It seemed like an innocent enough conversation.
“Guess what I built, Aunt Janet?”
Me: “What’d you build Drew?”
Six year-old Drew: “A trap.”
Me: “What kind of a trap?”
Drew: “A Leprechaun trap.”
Me: “Wow, Drew! How’d you build it?”
Drew: “I dug a hole in the backyard, then I put some fencing over it — and some water in the bottom.” (He paused in thought.) “I don’t know if a Leprechaun can swim — all the water drained out already, so I need to put more in.”
Me: (trying to envision the enormity of the hole)
Anticipating my question, Drew added “The leprechaun is only this big,” — putting one hand atop the other about 8-inches apart. Hey, Isaac, (his older brother) is there more than one leprechaun?”
Drew added: “I have to put some gold coins and chocolate in the trap, because that’s what they like. I think they have walkie talkies.”
I was totally enthralled in his enthusiastic storytelling and asked “Who has walkie-talkies?”
Drew sighed with impatience that I couldn’t keep up with the important details.
“The leprechaun!” he breathlessly and matter-of-factly continued.
“I think the leprechaun, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny have walkie-talkies in case they get caught, they can come help each other out.”
Me: “Really? I never thought about them having walkie talkies?”
Drew: “Yea, so they can call each other.”
Me: “So what are you going to do if you catch him?”
Drew: “I don’t know — I guess you get the pot of gold coins. But I want to catch all of them — the leprechaun, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny — and the 40,000 elves. If I catch the elves, I’ll send some to your house.”
Me: “Thanks Drew.”
Pausing in thought, Drew asked: “Aunt Janet, do you know what a leprechaun looks like — I don’t, except they have red hair and a green hat?
It was an hour later that I realized St. Patrick’s Day was Sunday and Drew’s teacher had assigned a paper entitled: “How to trap a leprechaun.”
In the children’s book “How to Catch a Leprechaun” by Adam Wallace and Andy Elkerton, the story ends with:
You’ll never catch this Leprechaun. Impossible! That’s a fact!
Unless, one day, a brilliant child
designs the perfect trap!
Note to the leprechaun:
Keep your walkie-talkie handy on Sunday. And if you get caught in a freshly dug hole filled with water with fencing on top — the perfect trap — just leave that pot of gold, or a few coins, for Drew.
