody had ever called Phoebe cute before. She wasn’t sure if she liked it.

  Now, Uncle Joe is a very nice man, I am sure. But he did wear everyone out. He wanted to buy lots of green cardigans and jumpers, because he thought that was what you did in Ireland.

  ‘We wear other colours too,’ Phoebe tried explaining to him.

  ‘Yes, but real Irish sweaters are green,’ insisted Uncle Joe.

  ‘Well, Aran sweaters aren’t,’ said Phoebe. ‘They’re made of báinín, which actually means white.’

  Uncle Joe didn’t seem to understand.

  He asked Phoebe to show him some shamrock.

  ‘We only have it on St Patrick’s day,’ said Phoebe. ‘The rest of the year we have roses and lilies and carnations and delphiniums like everyone else.’

  Uncle Joe was disappointed. ‘I suppose the next thing you’ll say is that you have no leprechauns either.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Phoebe, pleased to be able to give him some good news. ‘We have those all right.’

  ‘Hey!’ said Uncle Joe. ‘Have you ever actually seen one?’

  ‘Of course I have,’ said Phoebe coolly.

  ‘Go on!’ said Uncle Joe. ‘A real live leprechaun? Did you get his crock of gold?’

  ‘Oh, that’s only a story. They don’t have any gold,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘Did the leprechaun tell you that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’ said Uncle Joe.

  ‘But this leprechaun is different!’ said Phoebe. ‘This leprechaun is my Best Friend.’

  When Laurence heard this (he was hiding in Phoebe’s pocket), he got a very strange feeling all up his back. He was somebody’s Best Friend, and he hadn’t even tried to be!

  ‘Oh, go on!’ said Uncle Joe again. ‘I don’t believe a word of it!’ And he gave a very loud laugh.

  ‘He is, he is,’ insisted Phoebe tearfully.

  Laurence, inside her pocket, was beginning to get worried. Was she going to fish him out? And sure enough, before you could say begobs and begorrah, Phoebe had grabbed him by the feet and yanked him out of her pocket.

  Quick as a flash, Laurence disappeared.

  ‘Look!’ exclaimed Phoebe, waving Laurence at Uncle Joe.

  ‘Look at what?’ asked Uncle Joe, for of course he could see nothing.

  ‘Oh!’ said Phoebe, looking at her fingers and realising there was nothing there. ‘He must have disappeared!’

  And she burst into tears, partly because she was disappointed that she couldn’t show off her leprechaun to her uncle, and partly because she realised that she really shouldn’t have tried to produce Laurence without his permission.

  Now when Laurence heard how upset Phoebe sounded, he made a very brave decision. She was his Best Friend after all. He reappeared, right there in front of Uncle Joe’s eyes!

  ‘Hey!’ said Uncle Joe, amazed. ‘But he’s wearing denims! He can’t be a proper leprechaun.’

  ‘Well, you’re wearing a tam o’shanter,’ said Laurence. ‘You can’t be a proper Murrican.’

  ‘This?’ said Uncle Joe, feeling his head. ‘This is my Irish cap.’

  ‘Raiméis,’ said Laurence. ‘Everyone knows those are Scottish!’

  ‘Oh really, are they?’ said Uncle Joe, so concerned about his headgear that he forgot to be surprised that he was having a conversation with a leprechaun.

  Well, the long and the short of it was that Uncle Joe wanted to take Laurence back to America with him.

  ‘You’d have a wonderful time,’ he assured Laurence. ‘You’d be famous, a celebrity. You’d be a TV star. Coast-to-coast. You might even get a part in a movie. Oh my, it would be splendid. You could have a brilliant career.’

  ‘Go on, go on!’ said Laurence eagerly. ‘I’d be famous, would I?’

  ‘Oh yes, indeed. The country would go wild for you. They might even want to make you president! A real Irish leprechaun. Unbelievable!’

  Laurence came down to earth with a bang. ‘Unbelievable? I’d be unbelievable, would I?’

  ‘Oh, absolutely,’ agreed Uncle Joe eagerly.

  ‘Well, thank you very much, your honour,’ said Laurence, giving a stiff little bow. ‘But you know, I can be unbelievable right here in Ireland.’

  And with that, he sat down comfortably in Phoebe’s hand and closed his eyes, and politely but firmly refused to have anything more to do with the conversation.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Happy Ending

  ‘I’m so sorry for showing you off to Uncle Joe,’ said Phoebe to Laurence later. ‘I know I shouldn’t have done it without asking you first. You were a real friend to un-disappear yourself like that, and not leave me looking like a right eejit.’

  ‘Well, you were a right eejit,’ said Laurence, ‘but I couldn’t disgrace you like that in front of that Murrican, now could I? After all, we’re Best Friends, aren’t we?’

  ‘Why did you decide not to go to America?’ asked Phoebe. ‘It sounded like you could have a great time.’

  ‘Well,’ said Laurence. ‘I don’t think I would like to be a media leprechaun. I’d have to be even more leprechaunish than ever, for a start. And I’ve been going to such trouble to be less like a leprechaun. And then, of course, I have a Best Friend here in Ireland.’

  ‘You know, Laurence,’ said Phoebe, ‘you’re a very nice leprechaun, really, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Laurence. ‘And I see now that I’m never going to be anything else but a leprechaun. I can’t seem to grow at all, and there’s no point in trying to be a huming being, just to be cool. There are lots of very uncool huming beings.’

  ‘Like Uncle Joe,’ laughed Phoebe. ‘And Laurence, have you noticed how thin Uncle Joe is? Thin, but not very hip.’

  Laurence nodded. That was just what he thought.

  ‘Oh Laurence,’ went on Phoebe, ‘wait till you see the fabulous outfit my sister has got me for the wedding. Velvet trousers and a jacket and a big floppy hat. No frills at all! I’m going to look great.’

  And she did. Perfectly splendid. Not in the least like a hippopotamus. And Laurence sewed on some new buttons for her that made her outfit look even more splendid still.

  And they went on being Best Friends for a very long time indeed. Laurence never went back to live with the leprechauns, but he was quite happy to be a leprechaun in the human world, as long as they didn’t put him on the television. And in time, h
e became quite a human sort of leprechaun.

  Oh yes, and Laurence finally admitted to Phoebe that he really did have a crock of gold, and they were able to use some of it to have a nice holiday and buy some presents for Phoebe’s family, and still have some left over for Phoebe to live on when she grew up.

  About the Author

  SIOBHÁN PARKINSON is the author of several books for young readers. She lives in Dublin with her woodturner husband, Roger, and son, Matthew, who acts as her personal critic and proofreader. Her primary interests are reading and writing, and she also sings in a choir (very quietly, in case she is found out!).

  OTHER BOOKS BY SIOBHÁN PARKINSON

  For younger readers

  All Shining in the Spring

  Cows are Vegetarians

  Animals Don’t Have Ghosts

  For older readers

  Amelia

  No Peace for Amelia

  Sisters … No Way!

  Four Kids, Three Cats, Two Cows, One Witch (maybe)

  The Moon King

  Call of the Whales

  The Love Bean

  Breaking the Wishbone

  Copyright

  This eBook edition first published 2012 by The O’Brien Press Ltd,

  12 Terenure Road East, Rathgar, Dublin 6, Ireland

  Tel: +353 1 4923333; Fax: +353 1 4922777

  E-mail: books@obrien.ie

  Website: www.obrien.ie

  First published 1993

  eBook ISBN: 978–1–84717–500–7

  Copyright for text © Siobhán Parkinson

  Copyright for editing, typesetting, layout, design © The O’Brien Press Ltd

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