Part eight: The train

Rising floodwater

This is quite cozy,” thought Timothy O’Leary, the good leprechaun cobbler, as he sat beside the fireplace in the old schoolhouse with Kelly, the young Irish colleen. Her hair glistened in the firelight.

“She is beautiful,” he thought.

Prince, her frog friend, was outside watching the rising water.

“I don’t like leaving Kelly alone with Timothy, but he is a good leprechaun. If the rain continues, we will have to vacate the schoolhouse, but everyone is safe for the night. Plan A, stay here; but I have to figure out plan B, just in case.”

“I like Timothy, but I am frightened,” thought Kelly, reading a book about castles. “It is still raining and getting dark. I am alone with a leprechaun and a frog. What should I do?”

The train whistle in the distance was strangely comforting. She knew that the train was still running in Killarney, but it seemed so far away that it made her homesick.

“I hope our cottage is still standing and that my dad is all right,” she said. “He will be looking for me.”

Timothy nodded, as he worked on her shoes.

“These will be just fine, like new, when I am finished.”

He had decided to put the three gold coins back insider her shoes again, so that she still had her wishes.

“Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra,” he started to sing softly, as he repaired the soles. His voice was so gentle it soothed Kelly and gradually, she drifted off to sleep, just as he hoped she would.

“Will I still have a home and a cobbler’s workshop in the passageway under the castle?” he wondered, as he wiped away a leprechaun size tear. “What will I do?”

The train whistle resounded again.

The sound made Prince feel lonely. He was sad too, as his tadpole family was in the flood area.

It would be a long night for all of them. 

What he did not know was that Timothy had made a plan for him and Kelly.