I'm dedicating this book to my family. 

Also to my Grandma, for making me draw my best characters! (And perhaps to any leprechauns who are out there reading this book!)

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1: A Visit From Shammy...............................................4

Chapter 2: Traps!..........................................................................8

Chapter 3: A Visit From Shammy (Again)................................13

Chapter 4: The Ten Leafed Golden Clover...............................18

Chapter 5: Escape!......................................................................21

Chapter 6: Better Luck Next Time!..........................................26

Chapter 7: The End Of A Rainbow............................................30

Top Ten Tips From A Leprechaun On How To Catch A Leprechaun.................................................................................35

A Bit About The Author..............................................................37

    Once upon a time, a long, long, time ago, (more like 7 minutes and 29.564 seconds ago), Shammy the leprechaun went to visit his two human friends Pila, and her little brother Dimo. He approached quietly and cautiously as it was the 16th of March, the day before St. Patrick’s day. Even though he knew he could escape if they tried to trap him, he wanted to save all of his magic for that night.

    “Hey kids! What are you doing? Have you finished your leprechaun traps yet?” Shammy asked.

    “Hi Shammy! Yes, we have set up our traps and we were just about to test them,” the kids said. They moved in front of the traps so Shammy couldn’t see them.

    “I think that this will finally be the year that we catch you in our trap!” Dimo exclaimed. “Because, there is no way that you will escape The Tri-”

    “Dimo, shhhh! We can’t give away our traps! Especially not our best trap, The Lep-”

    “Pila! YOU were about to give away our trap!” Dimo said.

    “Oops! You’re right!” Pila said, laughing. 

   “I still don’t understand why you want to trap a leprechaun if you are friends with the leprechaun you are trying to catch!” Shammy said. “I mean, what are you even going to do if you trap me? What wish would you wish for?”

    “Hmm, that’s a good question. Why do we try to trap you if we are friends with you?” Dimo asked.

    “I think it’s because it’s fun to build the traps and test them out to see if we really could catch a leprechaun. So, I guess the answer to your question is, it’s fun!” Pila said. 

    “I don’t think that we would really want to make a wish because we have a family and food. Plus, you have already taken us on so many adventures!” Dimo added. “Like the time we helped Santa (How The Leprechauns Saved Christmas!) or the time you took us into space! (The Great Solar System Adventure!) That was so much fun! We should be the ones granting you a wish! What more could we wish for?”

    “I can think of one thing. To see the end of a rainbow,” Pila suggested.

    “The end of a rainbow is definitely one of my favorite places!” Shammy said. 

     Suddenly, a magical sounding timer went off in Shammy’s hat.

    “I have to go get ready for St. Patrick’s Day, but I’ll see you kids tonight even if you don’t see me. And remember, we leprechauns have excellent hearing!” Shammy snapped his fingers and POOF! He was gone in a cloud of green smoke!

    “Let’s get back to testing our traps!” Dimo whispered to Pila.
    “Okay, but why are we whispering?” Pila whispered back.

    “Because Shammy said leprechauns have excellent hearing. We don’t want to accidentally give away how to escape our traps!” Dimo explained.

    “That’s a good idea,” Pila whispered. “Let’s finish testing our traps. My favorite one is the one you made the mud and marshmallows for. I call it The Leprechaun Catcher 3,492!”

    “Is that how many traps you have built that have failed?” Dimo asked.

    “Yes.” Pila held up the blueprints as she explained how her trap works.

    “First, Shammy climbs up the ladder covered in tape. If that doesn’t trap him, then he grabs the rope to lower himself into the house. The house is on a platform. Pulling on the rope will make the roof collapse, trapping him in there. If he escapes to the outside of the house, he will find the special shamrock drill. (See page 22 of A Visit To The Volcano! (Now in your local Santa Cruz Public Library!))

    Because this drill cannot be broken by leprechauns, it can drill an entrance to the rainbow slide under Shammy without Shammy being able to break it! The slide will lead to another house with a pool of oobleck inside. If he escapes, then he will fall down another slide. This one is green. That slide will lead him to another house full of clovers, marshmallows, chocolate, and mud. Remember, the first time we met Shammy was because he was hungry for mud pies and mudshakes, so hopefully that will keep him occupied until we wake up!” 

    “Wow! That is a very complicated trap! I hope it works!” Dimo said. “My favorite trap is the one you helped me build the robot for. I call the robot Diego. The trap is called the Triangular Prism Quest for the 10-Leafed Golden Clover! Here are the blueprints. Let me tell you how it works. First, Shammy has to escape your trap. If he does, then Diego uses its special sensors on its side to tell when Shammy is near. Then, using one arm, Diego will hold up a flashlight. Using another arm, Diego will hold up a triangular prism. That will cause a rainbow!”

