Category: Author
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Getting Ellis out of her house is a problem that has caused me more concern than many of the other sections of this increasingly dubious tale. The only sensible solution that I can come up with is to present four viable possibilities and leave it up to each of you to decide for yourselves which possibility you prefer the most.
This way might allow me to feel slightly less concerned about behaving irresponsibly and inappropriately or, worse, condoning irresponsible or inappropriate behaviour.
After all, it is a big responsibility to write something that someone else might read. Because of this, I don’t really want anyone to think that letting a young, unaccompanied girl out of her house to investigate a kidnapping and try to save the world is a good idea in real life.
However, I do need Ellis to get out of her house and look for Falcon Boy. Otherwise the story stops here and goes no further. And no one will ever know what happens next.
So, going back to the options, whichever one you choose will have the same end result: the next time we meet Ellis she will be standing outside Falcon Boy’s house. The only thing you have to decide is how you want her to get there.
If anyone is looking for further assurance here, then it is worth me pointing out that I have absolutely no intention of letting anything terrible happen to Ellis. You have my word. So here are the options:
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelesshero
She couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwell
If universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknow
For the full FREE adventures of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird why not download Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets now.Share this:
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As usual, Pearly was going to have to try and sort things out herself. Following an all-night stint with her homemade chromatography kit, Pearly is able to identify the glove as possibly belonging to Burgess, the caretaker of the Fallstown Junior and Senior Academy for Boys and for Girls.
‘I knew he would be the prime suspect,’ she crows triumphantly. Pearly had always considered Burgess to be a suspicious sort of fellow. ‘After all, he talks to himself,’ she continues, ‘that’s a sure sign that something suspicious is going on.’
Wanderley disguises himself as a classroom skeleton and waits for three days in a dusty storeroom before he hears Burgess asking the kidnapped headmaster of the Fallstown Junior and Senior Academy for Boys and For Girls if he wanted his tea yet.
This is all the evidence Pearly needs and, once again, Windy has to run really fast.
‘Run, Windy, run,’ says Pearly and Windy was off before she even had time to tell him where to run to. At the same time, Wes uses his strength to keep Burgess locked in the storeroom, while Pearly uses her detecting skills to follow the very loud but slightly muffled shouting that leads her to discover Dr. Trimfit locked in a wardrobe.
Even at her age, Ellis already knew enough to know that, just like Pearly Stockwell, everything depended upon the detail. If she could just get to Falcon Boy’s house, she was sure she would find out what was going on. But how could she possibly get there?
She was too young to drive a car and her tea was nearly ready. She couldn’t ask her Mum if it was alright to have her tea later because she needed to set off on a quest to try and rescue Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird and save the world from the madness of Dr Don’t Know.
And here we are presented with a very interesting narrative challenge: how on earth can a six-year-old girl leave the safety of her own home to go off and investigate the kidnapping and disappearance of two superheroes by an internationally renowned supervillain, and along the way potentially get caught up in all kinds of dangerous and world-threatening events?
How am I going to get out of this one?
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowFor the full FREE adventures of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird why not download Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets now.Share this:
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For all of the digressions and complications so far, Ellis’s plan was actually very simple. She would go to Falcon Boy’s house and see if she could find any clues.
It won’t surprise you to learn that something very similar happened in We Really Hope You Can, Pearly Stockwell when, dissatisfied with the slow progress being made by the Fallstown Police, Pearly takes it upon herself to investigate the disappearance of Dr Workaday Trimfit, founder and headmaster of the Fallstown Junior and Senior Academy For Boys and For Girls.
The Fallstown Junior and Senior Academy for Boys and For Girls (the founding charter of the Fallstown Junior and Senior Academy for Boys and For Girls made it a legal requirement that whenever the Fallstown Junior and Senior Academy for Boys and For Girls was mentioned in any media form that its full title, the Fallstown Junior and Senior Academy for Boys and For Girls, is always used in full and never ever abbreviated).
