BARNABY TAYLOR

‘Are you alright?’ Ellis asked. The unicorn looked slightly lost and confused. ‘Do you need some help with that zip?’ The unicorn didn’t answer. It was tugging frantically. Ellis thought there was a very faint whiff of oil in the air. ‘Please let me help,’ said Ellis. ‘I’m very good with zips. My Mum lets me help her with hers all the time.’

The unicorn shook its head and kept tugging.

‘Come on,’ said Ellis. ‘I promise I won’t rip your outfit.’ The unicorn shook its head again. Ellis stretched out her hand to try and help free the zip.

‘Don’t be frightened,’ said Ellis. ‘I’m only trying to help.’

The trapped unicorn flinched and managed to free itself from the cargo net but in doing so, also managed to hurl itself backwards and crash into the conveniently abandoned drum kit. The sound of the crash was horrendous and, in case you hadn’t already guessed, suspiciously metallic in its clang.

CCCCLLLLLAAAAAAANNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!

‘Help!’ shouted Ellis to anyone who would listen. ‘I think I’ve found something important.’

‘Bash you,’ said a metallic voice from inside the unicorn’s head. ‘Bash you into tiny painful pieces.’

The Troublebot – for anyone who still hasn’t worked it out – struggled to its feet and as it did so, Ellis tried to move away, only to find that she was now suddenly, and inconveniently for her but conveniently for me, stuck in the narrow space between two large flight cases. She was trapped and as the metal menace took a clumsy step towards her, Ellis could now really smell the oil.

‘Help!’ she shouted. ‘Somebody help me!’

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Pearly Breaks a Leg ends with Octavio Octavious leaving town due to a lack of interest in setting up the Fallstown Players.

‘We have enough drama already,’ said Captain McAndrew dramatically, ‘without someone deliberately creating more.’

‘But,’ as Pearly tells the police when they arrive at Octavio’s recently-vacated flat, ‘at least it means that we can all relax, secure in the knowledge that the Fallstown Players was not going to be used as a possible front for a criminal gang of actors and actresses intent on maybe causing artistic chaos with their dramatic ways. You can never be too careful.’

Pearly pauses dramatically.

‘It also means that Windy didn’t run all that way to warn you for no reason.’ Pearly smiles her pearly smile and exits stage left. The out-of-breath policemen nod as they turn to head back down the hill again. As they pass Windy, both policemen pat his head with an equal parts mixture of affection and annoyance.

The final caption for this particularly uninspired and muddled episode of the Pearly Stockwell series cryptically declares:

A prevented crime is a better crime than a crime solved, because a crime solved means a crime was committed in the first place and therefore wasn’t prevented.

Ellis had puzzled over this cryptic bit of strangled prose ever since she first read it.

‘So to prevent a crime, I need to find a crime and prevent it before it becomes a crime,’ puzzled Ellis as she wandered backstage looking for a crime to prevent before it became a crime.

When wrestling with complexities of this kind and deep in puzzling thought, it can sometimes be hard to see where you are going, and so it was that Ellis bumped into something. The something she bumped into was very solid and very metal and it very hurt her arm.

‘Oww!’ she exclaimed, looking up to find that she had bumped into one of Doodah’s dancers caught by a zip in a cargo net.

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For a very brief moment Pearly longs to join but almost immediately her big city suspiciousness takes over and puts a stop to her yearning.

‘Just who are these people,’ she wonders, ‘and what do they really think they know about the arts, dramatic or otherwise? What makes them think that Fallstown even needs a drama society?’ She snorts. ‘This isn’t really the town for that sort of thing.’

In the usual comic book way, one thing leads to another and leads to another and another and another and then one more – like the comforting turn of a well-oiled narrative cog – and it isn’t long before Wanderley disguises himself and his brothers as amateur dramatists and they go along to find out more.

To begin, it appears that everything is normal, but it isn’t long before the flamboyant ways of Octavio Octavious start to arouse suspicion among the young detectives.

‘There’s more to that man than meets the eye,’ reports Wanderley to Pearly. ‘He loves to use really long words while waving his arms around.’

‘That’s not all,’ says Wes gruffly. ‘I checked out his flat while he was at rehearsals.’ He whispers conspiratorially. ‘Full of books, it was. Full of them, I tell you.’

‘Good work, lads,’ says Pearly. ‘I knew there was a chance that something fishy might be going on.’

But nothing fishy was really going on. In fact, nothing much of anything was really happening here, and the struggle beating at the dramatic heart of Pearly Breaks a Leg was more about the writers looking for inspiration than it was about the detective friends solving another mystery.

Pearly almost accuses Octavio Octavious of something but doesn’t in the end, and a lot of time in the story is taken up with people getting up to things backstage whilst rehearsing for a show that never happens.

