Fairies vs. Leprechauns

CHAPTER ONE

From outside the glitterberry warehouse, everything seemed normal. Festive garlands of daisies and forget-me-nots hung from the eaves, gravel made of rainbow sprinkles crunched lightly under their feet, and the popular song “Glitter Jitterbug” bounced out of speakers near the front door, just like always.

But Oona and her friends knew something was very, very wrong.

“We need to get inside,” said Oona as she and her cousin Horace crouched in some ferns.

Oona’s best friend, Lucy, peeked at the warehouse from behind a tree. “We don’t have a key.”

“Ooh, let me,” said Horace, and he whistled a silent slug call. Horace was the Slug Fairy, and the slugs of Blackberry Bog were devoted to him. Instantly, several slugs appeared at Horace’s side.

He whispered to them where ears would be if slugs had ears. Then the slugs scooched over to the warehouse door. Flattening themselves into slug pancakes, they slid underneath.

“Boy, I do not remember them being so helpful back when I was Slug Fairy,” said Oona. She was proud of her cousin, but she had been Slug Fairy before him, and the fact that he was better at the job than she’d ever been wasn’t her favorite.

Horace shrugged. “It’s easier if you think like a slug. The most important thing to them is—” He was interrupted by the creak of the warehouse door swinging open.

“Looks clear,” said Lucy. “Let’s go.”

Earlier that day, the glitterberry warehouse had been robbed, emptied of every last glitterberry. Molly, head of the fairy council, had accused Oona, Lucy, and Horace of being involved, even though they were totally innocent.

Oona understood why it might be hard for Molly to trust them, though, considering that they had recently broken about a dozen Fairy Binder rules by accidentally bringing a human boy with them into the fairy world and then making him invisible to try to cover it up.

So, to clear their names, and because they were naturally helpful fairies, they had offered to help solve the mystery and get the glitterberries back.

Oona looked forward to finding the berries. She loved a little glitterberry cake at the end of a long night of her work as the Underwear Fairy. But more than that, she was excited to impress Molly.

“Molly was right,” said Lucy as they looked around the empty building. “Not a single glitterberry left. Not even a squished one.


FUN FAIRY FACT: Glitterberries start out as regular blackberries. Blackberry Bog, the capital of the fairy world, has plenty of those. After the berries are picked, they are taken to the warehouse, dunked in Secret Syrup, and rolled in sweet sparkles collected from the moment sunlight hits the spray of the magic waterfall. Then the berries are spread out to crystallize on giant cookie sheets.


Lucy didn’t say Molly was right very often. Since Lucy was the Tooth Fairy, and therefore the most important fairy of all, Lucy and Molly didn’t get along very well. They each thought the other acted too big for her fairy pants.

“But whoever took them is long gone,” Lucy continued.

“Time to investigate,” said Oona.

Horace saluted. Then, looking very serious, he began sniffing the windowsills and listening to the refrigerators. He even licked an empty berry box.

Oona rolled her eyes. “Horace, what in fairydom are you doing?” As usual, Horace’s uniqueness was getting on her nerves.

“I’m searching for clues,” Horace said, his face very close to the berry-­dunker machine.

“You’re just trying to find food,” Oona said. Horace loved to eat, and he loved eating glitterberries most of all.

“Not just food. Investigation food,” said Horace.

Oona sighed and opened a closet door, clicking on the light.

Horace squealed. “A clue!” He scampered past her and brought out something small and green.

Oona and Lucy gathered around him. “A four-­leaf clover?” Lucy said. “What’s that doing in the closet?”

“Maybe it’s good luck for our mission,” said Horace.

“Maybe,” said Lucy, frowning. “Or maybe it was left here by the glitterberry thieves.” She looked around the warehouse. “There’s nothing more to see in here. Let’s check outside for footprints.”

They didn’t get a chance to check, however, because as soon as they left the building—­SPLAT! SPLOT! SPLOSH!—­they were smacked by dozens of tiny, delicious explosions.

