Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero Volume 1: 7

‘The Early Days’

In the early days, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird rented a small apartment overlooking the bus station but the sound of early-morning engines being revved by angry-sounding drivers swearing at the hordes of seagulls quickly became too much for the superheroes.

After much pleading, plenty of form filling and a considerable amount of don’t-you-know-who-we-are-ing, Panic Town District Council’s Housing Department finally allocated them the derelict gatekeeper’s cottage that sits on the very edge of the Panic Town Park and Ornamental Gardens.

With no renovation grants available to them, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird spent the last of their savings decorating the house, and even though Bewilder Bird wasn’t very good when it came to painting the skirting boards he was always handy when a curtain needed hanging.

To begin with, Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird were the subjects of considerable attention. If you found yourself patiently waiting at the end of the queue of well-wishers and autograph hunters lined up outside the recently-renovated cottage, you could reasonably expect to wait for almost twenty minutes before you got to the front.

The queues were only to begin with and as early as the Monday of the following week everything had returned to normal. Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird were able to go about their daily business unnoticed. This was obviously very good for their prospects of fighting crime unhindered, but not very good for either of their egos.

In the best tradition of small minds in small towns everywhere, Panic Town was soon acting as if Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird had always been there.

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.

Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero Volume 1: 6

‘Falcon Boy is slightly too grand’ Pt. 2

Stun stayed silent. Whether it was the adrenaline rush he was currently experiencing, the feeling of liberation that a triumph, however small, can induce in oneself, or the simple fact that something exciting had finally happened to him, Falcon Boy started to babble.

‘Dissatisfied with what we both see as a chronic inability nowadays for society to do anything other than stand around chatting idly about small and pointless things we are both prepared to confidently predict that our collective input into the age-old struggle between good and evil will allow the world to eventually see a reasonable return on the effort we are investing and that this will be evidenced by an eventual upturn on the law and order axis of the world’s crime graphs.’

Stun stayed stunned.

‘My partner and I see this as a global project but one with local roots. Though we may be thinking big long term, we are prepared to focus short term on the here and now. Your funny little town could be any funny little town but it is the first funny little town we found when we got off the train.’ Falcon Boy pointed at the elderly gardener, ‘And you were the first funny little person we saw who we thought needed our intervention.’

Falcon Boy turned to Bewilder Bird, who had finally stopped curling his bicep. ‘I think I like it here,’ he declared to his friend. ‘Let’s stick around and see what the future might have in store for two likely-looking crime-fighting colleagues actively looking to engage with all manner of dangers and all for the public good.’

Bewilder Bird nodded silently as he always did.

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.

Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero Volume 1: 6

‘Falcon Boy is slightly too grand’ Pt. 1

Stun stood still and started to stammer.

‘I c-c-c-c-cannot thank you enough,’ Stun stammered as the triumphant heroes stood in front of him and started to pose in various triumphant ways.

Bewilder Bird favoured the full body flex followed by a solitary bicep curl. Do this whilst bending one knee forward and it can make you look fairly heroic all right. Falcon Boy preferred something stiller and more classical. Something like the broken statues called David he remembered from books at school. With his right leg slightly forward and shoulders angled, Falcon Boy adopted the perfect contrapposto pose.

Stun stayed stunned.

‘W-w-w-w-w who are you?’ he stammered once more.

‘I’m glad you should ask that, my timid stuttery little man,’ said Falcon Boy, slightly too grandly. ‘We are just ordinary people stung into action by the inaction of others and we have taken it upon ourselves to be doing extraordinary things’

Grammar was not really Falcon Boy’s strong point. Unperturbed, they continue. ‘My colleague and I recently made the decision to renounce our ordinary lives and start walking the earth looking for crimes to fight and wrongs to right.’

Falcon Boy pointed his chin towards the horizon.

‘I am majestic and magnificent. I am Falcon Boy,’ said Falcon Boy majestically and magnificently. He raised a clenched fist into the air.

‘I swoop like a noble bird of prey and sweep away crime wherever I find it,’ he declared. ‘I strike fear into my foes and will remove all wrongdoing from the planet.’ Falcon Boy pointed to his friend.

‘This here is Bewilder Bird, so named for his ability to bewilder his opponents through a combination of silence, strength and alliteration.’

 

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.

 

Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero Volume 1: 5

‘The Cowardly Jumpy Nolan’ Part 4

Straight away, you will be pleased to hear that Falcon Boy has rethought his catchphrase. Personally, I was very fond of ‘I’m good, me! I can help and fight and save you!’ I have even tried to incorporate it into my own life, with fairly varied results. However, I am sure you will agree that ‘Jumping Jupiter’ trips more readily off the tongue. Falcon Boy continued.

‘This here is my esteemed superhero friend and partner in derring-do, the mighty Bewilder Bird, and he will stand for none of this nonsense neither.’

