"I wasn't quite expecting it to be this bad," Sean said looking over the dump. In the midst of an unusually hot day, the mounds of garbage gave off a stench that threatened to destroy his sense of smell forever. The limits on the range of his magic gift required him to be right in the center of it.
"What are you doing?" a male voice asked him from behind.
Sean turned around and spotted the pair of elves, George and Georgia, watching him. George was devastatingly handsome and Georgia was overwhelmingly beautiful. They were floating about a foot above the garbage. They were watching him with obvious amusement on their faces. Sean said, "Oh, hello. I haven't seen you around for a while."
"We've seen you," Georgia said. Her voice reminded Sean of a choir singing.
"We caught a few of the plays you've had at your house," George said.
"Oh, you should have come up for some sodas and popcorn," Sean said. He had not realized that the elves had actually been by his house.
"Unlike the Dwarves, I'm afraid that we don't particularly care for sodas and popcorn. We prefer wine and fruit," George said with a hint of disdain in his voice. Elves tended to be the aristocrats of the magical races.
"I fear that my parents would never allow us to serve wine. I will make sure to have some apples out for you tonight," Sean said. He could imagine a bunch of drunken dwarves loose in the backyard. They would probably remodel the house, or at least begin to remodel the house.
"We'll stop by your concession stand the next time that we watch one of your plays," Georgia said.
Looking at the trash around him, Sean felt that it wasn't the kind of place where Elves would normally live. He asked, "Do you come out here often?"
"This is our first time out here," George answered amused by the question.
"We came out here to see what you were doing," Georgia answered.
Surprised by that, Sean said, "You came out here to see me? I am honored. I doubt that I would come out here to see me if I were you."
Georgia said, "What are you doing out here amongst all this trash?"
"Looking for gold," Sean answered knowing that it sounded kind of stupid. A dump would have been the last place he would have thought of to find anything of value.
"Treasures in a midden," George said with an amused expression on his face.
Georgia laughed and said, "I like it. There's nothing like seeking a beautiful rose in the midst of a dunghill."
"There is a sense of irony about it that I can appreciate," George said. The Elves were attracted to ironic situations.
"I don't know about a sense of irony, but this is killing my sense of smell," Sean said. This was not on his list of most favored ways to spend a Saturday afternoon. In fact, if he had such a list with this on it the list would have been ten miles long and it would have been the very last item on it.
"I can imagine," George said. Their magic was working overtime to keep the stench away from their noses.
Waving a hand in front of her nose, Georgia said, "We must be off. The smell is becoming a little too much for us."
"Have a nice day," Sean said smiling at the pair of elves.
"Fare well," Georgia said while turning transparent and disappearing from view.
"Have fun," George said fading from view.
"Goodbye," Sean said waving to where they had been. He looked around and then said, "I'm going to have to learn how to disappear like that."
Sean looked down at his locator compass. He was standing right next to some gold; more accurately he was standing above some gold. He looked down at his feet wondering how he was going to get the gold. He moved a little of the trash with his toe. The sudden increase in odor convinced him that he didn't want to dig around in the trash.
He said, "There's got to be a way to get it out without having to dig for it."
Sean was wearing his pants with a dozen pockets. Each pocket was loaded with lots of lightweight items that he could control with his magic. Thinking there had to be something in his pockets that would help; he rummaged through them trying to find something that inspired him. Finally, he pulled out a latex glove. He ordered, "Get the gold."
The glove dropped to the top of the trashed and wormed its way in amongst the trash. Sean watched it slowly disappear into the trash pile. He stood there looking down at his feet waiting for the glove to return. He had visions of it returning with a jewelry box filled with valuable jewels. After nothing happened for a minute, he said, "This is exciting. The anticipation is about to kill me."
After two minutes, Sean started to get worried said, "It should have been back by now."
After five minutes, he asked, "Is it digging its way to China?"
"I don't think it is coming back," Sean said after waiting ten minutes. By this time his eyes were watering from the fumes generated by the decomposing trash that surrounded him.
He was about to give up when the tattered remains of the latex glove poked up through the trash. A small gold gleam was just visible through the debris at his feet. Sean reached down and picked up the piece of gold. Holding it up, he said, "A gold tooth? That's disgusting, but I guess it is a start."
