“Robby, he’s back! And he’s got a box!” cried Connie, running in from their backyard.

Her big brother flung down the controller for his video game and ran outside, Connie at his heels. They reached their neighbor’s house just as he was opening his back door.

“Hi, Mr. Steele!” said Connie.

Mr. Steele’s clothes were soaked through with sweat, and a three-foot wooden box, caked with dirt, sat at his feet. Its ill-fitting lid had shifted slightly and a shaft of morning sun fell on something inside sparkling green and red. Robby wondered if the box were filled with emeralds and rubies. As nonchalantly as he could, even though he thought his excitement would kill him, he asked, “Where’d that come from?”

Mr. Steele quickly replaced the lid of the box and said, “My good friend, Mr. Brogan, gave it to me.”

“Mr. Brogan?” repeated Robby. He looked over his shoulder at Nettlewood, the forest that extended for miles behind their houses. He and Connie had noticed that Mr. Steele had been making regular trips into Nettlewood very early every Saturday morning, taking a shovel with him and returning a few hours later with something he never allowed his neighbors to see. Then the next day he would go out and buy something really expensive. Last week it had been a car; Robby thought he could buy a house with what was in this box.

“Where does he live? We want to meet him!” said Connie, bouncing up and down.

“He lives in Nettlewood,” answered Mr. Steele.

“But where, where?” she shrieked.

Robby elbowed her to be quiet and said, “Sorry about that. We’re just so curious about what you’re digging up in the woods.”

“Perfectly understandable,” replied Mr. Steele. “I was excited too when I first met Mr. Brogan. But I’m afraid I can’t tell you where to find him. I don’t know exactly.”

Robby and Connie stared at Mr. Steele in astonishment. How could he not know where Mr. Brogan lived if he was his good friend? Taking advantage of their silence, he said, “Time to go, children. Bye!” With that he heaved the box into the house and slammed the door behind him.

The direct approach to finding out where Mr. Steele was finding his treasure had failed, so the children decided to see for themselves how he was doing it. The next Saturday morning they woke up long before dawn and watched his house from their kitchen window. Right on schedule, at sunrise, they saw him marching into the forest, his shovel perched on his shoulder as if he were off to do battle.

The kids followed him at a distance, careful to tread as lightly as they could, making sure not to step on any twigs. After about a half hour he slowed and began searching for something on the ground that the children couldn’t see. He did this for a few minutes in different places and then lay down on his stomach in a field of tall ferns, completely disappearing from view.

“What’s he doing?” whispered Connie as the children watched from behind a massive oak a few yards away.

“Maybe he’s tired from walking such a long way.”

Connie sighed as she sat down against the tree. “Then I guess this might take a while.” They whispered to each other all the things they were going to buy once they found their own treasure. Connie leaned her head on Robby’s shoulder and wove a fantasy about a miniature pink car that a six-year-old like her could drive, and Robby, who was twelve, wondered if they'd find enough treasure to buy a stable full of horses. Before long they both fell asleep, exhausted from having woken up at five o’clock.

It was someone furiously complaining with an Irish accent that woke them up. Robby and Connie peeked around the tree trunk and saw a very short man dressed in an old fashioned dark green coat and knee breeches. He had a thick beard so long it had to be tied up in braids, and he wore a green hat with a gold buckle. They couldn’t see much of his face because he was hard at work shoveling dirt back into a hole that had been dug in the ground. They could hear him, though, and his cursing made Connie cover her ears.

Connie and Robby had read enough fairy tales to know instantly what this strange little person was. They looked at each other and whispered simultaneously, “Leprechaun!” So this was Mr. Brogan, the source of Mr. Steele’s new-found wealth. And they knew very well what one had to do to get a leprechaun to give up his treasure: capture him and under no circumstances let go until he’d revealed its secret location.

Mr. Brogan was swearing so loudly that he didn’t hear the children as they snuck up on him. They threw themselves on his back and fell headlong with him into the hole he’d been filling. Whether it was leprechaun magic or just plain luck, none of them were injured, and Connie and Robby ended up sitting upright on Mr. Brogan’s back. Connie wasted no time as she cried out, “Give us your treasure right now!”

“Impossible!” said the leprechaun.

“But that’s the rule,” said Robby. “Everybody knows it. If you can catch a leprechaun, you’re supposed to be able to force him to give up a pot of gold or something.”

“Oh, and do you believe everything you’re told?”

“No, but I believe my eyes, and our neighbor Mr. Steele has been bringing home plenty of your treasure.”

Mr. Brogan began trembling with rage. “That greedy man! He stole those things from me! For weeks he’s been coming here to try and catch me, and I tell you I’m fed up with it! And he’s not the only one either! As soon as I find a pot of coins or gems, some outsider takes it from me. So you two are wasting your time. I’m broke! All the gold and jewels are gone!”

