The Leprechaun Who Wished He Wasn't (2 page)

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.'

‘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 himself a brand new mega-cool suit.

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