by Brenda Elser
Lauren helped Eva and Reese get to their feet, bringing up the rear and steadying Eva when she threatened to bring Reese down with her. Robert led the way, gliding slowly, unconcerned that the guards might stop them. He guided them toward the cracked wall and stopped them just in front. Turning to the girls and giving them a confident nod, he raised his palm and blew an expansive puff of Luck onto the wall’s surface. Looking sheepish he said, “What? So I kept a little back.”
His Golden Luck painted the wall thickly and the children watched for any sign of its collapse. Robert had used up all of his Luck, and now stood expectantly, hoping he hadn’t made a big mistake.
Reese held herself at the ready, in case they needed some luck... like maybe suddenly finding a solid umbrella to shield them from falling granite.
Silence.
“What exactly did you wish?” Eva wisecracked. “Because if it was for ‘three of my friends to stare at a Golden wall’ then you are brilliant.”
Robert shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he said. “I wished for the wall to open up so we could get out.”
“I keep telling you, Luck isn’t like wishes,” Reese said. “Sometimes you have to put a little work into it. Sometimes the harder you work the Luckier you get.” She winked, bringing her fist to the wall and giving it a little knock.
They glanced nervously toward the guards again, but the wax men were still focused on Diva’s last command, ignoring them altogether. The children shrugged at each other and continued to watch the wall. A large crack appeared, spreading more quickly with each knock, crackling and splitting into two veins in a large “V.”
The house groaned and shuddered, and now they began to pound the stone in the center of the two cracks until, finally, each crack met the ground in a rumble. The stone in the middle crumbled and fell away, opening up a large triangular door to the outside.
“Nice Job, Hero!” Reese grinned.
Robert blushed and grinned back.
“Freedom!” Lauren squealed, clapping her hands, and missing the reference to Robert’s new middle name.
“Now, come on!” Eva shouted. “We better get going before…”
The doors to the room flew open, knocking the wax men into a heap. “Before what?” Diva said, stalking into the shuddering room with her fists clenched at her sides.
14. The Domino Effect
Eva dove for the newly-made door and scrambled over the rubble of rocks with her friends right behind. They sprung to the ground outside the fallen wall and landed with a hard jolt.
“Oh, no! Our backpacks!” Robert cried.
Reese leapt up and shouted, “I’ll go back for them. You stay here!”
“No, Reese, we can’t let you go back in there alone!” Lauren wailed.
“I’ll be fine,” she said holding up her arms. “Look, I’ve still got all my Luck left. Diva’s no match for me – we’ve drained her pool, remember?” She gave them the thumbs up and turned to Lauren. “Your friends have done some pretty heroic things to rescue you. I’ve never had friends like that before.”
Lauren nodded, understanding what Reese was unable to explain: They were all in this together now. Friends for life – in Leprechaun years or human years – they would do anything to keep each other safe.
Reese patted Lauren’s shoulder and mouthed thank you, before turning to scramble back up the cracked granite boulders, leaving the others holding hands and fretting.
“What are you doing??” Diva yelled at her wax guards, pointing behind her to the hole Reese now peeped through, just out of eyesight. “I told you not to let them escape!”
“You tollld us nottt to lettt themmm through thisss doorrr… Wwwe haven’t,” mumbled the guard in charge of the door.
“Sheee tolddd me to unnn-chain theeese guyyys…” said another. Reese strained to understand their gummy voices. It was the first time she’d heard them say more than a couple words, and she found them very hard to understand.
“IDIOTS! Do I have to spell out every little instruction? I want the children as my prisoners. Prisoners! Don’t let them get away!”
“Ohhh... Of courrrse Mmmistress!” the wax guard burbled, and they all staggered into action, moving right past Reese, who had flattened her back against the wall in an effort to get out of their way.
“Why is it so hard to find good villain help these days?” Diva grumbled, shaking her head at the sight of more guards scattered around on the floor lying on top of one another with arms and legs everywhere. The house moaned again, and Diva yelped, gathering her skirt and tiptoeing carefully away from the hole in her wall.
