Yearning for Wonderland Writing Contest Entry: Leprechauns

There once was a boy who believed in leprechauns.  He didn’t think about them all the time but when he was scolded by a teacher or pushed around by Billy the mean kid, he prayed that leprechauns would somehow help him out.

One day while walking home from school, the boy  was surprised by Billy jumping out from behind a rose bush.

“You really are dumb, aren’t you?  Didn’t you see me standing there?” Billy said, shoving the boy, knocking him onto Mrs. Wilson’s lawn. 

“One of these days you’re going to be sorry, Billy” the boy said, standing up and brushing grass off his pants.

Billy laughed, “Yeah right, I’m so scared of you. You’d need an army!” Billy grinned as he walked away.

It was unfortunate that Billy himself had not considered leprechauns because just then something quite unusual happened. Small green sprites with wings, one by one, appeared out of flowers and from behind blades of grass. They flitted and floated, forming a humming line right in front of Billy, though he didn’t see them. When he reached their line, he lifted his foot up in step, looking like he was going to squish them under his size 4 shoe.  But squish them, he did not.  The weeones worked together, hundreds of them, picking Billy up, rolling him around, turning him upside down!

“What’s happening?” Billy cried. The sprites weren’t mean, they put him back down, gently, onto the sidewalk.

One of the little fellows turned to me, with a frown on his face, and said “We would have been here sooner but some of the guys were angry that you kept calling us leprechauns.  We’re fairies, damn it.”

Ol’ Billy still sends me a Christmas card each year, but he avoids St. Patrick’s Day altogether.

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