    “Isn’t it cool how a prism makes a rainbow? Naturally, a rainbow is made by shining a light on water droplets. The water reflects the light splitting it into different colors. That is why you can only see a natural rainbow by a waterfall or when it is raining and sunny at the same time. It only works when the light reflects off of the water at a 42° angle. The prism also splits the sun’s light. Rainbow. Get it? Rain- water falling from the sky-  and bow- an arch,” Pila explained.

    “Right! Back to the plans, Diego will shine the rainbow over to the 10 leafed golden clover that we grew. Hopefully, Shammy will try to take it off the stand to get a better look at it which will cause the trap floor to drop Shammy down to this amazing room where there are clovers everywhere. I drew rainbows all over the walls. Hopefully, he will explore there until we wake up. I tried to magic-proof it as much as I could. Hopefully by the time he falls down there we will be getting up so we can finally say that we caught a leprechaun!” 

    “Sounds great Dimo. We better go brush our teeth and put on our pajamas so Shammy can come and test our traps,” Pila said.

    “That sounds like a good plan,” Dimo replied, pulling out his St. Patrick’s Day pajamas.

    Soon, their teeth were brushed and they had their pajamas on. 

    “Let’s put our sleeping bags on our bedroom floor so we can sleep near our traps. This way, we might wake up if Shammy is loud,” Dimo explained.

    “Good idea Dimo!” Pila pulled out their sleeping bags and set them onto their bedroom floor.

    Then their Dad read them a quick bedtime story. As he left their bedroom, Pila and Dimo drifted off to sleep so Shammy could come.

Chapter 3: A Visit From Shammy (Again)

    That night, Shammy came at exactly 11:47 PM. Why 47 you ask? Because, four is for the four leaf clover and there are seven different colors in your average human rainbow (more on that later).

    Shammy spotted Pila’s trap and started to climb up the ladder.

    “Very clever Pila!” Shammy thought. “I see that you covered this ladder in tape. I guess I conveniently forgot to tell you this: leprechauns can use our magic to make the tape unsticky. That takes up most of our magic though. Very clever to put the tape first!” Shammy decided that he would use most of his magic to make the tape on the ladder unsticky.

    Once he got to the top, he looked down into the house. Inside he saw a pot of chocolate coins. Then, he saw a rope to lower himself down.

    “This seems too easy, I think she wants me to pull on it!” Shammy decided to use his magic to lower himself down, steal the chocolate coins, and trigger the trap.

    Then, he saw the special shamrock drill. 

    “How did Pila get that from our adventure into Kilauea?” He asked himself. (See page 22 of A Visit To The Volcano! (Now in your local Santa Cruz Public Library!)) “I guess she remembered that I can’t break it with my magic!” Shammy thought. 

    Suddenly, the drill turned on and drilled an entrance to the rainbow slide right under Shammy!

    “Whoa!” Shammy yelled. 

    “Oops!” He whispered. Shammy looked over at Pila and Dimo to see if they had woken up. 

    Dimo just rolled over on his side. He couldn’t see Pila from here on the slide but he knew she was asleep.

    “I wonder where this slide will end up?!” Shammy thought.

    Suddenly, he landed in a pool of oobleck.

    “This is so gross!” Shammy yelled. Luckily, the kids couldn’t hear him from inside this house. “I better start moving. Oobleck will stay hard if I hit it so I better run out of this pool before it turns into a liquid again. It is so cool that if you mix water with cornstarch, you get a substance that can be a solid and a liquid. Oh! I better start running.

The oobleck is turning into a liquid again!”

    Shammy ran super fast and made it out of the pool. He looked behind him to make sure he didn’t leave anything in the oobleck except for glitter. Because he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, he fell down the green slide!

    “I hope this doesn’t lead to another pool of oobleck!” Shammy yelled. 

    But when he got to the bottom, he found himself in another house! This time, he was surrounded by the chocolate, mud, marshmallows, and clovers that Pila and Dimo had left in there.

    “This looks delicious! I’m glad they remembered that we love mud pies and mudshakes and that Pila remembered that I have a sweet tooth. Humans eat so slowly though! Because I’m a leprechaun, I suppose I have time for a snack!”

        Shammy ate all the mud, chocolate, and marshmallows in five seconds! 

    “I wonder what they have planned for me now?” 

    Shammy looked around. He didn’t see anything except for a hidden door. 

    “Pila wouldn’t have added that unless it was a part of the trap. Let’s see where it leads!”

    To Shammy’s surprise, it led outside. 

    Then, he spotted Diego the robot. 

