The Leprechaun Trap

"Once upon a time, there were three sisters," declared Karen, "and Karen was the prettiest, the nicest and the smartest. End of story!"

Karen landed on the grass next to her two sisters, Jill and Mary Jane. "Ugh!" thought Jill, "Here she goes again!" Jill sighed and turned back to making her leprechaun trap. After all, catching a leprechaun was much more important than arguing with Karen.

The Rooney Sisters were quite Irish and quite American at the same time. Grandpa Rooney always told fairy tales about Irish leprechauns and how lucky it would be if they could just catch one. "You'll need a trap," Grandpa would say, which is what the sisters were trying to build on the front lawn of their prairie home. The date was March 16th.

Seamus chuckled as he watched the girls from behind a blade of grass. The leprechauns of the nearby village could never forget that each year, on the day before the celebration of the saint himself, three little girls, who swing from rain gutters and play on the wide porch most days of the year, always seem to focus on the magical pots of money stowed and stored safely under the roots of Nebraska's cottonwood trees. "They'll never catch the likes of us, God love 'em," chuckled Seamus, "Our village is tucked away just out of reach of those three. They'll never find us, let alone catch us!" . . . or will they!

Decades later in Ireland, when the Rooney Sisters and Seamus wept in front of the ancient, family oak tree and the carved initials, P. J. Rooney 6-9-20 (1920), the contract between human and leprechaun was fulfilled. Grandpa Rooney had carved those initials deep into that massive oak tree's trunk the day he left for America so very long ago. With his responsibility to the sisters complete, Seamus tapped his blackthorn against the ground sending himself back to his village hidden in the green mist hovering slightly above the ground.