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Backstage is one of the favourite places in adventure books for adventures to happen, and it should come as no surprise to any of you that a perfect example of the kind of backstage adventure I am describing would have to be Pearly Breaks a Leg, the one where Pearly and the Incredible Twins are forced to investigate the Fallstown Players, a new amateur dramatics society that Pearly suspects is up to something nefarious.

The story begins with Pearly wondering aloud to herself why it was that there wasn’t more theatrical activity in Fallstown.

‘Why isn’t there more theatrical activity in this tiny little town?’ Pearly asks herself. ‘Where is all the romance and all the drama?’

Pearly puts her hands on her hips dramatically.

‘If I had more time, I would start a dramatic acting club and we would give free performances to bedridden old people and children in institutions.’

‘Pearly sweeps her hand dramatically onto her forehead,’ says the caption that accompanies this frame in the comic book.

No sooner has Pearly finished speaking when a leaflet drops through her letterbox. Her first thought is to chase the culprit down the road and remind them of the ‘No Leaflets or Circulars or Scroungers’ notice that she had written in thick marker pen and nailed to her front door.

Her second impulse is to send Windy racing for the police as fast as his little legs would carry him, but he was not back from the dentist yet. Pearly read the leaflet.

Are you interested in Drama?

So are we!

Want to know more?

Join the Fallstown Players!

 ‘What a coincidence,’ thinks Pearly, placing her hand dramatically on her chin in a ponderous, theatrical way. ‘How could anyone have had any idea about what I was thinking at this particular moment in time?’

How, indeed?

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With the show already underway, backstage was calmer now, with fewer people running around looking harassed. Previously, Ellis had felt that she was getting in the way of people. Now, she only had to get out of the way once, when two roadies carefully and deliberately placed a full drum kit next to a pile of flight cases.

‘I’m not sure why,’ said the first roadie, ‘but this seems like just the right place to place this drum kit.’ The roadie was wearing a dark black tshirt with The Woebetides stencilled in silver cobwebby letters.

‘I told you it was a waste of time setting it up in the first place,’ said the second roadie. His black shirt didn’t have any writing on it and you could see the top of his pants peeping over the waistband of his dirty jeans. ‘I could have told you that no one was going to need it on-stage.’

‘You say that,’ said the first roadie, ‘but it was definitely worth it just to see the look on that Donny’s face when he thought he was going to have to play it.’ The roadie chuckled. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone go that white in the face before.’

‘Never mind,’ said the second roadie. ‘Let’s just leave the whole thing here and not even bother dismantling it properly.’ He paused for dramatic effect and looked off into the distance. ‘I am absolutely, completely, totally, utterly and wholeheartedly one hundred thousand per cent certain that nobody else is going to even notice this drum kit this evening, let alone find something useful to do with it.’

He laughed.

‘I’m sure that it will be forgotten about just about as quickly as we both are.’

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With everyone in place and ready for anything that Dr Don’t Know could possibly throw at them, Ellis went backstage to try and figure out exactly what the evil criminal was planning to do.

Previously, when she was still looking for Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird, Ellis had found the backstage area to be too busy and too difficult to explore properly.

I’m certain that the uncertainty of the situation was certainly a contributing factor to her own uncertainty, but now that things were a bit more certain, it is certainly fair to say that Ellis was feeling a bit more certain about herself and how certain things were going, even if she wasn’t certain yet what the world could expect from a certain Dr Don’t Know.

With Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird now free to fight crime once more, and with her responsible for their freedom, Ellis was beginning to feel more and more like it was her actions that were causing some kind of story to unfold. All of this made her feel better about things now.

‘I’m feeling better about things now,’ she said to herself but being a sensible girl, Ellis didn’t want to get too carried away here.

‘I don’t want to get too carried away here,’ she thought. ‘Everything could change in the blink of an eye.’

And like all sensible people everywhere, Ellis was right, apart from one thing. Things in this book are not likely to change in the blink of an eye, more like the turn of a page.

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As everyone stood and stared at each other, Ellis decided that the best thing to do was for Doodah to act as if nothing unusual was about to happen. The show couldn’t be cancelled. Even despite Daphne’s suggestion, everybody couldn’t simply go home because then Dr Don’t Know would know that something was up and he might never be caught.

‘This means,’ said Ellis, ‘that you must all act normally and keep singing no matter what you see or hear.’

She turned to Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird.

‘You two should be in the crowd and ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble. I will be backstage trying to find out what is going on.’

Having stood in silence for a while now and very keen to play a larger part in the exciting events unfolding around him, Falcon Boy stepped forward and Bewilder Bird stood beside him. They both puffed out their chests. Falcon Boy cleared his throat.

