The girl concealed Murray under the high neckline of her school shirt until she reached Trudi’s address, (thinking that it was Murray’s) and then placed him just inside the front fence at his request, before heading on her way.

Trudi’s property had the size and grandeur of the Hollywood mansions he’d seen in magazines. There was something to be said for the wages of one of the stars of a long running television show. It took him half an hour just to walk to the front doorstep of her huge house. He could see no way to ring the bell from the ground, and the door left no space at all between the base of it and the floor. He could not slip under it.

Murray walked slowly around to the back of the property, intending to try the back door. Then he saw Trudi come out wearing a beautiful dress and walk across the lawn.

She saw him and sat down on a large log beside a small pond and looked at him with interest.

“You must be one of the leprechauns I’ve heard tell of in these parts,” said Trudi, “I guess I’ve just become a believer.”

Murray decided to simplify the explanation for the moment, lest he overload her with information which might be almost impossible for her to believe.

“Actually I’m a fan of ‘Mountains Family’. I was trying to do a science experiment this afternoon, but I don’t think the teacher had any idea that my attempt would lead to my accidentally shrinking myself,” said Murray.

“Well does your teacher know what’s happened?” asked Trudi.

“No,” said Murray.

“Did she teach you anything that could help to make you full sized again?” asked Trudi.

“I can’t remember anything. I don’t think that there is any way of reversing this condition. It looks like I’ll be this size forever. Luckily, I found my way into your back garden and recognised you from the show,” said Murray, “I was hoping you might take me in.”

“Let’s go inside and see what we can do,” said Trudi.

She picked him up and took him to the back verandah, and stood him on the verandah wall.

“You have a lovely home here,” said Murray.

“I’ve been thinking while we walked over here, and I won’t send you away. I can’t appease all my fans in person, but you’re a special case. My mouth will be glad to take you in, and after that, so will my tummy.”

“Then I’d like to thank your mouth and your tummy for letting me live here in the privacy of your nice house,” he said, not sure what to make of something in the connotations of her last remark.

“That’s not really what I said,” said Trudi, folding her arms and smiling with the same mischievous look in her eyes that her fifteen year old self had used in the Easter Special.

“Well you expressed it in such an unusual way, that it was hard to know exactly what you mean,” said Murray.