“Glitterberries! We’re being pelted with glitterberries!” Lucy shouted, trying to duck while wiping glitterberry juice off her cheek.

“They’re coming from over there!” Oona shouted back, shielding her eyes and pointingto the top of a line of trees. Just then, a fat glitterberry hit her right on the chin. “Ow!”

“Leave this to me!” cried Horace. He somer­saulted out in front of Oona and began catching the glitterberries in his mouth. He bounced and spun in the air, snapping at the berries like a hungry crocodile. But soon his cheeks were stuffed and he looked more like a very full chipmunk.

“There’s just too many berries!” said Lucy. “Quick, get back inside!”

Lucy and Oona sped into the warehouse and Horace came in after them, catching one last berry before slamming the door.

“Thanks for the cover,” said Oona, feeling a little guilty for rolling her eyes at him earlier.

“It was delicious,” said Horace, burping. The three fairies sat crisscross applesauce on the floor to catch their breath.

“I think we’ve done enough investigating for one day,” said Oona, rubbing her sore chin.

“Agreed,” said Lucy. “But we still need to escape. Oona, how about a little protection magic?”

Protection magic was Oona’s specialty. As Underwear Fairy, she made magical underwear that kept children safe using AUTO WEDGIE power. Whenever a child was about to trip and fall, a magical wedgie would pull them upright again and they wouldn’t need a Band-­Aid after all.

Horace, who was clumsier than your average fairy, also wore a pair.
“Of course!” said Oona. She raised her wand and thought of a spell.

“Rub-­a-­dub duck, We fairies are stuck—­
We had to come in and hide.
Show me a scene Where berries aren’t mean
So we can go back outside.”

Oona realized she had been concentrating so hard that her eyes were squeezed closed. When she opened them, there was a giant portrait in a gold frame hanging on the wall. Not just any portrait, a portrait of the three of them. Eating berries. In their underwear.

Horace giggled. “We’re nearly naked!” he said, the last word making him laugh even harder.

“Um . . .” Lucy started, then stopped, then started again. “Uh, how does this help us exactly?”

“Argh. It doesn’t!” Oona said. “Sometimes my magic just gets excited about certain words and forgets everything else. It must have gotten carried away with the word scene. Let me try again.”

“But why are we in our underwear?” Horace asked.

Oona shrugged. “Underwear is what I do. When in doubt, my magic makes underwear.”

Lucy nodded. “We need this to work, Oona. So how about using that detail to our advantage?”

This gave Oona an idea. She raised her wand again.

“I see London, I see Spain,
I see stinging berry rain.
We need tender loving care,
From protective underwear!”

This time, sparks shot out from the points on Oona’s wand—­ZING, ZING, ZING! Then, POOF, POOF, POOF! Three umbrellas appeared in the fairies’ hands. The shades of the umbrellas were made out of extra-­extra-­large pairs of undies.

“Wow, the Umbrella Fairy would love these!” said Horace, spinning his over his shoulder and clicking his heels.

Oona blushed. “Thanks. Think these will do the job, Lucy?”

“Only one way to find out,” said Lucy. “On the count of three. One, two, THREE!”

Lucy threw open the door, and with their umbrellas in front of them like they were walking into a windy rainstorm, the fairies headed outside toward the road. Immediately, they heard a shower of berries hitting the undies.

“It’s working!” shouted Lucy. “Keep going!”

They marched away from the warehouse and through the trees. But now the berries were coming from all sides. Horace got pinged in the butt and yelped.

“I’ve got you!” said Lucy, turning. She flicked her wand, and the whizzing berries slowed to a float. They were moving so slowly now that Oona and Horace had time to shift their umbrellas into position in front of each berry to block it.

The three fairies dodged and danced, wielding their umbrellas like shields, until they were well past the trees. Soon the berry storm was behind them. They stopped, shaking the juice off their umbrellas or, in Horace’s case, squeezing the juice off his umbrella into his mouth.

