The Adventures of Elf and Leprechaun: A New Leaf, New Friends and Goodbye – Part 5
No sooner had Elf and Leprechaun arrived back home, that they began to look around for new leaves to turn over.
Well not as soon as they got home because this time on the car ride home, Elf and Leprechaun had enjoyed a window seat and a clear view of the trees, houses and cars rushing by… rushing, rushing, rushing by… so quickly, so dizzying, so, so, soooo sick! Leprechaun had started to turn even more green than usual and had to lie down in N’s room for a while.
BUT after his guts had stopped churning, and from his position on the floor, he saw N sadly holding a strange springy yellow thing that was all twisted and coiled in the wrong direction. The Moody Mum was telling N that this thing called a slinky was really difficult to fix and while N was hearing her, because Leprechaun could see his ears and they were definitely working, N didn’t seem to particularly like her answer and was expressing his feelings about the broken slinky rather loudly. (The Moody Mum wanted to express HER feelings loudly too, but also didn’t want to escalate the situation, and sometimes escalating was worth it just for the pure freedom of expression, but she had to make dinner and just didn’t have the time for self-expression right then, dammit.)
That was it! That was their new leaf! Leprechaun leapt up with joy! Then quickly lay down again because his stomach had leapt up too and he was still horribly queasy from the car ride.
After N had fallen asleep, Elf and Leprechaun got to work on the slinky, and let me tell you, it was lucky those two had magical abilities, because fixing a wonky slinky was far more challenging than either of them had anticipated. They were depleted, exhausted, beat and bushed; they were drained, sapped and tuckered. But they had done it! As the sun crept over the horizon and a new day dawned, the exhausted duo plonked that stinking, rotten, good-as-new slinky down and collapsed next to it, both contemplating the rationale of leaves and whether it would be wiser to leave the leaves the way they were and not go about turning any of them over.
And then N woke up. He saw Elf and Leprechaun first. He saw the little sign they’d made. He READ the little sign (so proud of that part!). And then he saw the slinky. The joy! The delight! The cool dance he did to celebrate. It was awesome. It was magical. It was perfect. It was Elf and Leprechaun’s most favourite moment with N so far.
They were so inspired that they were convinced their next idea was an absolute sure-fire winner – ask N to give away some of his toys! That way, N would get to feel the joy of doing something for others and he’d feel all warm and fuzzy too. Win-win-win!
They got the bag, the tag and then set about waiting for N.
Aaaaand fizzzzzzzz. It was a fizzer. N did it, sure, but with joy, with zest, with sparkling magic? Nope. That’s a nope.
However, all was not lost, because N is literally the best kid on the planet, and after some initial reticence, he ended up having a pretty big toy clean out, which made the Moody Mum do her own very cool dance.
And that brings us to the egg.
It had shown up suddenly a week ago. It was a large green speckly egg, and N had carefully carried it inside and left it under the Christmas tree. No one knew why he placed it there, only that it must go there and nowhere else, and also ‘don’t touch it mummy’. Ok then.
Well on this particular morning, as Elf and Leprechaun were wandering along the line between new leaves and mischief and wondering if monkey business actually required a monkey and if N had any monkeys, when THE EGG HOPPED!
Then it jiggled. Then it started bouncing around all over the place!
Of course, Leprechaun immediately clambered on top of the egg, because leprechauns are more of a do first, think later kind of people, and Elf quickly held onto the egg, because elves are naughty with hearts of gold kind of people, and Elf did NOT want the joy-riding Leprechaun to hurt himself.
After one rather alarming and almighty bounce, the egg CRACKED right in half, sending Leprechaun tumbling!
And there, nestled inside the green speckled egg was a sweet little dragon, who after blinking its little eyes for a few blinks, saw Elf and scrambled on its newborn legs out of its egg and jumped straight onto Elf.
There was a brief moment when Elf thought he might be breakfast, but dragon was going in for a hug, not a chomp. And that is how Elf and Leprechaun met Fathom, the dragon.
When N got home from school that day, he was very excited to meet his new pet dragon and promptly decided to throw a huge (very messy) party to introduce Fathom to ALL his cuddlies.
And that is how Leprechaun and Elf met even MORE friends.
And it was at that legendary party where they really did meet a monkey (well, ape) who informed them monkey-business did not REQUIRE a monkey, but it was always more fun if it did INCLUDE a monkey.
And in fact, it was the monkey (well, ape) who invited Leprechaun and Elf to play in his cuddly rock band, and they rocked on all night long.
The next day, they woke up under a big, shaggy dog. And haven’t we all had a morning after like that?
But this was not an ordinary day, for it was Christmas Eve and that night, it was time for Elf to go.
Elf had just one more thing he had to do for N. Elf and Leprechaun carefully arranged Elf’s gift for N under their Christmas Tree HQ.
Elf hugged all his new friends, patted the baby dragon, and then he turned to Leprechaun and there they stood awkwardly for a little while, unsure what to say to each other. How to sum up the adventures they had, the times they had shared, the friendship that had come to mean so much to them both?
The skinny little elf held out one skinny little arm to his friend who looked down at it, before grabbing that skinny little arm and pulling Elf into an almighty hug accompanied by some loud sobs and snorts.
Then it was time. Elf climbed onto his reindeer, waved to his friends and off he went back to the North Pole, his heart full of love and his mind full of wonderful memories and the knowledge that this was not goodbye, for Elf would be back next year (or not, I haven’t decided yet).
