Terry opened his bleary eyes, wondering what he was doing at a desk. Then he remembered – he'd been doing his homework, and must have fallen asleep at the boring drudge.
“Dumb teachers,” he thought. She'd marked a paper of his down for “incorrect” spelling. G olo G and jee ogre fee weren't acceptable ways of spelling those words, it seemed. He got a little cross at that – she should have given him an A for creativity. What would she know, anyway? Never trust any-body older than ten!
“Oi there, laddy.”
Terry jumped, fully awake now. “Who...” he started, “What are you?”
“Oim a Nac Mac Feegle. An' yer Terry, oincha?”
Terry stared, his mouth hanging open. A little red haired man no more than six inches high, wearing a kilt, was talking to him. “You sound Irish,” he said, “are you a leprechaun?”
“WHAT?!?!” the little man exclaimed angrily. “Leprechauns are Oirish, Oim Scoottish. Doon ya noo the differ'nce between a Oirish kilt and a Scootish kilt? Doon' they teach yer anythin' in yer schools?”
“Um, maybe a fairy?”
This just made the little man angrier. “Noo! fairies are pixies. We're pictsies. We're Nac Mac Feegles, noo ‘lep-rechauns’. Noo listen, laddy, there's somethin' important yer gotta do when yer a bit oolder. Quite a bit oolder in fact.”
“Oolder? Don't you mean older?”
“Doon sass me, boy, oov course oi mean oolder. Doon' they teach ye kids anythin' anymore?”
“Well, I have stupid teachers who mark my papers down because I don't like the way some words are spelled and I spell them any way I want to.”
“Noo wonder yeer ignorant. Eenyway, what yer gotta do is just remember tonight.”
“Why?”
“Yer just do. An' remember the magic!” he exclaimed as the pencil changed into a snake and slithered away.
Rority giggled as his Nac Mac Feegle, made out of nobots of course, ran away from Terry and scurried under the door. “Man I love his books!” Rority said.
Lets see, the next protohuman on his list was a fellow named Jay Are Are. He'd have to be introduced to... Rority checked the list... Dwarves? Why dwarves?
Oh well. He started his timeship and flew off, giggling some more, and took another toke off his stratodoober.
Rority loved his work.