“Wish it’d hurry up ‘fore everyone wakes up,” Patrick said. He squeezed his legs together and shifted back and forth. 

“Ain’t comin’ if you keep jabberin’, fool,” Leon said. He eased slack out of the string he was holding. The string led to a stick which propped up a battered shoebox. The crust sat on a dirty saucer under the box.

Ten minutes trickled by. Patrick couldn’t take it anymore. “I gotta go.”

He crept down the hallway, wincing with every floorboard creak. A stench flowed beneath the bathroom door like bad juju. Mamma hadn’t cleaned in weeks and Uncle Albert forgot to flush again. The bathtub had more rings than Mr. T, but it was cleaner than the potty. He climbed in and peed down the drain, running a little water after. The inspector-man was coming today and he wouldn’t be happy seeing pee in the bathtub.

Patrick tiptoed back down the hall and curled up behind his brother. Leon turned around, scowling.

“Back off, Trick, you gonna mess everything up.”

Something small and nimble zipped across the living room floor in a flash of gray, or was it green?

“Pull it, pull it!” Patrick yelled. Leon yanked the string and the box came down with a cardboard thump.

“We got it!” Leon said. “We got a leprechaun.”

The boys hopped up and down, hugging each other and slapping high-fives.

“I told you they was real,” Patrick said. His counselor, Mr. Doyle, had told him all about the leprechauns in their last session. He and Mr. Doyle talked about a lot of things — school, drugs, and how come his daddy left — but Patrick liked it best when Mr. Doyle told stories about growing up in Eye-or-land and chasing faeries and leprechauns. Mr. Doyle said you normally caught leprechauns around rainbows. Patrick had never seen a rainbow, but Mr. Doyle said on St. Patrick’s Day you could catch ‘em inside just fine, too.

The brothers listened to the frantic scratching inside the shoebox for a half minute before Leon carefully slid the torn cover of a phone book underneath. 

“You sure this ain’t a rat, Trick?” He flipped the box right side up and raised the cover to look inside, but Patrick stayed his hand.

“You can’t go peeking at him or you lose the wish,” he said. He tightened his grip on Leon’s wrist. 

“Okay, no peeking, but we better wish quick, case he gets loose,” Leon said. “What we wishin’ for?”

They’d discussed it, of course, when first planning to catch the leprechaun. Patrick wanted to wish for Uncle Albert’s brains to unscramble so he could talk again, but Leon was old enough to remember when Uncle Albert could still speak and said he just complained a lot. Leon wanted to wish for a million dollars, but Patrick worried that all the family would come swarming in like they did when Mamma got a paycheck day.

“How ‘bout a new apartment?” Patrick asked. “This one here’s nasty.”

“Yeah, I’d like that,” Leon said. “Fresh start might be good for us. Some place nobody knows so they won’t bother us no more.”

Patrick took the shoebox from Leon and knelt on the floor, holding it in his lap. “We want a new home, we want a new home,” he chanted. Leon joined in. The scrabbling noises stilled.  A prickling started along the back of Patrick’s neck.

“Boys, what fool thing you up to now?” Mamma’s voice started him so badly he nearly dropped the shoebox. She shuffled into the room, her oversized bathrobe cinched tight across her bony chest. “Damn heat’s off again. You put your sweaters on, hear me?”

“Mamma, mamma, guess what we caught?” Patrick said. “We got us a leprechaun.”

Mamma’s eyes narrowed and she moved toward them, two fingers crooked.

“Give it here.” 

Just as Mamma took the box, there was a knock at the door. Mamma ignored it and held the box up to her ear, one hand firmly on the makeshift lid. The knocking persisted. Balancing the shoebox in one hand, she unlocked the door. Without warning, a man in a grey sport coat, carrying a clipboard, walked in. 

“Mrs. Johnson? I’m Herman Volker with inspections.” 

The man made a quick survey of the room and started making notes. 

“County Services requires a certain, ahem, standard of maintenance to continue receiving support,” Volker said. 

“It’s not my fault, Mr. Volker,” Mamma said, her voice rising. “Y’all put us up in this drafty old box and it’s all we can do to stay from freezing. How I’m supposed to keep steady work with the children home sick half the time?”