This would also explain why any correspondence ever received by anyone from the Fallstown Junior and Senior Academy for Boys and For Girls tended to be on the rather bulky side and normally didn’t fit through the average letterbox.
As she embarks upon her preliminary investigation, Pearly spots a dirty rubber glove on the floor outside the headmaster’s study. The police had already dusted the entire Fallstown Junior and Senior Academy for Boys and For Girls for fingerprints, and didn’t think that the glove was important.
‘Sorry, Pearly,’ says Inspector Benson, ‘my boys don’t think the glove means anything to anyone.’
Pearly isn’t convinced.
‘But the glove has a name tag inside it,’ she points out. ‘If we could just read the name, we could have a lead.’
‘The name could be anyone’s name,’ counters the Inspector. ‘What would that tell us?’
‘It would tell us the name of someone who might have had something to do with Dr Trimfit’s disappearance,’ says Pearly forcefully.
‘It might,’ says the Inspector, ‘but it might also tell us the name of someone who had absolutely nothing to do with the disappearance and I can’t have my boys harassing innocent people now, can I? That would never do.’
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowFor the full FREE adventures of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird why not download Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets now.Share this:
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‘Okay,’ said Ellis. ‘Then what happened?’
This is great, she thought. I sound just like Pearly Stockwell. Maybe one day, someone is going to write a story about me trying to solve a mystery or investigate a disappearance, kidnapping or other solar-system-threatening situation.
Falcon Boy continued.
‘The doorbell rang and I remember thinking that this was very strange as the supper party we had organised for Councillor Denver Footswerve and his wife, Peculia, wasn’t until next week.’
Falcon Boy paused here as he allowed the names that he had dropped to fall heavily to the floor with a hearty thud. Ellis didn’t notice but I’m sure you did.
‘Bewilder Bird was very annoyed at having to answer the door but I was busy on the laptop and it was his turn to go. I listened and waited but he didn’t come back. The doorbell rang again so I put down my laptop and went into the hall. Bewilder Bird was nowhere to be seen and so I thought that maybe he was standing out on the porch talking to a well-wisher.’
‘Just as I opened the front door, I remember catching a brief whiff of something that smelled like hot oil but before I had time to do anything, there was a bright flash of light. The next thing I remember was waking up here with Bewilder Bird.’
Falcon Boy sounded very upset and even though the whole thing was beginning to get very weird indeed, Ellis kind of already knew – as I am sure that all of you do too – that it was going to be down to her to do something to try and find Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird and, by doing so, help save the world from total and utter destruction.
‘I’m going to find you,’ Ellis said, and hoped that she sounded like Pearly Stockwell. ‘I’m going to come and find you both and help you escape.’
‘Great,’ said Falcon Boy, ‘but how? You don’t know where we are.’
‘No,’ said Ellis, ‘I don’t know where you are but I am still going to find you. I am going to use all my powers of imagination and thinking and deduction to find a way to find out where you are and rescue you.’
Ellis felt brave and helpful and, for a moment, dreamed of one day forming her own gang of clever clue solvers like the Interesting Twins.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowFor the full FREE adventures of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird why not download Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets now.Share this:
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Each week, Concrete Superstar challenged three celebrities to lay the perfect concrete patio. Aided by experts, a whole range of stars of stage, screen (both big and small), music and anywhere else mixed, shovelled, poured, levelled, screed, bull-floated, hand-floated, rounded (if required), cut-in, and broomed their concrete in a race against both the clock and the other contestants.
The locations chosen were both indoor and outdoor and for the second season, it had been proposed that the programme go to different locations around the world so that factors like local building customs, union regulations and temperature extremes could be brought into play. Sadly, however, this was never to be.
Like many other people (but sadly, as it turns out, ultimately not enough other people), Bewilder Bird found Concrete Superstar really exciting because you could never really tell which one of the chosen celebrities would be the best at pouring concrete just by looking.
For example, who could have known that Dame Circular Rosetwine, opera singer and biscuit entrepreneur, would beat upper body muscle model and self-confessed DIY enthusiast Flint Roland in the first episode?