‘We want you all to know how safe you are going to be with the two of us keeping watch and having our eyes open for any movement made by Dr Don’t Know or any of his mindless minions, so we don’t want any of you to worry whatsoever as every outcome, incident and eventuality will be covered by and accounted for by the heroic two of us.’

It’s happening again with the whole horrendous mangled language thing. I thought that Daphne’s speech was bad enough, and now this from Falcon Boy. Things are going from bad to worse. The problem is that characters in stories need to say things to each other, even things as bad as these. This wouldn’t be much of a story if everyone was as silent as Bewilder Bird, but it might make it easier to read.

I guess for the sake of the rest of the story, we will have to accept the fact that this sort of thing is probably going to happen again. If this is the case, then what we need to do is try and find the good in every bad thing.

In the case of Daphne, the best thing we can take from her outburst is comfort in the fact that she normally doesn’t use this many words when she speaks and so is unlikely to do so ever again. It just isn’t like her. As for Falcon Boy, at least he sounded a bit more confident than he had done previously. And that’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Nobody replied and for a brief moment, Ellis feared that Davey would start teasing Falcon Boy again, but he just shrugged and said, ‘Whatever, man,’ and started fiddling with a spare pogo-stick tail he found leaning against a table.

That’s another good thing.

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Deirdre was right, of course, and nothing more needed to be said on the subject, but it might have been better for the sake of the story if she could have thought of a bit more to say on the subject. It would certainly give us all a better sense of Deirdre’s character. Then again, perhaps the fact that she doesn’t have too much to say is revealing enough in its own way.

I guess it is right when people say that celebrities can be strange and mysterious people. I was going to say something about being ordinary and extraordinary and the alleged paradox that this duality creates, but we’ve been down this road before. I’m not sure we need to go down it again.

I guess it is also right when other people say that celebrities can be stupid and shallow and have nothing to say. It is also fair to say that you don’t need to be a celebrity to be strange or mysterious or stupid and shallow and have nothing to say.

All of this is fine and fair and exactly how we would expect the world to be turning, but I do think that it is also true to say that this particular story does appear to have a very high percentage of celebrities who are strange and mysterious and stupid and shallow and have nothing to say. You can decide for yourself whether this is a good or a bad thing.

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Doodah love YOU and really want you to follow them on Twitter @deirdredoodah

Donny was next to react. He shook his head but not in disbelief at what Daphne had just uttered. Donny didn’t want to go home. Donny wanted to stay and see what Dr Don’t Know had in mind.

Donny liked action and secretly thought that if he wasn’t Doodah’s drummer, he might like a job in what he called the ‘secret super agent mystery murder spy business’.

The thing Donny had always liked the least about being in Doodah was having to dress up in silly outfits, so he certainly had no plans to become a costumed superhero.

Now he was in the same room as Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird, he was even more convinced that costumes and capes were not for him. Donny fancied something much more ‘secret and science-y’, like spying, listening to telephones all day long or manning a twenty-four hour closed-circuit television camera for twenty-four hours a day.

‘You must get to see so much,’ he said to himself, ‘and you would have plenty of time to see it all.’

Deirdre simply thought that the show should simply go on.

‘The show should simply go on,’ she simply said, and that was all she had to say on the subject.

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He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelesshero

For all the latest breaking news why not follow the Rebel Robot MCs? @RebelRobotMCs

Doodah love you and want you to follow them on Twitter @deirdredoodah

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

When Ellis had finished telling Doodah about her rescuing Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird, everybody wondered what to do next. Surprisingly, or not, depending on how you view what she was about to say, it was Daphne who spoke first.

‘Why don’t we all just go home?’ she suggested. ‘If we all leave very, very quietly and no one ever ever tells him, Dr Don’t Know might never, never know until it is way, way too late, and even when he does maybe someday find out, it will be way, way too, too late anyway because nobody will even really be here to even start to tell him, because everybody will have already gone home.’

Let’s pause for a second. Ellis was only saying a minute ago that global pop stars have a responsibility to set good examples to their fans and now we have one of the biggest stars in the world saying something as stupid as this.

How does Daphne’s last outburst make you feel? Angry? Confused? Disappointed? Scared?

How does it make me feel? A little bit weepy, bordering on fearful. Remember, I only had to type it out. I can’t even begin to imagine how you must be feeling right now. You were the poor person who had read the offending paragraph, either out loud to someone else, or even to yourself. Sorry.

I’m pretty sure that Ellis felt the same way we do. She was only at the start of her lifelong engagement with language, but Ellis simply couldn’t believe that anyone would be capable of saying something like this, let alone saying it out loud.

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He will be thrilled if you follow him on Twitter! Falcon Boy @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelesshero

For all the latest breaking news why not follow the Rebel Robot MCs? @RebelRobotMCs

Doodah love you and want you to follow them on Twitter @deirdredoodah

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