“I suggest blankets, Mrs. Johnson.”

Mr. Volker didn’t notice it, but Patrick distinctly heard Mamma’s last straw break. Her last straw wasn’t particularly strong to begin with and it didn’t take much to snap. She read the inspector up one side and down the other, her voice banging off the dingy walls like pots and pans being flung around in a tornado. 

“Besides,” Mamma finished, “County says we don’t have to stay here if there’s vermins. And we got vermins.” She thrust the shoebox under Volker’s nose. The leprechaun resumed its violent scratching. Volker raised the trembling clipboard in front of him like a shield.

“Okay, Mrs. Johnson, you’ve made your point. I’ll see about finding you a new place. Somewhere midtown. Maybe near a park. Please, just take it away.”

Mamma handed the box back to Patrick. She dropped her angry face for a moment and winked. 

“You done good,” she whispered.

That afternoon, Patrick took the shoebox to an alley behind their apartment. He removed the cover, but didn’t dare peek.

This was extremely disconcerting to anyone who sat anywhere near her and since her name was Sandra Glass and mine was Kevin Gillespie, we were joined at the hip until the sixth grade when they separated the girls from the boys. 

In the fifth grade, Soggy sat next to me instead of in front or behind, so I got a full view of her profile, her nose, and her nasal mucus. 

For this sin alone, I felt vindicated when Sister Leilani got booted out of the nunnery for screwing the kickball coach in the boys’ lavatory at St. Vanessa of the Blessed Grotto.  We called her Sister Lei, with smirks and sniggers – because, of course, we all played kickball and we weren’t blind or stupid.  Occasionally, I still wonder if the fifth-grade kickball team was actually responsible by calling attention to her indiscretions.

Anyway, before all that blew up, Sister Lei used to walk the aisles between our desks, smacking the palm of her right hand with her stapler, trolling for cheaters. And although I wasn’t very good at math and Soggy was, I NEVER once cheated.  It wasn’t her answers I found fascinating; it was her snot. 

It was mesmerizing.  There it was in the morning glistening in the slant of sun coming in through the window, the loose roundness of it seeming right on the edge of dropping.

There it was just after lunch, the same one or a new one, I was never sure.  But I couldn’t help but wonder how she could eat that gigantus vegetarian sandwich her mother made every day with all that leafy curling lettuce and not end up with the snot ball getting chewed up with the bean sprouts. 

And there it was, in the afternoon, bigger than ever, that damn bulb of nasal discharge actually swaying when Soggy raised her hand. 

It was like this day after day, all day long, Soggy Sandy and her slimy booger, me just waiting to see it let go and slop onto her test paper.  It thrilled me to think that Sister Lei would be locked up in the convent at night grading Soggy Sandy’s math quiz, her ferocious nun hand sliding over the very spot that held snot.

“Cheater! Cheater!” Sister Lei’s industrial-sized Swingline stapler snap-snapped at the end of my nose. I jumped, got tangled in the metal legs of my desk, and in my attempt to twist away, the chair part jammed into Sister Lei who started to fall into Soggy, and then as if in slow-mo she grabbed Soggy’s wet nose, mucus globoid and all.

A loud “Eee-yewwww!” slithered through the class room.  I was terror-stricken.  What was my mom going to do to me?  Nuns were like virginal demi-gods to her.  And I’d actually pushed one into a juicy booger.  I stared at the penguin’s red and puffy face, then looked for Soggy who was lost somewhere under Sister Lei’s black habit. 

Between us, Mike and Bobby and me got the sister to her feet and pulled Soggy free.  

The thing was, I’d always been so enthralled with Soggy’s nose, I’d never really looked at her before.  She was pale from her ordeal, her dark eyes wide and kind of luminous, and the band holding her pony tail had broken and all this soft brown hair was pushing against her face.  And the infamous red snout with its spectacular snot was gone and in its place was a freckled little — and surprisingly clean — nose. 