He slipped the gold tooth into his pocket and pulled out the locator compass. He said, "Find the nearest unowned piece of gold."
The locator compass pointed to the next mound of trash. It looked to him like someone had dumped ten thousand disposable diapers on it. Looking at the size of the mound, Sean said, "Oh boy. This is just getting better and better."
Walking over to the mound of trash, he reached in his pocket and pulled out another latex glove. Looking at it, he said, "Get the gold."
The latex glove wormed its way into the trash heap. It was ten minutes before the thumb of the latex glove returned to the surface. The thumb was all that remained of the original glove. Trapped within the curled bit of latex were ten links of a fine gold chain. Sean picked it up and stared at the miniscule quantity of gold. He couldn't even feel it in his hand. He frowned and said, "The latex glove was worth more than that."
He put the chain into his pocket and pulled out the locator compass. He ordered it to point to the nearest piece of gold that was not owned by anyone. It took him a few seconds to determine that the nearest piece gold was in the trash pile at his feet. He pulled out his last latex glove and ordered it to get the gold. By this time, the odor from the baby diapers was making him dizzy. He couldn't move away since his magic didn't extend that far. He hoped that he didn't collapse because that would kill him.
The latex glove returned after twenty minutes. There was so little left of it that he couldn't even recognize what part of the glove it had come from. It held a little piece of gold. He picked it up and examined it. At first he couldn't make out what it was, but then realized that it was a small part from an earring. Staring at it, he said, "This is not quite working out the way I thought it would."
He pulled out his compass and ordered it to find the nearest gold that was not owned. It pointed to the next mound of garbage. Looking at the pile of garbage, Sean said, "I could end up being out here all day."
Having exhausted his supply of latex gloves, Sean returned to his truck. The hour spent out at the dump had a great disappointment to him. He had a gold tooth, a small bit of chain, and a broken earring to show for his time out there. The total didn't weigh much and he knew that the pure gold content was probably less than half of what the pieces weight. Getting in his truck, he drove home thinking that he had to find something around the house that would be better at retrieving the gold than the latex gloves.
Discouraged by the time spent at the dump, Sean arrived at home and walked around to the backyard to see what the Dwarves were doing. They were standing around five flattened police cars. Sean could see that they were arguing about something, but he couldn't hear the details.
Curious about how they had managed to get the flattened cars to the backyard, Sean went over to them. He asked, "What are you doing?"
"Whoa! What is that smell?" Clea asked waving a hand in front of her nose.
"I've been out to the dump," Sean said realizing that his time out at the dump had saturated his clothes with the smell.
Chom held his bulbous nose and said, "It is at times like this that my substantial nose is a liability rather than an asset. You stink!"
"Your nose is your best feature," Clea said.
"That is true," Chom said. He was quite proud of his large nose.
Pip didn't care one way or the other about Chom's nose. Chom would have said that Pip was jealous, but he was too polite for that. Changing the subject, Pip asked, "What were you doing out at the dump?"
"I was looking for gold," Sean answered.
"I hope you found a lot," Chom said still holding his nose. He moved upwind of Sean hoping that it would cut down on the smell a bit. The other two dwarves joined him.
"It would take a pile of gold to make me willing to smell that bad," Pip said.
Sean reached into his pocket and pulled out the three items of gold that he had found. He held them out to the dwarves and asked, "Is this enough gold?"
"What gold?" Chom asked staring at the pitiful amount of gold in Sean's hand from a distance. Due to the stench rolling off of Sean, he wasn't willing to move any closer to look at it.
"Robbing the dead for their teeth?" Pip asked looking at the gold tooth.
"This was what I was able to find," Sean said hoping that it would be enough. He didn't relish the idea of spending another day at the dump.
Chom took the gold and squeezed it in his hand. The impurities ran out between his fingers. He opened his hand and there in the palm was a tiny nugget of gold. Looking at it, he said, "There's not much there."
"Is that it?" Sean said staring at the tiny nugget.
"That's it," Chom said.
"That's not much," Sean said thinking that he had spent more on latex gloves than the gold was worth.
"You can say that again," Chom said. The three dwarves looked at him expectantly. They started tapping their feet impatiently. When Sean didn't reply, Chom cleared his throat and said, "You can say that again."
"That's not much," Sean said pretty sure that the conversation wouldn't continue until he repeated his last statement.