Robby was starting to feel sorry for the leprechaun and wondered if perhaps sitting on him in this hole might be a little rude, but then remembered that leprechauns were said to be very cunning and more often than not were able to outwit their captors. He must still have some treasure, since he had refused to give it up when they first captured him.

“Mr. Brogan, I’m very sorry for all of this, and I promise we’ll get off your back if you’ll only promise to share a little tiny bit of your treasure. It doesn’t have to be the whole pot—”

“Yes, it does!” interrupted Connie.

“Hush!” said Robby to his sister. “Mr. Brogan, just share a small amount and we promise we’ll never bother you again.”

“You promise, you say? Hmmm. Well, maybe we can work something out—IF you get your big, heavy bodies off of me!”

Robby pushed Connie up and out of the hole and then he crept out backwards himself, making sure to keep a tight hold of Brogan’s wrist as he helped the leprechaun out.

Mr. Brogan made no attempt to free himself as he brushed the dirt of his clothes with the other hand. “Now then, just follow me,” he said cheerfully.

With Robby and Connie each holding on to him, Mr. Brogan marched into the heart of Nettlewood so quickly that the children had to jog to keep up with him. The leprechaun seemed to be leading them through the most difficult parts of the forest as they stumbled over fallen trees and squeezed painfully through prickly bushes. They finally slowed as they entered a large clearing. In the middle was a little pond filled with aquatic flowers, and at the other side a creek gurgled down a rocky cliff into a forested valley. An iron bench next to the pond looked out over the valley, where the trees were putting on a light show with their fiery autumn colors.

“Here we are! Ahhh—the autumn is my favorite time of year!” said Mr. Brogan as he sat down on the bench, pulling Connie and Robby down with him. He chuckled and nodded his head, plainly delighted.

They all sat quietly for a few minutes until Connie turned to him and said, “Well?”

“I’m doing very well, thank you!” said Mr. Brogan.

Connie huffed impatiently. “I meant: where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“The treasure you said you’d share with us!” said Connie, almost screaming.

“Why, it’s all around us!”

“But we only see a pond and trees,” said Robby.

“And a view! Adults in your world would pay a pretty penny for the view, I can tell you!”

“So you own all of this land and you’ll share it with us?”

Mr. Brogan barked out a laugh. “Nobody owns Nettlewood! It’s not for sale! But anybody can live here and enjoy all this natural beauty. Peace and quiet—that’s what I treasure most, not rubies and emeralds. And I’m pleased to share it with you!”

Connie stared at him in disbelief, her mouth wide open. Letting go of Mr. Brogan’s hand, she covered her face and burst into tears.

“Now, now. It’s not as bad as that!” said Mr. Brogan, patting Connie’s back. “Whenever you need a beautiful place to contemplate your life, just come and sit here with me! This forest has amazing restorative powers.”

The leprechaun’s words just made Connie cry harder, and Robby took her hand and tried to make her stand. “Come on, Connie! He won! We should go.” But Connie wouldn’t budge. She fell to her knees and sobbed pathetically, “But I want a treasure! Leprechauns always have pots of gold.”

“Please, oh please stop crying, my dear!” begged Mr. Brogan. “Other leprechauns may have pots of the stuff, but like I told you, mine’s all gone!”

“You’re lying!”

“Never!” cried Mr. Brogan, offended. “I may be incompetent, but leprechauns never lie!”

“But I want gold!” shrieked Connie over and over again, and the sounds of her shrill young voice echoed out across the valley.

Mr. Brogan clapped his hands over his ears and roared, “Begorrah! Would you please stop that awful sound! If I had any gold I would give it to you!”

Connie suddenly stopped crying and said, “Really?”

“Yes, but—”

She hopped up on her feet, a big grin on her tear-free face. “OK, thanks! We’ll come back next week to see if you have any. Bye!”

It took a moment for Mr. Brogan to realize that he’d just given away all the pots of gold he would ever find. In shock, he could only watch speechlessly as Robby and Connie ran back into the woods, laughing and high-fiving each other. How could he be a leprechaun without any hope of keeping the pots he would be finding? He allowed himself a single, anguished scream into his hat before he sat back and began to plan how we was going to trick those kids into giving him his gold back!

The End

Wendy Washburn lives near Philadelphia and works at the University of Pennsylvania. She has two young daughters who provide quality control for her children’s stories, most of which explore a mysterious forest called Nettlewood. Her fiction has appeared in various e-zines, most recently 5th Story Review and KidVisions. Find out more about her at http://wlwashburn.wordpress.com.

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