“You there! On the ground! After those children!” she cried, backing toward the safety of the doorway, where the flying rubble had not yet begun to spread. (Of course, even Diva knew that in an earthquake, a doorway is the safest place to be!)
Reese knew she’d better get through the door to retrieve the backpacks before the guards started pouring through, or they’d clog the only entrance she now stood a chance of reaching. Diva was too distracted with the ruin of her home to notice that the children had left their very important belongings behind.
Distracted… Wait, Reese thought. That gives me an idea. As the wax guards began to reassemble themselves in more or less orderly fashion, Reese lifted her wrist and blew a gentle puff of Luck toward the back of the room. There, where Diva stood trembling (with anger or fear – or a combination of both – Reese couldn’t tell) appeared a spectacularly glittering gem about the size of a large fist.
“Hello, what is this?” Diva said, noticing the glint. Stepping closer toward it with eager outstretched fingers, Diva fairly squealed with delight. “Oooh! What Luck! Maybe this little housequake isn’t such a bad thing! It seems to have unearthed this charming…” Diva grunted as her fingers pried at the stone, “… beauty of an… emerald!” She sucked in her breath and nearly swooned as she pulled at the gem.
Reese crept into the room while she had her chance. Gliding awkwardly toward the backpacks, she extended her arms, this served to both steady herself and to help reach the supplies.
Diva had forgotten the wax men altogether, as she had now popped the gemstone out of its spot in the wall and was crooning over it as if it was her own infant. “Ooh, yes yes yes, my pretty little one. Who loves you, precious? Who loves you? Mommy loves you,” she cooed in a baby voice that made Reese roll her eyes.
With Diva occupied, Reese silently snagged the backpacks and turned to cautiously skate toward the broken doorway. But the guards had finally managed to untangle themselves and get into formation, and when they began marching toward Reese, she froze in terror.
However, they did not seem to even see her as they shuffled forward on their single-minded mission, and even though she was fully prepared to use additional Luck Dust, the guards merely parted and marched around her.
Shaking her head in confusion Reese, turned and skated for all she was worth. She still had a chance to make it through the doorway ahead of the guards. As she glided forward, she realized she was going to have to push through them in order to escape. Panting and slipping, she built up speed and pushed the wax man in front of her, running across his body when he fell, and bursting through the line of blob men. She popped through the hole in the wall clutching the backpacks and landed just in front of the mass of guards, who continued to ignore her as they began pouring out of the house like sap from a tree.
At the top of the wall, Reese jostled the backpacks and grabbed a couple of rocks. Careful not to disturb the pile of granite that was her way down, she stepped lightly, balancing the supplies and using her elbows to descend. “You guys!” she shouted over the side. The children’s eyes were wide in horror as globs of wax seemed to be oozing arms and legs from the hole in the tooth.
“Catch these!” Reese set the rocks down and tossed the backpacks to them.
They grabbed their packs and began to scramble away as Reese turned and pelted the guards that had already begun to pass h
er. “Take that!” She threw the first rock and watched it sink into the back of a guard’s wax body, causing him to lose his balance and fall into another. Soon other guards were tripping over the fallen brown blobs in a domino effect.
The children stopped to watch as Reese launched another stone. It landed square in the middle of another guard’s back, sticking there, and knocking him off his feet.
None of the guards turned to see where the source of this ambush was coming from, so Reese scooped up several more rocks. By now she was taking them out so quickly that the children decided to take a seat on the clover-filled lawn so they could watch and cheer her on. In fact, Reese, growing winded, decided to alter her plan of attack, and merely walked over to the line of guards snaking from the hole in the tooth and began tripping them.
They continued to ignore her, falling over each other in succession, while Reese clowned around for her cheer squad. “Whoopsie daisy!” she shouted, pushing the next guard that popped out of the entrance. The children laughed and clapped loudly as each guard toppled.
