She took a large carry-bag out of the basket and dropped all of the palace’s remains into it, and then knotted its carry straps around the handle of the shovel. She stood up, took the basket by the handle in one hand and the shovel in her other hand, and walked back up through the meadow to her house. The caverns were exposed, but looked largely like soil erosion damage combined with a few children’s toys now, and wouldn’t arouse the suspicion of anyone else who came through the meadow.

Colleen came to her house and opened a large high cabinet in an upstairs room, which had a glass door. She took each of the leprechauns out of the basket and placed them all into the cabinet, amongst the dolls furniture it already contained.

“You can all make yourselves comfortable and expect food supplies from me each day for those of you I haven’t eaten yet,” said Colleen, “And of course you can all expect to be eaten eventually. You’ll find that I already left food in there this morning, before I started my gardening project in the meadow. There’s one other thing. Are the two leprechauns who visited me and freed Tarquin last night here or back in the tunnels?”

One leprechaun stepped forward.

“I saw the other one make it to a tunnel, just before you caught me,” he said, “But I was one of them.”

“Well may I offer you my sincere thanks,” said Colleen, “If you hadn’t played the feature roles in a candid camera video film you set off, I’d never have even known for sure that your kingdom existed, let alone caught enough of you to be tasty treats for several weeks at least. If I’m even luckier, the ones in the tunnels might even come here to attempt a rescue of the rest of you, and I’ll be ready for them too. Now whom shall I start with?”

She snatched up the nearest leprechaun, despite a collective retreat by all of them, and took him to the kitchen, sprinkled some seasoning on him, and placed him onto a baking tray.

“I’ve prepared this kitchen for a day like this some time ago,” she said, turning the oven on, “I’ve put the oven on a low setting, but there’s a button inside it, near where I’ll place your tray. Once you’re cooked well enough, press the button before you start to burn. Even if I don’t hear the buzzer, the button also turns the oven off. So you can’t be burned. I’ll be back to serve you at the table in a while.

She put the shovel away, emptied the broken palace remains into the backyard incinerator to be burnt up at a later date, and then put Tarquin on a cupboard top in her bedroom, while she showered off and changed into a nice clean dress.

Then she took Tarquin back down to the kitchen, placed him on the table, and saw that the oven was off. She took out the tray, lowered her mouth and touched the leprechaun’s face with the tip of her tongue.

“You don’t seem to have cooled down, which is good. How long was it since you turned it off?”

“About a minute and a half,” said the leprechaun.