3. The Right Pupils

Aside from explaining leprechaun speak to me during our strolls, Michael had no experience as a teacher of any kind. Like most leprechauns, he was a shoemaker and a fay banker, a keeper of fairy gold. However, he did know that for most teachers having the right pupils is the difference between living a nightmare and feeling fulfilled. 

Much as I wanted to help, I wasn't qualified to be Michael's pupil because I was a native speaker of the language he had to teach. He needed to find someone else. Someone who would start from zero.  

Now, Michael's best friend dwelt in a place called Oretania. It had once belonged to the Roman Empire and was now a part of the ghost of that. A good part of Oretania was what today is La Mancha, in Spain.

Flaccus Intrepidus Nauta was a Roman sailor when alive. One day he went down into the ocean with his ship. The minute he managed to free himself from the sea nymphs he sailed straight off to haunt his wife, whom he loved dearly. When she passed away herself, they decided to spend eternity haunting a villa in her native Oretania. It was not likely that anyone there would speak English. So it might just be the place to find adequate pupils. 

Michael told Nauta he wanted a pupil who drank ink and ate paper. 

"And spits it on the ceiling?" asked Nauta puzzled. "You want a spitballer?"

"Certainly not!" exclaimed Michael. "I mean someone who loves to read and enjoys learning. I want a swot. A grind. A geek. Someone who will do most of the work himself." 

At that very moment there was a time lap, which is something that often happens in the ghosts of places. Seventeenth century literary La Mancha overlapped into historic Roman Oretania. A nose drew itself cautiously out of a book. And Michael found himself face to face with his ideal pupil, Mr. Alonso Quijano, better known by his nom de guerre, Don Quijote de La Mancha.

If there is anyone who loves to read, that is Mr. Quijano. He especially enjoys tales of knights and chivalry. He becomes very excited when he reads a good one and there is nothing he would like better than to be the hero of  adventures of this kind himself. Which is why he gets into an old suit of armour and rides off on his favorite horse, Rocinante, decided to be a knight himself even if his world is no longer ready for one.

Don Quijote had reasons to want to learn English. 

          

First of all, he earnestly fancied reading Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King in the original language. 

Next, he was anxious to invade England and save Queen Elizabeth from the misguided magicians whom he believed to be restraining her from changing the pound for the euro, thus making Britain less European than it should be and the Western World more vulnerable.

Because Michael was Irish, he was not put off by the idea of invading England. Nauta, as a mariner who had lost his life in naval combat, could not but remind pupil and teacher of the fate of the Invincible Spanish Armada. In case you haven’t heard  of that famous disaster, I will tell you that the Spanish once ventured to invade Elizabethan England but were thwarted by a terrible storm that wrecked their ships.

Neither Don Quijote nor Michael would be deterred by this dire precedent. In any case, said Michael, the invasion would not be immediate. Don Quijote would have to learn English first and that takes its time. So does building and equipping a fleet and otherwise planning an invasion.

To everyone’s surprise, Don Quijote’s best friend and faithful squire, Sancho Panza, volunteered to learn English too. It had always been his heart’s desire to be governor of an island. He had heard that many islanders earn a living thanks to tourists, and he felt that meant the governor of an island should speak foreign languages.

So Michael now had two motivated pupils.

“I think we are safe,” said the olive trees who had overheard the talk of an invasion. “Our wood can float, though that of elms and pines is better to build ships with. In any case, the invasion doesn’t seem to be imminent.”