“Why aren’t they capturing you?” Eva shouted as another brown blob landed in the heap.
“I just figured that out myself!” Reese shouted back. “Diva told them to go get the children. I’m a Leprechaun!” She jigged and bowed, sticking out her tongue at the next wax guard. “Watch this!” She stuck out her foot, and the wax man, who kept right on walking in his pursuit of the children, tumbled over mindlessly.
“I don’t think she’s going to let us go so easily! Leave the rest and run!” Lauren shouted as Diva, who had finally put down her precious gem, climbed out over the house wreckage.
“You horrible children! Look what you’ve done to my home! You will pay for this with your baby teeth!” She shook her fist at them. “I will peel the Luck you stole from me off your bones!”
Eva launched a sizeable stone at the wax guard standing next to Diva, causing him to stumble and fall backward into the screaming former Tooth Fairy, knocking them both over and giving Reese time to run and join the others.
“You idiot! Get off me and get them!” Diva screeched and slapped at the blob on top of her.
“Alll of themmm?”
“Of course! What did you think I meant?” she shrieked.
“That one iss a Leppprechaunnn. You sssaid it yourrrselfff.”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” Diva pounded her fists against the ground. “Yes! Yes! Capture all of them!”
The children’s eyes widened; they would no longer be able to play any tricks, as Diva had given very precise orders the sticky guards now understood. Quickly they oozed into formation and were now streaming forward in a dangerous battle line.
“How many do you think there are?” Robert shouted, hugging his backpack and leaping to his feet.
“Enough to completely absorb us in their goo!” Reese shouted. “Now run!”
The friends sped away, stumbling over mossy rocks and slippery grass.
“Where are we going?” Lauren puffed as they ran.
“We should try to get back to town. They wouldn’t dare go there once the other Leprechauns know she’s been stealing our Luck!” Reese huffed.
They struggled up the hill leading back to the marked Tournament trail. When Eva looked behind them and saw even more wax guards pouring out of the broken wall from below, an idea occurred to her.
“Wait, wait!” she panted when they were halfway up the slope. “Robert, give me the water bottle you filled with Luck.”
“What are you going to do? You have plenty of your own Luck left,” he gasped, stopping to slide his backpack off and retrieve the Golden water bottle.
“I’m just going to give us a little more time to escape,” she grinned. She pulled off her backpack and pulled out a small Official Junior Detective Magnifying Glass. It was among her prized possessions, and she had spent long hours completing many Junior Detective questionnaires in order to win it. “Every good detective has a magnifying glass.”
“We aren’t looking for clues,” Lauren wheezed, leaning on her knees to catch her breath. (Even though she didn’t think running was very ladylike, based on their recent adventures, she was beginning to reconsider her stance on exercise.)
“I think we can melt the guards,” Eva said with a grin. “The glass will magnify the heat of the sun and turn them to blobs! Melted blobs, I mean...”
“That’s very evil genius of you, but it’s just too small,” Robert shook his head.
“I know… But with a little… well a lot of Luck,” she shook the water bottle, “we can get more heat.” Eva grinned at him and turned to face the wax guards. She leaned down, pushed the handle of the magnifying glass into the ground and stood back.
“Hurry, Eva! They’re coming up the hill faster now,” Reese urged.
Eva nodded and opened the Golden bottle. She tipped it toward the magnifier as if pouring water, and blew on the sparkles as they emptied onto the lens and grass.
The guards barely paused as the ground rumbled beneath them, continuing their march toward the children, even as the magnifying glass and the grass around it began to grow on the hill above. When the magnifier had grown large enough that the children could hide behind it, the guard’s slow, waxy minds did not quite know what to make of this new development. They had not received instructions about giant magnifiers, so they just stopped dead in their tracks and stared at what they currently saw. The creatures before them now looked enormous through the great magnifying lens.