Bewilder Bird shook his fist again to emphasise his complete unwillingness to stand for no nonsense of this nature.

Thinking that the going here was going to get pretty tough, pretty soon the trouble of toughs decided not to tough it out. Instead, like bullies everywhere, they decided to run away.

One can only hope that even as we speak, Jumpy is experiencing the sort of boring, depressing things that bullies deserve to experience. Sewing mail bags, for example. Digging deep dirty holes in the rotten rain. Watching a telephone that never rings. Getting no presents on his birthday. Not being sat next to on the bus. Or sipping cheap powdered soup from a chipped mug as he looks out through a dirty window, at a world that is having much more fun than he ever will.

 

Falcon Boy 1: 5 ‘The Cowardly Jumpy Nolan’ Part 3

Stun stood still and was stabbed by the stalk. Jumpy and his friends grabbed more cabbages and began to advance on poor Stun. Stun stood his ground but stood no chance. The toughs were almost upon the gardener when they suddenly stopped and stared. Running towards them full-pelt were two men wearing strange-looking costumes.

The smaller of the two wore a bright blue beak-hat-mask held together with industrial tape, with a yellow t-shirt hanging untucked over a navy blue boiler suit. The letters F and B were crudely potato-printed onto the t-shirt. Two curved silver feathers bordered the letters. Heavy-looking walking shoes completed this outfit. Even from this distance, everyone could see that the man had the makings of a moustache sprouting on his top lip.

The other man stumbled as he ran because his boots were made to look like a bird’s feet. Unfortunately, the claws were too long and they kept getting caught beneath each other. He also sported a golden cloak that was tattered at the edges and beneath this the toughs could see a red shiny bodysuit with ‘BB’ badly-sewn onto a golden shield on his chest. A simple golden band covered his eyes.

‘Jumping Jupiter,’ shouted Falcon Boy, for that is who was wearing the yellow t-shirt, ‘we’ll have none of that nonsense round here.’ The other hero didn’t say anything. He just shook his fists. Falcon Boy kept on shouting as they raced to the rescue.

Falcon Boy 1: 5 ‘The Cowardly Jumpy Nolan’ Part 2

Jumpy started his afternoon’s horticultural havoc by ripping plants out of the newly weeded flowerbeds and hurling them into the duck pond. Easily impressed, his friends saw what fun their leader was having and eagerly joined in.

Before long an entire bed of gently-bobbing purple verbenas were unceremoniously ripped from their bed, and now floated sadly on the surface of the pond. Just then Stun came around the corner pushing his barrow.

Stunned, Stun stopped and stared. In all his years in the park, Stun had never seen such bad behaviour and he told the toughs so.

‘In all my years in the park, I have never seen such bad behaviour,’ he told the trouble of toughs. The toughs stopped and turned to face the ageing gardener.

‘What has it got to do with you?’ Jumpy snarled. ‘Why don’t you pick up your barrow and go and wheel it down the middle of a busy motorway? Or stuff it handle-first up your nosy, nasty nose?’

Jumpy’s friends all said ‘Yeah!’ together and this made Jumpy feel like a really tough tough for acting so tough with his trouble of toughs standing totally tough behind him. Stun, standing his ground, stuck to his guns.

‘Get out of my park this instant,’ he demanded. ‘I won’t having you doing any more damage.’

‘Oh, won’t you?’ whined Jumpy in a sneery voice. Or sneered in a whiny voice. Whichever one you choose, Jumpy is still an obnoxious bully. If you don’t like either, you can just say that Jumpy whined or Jumpy sneered.

‘Well, what about this then, eh?’ growled Jumpy as he grabbed an ornamental cabbage, tugged it clean from the ground and threw the startled plant at the startled gardener.

Falcon Boy 1: 5 ‘The Cowardly Jumpy Nolan’ Part I

Stun Ramsford worked as a gardener for the Panic Town Parks and Gardens Department for forty-seven years, before finally being convinced to retire following a campaign initiated by the Panic Town Gazetteer.

Gardening was Stun’s life and even though he was no longer employed by the town, he still turned up at the Panic Town Park and Ornamental Gardens each day, weeding the flower beds and pushing his own wheelbarrow up and down the paths.

‘No one knows the weeds like I do,’ he told the Gazetteer. ‘When the time comes, I want to be buried in the compost heap along with the fruit peel, sandwich boxes and grass cuttings.’

One day in July, a gang of out-of-town toughs headed down to the Panic Town Park and Ornamental Gardens, looking to wreak some horticultural havoc.

Have you ever wondered what to call a gang of toughs? A pack? A group? A gaggle? A fist? What about a trouble of toughs? Anyway, the leader of this gang-pack-group-gaggle-fist-trouble of toughs was a repulsive, odious-looking fellow called Jumpy Nolan.