FUN FAIRY FACT:The Tooth Fairy can do all kinds of magic, but her favorite kind is time adjustment—-speeding things up and slowing them down. That’s one reason she was entrusted with fairy dust; it can slow the world down until the brain gives up on keeping track of what’s happening. That’s also why sometimes it seems to take sooooo long for a wiggly tooth to fall out.


“What I don’t get,” said Oona, “is why in fairydom would you go to all the trouble to steal every last glitterberry if you were just going to throw them all over the place?”

“Glitterberries are too good to waste,” Horace agreed.

“It makes no sense,” Oona said.

“Unless . . .” Lucy tilted her head, an idea creeping across her face. “Unless you are someone who doesn’t think glitterberries are delicious.”

“But who doesn’t think glitterberries are delicious?” asked Horace.

“There’s only one creature I can think of,” Lucy said, pulling the four-­leaf clover they found out of her pocket.

Horace gasped as Oona and Lucy said it together.

“Leprechauns.”


CHAPTER TWO

“Wow wow wow,” said Horace, shaking his head. “We’d better go tell Molly.”

Oona groaned. That wouldn’t impress Molly. She wanted to know the who, the how, and the why. She wanted the glitterberries back. All they had so far was the who, and the only glitterberries they had were already inside Horace!

“We can’t tell her yet. We need more information,” said Oona.

Horace patted his tummy. “In that case, I say we go back to Lucy’s house for a snack while we talk about what to do. All this detective work is making me hungry.”

“A snack? Aren’t you full of glitterberries?” asked Oona.

“My glitterberry stomach is separate from my snack stomach,” said Horace, looking like he meant it.

Lucy shrugged. “I think I have some leftover cotton candy casserole.”

When they reached the center of Blackberry Bog, they ducked between the drooping branches of the willow tree that held Lucy’s nest. Then Lucy stopped so suddenly that Oona, who was right behind her, bumped into her, and Horace, who was right behind Oona, crashed into them both. It was a three-fairy pileup.

“What happened?” asked Horace from where he had toppled backward onto the ground.

“I’m not sure,” said Lucy. “My door is open, but I definitely closed it when I left.” She flew up to the entrance and peered through the doorway. “Oh, crudmuffin!”

Oona joined her on the threshold. Lucy’s normally neat nest looked like someone had picked it up, turned it over, and given it a good shake.

All the drawers had been pulled out and their contents dumped on the ground. Books lay open, and every article of clothing in Lucy’s closet had been removed from the hangers and trampled on.

While Lucy began picking things up and putting them away again, Oona examined some smudges on the wall.

“Lucy, there are grubby little hand-prints here,” said Oona. “Too small to be fairy prints.”

“So this was the leprechauns, too!” said Lucy. She clenched her fists.

“Seems like they were looking for something,” said Horace.

“Oh no.” Lucy’s eyes grew wide. “No, no, no, no, no,” she kept repeating as she pulled open her freezer. It was empty.

“You’re out of cotton candy casserole?” Horace asked.

“No, Horace,” Lucy said, sinking to the floor. “They took my gold. All of it.”

Oona gasped. “All that glitterberry nonsense must have been to distract us from the real crime in progress over here.”

Lucy frowned. “But how would they know that we’d be the ones to investigate?”

“Maybe they’ve been watching you.” Oona paced in front of them, her mind racing. “Maybe they saw us get in trouble before and thought that if they created more trouble, you’d be blamed. Then you’d be so caught up in fairy council discipline that they’d have plenty of time to take the gold.”

She stopped pacing and looked up. “They must have been surprised to see you at the warehouse. That’s why they pelted us with berries! To slow you down.”

Horace shook his head. “But why do any of that? Why take the gold at all?”

Oona thought she knew why. “All the money Lucy uses to reward children for teeth comes from pots of gold at the ends of rainbows. Pots that leprechauns put there. Looks like they decided they wanted the gold back for some reason.”