‘I thought I had it in the bag,’ said Flint afterwards, ‘until one of the production crew told me that I had poured the concrete upside down. It wasn’t until I had ripped everything out and started again that I realised they had been pulling my leg.’
In the second episode, renowned aristocratic bad-boy ventriloquist Sheridan Shaw and his foul-breathed puffer fish puppet, Puff the Puffer Fish, lost out to one-time pop sensation Dorothy Sister, lead singer of the reasonably-famous (and reasonably-named) Dorothy Sisters.
Puff the Puffer Fish refused to cooperate during the aggregate mixing phase and allowed Dorothy Sister to win by a technical default, even though she had managed to bury one of her high heels beneath a crazy-paving slab.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowFor the full FREE adventures of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird why not download Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets now.Share this:
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‘It really is hard work trying to be a superhero,’ said Falcon Boy to Ellis, ‘and I didn’t realize just how hard this hard work was until I started working hard to be a hard-working one.’
Ellis heard him sigh. Listen carefully and you’ll hear me sighing as well. Falcon Boy does go on a bit.
‘While I was working hard at being a superhero, Bewilder Bird was watching television. I prefer the radio but the Building Channel was showing the season finale of Bewilder Bird’s favourite show, Paint Tales.’
‘Paint Tales?’ said Ellis. ‘What kind of show is that?’
‘A badly-boring one,’ replied Falcon Boy.
He’s not wrong.
Now in its twelfth season, the premise of Paint Tales is a simple one: a single tin of paint is followed from the factory where it is made to the place where it is used, via the shop where it is sold.
For enthusiasts of the programme, the joy of the journey is immense and somehow almost immeasurable. As a result, Paint Tales has now become a global, if somewhat esoteric, phenomenon. Discovering that the tin of paint you thought was going to be used as a humble undercoat turns out instead to be the final flourish of a ceiling in a converted bathroom can be close to life-changing for aficionados of the programme.
For anyone else, the premise of the programme is almost as disturbing as actually watching an episode and both the existence and continuance of Paint Tales has become a major topic of cultural debate. For some it is the ultimate guilty pleasure, for others it is the producers who should be feeling guilty.
Falcon Boy laughed quietly.
‘The season finale of Paint Tales was about a tin of red paint, Bewilder Bird’s favourite colour, and he had been looking forward to watching it all day. He had even left a note on the fridge to remind himself that it was on that evening.’
For future reference, interest, or indeed, warning, depending on what it is that you like to watch or not watch on television or any other screen, Paint Tales is from the same production company that created Concrete Superstar.
Many media experts believed that Concrete Superstar was going to be the next big thing in format television but the programme only ran for a single season. As a result, the five episodes that do exist have achieved cult status.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowFor the full FREE adventures of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird why not download Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets now.Share this:
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World Savers Wanted™ works on the same principles as any other online agency. You complete a questionnaire, upload a current image of yourself and pay an annual membership fee.
Once your application is processed, World Savers Wanted™ will seek to match your profile with the most appropriate tasks contained in its vast and ever-increasing database.
A similar principle applies if you have some work for a superhero to do. Once the registration process is complete, you are free to upload your superhero task request. Your task request is offered to the most appropriate superheroes and they then choose to accept the task or not.
Feedback is given on the completion of each task, whether successful or otherwise, and as you gain more and more positive feedback, so you become eligible to receive more and more difficult task requests. In this way the system always hopes to match the right hero to the right task.
World Savers Wanted™ allows you to define your choice of tasks by selecting from a drop-down menu. Falcon Boy had ambitiously registered himself and Bewilder Bird in the ‘Heroic Duo Seeking to Save the World’ section but as you can imagine, they hadn’t yet accumulated enough positive feedback to be eligible for that category. Not that Falcon Boy was in any way perturbed.
‘Ambition is one of the many things that I wish to be known for,’ said Falcon Boy ambitiously to his friend. ‘Without ambition, you have no real desire to do things,’ he concluded grandly.
Bewilder Bird silently nodded as usual. Falcon Boy opened his inbox again.