    “Wow! They built a robot? I have to check that out!” 

    As soon as Shammy started walking towards Diego, Diego turned on.

    The robot turned on a flashlight and held up the triangular prism to create a rainbow right in front of Shammy.

    “Where did that rainbow come from?” Shammy asked himself.

    Diego slowly started to move the rainbow towards the ladder that led up to the platform with the 10 leaf golden clover.

    “Wow! That rainbow is moving!” Shammy whisper-exclaimed. “I wonder where it will end up. I guess I will have to follow it to find out!”

    He followed it up the ladder and onto the platform until the rainbow shone upon the 10 leafed golden clover.

    “Woah. Is that the legendary 10 leafed golden clover? I have heard stories of them but have never seen one before. That is because only a true human friend of a leprechaun can grow one,” Shammy said to himself. 

    Pila and Dimo were now in a deep sleep and could not be woken up if Shammy talked.

    “This may be my only chance to see one. I have to get a closer look!”

    Shammy tiptoed over to the clover. As he got closer, the clover started to glow. It glowed brighter and brighter until it was so bright that only a leprechaun could look at it without hurting their eyes. He wasn’t sure how Pila and Dimo slept through the light.

    Suddenly, the clover went dim, and in a poof of glitter, a note appeared right in front of Shammy!

    He pulled the note out of the air and read it.

    Dear Shammy, 

    Congratulations! You have somehow managed to make a friendship with humans! (How did that happen?) You have learned the true meaning of friendship. You don’t even need to be from the same planet! From now on, your magic will be the strongest ever and your life will always be filled with luck, adventure, and mud! 

    Good Job! 

    -The 10 Leafed Golden Clover

    “Wow,” Shammy said. “How does the clover know my name? Wait, what time is it?” Shammy looked at his clover watch. “Oh good, I still have an hour and a half until they wake up. I think that I will just take the clover off the stand to get a better look, leave them a note, and get out of here!” The only problem when he took the clover off the stand was that it triggered the trap and he fell down the trap floor!

    “The clover was a part of the trap? That is very clever!” Shammy said, as he put the 10 leafed golden clover on the floor. “I think that I will leave some evidence before I escape so they know that I fell for the clover part of the trap.”

    Shammy ran up and down the rainbow and clover colored box that he was in, covering it in tiny green footprints.

    “There we go! Oh! I better leave them a note too.” Shammy wrote down a fun little poem about how they could never catch him. It read: 

    Dear Pila and Dimo, 

    I know you want to catch me. Your trap designs were smart. 

    Thank you for the brand new traps. They really are a work of art. 

    The mud was perfect, the chocolate divine.

    So much thought into the rainbow slide!

    Perhaps next year I will get caught. 

    Though something tells me that I will not.

    I will visit you in the morning to talk and tell you which trap was the best.

    Now I must be off to get some well needed rest!

        Shammy snapped his fingers and POOF! He was still stuck inside the trap!

        “Oh no! Dimo must have magic-proofed this trap. My magic does not work in here! How do I escape?!!”

        Another timer went off in Shammy’s hat. “They will wake up soon! I need a plan!”

        Shammy spotted some tape on the ceiling. He jumped up so his hands were stuck on the ceiling. He was hoping to weigh down the ceiling, but then he remembered: leprechauns are weightless! 

        Shammy got his hands unstuck from the tape and jumped down from the ceiling. Now the tape on the ceiling wasn’t even sticky anymore!

        He looked around the box. He saw some tape on the wall, a couple of rocks painted to look like gold, a rainbow made out of cardboard, some clovers, a gold string on the floor to trip him and make him fall onto more

tape, and the trap-floor ceiling.

        “I have an idea!” He announced to no one in particular.

        Shammy pulled the string out of the tape holding it on the wall. Then he collected the tape that held it in place. He wrapped one end of the string around a gold painted rock. On the other end, he cut off a little piece of string. He took that piece and made a loop out of it. He tied the ends together, put a piece of tape on it, climbed up the tape on the wall, and stuck the loop onto the bottom part of the trap floor which was the ceiling for him. Shammy climbed down the tape, grabbed the string with the rock on the end, and climbed back up the tape. Once at the top, Shammy put the end of the string without the rock through the loop on the ceiling. He jumped down and pulled on the string. That lifted the rock up. The weight of the rock pulled down the trap floor just enough so that Shammy could squeeze through. He taped the string to the floor and climbed up the tape on the wall and out of the trap. 

        “Made it out! And just in time too!” Shammy snapped his fingers and POOF! He was gone just as Pila and Dimo woke up.

        “Let’s check out our traps!” Pila said as soon as she woke up.