"You're going to need more than that," Chom said handing the gold over to Sean.
"I'm going to have to figure out a better way to get the gold out of the trash," Sean said.
"You might try to find a way that doesn't smell so bad," Chom said. He took another step back from Sean.
Liam wandered over to them, but stopped a dozen paces away from Sean. Holding his nose, he asked, "What is that stench?"
"Sean," Chom answered.
"Me," Sean said shrugging his shoulders.
"What were you doing? Playing around in a trash heap?" Liam asked.
"Yes," Sean answered. "I was looking for gold."
"Gold?" Liam asked perking up.
"That's right," Sean answered.
"You say there is gold in the trash heap?" Liam asked getting a large grin. Rubbing his hands together excitedly, he shouted, "Hey, Agar! Come here."
A few seconds later, Agar appeared beside Liam. Agar asked, "What do you want?"
Liam whispered to Agar for a second. The second Leprechaun burst out laughing. It took him a minute to recover enough to say, "I like it."
"Can you imagine the pair of them out there?" Liam asked with a great big grin. Agar doubled over in laughter.
Listening to the conversation, Sean had a feeling that he knew what they thinking. He asked, "What are you planning?"
"Nothing really," Liam answered. Agar fell to the ground and rolled around laughing.
"Somehow I don't quite believe you," Sean said eyeing the two Leprechauns suspiciously. They were planning something and he had a feeling that his mother wasn't going to be too happy about it.
Wiping the tears from his cheeks, Agar said, "We shall have to discuss the matter at a later time."
"I can't wait," Liam said chuckling.
Sean looked at the flattened police cars and said, "I see that you've been to the mall."
Chom nodded his head and said, "We had a nice little visit with Stomp."
Liam said, "I negotiated a great deal with the police for a new car."
"Oh? What did you get?" Sean asked.
"One hundred sodas," Liam said smugly.
Gesturing proudly at Liam, Chom said, "You should have seen Liam negotiate. He was magnificent. The policeman gave a pitiful first offer. Liam fell over once clutching his chest and the policeman caved in before he was even able to whimper."
Pip said, "They should have had a Leprechaun negotiating for them."
"What was their first offer?" Sean asked. He could imagine Liam out there faking a heart attack in front of a police officer. The cop would probably grab a defibrillator and attempt to jumpstart his heart.
"A thousand dollars," Pip said snorting disdainfully.
"What do we need dollars for? We want sodas," Chom said stabbing the air to emphasize his point.
"And you countered with one hundred sodas?" Sean asked. He had a feeling that they weren't going to be too happy in a minute.
"That's right. We were only expecting to get twenty sodas," Chom said nodding his head.
"It was a masterful piece of negotiating if I say so myself," Liam said. He strutted around proudly for a moment.
Sean looked down at the ground for a second trying to figure out how to tell Liam that he hadn't done a very good job of negotiating. Sean said, "Well..."
Noticing Sean's less than enthusiastic reaction, Liam said, "You don't look very impressed. What's the matter?"
"I don't know how to tell you this," Sean said scratching the back of his neck.
"Well, just say it," Pip said.
"You move your mouth and words come out," Chom said thinking that Sean might need a little hint on how talking worked.
"Don't forget to exhale while moving the mouth," Clea said adding the missing details.
Sean said, "A thousand dollars would buy more than five hundred sodas."
"What?" Liam asked staring at Sean with a frown.
"What?" the Dwarves asked glaring at Liam with frowns on their faces.
"A big bottle of soda costs less than two dollars," Sean said.
"What?" Liam asked not quite believing what he had heard.
"Five hundred bottles of soda?" Chom asked taking a step closer to Liam.
Pip said, "Something stinks around here and it isn't Sean."
Liam looked around at the Dwarves for a second. They didn't look particularly happy. Backing away from them, he said, "Uh, I better be running along. I'm late for an appointment."
"You come back here," Chom shouted when Liam took off running.
Sean stood there watching the Dwarves take off after Liam. He said, "The Dwarves look a little angry."
"They'll get over it," Agar said.
Shaking his head, Sean said, "I would hate to be Liam when he gets caught."
"He won't get caught. He's a Leprechaun. Nobody catches a Leprechaun," Agar said watching Chom trip up with Pip. Clea just ran right over them in hot pursuit of Liam.