The Leprechaun Who Wished He Wasn't Read online

  The Leprechaun Who Wished He Wasn’t

  ‘A story that will extend the imagination

  of the reader’

  The Leinster Leader

  ‘Lavishly illustrated … ideal … for young readers’

  The Longford Leader

  ‘A brilliant adventure story’

  The Offaly Topic

  To my father

  Contents

  Review

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE: Two Wishes

  CHAPTER TWO: A Cool Dude

  CHAPTER THREE: A Gremlin in the Works

  CHAPTER FOUR: A Golden Opportunity

  CHAPTER FIVE: A Happy Ending

  About the Author

  OTHER BOOKS BY SIOBHÁN PARKINSON

  Copyright

  Other Books

  For ‘Murricans’ and Other Aliens

  amadán: fool, idiot, half-wit (pronounced omodhaun)

  báinín: a whitish (undyed) wool or woollen material, part of traditional Irish dress (pronounced bawneen)

  begobs and begorrah: words that people think Irish people say

  buachallán: ragwort. There is a folk tale about a leprechaun who buried his crock of gold under a buachallán, a very good hiding place, as every Irish meadow is full of them (pronounced booakallaun)

  eejit: an Irish way of saying ‘idiot’

  ogham: a script consisting of small lines drawn at various angles to a central vertical line, used in ancient Ireland for marking runes on stones (pronounced ogum)

  raiméis: rubbish, nonsense (pronounced rawmaysh)

  CHAPTER ONE

  Two Wishes

  Laurence was fed up with being a leprechaun.

  He was tired of sitting under a boring old rainbow, guarding a mouldy old crock of gold and making endless shoes.

  He wanted to be a human being.

  And besides, he longed to have a Best Friend. But nobody is ever Best Friends with a leprechaun. Leprechauns spend all their time tricking people and laughing wickedly and stealing things and not letting people have their crocks of gold.

  If he wanted to have a Best Friend, Laurence would have to REFORM HIS CHARACTER. But first, he had to get bigger. That was why, on this summer’s morning, he was doing his stretching exercises in the sunshine. Regular exercises would surely bring him up to the right height to pass for a small boy. And he was practising his English very hard too.

  The other leprechauns jeered. ‘You’ll snap in the middle one day,’ they growled, ‘and that will be the end of you. Leprechauns aren’t supposed to be tall. Anyway, what’s wrong with being a leprechaun?’

  ‘It’s too corny,’ explained Laurence. ‘It’s just not cool. All the really hip people are huming beings.’

  The others didn’t agree.

  ‘Well, name one hip person who’s a leprechaun,’ Laurence said. But of course they couldn’t.

  Laurence had marked out a watch-yourself-grow chart on a buachallán. He’d marked it in centimetres, because it’s much more encouraging to watch yourself grow in centimetres than in inches.

  He was just standing very still up against the stem of the buachallán, holding his breath and concentrating on being a centimetre taller, when a huge shadow fell across the field.

  Laurence shivered with cold. He wondered where the sun had gone. What could have happened?

  He came out from under the buachallán, looked up towards the sky and straight into a pair of very large grey eyes, with long brown lashes, and pudgy pink cheeks under them.

  Oops! He was cornered.

  Now the one thing a leprechaun dreads is being spotted by a human being. It usually means having to cough up a crock of gold.

  ‘Good morning.’ Laurence grinned hopefully at the owner of the eyes.

  ‘What’s good about it?’

  ‘I didn’t say it was a good morning,’ said Laurence. ‘I just wished you one. It’s not the same thing.’

  ‘Humph,’ said the fat girl sourly and sat down with a bump that made the buachallán tremble. ‘Anyway,’ she went on, ‘leprechauns aren’t supposed to say Good morning. They’re supposed to say Top o’ the mornin’.’

  ‘Raiméis!’ (This was Laurence’s favourite word.) ‘You’ve been reading too many silly books about leprechauns. And who says I’m a leprechaun?’

