The Leprechaun Who Wished He Wasn't (3 page)

‘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.

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
!'