However, the boon was short lived. As I stepped forward, eyes on the money, I rammed my toe smack into a nearby coffee table. “Owww! Fuck! Are you fucking kidding me!”
I’m hopping around, effin’ and blindin’. Well, I’m a Leprechaun, not a bloody hopping rabbit! No wonder I proceeded to trip and fall over the coffee table, cracking it right down the middle. Now there’s me, splayed out on my gick, in the middle of my own banjaxed wreckage. Clearly, this is the goddess telling me I’m not meant to leave the house today.
Then Orin came along, rubbing it in. “Bang up job, Keegan. I bunk off for five minutes, and you’re making firewood of the furniture. Your amazing un-luck strikes again.”
“Bugger off! I just broke my toe! I don’t need your guff about my bad luck!” I wiggled my (potentially) broken toe. “Oh, ain’t this jammy? At least I can still move it.”
“Oh, dry your arse, ya big babby. If your toe was broke, you couldn’t move it. You’d be paralyzed in agony, knowing your piss poor pain tolerance.”
“A cruel git, is what you are.” I whinged a bit more as I managed to sit up. “Wait, the table... oh fuck. I bet you and Weylyn could use your stuff-patching-up skills right? Sure, you’ll have things back to normal in a jiffy, right?”
“Wot? Just ‘cause you make a bags of things again? We’ve got better things to do then waste skills fixing yer banjaxed table.”
“Well, given that you lot are crashing at my gaff? I think you owe me.”
“Ask me arse.” Orin crossed his arms. “Weylyn and Brann are already at the pub,” he urged. “I’m after cracking on, or there won’t be a pint of black stuff left. Not with those two guzzlers on the lash.”
“But what if I have splinters from the table?”
“You’re lucky they’re not up your arse,” Orin sneered.
Come to think... I did feel something under my arse, seriously poking me. I reached under my butt, and find it’s me lost car keys. I tossed the car keys in Orin’s direction. “Catch!”
Orin’s hand blurred as it darted out with near-superhuman reflexes to catch the keys. “Show off,” I grumbled.
“If you’re feeling good enough to call me out on throwin’ shapes, you’re good to bobble on. Let’s leg it.” Slowly, I got to my feet. “I often wonder how it is yer still alive,” he muttered.
“Luck o’ the Wee Folk, arsehole,” I jabbed back at him. But if I had to come clean, my toe felt grand by now. As we headed for me old banger, parked around the corner, I winked at my friend, “Hey? Let’s have a magic trick, eh? Now that I’m up and at ‘em?”
“Seriously Keegan, we don’t have time for—”
“There is always time for magic,” I assured him. I held my hands out, palms up, and empty. I waved my right hand, then closed it into a fist. Then I opened it, to reveal my favorite lucky gold coin. “Ta-da!”
Orin rolled his eyes. “Not that damn thing again. That’s how I ended up at the airport.”
Chuckling, I made the same motion with my left hand, closed both hands, then opened them to reveal both the gold coin and my car keys. “Boom, there you have it. I’m driving.”
“You couldn’t have done that before you destroyed the coffee table?” he said as he smacked me on the back of my head.
“That’s not how my magic works, you know that!”
“Keegan, you’re mad as a box of frogs.”
As we round the corner toward my black SUV, I stopped dead in my tracks. A group of rumbly black birds were perched on top of my car. “Um, maybe we should rethink this a bit?” I ventured.
“What kind of shyte are you on about now?”
“Y’know. Birds? Black ones?”
“So? Lucky they didn’t roost in your poxy hair, ya gingernut.”
“Signs and omens,” I reminded him. “Haven’t we been warned to keep an eye out for those?”
“Away with ya. Scared of a few crows?” We both went for the passenger’s door, and banged together. “I thought you were driving?” he said.
I sighed. “Fine, you ride backer. But we shouldn’t be ignoring this.”
The drive was silent for a few minutes, which got me to plankin’ it. So I wouldn’t be so nervous, I broke the silence. “So? How did it go, finding Edna’s grandson? Keiran, was it?”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Orin blurted. “For one, Brann’s information was a load of shyte. My guess, he was just pulling me plum, but his instructions were useless as a chocolate teapot.” But I notice a stupid grin start to spread across Orin’s gob. “Edna’s grandchild were no corner boy. She’s a feek lassie.”
“What? He’s a she, you’re saying?”
“That she is, and no tyre biter, neither.”
I slammed my hands against the steering wheel in frustration and begrudgery. “You lucky bastard.”
“We flipped for it, and you won,” he teased. “It was your choice. Yer the one who decided to feck off, and make me go to the airport. Yer bad luck again!”
“Why does this shyte always happen to me? Even my lucky gold coin hands me a can of piss!”
“In all creation, you’re the unluckiest leprechaun I know.” Orin laughed.
“I’m the only bloody leprechaun you know.”
“Don’t be a sore loser. Or a sore winner, I suppose?”
Now, it’s true. I may be a leprechaun, but I’m not your typical General-Mills-everything-is-delicious-Lucky-Charms type of bullshyte Hollywood Leprechaun, thank you very much. First off, I hate rainbows and don’t care for storms. Second, I’m a six-foot-five Irish redhead with malfunctioning magic. And lastly, I’m very unlucky in everything. My luck is so brutal, that even when I win, I lose anyway.
The conversation trailed off, and left me to