Dear Superhero,
Thank you for recently registering with World Savers Wanted™. Your application has now been approved and you are now eligible to be matched with tasks that require superheroic attention.
Please note that you will only be sent task requests appropriate to your feedback status. Your current feedback status is ‘Cat Rescuer’.
If you have any questions please refer to our FAQ page.
Alternatively, you can contact us on our premium rate telephone number, where one of our advisers will be happy to help you.
We hope that you have a long and successful career with World Savers Wanted™ but if no task requests are received within the space of one calendar year, we guarantee to return your half of your registration fee.
Yours Sincerely
World Savers Wanted™
‘You won’t be sending half of my fee back,’ said Falcon Boy to himself.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowFor the full FREE adventures of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird why not download Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets now.Share this:
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Ellis thought some more.
‘What do you remember about being kidnapped? Where were you? What were you doing? How did it happen?’ This was a lot of questions and Ellis waited for Falcon Boy to reply. Ellis felt sure that she could hear him thinking.
‘We were both at home as usual,’ said Falcon Boy. ‘Even superheroes have quiet days, and so I had the laptop on my lap and was busy checking my inbox for any new messages from World Savers Wanted™.’
World Savers Wanted™ can be found at http://www.worldsaverswanted.hero and is a listed company created by a twelve-year-old boy called Mulvey Cavell, who saw a gap in the market for matching superheroes looking for things to do with things that needed doing by superheroes.
Mulvey realised that for every superhero being summoned by an enormous searchlight whenever they were needed, there would be many other equally-deserving superheroes that didn’t have such a high profile and therefore probably needed a helping hand when it came to finding suitable things to do.
Mulvey also understood that not all superheroes wanted to try and save the world. Some were just happy doing things like opening supermarkets, posing for photographs or putting on action displays at garden fetes.
Working from his bedroom, Mulvey built the website and devised the marketing campaign. Things were slow to begin with but once the mass exodus from SuperHeroVerse™ started, World Savers Wanted™ began to get very busy – so busy, in fact, that Mulvey Cavell became a multi-millionaire at thirteen and retired from public life.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowFor the full FREE adventures of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird why not download Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets now.Share this:
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Inspired by Pearly Stockwell, Ellis began to ask some questions.
‘Are you underwater?’ she began. ‘Can you hear fish swimming, dolphins talking or the secret singing of crabs?’
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Falcon Boy. And even though he strained really hard, it was true, he couldn’t. Ellis tried again.
‘Are you really hot like you would be in the desert? Or if you were buried at the earth’s core?’
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Falcon Boy. ‘It is getting a bit stuffy in here, but I think that is due more to the fact that me and Bewilder Bird are piled in on top of each other than because we are somewhere ferociously hot.’
Ellis thought again.
‘Are you really cold?’ she continued. ‘Do you think you might be at the South Pole or floating in deep dark outer space?’
To Ellis, like all children everywhere and hopefully some adults as well, the world is a never-filled box that overflows with the most marvellous, magical, wonderful and amazing all kinds of everything. All you have to do is be alive to the possibility that there is always more to know.
Like the most satisfying drink you have ever tasted, one that you can’t stop gulping down, Ellis is simply consumed by the desire to learn and she drinks eagerly, heartily and regularly.
As a result, her head is full of facts and figures and pictures and faces and ideas and theories and notions and fantasies and sightings and soundings and it goes without saying that (I like it so much when people say this that I wrote it and then put a line through it to somehow prove a point) some of these are very real and some of these are not so real. Some of these are imagined and some are made-up. Others are half-remembered or almost-forgotten, but all of these ideas and things are completely compelling and absolutely, undoubtedly and utterly her own.
He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelessheroShe couldn’t care less if you follow her on Twitter! Pearly Stockwell @PearlyStockwellIf universal destruction is more like your business then why not follow Dr Don’t Know on Twitter @drdontknowFor the full FREE adventures of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird why not download Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird versus Dr Don’t Know in a Battle for all the Life of all the Planets now.Share this:
BARNABY TAYLOR 