Jumpy was very tall with hunched, round shoulders. He wore baggy children’s clothes and had a face like a ventriloquist’s dummy that had been dropped from a great height. Jumpy also had a very foul temper that he reserved for the young, the elderly, the inanimate and anyone or anything else that he thought he could be tough with and get away with it.

Falcon Boy 1: 4 ‘Bacharach McCarthy’ Pt 5

And so the idea was fixed. Clayton handed in his notice the next day and tried to ignore the sniggering of his supervisor when he explained why it was that he no longer wanted to work in the factory.

‘You’ll be back begging for this job in a couple of weeks,’ the supervisor sneered. ‘Fools like you always are!’

‘Not this fool,’ thought Clayton, but he held his tongue as it seemed like the right superhero-type thing to do.

That night, Falcon Boy logged into SuperHeroVerse™ and posted the following message on the superhero community notice board:

TIRED of talking?

Want some ACTION?

Mail me NOW!

Logging on the next morning, Clayton was delighted to find a reply. The reply had no content and didn’t actually say anything but Falcon Boy could see that it came from someone called Bewilder Bird. It was a fairly torturous process to make arrangements with someone who didn’t speak, but finally arrangements were successfully made for the two heroes to meet in real life and embark upon their life of superheroing together.

Falcon Boy 1: 4 ‘Bacharach McCarthy’ Pt 4

But people were doing things, plenty of things, just not the sort of things Clayton had imagined people would be doing.

‘I’m having some people over at the weekend,’ said an ugly-looking alien to an ancient-looking god with a cloak made of crow feathers, ‘but two of them are vegan and three others are lactose-intolerant.’ The alien scratched its three heads. ‘Planning the menu is a nightmare.’

‘You poor thing,’ said the god. ‘Have you thought about getting a take-away?’

‘I have,’ replied the alien, ‘but what about the MSG?’

         The ancient-looking god nodded. ‘You’re right and in any case, you’ll all be hungry half an hour after you have eaten.’

‘Make sure you have plenty of salad,’ said a passing lizard. ‘That is sure to keep everyone happy.’ The lizard flicked its very long tongue. ‘That would work for me.’

         The gathered superheroes turned to Falcon Boy. ‘What would you suggest?’

‘Who cares?’ replied Falcon Boy. ‘I joined SuperHeroVerse™ to forget about the ordinary world, not to go on and on about it.’

‘Humppff!’ humppffed the alien. ‘You’re no help.’

Bewilder Bird had exactly the same experience as Falcon Boy, only his was slightly different because Bewilder Bird chose not to speak to anyone. Instead he just listened. And he couldn’t believe his ears either.

Once Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird realised that there were no superhero things to do in SuperHeroVerse, they both decided to leave. But the whole creating a new identity thing was extremely intoxicating and Falcon Boy felt very reluctant to relinquish his newly-formed alter-ego.

‘If I’m not allowed to swoop and sweep like a bird of prey online anymore,’ Falcon Boy wondered, ‘then what about I try to swoop and sweep in real life?’ The idea seemed like a good one and the more he thought about it, the more it felt something like his destiny.

‘There has to be more to life than stirring pickles,’ thought Clayton. ‘I can’t be stinking of vinegar until the day I die.’

And of course he was right. There is more to life than stirring pickles unless, of course, stirring pickles is all you have ever wanted to do with your life. In that case, well done to you and I hope you get the chance to keep stirring. The same goes for stinking of vinegar.

Falcon Boy 1: 4 ‘Bacharach McCarthy’ Pt 3

All of this was simply amazing and marvellous in the beginning and SuperHeroVerse™ was inundated with riotous superhero activity twenty-four hours a day. But it wasn’t long before things began to get a bit same-y.

What’s so super about being a superhero if you are only as super as every other superhero?

If you can fly and I can fly and he can fly and she can fly and they can fly, then what’s so great about flying anyway?

Indeed, what’s so great about anything anyway when everyone else can do something else equally as impressive?

Gradually, members of SuperHeroVerse™ began to disregard their chosen superpowers, renouncing their ability to walk upside down on ceilings or see things from a fly’s eye’s perspective, choosing instead to simply log on, meet with friends and talk about their day and other normal things. Eventually the owners of SuperHeroVerse™ succumbed to community pressure and removed the superpower creation function altogether.

Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird joined just as this was happening but didn’t realise anything had changed until they began to discover large groups of vividly-designed avatars of all shapes and sizes standing around, talking about their busy days at work.

‘So how did you get on today?’ said a giant mechanised monster to a radioactive merman.

‘Snowed under, as always,’ replied the merman. ‘I really must find some time for a holiday.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said the mechanised monster, ‘but where to go is the question.’

‘Too true, too true,’ said a gaseous cloud as it passed by. ‘I hear the beaches are simply packed at this time of year.’

‘Where’s all the action?’ thought Falcon Boy to himself. ‘Why is no one doing anything?’