Lucy bit her lip. “What am I going to do? I have to start tooth-collection rounds in a couple of hours. What will I give all the children for their teeth?”

Horace screwed up his face like he was trying to solve a challenging word problem. “So the gold you give away isn’t really yours? It’s the leprechauns’ gold?”

Lucy looked annoyed. “It’s not the leprechauns’ gold anymore. They leave it—no, they abandon it by the rainbow, and I find it. By Rule Number 213 of the Fairy Binder, I am completely within my rights.”

Now Oona was the one who was a little confused. “Rule Number 213?”

Horace nodded. He loved to study the Fairy Binder, and had read all 777 pages multiple times. “You know, the Finders Keepers rule.”

“Oh yeah,” Oona said.

“That’s how I ended up with your glitter spinner,” he said to Oona to help explain.

“I know.”

“And your winged pogo stick.”

“Hmph.”

“And your—”

“Horace! I get it!” Oona was constantly losing things. And Horace was an excellent finder. She knew he would probably give her stuff back to her if she asked him, but then she might have to admit that she wasn’t very organized. It seemed easier to just find new favorite things.

“What are you going to do?” Oona asked Lucy, trying to get the subject back on the gold and away from her.

“I’ve got to get more gold to take on my rounds,” said Lucy.

“Let’s go ask the leprechauns!” chirped Horace. “I’m sure they can help.”

“Oh, Horace,” Oona said, shaking her head. Sometimes Horace was so clueless. “Leprechauns don’t help. They’re perpetually grouchy. Don’t you know that?”

“But maybe if you explain about the children—” Horace said.

“I’ve got a better idea,” said Lucy. She opened her closet and hovered next to the top shelf. She started pulling things out and tossing them over her shoulder, adding to the mess already there.

Apparently, that shelf was her main storage spot for past Halloween costumes, because the growing pile included a few neckties, all the pieces of a three-piece suit, and a very official-looking briefcase.

FUN FAIRY FACT: In the human world, children often dress up as fairies for Halloween, but in Blackberry Bog, it’s the opposite. Well, not exactly the opposite. Fairies like to dress up as human adults for Halloween. The more serious and boring the adult, the more hilarious the fairies think it is. Popular fairy costumes are Human Pharmacist, Human Lawyer, and Human Assistant Principal.

After she’d tossed more things out than the closet seemed big enough to hold, she found what she was looking for.

“Bingo bango!” she called, holding it above her head. Then she flitted over to Oona and handed it to her. “Glad the leprechauns didn’t find this little baby.”

It was just a lunch container, the kind that makes a burping sound when you seal up the top. Oona gave the container a shake. It felt empty. She held it up at eye level and peered through the plastic.

“Ohh. Well, I’ll be a slug’s second cousin,” she whispered. Inside floated a tiny storm cloud. It seemed that all the movement had woken it up, because it suddenly started shooting out miniature bolts of lightning, which bounced around the inside of the container like sparks.

Oona looked up at Lucy. “This is the most fairytastic thing I’ve ever seen!”

“The Weather Fairy gave it to me a few fairy festivals ago,” Lucy said. Then she smiled. “I keep it around for a rainy day.”

The joke tickled Horace’s funny bone, and a giggle fit began. It grew bigger and bigger until his eyes watered and his whole body shook with silent laughter. “Rainy!” he gasped. “Cloud!”

Oona couldn’t help tousling his hair a little. This was what she loved most about her cousin. He never missed an opportunity to enjoy himself.

“But how is a cloud going to help us?” Horace finally managed to say.

“Come with me,” said Lucy.

The three fairies went outside into the willow grove. The second Lucy pulled back the corner of the container, the cloud squeezed out as if it were a genie escaping a lamp.

It zipped around above them, doing happy loop-­de-­loops and sprinkling rain on all of their heads.

“It’s so excited to be free, it’s peeing its pants!” cried Horace.

