According to his plan, this was exactly the right time for Dr Don’t Know to appear but when he had been planning this caper, he hadn’t factored in the possibility that his plan might have been thwarted this early in its execution. This meant that now was exactly the wrong time for him to appear.

Having visualised this moment a thousand times in his mind, Dr Don’t Know had always imagined that this would be the exact moment when the world was his to command. Sadly, this was not the case and now he was just Dr Don’t Know, alone on the stage at a Doodah concert, in front of millions and millions of people.

Daphne, Davey and Deirdre turned in unison and moved towards the microphones, ready for the chorus.

‘Ouch,’ said Davey, as he tripped over Dr Don’t Know. ‘Who on earth are you?’

‘Don’t know,’ replied Dr Don’t Know.

‘What are you doing here?’ screamed Daphne. ‘You’re getting right in the way.’

This was the trickiest part of the song and Daphne knew that if she was talking, then she wasn’t counting and if she wasn’t counting. then it meant she was out of time. She was.

‘Are you going to just stand there?’ asked Deirdre. ‘Or are you going to dance?’

‘Don’t know,’ said Dr Don’t Know.

Dr Don’t Know is small and always wears black. After years of experimentation, he had finally settled on jogging trousers with an elasticated waistband, a polo neck, a baseball cap and rubber boots as his bad guy supervillain evil outfit of choice.

Dr Don’t Know’s favourite show is the highly-influential What Bad Guys Wear. Each week, the show reports on what is hot and what is not in the world of uber-villain fashion. Viewers are also treated to a tour of the homes, lairs, laboratories, caves, cribs and other supervillain residences.

Dr Don’t Know found What Bad Guys Wear very intimidating. It was so hard to decide on a public image. For a while, he figured that a purple facemask and fluorescent goggles would make him look more menacing, but sweat filled his eyes when he got too hot and he couldn’t see to drive a moped.

Another time, it was all the rage for super-evil international villains to wear expensive handmade suits but Dr Don’t Know could never find one that fitted him properly. No self-respecting criminal mastermind wanted to have to turn up the hem of the trousers.

Eventually, the climax of the show approached. The lights dimmed and the backing track started to play the opening bars of One-Thumb, Two-Thumb Good. With the loud burst of the cannons shaped like the claws of an enormous bear paw, Doodah landed back on the stage.

‘Come on, everybody,’ they shouted. ‘It’s time to make some special noise!’ Doodah started dancing as they waited to sing the first verse.

Doodah all find the dancing part quite hard and so they tend to count in their heads to keep time. As Doodah kept counting and dancing, Ellis was amazed to see a small man wearing a black baseball cap appear in the middle of the stage from a secret trapdoor.

‘Dr Don’t Know,’ she said to herself.

And it was.

And what a show!

Though he is barely capable of sensible speech, Donny Doodah is a seasoned professional and his performance is so polished that he can ‘play’ the drum with one drumstick whilst drinking an ice-cold bottle of everyone’s favourite Fuzzy Cola© at the same time.

Davey Doodah can’t sing to save his life but he finds it very hard to stop smiling. Even though he wouldn’t know the meaning of either of the following words, his enthusiasm is certainly infectious. As he sways slightly in front of the microphone encouraging the audience to put their hands in the air, Davey truly looks like the epitome of pop star perfection.

Daphne Doodah bashes, waves, whacks and whirls her silent tambourine. Daphne isn’t aware that the tambourine can’t make a sound but it doesn’t matter anyway. A simple fact like this would never stop her from really shaking it really, really hard over her head in a shiny, shimmering shower of silvery silent notes.

Deirdre Doodah sings and dances as if every performance is her last. This would probably be the case were there ever to be a power cut during a performance, and so Doodah’s record company spends at least fifty percent of its budget on ensuring that the various digital enhancements designed to make a Doodah concert the pleasurable experience it is do not ever malfunction while the group are ‘live’ on stage.

Nobody would pay money to hear what Doodah really sounded like. There would be riots on the streets and questions asked in parliaments all around the world.

Save

Save

Using the closest spotlight to him, Bewilder Bird shone it on the badly-dancing dancers one at a time. As each Troublebot was caught in the spotlight, two policemen sprinted onto the stage dressed as stagehands.

Each policeman carried a heavy-duty magnet that they used to stun each Troublebot. More policemen waited backstage and deactivated the stunned Troublebots with a bucket of water. There were sparks everywhere but anyone who saw them thought they were simply part of the show.

The deactivated Troublebots were piled in the back of an open-top lorry, ready to be taken to the Panic Town Detention Centre where prisoners will strip them of all their useful parts. Anything left after this will then be sent to the Panic Town Recycling Centre.

