I am participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge: A slice a day for all of March.  You should do it too!  Thank you, Two Writing Teachers! Readers, check out their site, and start slicing! 

The leprechauns came to H’s school today. He told me all about them. The traps were set, and the kids were excited to investigate the mischief. I wish I had pictures. Not just of the leprechaun mischief, but of H explaining it to me, with the magic still in his eyes. “I know it wasn’t just the teachers, Mommy. There were fish in Penny’s bowl of water! She had water so they could take a bath, but they left fish!….The basket was hanging here, and then like a second later it was all the way down on the ground. The toilet water was green, and there were boats in there! They had a wedding! There were little chairs set up. Mushroom chairs.”

Let me back this up for a minute. The Leprechauns came into my son’s second/third grade classroom and created such creative mischief that my usually-quiet-about-school 8 year old could not stop talking about it. They left fish! (“Fish?” I worried, “What is your class going to do with fish?” But H assured me that Penny’s fish recently died, and her family happens to have an empty fish tank.)

H raced to show me what the leprechauns had done to his trap.

Yesterday when he brought his trap to school, I warned him that his thumbtack fortress of gold may not be understood. We planned out what to say if someone thought he was trying to hurt the leprechaun, and he ended up having to use those words, as his classmates were convinced that he had created a deathtrap. He came home sad and sensitive.
Today, he smiled as he showed me how the leprechauns had made a dartboard and used his pins as darts.

His teacher must have an in with some mighty clever leprechauns. She deserves many thanks for letting those mischief makers into her classroom to make such a mess. I hope she enjoyed a spot of tea tonight, and I’d venture to guess she is already asleep. It’s tiring work, hosting leprechauns.

Tonight, as H snuggled in (“This is the comfiest bed we have… because you’re in it” he told me) he must have had those fish the leprechauns left on his mind. He told me his plans for next year, “You know what I’m going to do? Make a giant cat bed. Next St. Patricks’ day…and then I’m going to get kittens!”