It wasn’t long after this incident that Sister Leilani was ordered to turn in her habit because of her other habit with the kickball coach, who, by the way , was allowed to keep his job, and by the beginning of sixth grade, after they split up the boys and girls, everyone started calling Soggy Sandy “Sandi” with an “i”, including me.  Turned out, I was the one lucky enough to eventually marry her.

He hit send and put the bottle to his lips. The timing is crucial, he thought, looking around his bedroom nervously. The line rang in concert with the clear liquid’s first penetration of his throat. He retched, trying his best to stifle the noise. The line rang twice more before it was answered.

“911 dispatch, non-emergency line,” the voice in his ear droned.

He pulled the bottle from his lips. “Janice, this is Tim. Is the boss in yet?”

“Tim, you sound horrible! Are you okay?” Janice asked.

Tim rolled his eyes and forced a quick drink before answering.

“Laryngitis. Is Mr. Salinsky in?” Salinsky came out a little too normally, Tim noted. This ball game better be worth it.

“Hold on, hon’. I hope you get better soon,” Janice chirped.

He responded with a half groan.

Silence held for a few minutes. Tim eyed the bottle with disgust.

“Salinsky,” a voice chock-full of authority stated. Tim took a swig and grimaced.

“Mr…” Another swallow. “…Salinsky?”

“Yes.” Mr. Salinsky’s already sounded impatient to Tim. And suspicious.

Tim tried to hold a small sip on the back of his tongue, thinking this would change the quality of his voice for a longer period of time.

“Gristh-” Tim’s throat contracted. He coughed loudly. The liquor found its way into his nasal passage. He moaned and tried to think through the pain.

“This is Tim.” He coughed again.

“Hell, boy. You sound terrible.”

“I’m sick, boss.” He gingerly swallowed more of the rotgut. “Laryngitis, I think.”

“Then you’re no good to us on the phones today. I’ll get someone to come in to cover you.”

Does he mean to sound condescending? Tim thought.

Relieved, Tim endured one more gulp. “Thanks, boss.”

“Just get better. Drink lots of fluids or something,” Mr. Salinsky said.

“Uh huh.” Tim turned toward his closet to collect his old glove and Milwaukee jersey. The room turned faster than he expected it to. His finger started to press the disconnect button.

“Oh, Tim!”

An emergency swallow. “Yeah, boss?”

“Did you turn in your call log on Friday?”

“Always do, boss.” Am I talking loud? Tim wondered.

“It’s not in my pile,” Mr. Salinsky continued.

“It should be — ” Tim remembered his bottle trick. ” — be there.”

“I’m gonna look around at your station, if you don’t mind,” said Mr. Salinsky.

The bottle bounced against Tim’s front teeth. He didn’t notice.

“No problemsky, Salinsky.”

“What was that?” Mr. Salinsky snapped.

“What was what?” Tim spoke automatically.

Mr. Salinsky sighed. “The call log. It’d be in your top drawer?”

Feeling witty, Tim laughed and took another drink. “Maybe it’s on your office floor.”

“Now why would they be there?” Mr. Salinsky demanded.

Tim’s phone beeped. He held it at elbow’s length and squinted. Jason’s calling. He must be downstairs. He put the phone to his ear and the bottle to his lips.

“Maybe Janice knocked it there?” he asked, amused.

“Why the hell would Janice knock your call log onto my floor, Timothy?” Mr. Salinsky’s hackles were up.

“Maybe she had to climb up on top of your desk,” Tim said helpfully.

“Tim, get better. I want to see you in my office first thing tomorrow morning,” Mr. Salinsky ordered.

The line went dead.

Tim frowned and lifted the bottle close to his eyes. A lonely half-ounce swished back and forth in the bottom, charming him. He swayed.

The bottle fell to the floor.

Tim’s vision blackened. He landed halfway onto his bed, face down. His cell phone bounced out of his hand and landed on his pillow.

It rang for quite a while before Jason gave up and drove to Miller Stadium.

Podcast EDF015: “Waiting” by Simon Smithson, as read by Adam Kerby

Simon Smithson is an Australian writer who is moving to San Francisco. He has never seen a moose, has eaten crocodile (it was delicious), and has more ideas than he has time to bring to fruition.

Adam Kerby is a voice actor in Vancouver, Canada.