  ‘Well, if you’re not, you’re a mighty strange-looking whatever-it-is-that-you’re-supposed-to-be.’

  ‘Well, I’m not a leprechaun,’ said Laurence stoutly. ‘I’m huming. Just like you.’

  ‘Have it your own way. What’s your name? Mine’s Phoebe.’

  ‘Phoebe!’ said Laurence. ‘Phoebe! What sort of a name is that?’

  ‘You shouldn’t be rude about people’s names,’ said Phoebe primly. ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Laurence.’

  Now, Laurence’s name was really Larry, but he thought that sounded too leprechaunish altogether, so he’d changed it to Laurence. That had a definite human ring to it.

  ‘Huh! That proves it!’ said Phoebe.

  ‘That proves what?’

  ‘That you really are a leprechaun. All leprechauns are called Laurence.’

  ‘No, they’re not. They’re mostly called Larry, actually.’

  ‘Same difference. Laurence is long for Larry.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Or at least,’ went on Phoebe thoughtfully, ‘Larry is short for Laurence, which comes to the same thing. What age are you? I’m eleven.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Laurence. ‘Eleven hundred next birthday.’

  ‘Oh you big fibber!’

  Big! She’d called him big! Laurence swelled up importantly. ‘Am I?’ he asked, delighted.

  ‘Yes, of course you are. You must be fibbing, because nobody can live to be eleven hundred. Unless … unless … unless they’re a leprechaun, of course.’

  ‘But I’m not eleven hundred yet. Not for another month. I’m still only one thousand and ninety-nine.’

  ‘And eleven months,’ added Phoebe. ‘Same difference though. You’re way too old to be a human being.’

  ‘Well, OK, OK, perhaps I am a leprechaun then,’ Laurence admitted. ‘But that doesn’t mean I have a crock of gold!’

  Phoebe stretched out her plump legs. ‘That’s what they all say. Anyway, I don’t want your crummy old crock of gold.’

  Now Laurence had been brought up to believe that human beings are always on the lookout for crocks of gold. But here was his first-ever human being and she didn’t want one!

  ‘I’d much rather have three wishes,’ Phoebe went on. ‘Even one wish would do, actually. You don’t happen to know any wishing-fairies, do you?’

  Laurence shook his head. ‘No such thing.’

  ‘Are you sure? I thought that if there are leprechauns, there’d surely be wishing-fairies too.’

  ‘No,’ said Laurence firmly. ‘At least, I don’t know any.’

  ‘That’s really too bad,’ said Phoebe crossly. ‘Can you do magic?’

  ‘A bit,’ said Laurence cautiously.

  ‘What can you do?’

  ‘I can disappear,’ boasted Laurence.

  ‘Well, that’s not much use, is it?’

  ‘I suppose not,’ agreed Laurence sadly.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘No,’ said Laurence in a small voice. ‘Sorry. You make me sound quite useless.’

  ‘Well, you are a bit. It’s a shame you can’t grant me any wishes. Have you got a wish?’

  ‘Of course I have. I wish I wasn’t a leprechaun. I wish I was taller. Tall enough to be a huming being.’

  ‘Isn’t it nice being a leprechaun?
’

  ‘No, it isn’t. It’s awful. But what’s your dearest wish?’ Laurence asked.

  ‘Well,’ began Phoebe, ‘do you promise not to tell anyone else?’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  ‘Well, then,’ Phoebe confided, ‘I wish I was thin!’

  ‘THIN!’ exclaimed Laurence. ‘THIN! What on earth do you want to be thin for?’ That was the daftest wish he’d ever heard.

  ‘They’re all thinner than me at school,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘Probably,’ said Laurence. ‘But who cares about that? Who wants to be like everyone else?’

  ‘You do, for a start,’ said Phoebe. ‘But you see, the real problem is this. My big sister wants me to be bridesmaid at her wedding this summer, and I look so stupid in frilly dresses! I look like … I look like … a hippopotamus in a tutu!’

  Laurence started to giggle. The giggle turned into a chuckle.