In the distance Diva shouted instructions, but she could not be heard over the rumbling of falling granite. The children saw she had picked up her skirts and was now trying to rush ahead, but her fancy dress and heels seemed to be slowing her down.
“Help me turn this,” Eva said, wrapping her arms around the giant handle. The others leapt forward to help. “On the count of three, we turn it a little to the left to catch the sun! One! Two! Threee!”
They each held tight, slowly turning the glass until Eva shouted, “Stop!”
The effect was immediate. The sunlight caught the massive magnifying glass and produced a beam of heat down the hill. But the persistent wax men did not notice this new burst of warmth and light. What they saw was the children (and Leprechaun) had suddenly returned, so they resumed their journey up the hill, only to discover the effort was much harder without feet. Their bodies began drooping; their legs were the first to melt. Then the tan lumpy mass of their bodies began to spread into waxy pools, and when one melting guard touched another they stuck together and formed a single sticky mass.
This didn’t seem to bother them a bit. In fact, they sighed gentle ‘ahhhs’ and ‘ohhhhs’ as they slowly dissolved across the rocks.
Unfortunately for them, Diva must have been yelling “Get them!” or “Charge!” because the guards rushing out of the house continued marching up the hill directly into the path of the giant ray of heat, where they too suffered the same fate as the guards before them.
“Stop! Stop, you idiots! Can’t you think enough for yourselves that you don’t run straight into your doom?!”
Eva laughed. She was pleased that she had finally been the one to come up with an escape idea and use a tool from her pack.
“My mom always says, ‘If Bobby jumped off the Empire State Building, would you do it too?’” Robert laughed. “Maybe this is what she meant.”
“Uh, I’m not sure what an ‘Empire State Building’ is, but you’re probably right,” Reese nodded.
Just then they heard a thunderous noise erupt. “Uh oh!” Eva gasped, pointing to the stone house in the distance. “Looks like we made it out just in time!”
The crack in the stone tooth castle had finally given way and the house was completely breaking apart. Large stones fell inward, crushing the lovely interior. Some slid across the lawn in an avalanche toward Diva and the remaining wax guards at the bottom of the hill.
“My castle….” Diva cried, turning to the children and giving them the evil eye
. “Ohhh! This isn’t over! I will see you again! And very soon!” She reached into the bodice of her gown and brought out a small vial of Golden Luck.
“Look out!” Lauren shouted, pulling her friends to the ground.
But instead of using the Luck on them, Diva opened the vial and blew it on herself. It glimmered and settled on her in a cloud. Then she disappeared with a ‘pop!’ leaving behind only a puff of Golden Dust that settled to the ground like spent fireworks.
“Oh, my,” Lauren worried, looking around them. “She just disappeared into thin air… Do you think she’s gone?”
“You heard her,” Robert replied, slinging his backpack onto his shoulder and turning to hurry up the rest of the hill. “She isn’t gone for good, and I don’t think we should hang around any longer to find out what she meant by ‘very soon.’”
The girls nodded to each other and hurried after him.
15. Color Balls
When they reached the top of the hill, the children took a breath and looked around. They had a good view of the land and were able to get their bearings, though Lauren couldn’t help looking back toward the remains of the house in case any of the wax guards were still coming for them… Or if Diva suddenly showed up, which, given their history, wasn’t entirely implausible...
“Look!” Reese pointed. “The Tournament trail flags are down there by the woods! And one of the contestants is coming!”
They yelled and waved their arms, and when he got close enough to hear them, he looked up. They all stopped and stared in stunned silence. It was O’Sweeney. It looked as though half his bright red hair had been shaved off and he had large green bumps covering his chest and face. He stared at them for a moment before cackling, “Almost there. Yessir. Almost there, I am.” He stuck his finger in his nose and when he pulled it out, he held it in the air. “North wind. Yessir. North wind.” Then, with a twitch in his eye, he slapped at a bug that wasn’t there and rushed on down the path.
