“That’s not what I meant!”

She lowered the scroll from her face. “Then I guess you need to learn to articulate better.” I let out several deep breaths and tried to think about this logically. Which was very hard to do since I could feel myself sliding into a full-blown panic. Tristan was missing. He’d been in the Middle Ages for months and it 141/431

was my fault. “Okay, if my wish sent him there, then how about I just wish that you bring him back?” She rolled the scroll up and placed it back in her purse. “You’ve already used up all of your wishes. First you wished to be Cinderella, then Snow White, and lastly you wished to send Tristan to the Middle Ages to become your prince.”

I clenched my hands into fists. “No, that was the same wish that you just messed up a bunch of times!”

“Hopefully he’ll accomplish the whole prince thing by this prom,” she said as if she hadn’t heard me at all. “But if not, don’t worry. You didn’t specify which prom and there are a lot of other guys I could send to medieval times to make their fortune. Eventually one of them is bound to become a prince, right?”

“No,” I said. “You can’t do that. You have to bring—,” but she didn’t listen to the rest of my sentence.

With a flash of light, she disappeared.

Chapter 9

I stood there for several more moments, just gasping at the empty space in my room. I called her name. I demanded she come back. I even stomped my foot, but she didn’t return. And every minute I stood here, Tristan was back in the Middle Ages experiencing—how much time exactly? Every ten minutes that went by here was more than a day there. Four hours was a month. I didn’t have any time to spare, and yet I had no idea how to bring him back.

I paced the room for probably a complete day in Tristan’s time, and then decided that if I couldn’t talk to Chrissy, I could at least try to talk to the leprechaun.

Maybe as an ex-assistant he had some leverage on Chrissy and could make her undo the last wish.

I looked around the house in places I thought a leprechaun might be—under the beds, in drawers, hiding in the kitchen cabinets. I remembered Chrissy had said something about him playing poker with the computer gremlins so I did a thorough check of all the computers.

Then I walked around the backyard, looking behind trees and pushing away branches of bushes so I could see inside them. “Hey, Mr. Bloomsbottle,” I kept 143/431

whispering. “I need to talk to you. It’s urgent.” I checked another bush. “Clover? Where are you?” I peered around a tree and saw Jane standing there, eyeing me suspiciously. “What are you looking for?”

“Uh, nothing.”

Oh no. That was a lie. And there was the consequence, already growing between my teeth. I rushed to the nearest large bush so Jane couldn’t see what came out of my mouth. The whole time I ran I was afraid that if I didn’t make it in time, whatever it was squirming around in my mouth would try to crawl down my throat.

When I got to the bush, I leaned over and spit up a gecko. And yes, I knew it was a gecko because I recognized it from the TV commercials.

As I stood there gagging, Jane walked over. “So this is your new method of making me feel guilty? You’re pretending to be bulimic?”

“I am not pretending to be bulimic.”

“Oh. You just throw up every time I’m around, then?

That’s a real subtle message.” Even though Jane was being unnecessarily snotty, I decided to tell her everything. First of all, it would save me from spitting up more geckos every time I talked to her. Plus she was smart enough to possibly find a solution to this problem.

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So I did. Right there in the backyard I told her about Clover and how I needed to find him because he knew my fairy godmother and I needed advice about undoing wishes.

The whole time I spoke she folded her arms and gave me this humorless stare. When I finished she just nodded and said, “Okay, don’t tell me what you’re looking for. I don’t care.” Then she turned on her heel and went back inside.

I sighed and looked around the lawn again, trying to fend off the overpowering feeling of helplessness. How did one contact a leprechaun? They made a point of staying hidden, and it’s not likely he’d walk into a trap—that is, unless I made it an especially tempting trap.

I went to the store and bought a package of Ding Dongs and some Barbie doll furniture. Then I went back home, took my dad’s gopher traps out of the garage, and hauled them inside. I set up furniture in all the traps complete with Ding Dong slices and little cups of milk.

Just for good measure I threw a flash drive into each of the traps. If a few computer gremlins were lured into the traps along with the leprechaun, all the better.

I put one trap by the computer in my room, one by the computer in Jane’s room, and the other in the family room where my parents’ computer sat. Maybe he’d come 145/431

by for another poker game soon. If he was still around at all.

I checked the traps after dinner. Nothing. I went back to the computer in my bedroom and looked up information about leprechauns and fairies. After almost an hour of sifting through sites of artwork, craft projects, party ideas, and historic origins of mystical creatures, I heard the doorbell ring. Jane answered it and I heard Hunter’s voice.

I tried to tune out Jane and him and concentrate on Web sites. Somewhere among the thousands of references, there had to be someone who’d dealt with magical creatures. Surely someone out there could help me.

I heard Jane and Hunter walk into the family room and realized I should have told my family not to mess with the traps I’d set up. I hurried toward the family room but Jane and Hunter were already there.

They stared at the Barbie furniture I’d set up in the trap and spoke in low voices to each other. Hunter shook his head. When they heard me walking toward them they fell silent.

I lowered my voice as well. “Stop looking at me like I’m crazy because I’m not—and don’t stand so close to that. You’ll scare off the leprechaun.” Which perhaps was not the best method of proving my sanity, but there was no point in defending myself.

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I’d either keep looking like an idiot or I’d start covering the carpet in reptiles. I turned and left the room.

I went back to my computer to look up more Internet sites. And there in the middle of the trap eating a Ding Dong was Clover T. Bloomsbottle.

He wasn’t the sole occupant of the trap. Behind him, two creatures that looked like two-inch pale gray bats had pulled my flash drive apart. They sat beside each other grunting and chewing on the contents.

As I approached, Clover looked up at me—first with agitation, then with complacent disregard. “Oh, it’s just you.” He waved a finger in my direction. “You can’t have me gold, so don’t even ask.” He shoved another piece of Ding Dong into his mouth, getting cream filling all over his beard, then shook his head happily. “These are much better than those dried-out crackers and boxes of cereal you have around.” He took another bite. “Which reminds me, that Cap’n Crunch fellow cheats at cards. As for the Pillsbury Doughboy—aye, there’s a sop for you.

You really could do with a higher class of magical folk in the kitchen.”

I was so happy to see him I didn’t know where to begin or what to say first. I ended up saying, “I didn’t realize we had magical tenants living in the cupboards.” He took another bite. “And I don’t care what you Yanks say, cheese should not whiz.” 147/431

The gremlins looked up and said something too, but it all sounded like clicks to me.

“What did they just say?” I asked Clover.

“Ah, don’t mind them. The only ones that can understand them is magical folk and computer programmers.