97. Missing Leprechaun, Missing Check

If I hoped my nightmares would be over after the Freudian Halloween party, I was disappointed. I had kept the check the Magi had given me to pay Dr. Freud with inside a little toy leprechaun that hung in the car that I had sometimes slept in. I was sure no one would look for it there. It had been more than ten years since anyone had driven the car and the garage was always locked. I had to shrink to the size of a bug to get inside. But when I returned to the car to retrieve the check so I could return it to the Magi, since Dr. Freud hadn’t charged me and there was nothing to pay, I had a real, fairy flesh and fay blood nightmare.The leprechaun was missing. And with it, the blank check.

“Mum!” I shouted. 

And I was immediately transported to a winter angel moth grove where my mum was trying to have a nap that afternoon. “A real nightmare!”

“Oh, I thought that was all over!” sighed Mum.

I told her I had gone to the mortal garage to retrieve my things from the human car but they weren’t there.   

“Did you say the check was inside the toy leprechaun?” said Alpin, who was there too, with his brother Darcy. “Sorry, everybody, I’ve got to go.”

“Hold it right there, kid!” said Darcy. “Why so fast?”

And Alpin had to confess.

“Before we left for the Fayolympics I went to the car searching for Arley. I saw the leprechaun and took it. Fiona saw it too while I was packing and wanted  it to decorate a cake she would bake for Michael’s birthday. I was bored with it, so I gave it to her out of the generosity of my big heart. While you are a pig, Darcy, depriving your little brother of a blank check. I have to get to Michael before you guys do. Don’t come after me.”

“Kindly freeze!” Darcy asked Alpin, and Alpin had to do just that. “If Michael has the leprechaun, I am sure he will return it to you. Go see him right now, Arley,” Darcy advised me. “Before word of this gets around. And return the blank check as soon as you retrieve it.”

“I’ll tear it in half the minute I get it back,” I said. “I’ll return it broken.”

But Michael did not have the leprechaun. And word did get around.