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Author's Chapter Notes:


She reached into the cavern and snatched up a leprechaun and lifted him out of sight. One after another, many of them were caught and taken from the cavern. Some fled to the tunnels, and others darted back into the palace. When Colleen had caught as many of the outdoor leprechauns as she could find, she stepped down into the cavern, so that her knees were now level with what had been the base of the roof soil. Then she squatted down and put her hands around the palace. She pulled with all her strength and lifted the palace up, out of the cavern and set it down on the grass beside a large picnic basket, in which she had already placed the leprechauns that she had captured.

“I know that some of them got away into the tunnels. I might find them another day, but the rest of you in that palace can save us all a lot of needless effort, if you come out and surrender to me now. That includes you too, Tarquin,” said Colleen.

She was drop dead gorgeous with that stern look of determination on her face, and Tarquin was transfixed with a mixture of shock and excitement.

Nobody moved.

“Alright. We’ll do this the hard way then,” said Colleen.

She put four fingers through one window opening and the other four through a doorway at the opposite end, and pulled the walls and roof off the palace. Tarquin darted to the stairway, just as she tossed the roof aside, and narrowly avoided being caught. Colleen snatched some of the leprechauns up and put them in the picnic basket, and then lay down and peeked into the lower room, where Tarquin and 3 others were now hiding.

“Do we really have to do all that again?” she asked, “It seems a waste of time, when we all know that you’re all going to wind up in my tummy at some point.”

The three leprechauns were too frightened to move. Tarquin had weighed the situation up, and could see that there was no avoiding the accuracy of her summation.

“I’ll come out,” he said.

“Thank you, my little darling,” said Colleen.

He stepped out where she could pick him up, and she placed him just behind her necklace, which he’d not seen her wearing before.

“Now you can watch while I fetch out the rest of them,” she said.

She reached through the window with her hand and lunged for one of the leprechauns, caught him and put him in the basket. She had to tear the ceiling and walls off to get at the rest, and soon had them all trapped in the picnic basket.

“I wish you’d all been more logical instead of making me break your little palace,” she said, staring down at them, “I could have kept it for its design quality alone. It would have made a uniquely artistic dolls house.”

“Well forgive us for trying to avoid being eaten,” said the leprechaun prince.

“Nothing to forgive. I just thought that you’d have been more realistic about the inevitability of it, and surrendered yourselves without sustaining any property damage,” said Colleen.

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