  The chuckle turned into a belly laugh, and before long he was rolling around on the grass with tears streaming down his puckered old cheeks.

  ‘A hippo … a hoppo … a hoppopit … a hippopot … a hippopotamus in a tu … in a tu … in a tutu!’ he roared.

  At last he sat up and took out his handkerchief.

  It was red with large white spots. He gave his nose a good blow.

  ‘Oh just look at your hanky!’ exclaimed Phoebe. Now it was her turn to giggle. ‘It looks just like a handkerchief in a fairy-tale. It’s a very leprechaunish sort of handkerchief!’

  Laurence examined his hanky glumly. ‘Now you see what I mean about being a leprechaun,’ he said. ‘People think I’m ridiculous. Or else they don’t believe in me.’

  ‘Who doesn’t believe in you?’

  ‘Oh, you know – people. Children nowadays are only interested in the ozone layer and computer games. Leprechauns are just too old-fashioned for them. And grown-ups gave up believing in leprechauns years ago. It’s no fun being a leprechaun if you can’t annoy people. And you can’t if they don’t believe in you. I mean, look at you. You’re not even interested in my crock of gold.’

  ‘But you said you hadn’t got a crock of gold,’ said Phoebe.

  ‘No. But if I had, you wouldn’t want it anyway. There’s no fun in not giving people your crock of gold if they don’t want it in the first place.’

  ‘We’re a right pair, aren’t we?’ said Phoebe with a smile. ‘You want to be bigger, and I want to be smaller.’

  Just then, Phoebe’s brother called her for her lunch. It was tuna-fish sandwiches today, her very favourite, and caramel pudding with cream to follow, so she didn’t want to be late.

  ‘Look,’ she whispered. ‘Do you want to sit here moping under this ragwort for the rest of your life, or would you like to come home with me?’

  Laurence’s heart gave a little jump. Go away with a human child! It sounded just the chance he needed to become part of the human world.

  ‘Oh very well,’ he said coolly, ‘I haven’t got anything special on today. I suppose I could give it a try.’

  So Phoebe scooped him up and dropped him into her pocket, and ran off home to lunch.

  Laurence settled in very nicely in Phoebe’s room. At first, he wasn’t too keen on her suggestion that he should live in her doll’s house. He didn’t like the idea of needing a specially small place for himself. He was still hoping to become a proper human being some day.

  ‘There’s always my sock drawer,’ suggested Phoebe.

  But Laurence kept getting lost in the sock drawer, and the fluff from the socks made him sneeze. So in the end he had to settle for the doll’s house after all.

  ‘Don’t tell anyone I’m here,’ he warned Phoebe.

  ‘What? You mean, it has to be a secret? But I want to show you to my friends. They’ve never met a leprechaun.’

  ‘And they never will!’ Laurence screamed, stamping his foot. ‘Never! I’m not having a lot of humings staring at me and asking for my crock of gold. Never! Do you hear? Never! Never!’

  Phoebe was startled. He really was a nasty little fellow. Should she send him back to the buachallán field right now? What was the point in having your own leprechaun if you couldn’t show him off?

  Still, it might be fun. Maybe she could put up with his bad temper for a while anyway.

  ‘Keep your hair on,’ she said. ‘Mum’s the word.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  A Cool Dude

  ‘I really must do something about my wardrobe,’ said Laurence one day, after he had been living with Phoebe for about a week.

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ asked Phoebe, peering into the bedroom of the doll’s house and opening the door of the tiny wardrobe.

  ‘No, not that wardrobe, you amadán,’ said Laurence. ‘I mean my clothes.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say so?’

  ‘I’m just practising using longer words in English,’ Laurence explained. ‘You know, I’ve had these clothes for three hundred years,’ he went on. ‘I think it’s really time I had some new ones. They’re getting a bit tatty.’

  ‘Green jacket, red cap, white owl’s feather.’ Phoebe looked him up and down. ‘And pointy shoes with big shiny buckles. Very nice, but a bit on the shabby side, I agree. And perhaps just a teeny bit old-fashioned. But I haven’t got any doll’s clothes in your size, I’m afraid, and besides all my dolls are girls.’