“Ew, Horace!” said Oona, wiping raindrops off her forehead. “Don’t say that! It’s only water.”

But Horace couldn’t respond, because he had crumpled into another pile of laughter. The little fairy had clearly drunk giggle juice for breakfast.

Lucy was ignoring both of them. She was too busy tracking the storm cloud. As it zoomed higher in the sky, it cleared the tops of the trees. Then rays of sunshine passed underneath it.

The next thing that happened was simple science, but it felt like an astonishing bit of magic, even to three fairies who had magic of their own. A rainbow formed.

“Perfect,” said Lucy.

“Keep it up, little cloud!” said Horace. “I’m sorry I said your rain was pee!”

The cloud seemed to understand and continued to spritz a steady sprinkle. Oona and Horace followed along as Lucy tracked the rainbow, pausing in places where the colors faded until she found where the spectrum picked up again, like a dog chasing a scent. Lucy had always been the best rainbowtracker in Blackberry Bog; her job depended on it.

Suddenly, they were at the rainbow’s end, and sure enough, a pot of gold sparkled there.

The gold coins came in several sizes; some of them were thick and bigger than Oona’s palm, while others were smaller and shaped like octagons. But they all had a four-­leaf clover engraved on one side and a picture of pointy buckled shoes on the other. Leprechaun-­made, without a doubt.

Lucy unzipped her fanny pack and began loading up as many as she could carry.

“But how can Lucy give these to human children?” asked Horace. “Cash registers down there don’t take gold coins, do they?”

“Of course not. Leprechaun gold has chameleon magic. It adapts to its environment. So the minute it enters the human world, it looks like human money. That’s why it’s perfect for what she does.” Oona was happy to be the expert on something for a change. Thankfully, there was nothing about leprechaun gold in the Fairy Binder.

But Horace was full of questions today. “But how did the leprechauns get it here so fast?”

Oona frowned. Feeling like an expert sure hadn’t lasted very long. “Do I look like a leprechaun to you? How should I know?”

“Um, I might have, uh—­Oh, never mind,” Lucy said, staring at the ground. She looked embarrassed.

“What is it, Lucy?” Oona asked.

“You can trust us,” said Horace.

“It’s just, my workload has been growing so fast. Every day, more and more of the human world knows about me and needs me. I couldn’t rely only on the pots of gold I found on St. Patrick’s Day, or if I just happened to see a rainbow. They’re too rare. I needed more.”

“I know how you feel,” said Horace.“Sometimes it seems like every slug in the bog needs a snack, a cuddle, or wants me to play checkers with them. They’re a handful!”

“So what did you do?” Oona asked Lucy, ignoring Horace.

“I’ve been using my little cloud friend to create extra rainbows. Maybe more than I should. And on top of that . . .” Lucy blushed.

“Go on,” said Oona.

“I cast a hurry-­up spell on the leprechauns to get more gold, and faster. That’s why the gold is already here. And that’s why . . .” Lucy sighed and shook her head. “I think that’s why they’re fighting back now.”

The fairies were all quiet for a moment. Then Horace’s face brightened. “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Maybe we should just go talk to the leprechauns about all this.”

Lucy took a deep breath and shook out her wings. “That’s a great idea, Horace,” she said, to Oona’s surprise. But then Lucy added, “A great idea that we can do one day really soon. But right now I’ve got to go to the human world.” And she hustled away.

“Me too,” Oona said before Horace could say anything else. “Say hi to the slugs for me.”

As Oona headed back to her fairy nest to wash her face and wings before her underwear work that night, she had a bad feeling in the pit of her tummy.

She tried to peptalk the worries out of her mind. There was really nothing to get a stomachache about. Right now, Lucy had everything she needed, and tooth collection could be completed as usual. Besides that, the only thing left to deal with was a little misunderstanding with some grouchy green neighbors.

She and Lucy (plus Horace) were such a good team that they could solve this leprechaun problem, easy-­Parcheesi.
At least, she hoped they could.