As the Troublebot cull began, nobody watching in the audience thought that anything odd was happening. As far as they were concerned, it was all part of the wonderful stage show that Doodah had created especially for them.

Even Dr Don’t Know was taken in as he waited patiently beneath the stage. He was watching the concert on his telephone and waiting for the moment when he could activate his terrible plan.

Anyway, as is becoming increasingly more frequent, it was left to Ellis to get things going once again.

‘Falcon Boy,’ she shouted above the roar of the crowd. ‘You should use your special power to tell Bewilder Bird to use the spotlights to point out the Troublebots, so that they can be removed from the stage without causing chaos.’

She turned to Captain Lorimer.

‘We simply cannot let the Troublebots ruin the show.’

Falcon Boy nodded, but whenever he uses his superpower he cannot stop his lips moving, and so it looked like he was talking to himself. He would make a terrible ventriloquist.

Captain Lorimer turned to her assembled men and women and issued her orders.

‘Quick, men and women,’ she said. ‘We need to get the Troublebots off of the stage one at a time so as not to ruin the show.’

Her men and women agreed and so as one show continued, another show began. Which one is the sideshow and which one is the main attraction is for you to decide.

I’m sure that you are probably thinking here about how rude Falcon Boy was being to Captain Lorimer. She was the real representative of law and order here, and deserved the respect of everyone.

She also had the whole weight of the world on her shoulders, and so we can forgive her if she seemed a little cautious. She needed to balance the needs of the many with the desires of the few.

We cannot all just jump into every situation without thinking carefully about where we might land. Otherwise, everyone would jump and all land in a heap together. This would achieve nothing, unless there was an occasion when everyone needed to land in a heap together. Even then, it isn’t clear what that would really accomplish.

On the other hand, it is perhaps understandable that Falcon Boy is keener to act than to think. After all, superheroes are traditionally known more for their action than they are for their powers of introspection.

Just think how different this story would have been if Falcon Boy had been the brooding type and spent all of his time questioning his position within a seemingly hostile and random universe.

Falcon Boy had been standing silently while Ellis was talking to Captain Lorimer. Now he spoke.

‘The Troublebots are disguised as backing dancers,’ he told the Captain, as if Ellis wasn’t there and the Captain hadn’t just been briefed, ‘but they cannot dance and so should be very easy for us to spot.’

Ellis sighed. Captain Lorimer wasn’t sure what to make of the whole thing. She looked slightly embarrassed. Falcon Boy was unabashed.

‘I suggest you instruct your men to apprehend them,’ he continued.

‘But how?’ asked Captain Lorimer. ‘I cannot just disrupt the show. There are a hundred thousand people in the crowd and several hundred million more watching on screens all around the world.’ Captain Lorimer pushed her hat back slightly and scratched her forehead.

Captain Lorimer felt conflicted here. She was delighted that Dr Don’t Know’s plot had begun to be discovered and was potentially only several pages away from being foiled. She was also relieved to hear that there was no further mention of the Moon Rope. ‘Perhaps I might get to keep my job after all,’ she thought.

However, she took her responsibilities very seriously. She couldn’t simply act on the advice of a useless-looking costumed crime-fighter and a young child without thinking things through. After all, this was the same costumed crime-fighter she had recently had to tell to stop directing bank holiday traffic.

‘We need to act very carefully here,’ she told Falcon Boy. ‘We all need to take our time and act thoughtfully.’

Falcon Boy snorted.

‘We need to act immediately,’ he declared. ‘This is not the time for taking our time.’

Ellis knew that she needed to do something straight away or the badly-dancing Troublebots were going to ruin the show. Not only that, they would also be helping Dr Don’t Know do something really wicked. She looked around.

Bewilder Bird was up into the lighting gantry high above the stage. Ellis could see that he looked pretty tangled – one of his claw-foot-boots was caught in a coil of electrical cable – and so it was unlikely that he would be able to spring into action anytime soon.

She signalled to him and pointed at the stage. He shook his head and cupped his ear. He couldn’t hear what she was saying even though she hadn’t said anything. Ellis feared that this was going to be a long night.

Rather like Windy, but nowhere near as speedy, Falcon Boy had gone to alert the authorities and it wasn’t long before Ellis found him returning with Captain Lori Lorimer and a selection of her finest men and women.

‘I’m glad you are here, Captain Lorimer,’ said Ellis. ‘Dr Don’t Know’s Troublebots have disguised themselves as backing dancers.’ Ellis pointed out onto the stage. ‘Look out for the ones who can’t dance.’