  ‘Good grief, you amadán, I don’t want dolly clothes! Don’t even think about it!’ snapped Laurence.

  Phoebe was stumped. She couldn’t think of a single shop where they sold leprechaun-sized clothes. Maybe they could get some baby ones and wash and wash them and hope they shrank?

  ‘No, no,’ said Laurence grumpily. ‘You don’t buy leprechaun clothes. You make them.’

  ‘But I can’t sew!’ wailed Phoebe.

  ‘Who said anything about you?’ said Laurence. ‘I’ll make them myself. Now, denim, I think, for the trousers. That’s dead cool, isn’t it? And maybe I’ll have a denim jacket too. And a nice bit of colourful cotton for the shirt. Do you think you could manage that?’

  ‘Please?’ said Phoebe.

  ‘Please,’ added Laurence.

  ‘All right so.’

  Phoebe had a good rummage in her mother’s ragbag and found a piece of red cotton for the shirt. Then she ripped the back pockets off an old pair of jeans.That made two nice big pieces for the jacket and trousers.

  ‘Are you sure you can sew?’ she asked Laurence. Every time she tried sewing, she got blood all over the cloth because she pricked her fingers so often.

  ‘Well, of course I can sew!’ said Laurence crossly. ‘What do you think leprechauns do all day?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue. Polish their gold, I suppose.’

  Laurence thought this might be a trick to make him say that he had a crock of gold, so he ignored it. ‘Why, we sew, of course,’ he said. ‘We sew shoes and boots. Look at my fine shoes. Where would you get a pair of shoes like that in a huming shop?’

  ‘Oh, I forgot that leprechauns are cobblers. But if you can all make shoes, who buys them?’

  ‘Nobody. We don’t sell them. We just wear them. We all make our own shoes and wear them.’

  ‘You spend all day making shoes for yourselves! But there must be thousands of pairs of leprechaun shoes. The countryside must be full of them.’

  Phoebe was imagining mounds of pointy buckled shoes all over the country.

  ‘It is, it is,’ said Laurence proudly. ‘We’re the best shod people in Ireland, so we are. But you see, the thing is, we do a lot of dancing. At the crossroads, usually, or around a fairy ring.’

  ‘Dancing! I didn’t know you liked dancing.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like it actually. In fact, I hate it.’

  ‘But why do you do it, then?’

  ‘To wear out my shoes of course!’ said Laurence, threading his needle. ‘Now, go away and let me get on with my work.’

  And before you could say jigs and reels, Laurence had made hims
elf a brand new mega-cool suit.

  And do you know what he looked like in it? Like a leprechaun in denims, that’s what.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Gremlin in the Works

  ‘I’ll never get the hang of this alphabet,’ moaned Laurence, when Phoebe tried to teach him to read. ‘The letters are such odd shapes.’

  ‘No they’re not,’ said Phoebe. ‘They’re easy. I’ve been able to read since I was six.’

  ‘I used to be quite good at Ogham when I was younger,’ said Laurence. ‘In fact, I was reading and writing when I was about ninety. But that was much easier. All nice straight lines in places where you’d expect.’

  ‘What’s Ogham?’ Phoebe asked. ‘It’s an ancient script we used to use in Ireland long ago.’ And Laurence drew a few words in Ogham on her blackboard to show her.

  ‘Hey, that’s like a secret code!’ said Phoebe. ‘We could use it for private messages.’

  ‘Only you can’t write in English in it,’warned Laurence. ‘You’d better work harder at your Irish!’

  ‘Yes, and you’d better work harder at learning to read ordinary writing,’ said Phoebe.

  And so he did. Before very long, Laurence was able to read whole sentences.

  His favourite book was Phoebe’s dictionary.

  Phoebe explained to him that people don’t actually read dictionaries; they just read a little bit about a single word when they want to know what it means.