Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero Volume 1: 22

‘Introducing Erica ‘Neck Brace’ Larkin’

Who is ordinary and who isn’t ordinary? Who decides who is extraordinary and who isn’t extraordinary? Perhaps these questions make more sense when we consider the possibility that the central character of this adventure could easily have been someone else.

For example, we could be reading about the adventures of a small ingenious boy called Dunstable Johnson who is very handy in tight situations. Or, we could all be thrilling to the adventures of a swashbuckling amateur wrestler called Erica ‘Neck Brace’ Larkin. Erica investigates local mysteries in between wrestling bouts. This is just for starters.

The battle to rescue Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird from the clutches of the evil Dr Don’t Know and, by doing so, save the world from apparent destruction could have centred around the players and coaching staff of Wolseley Street F.C, an U12s amateur football team.

Football has all the hallmarks of great adventure as players grapple with triumph and adversity as they seek to win a championship or avoid being relegated. There is plenty of drama in an adventure like this.

If you don’t like stories about footballers, then what about a rather nifty and exciting robot called Rocky Random? Rocky has a propulsion unit in his boots and can cross oceans if necessary. He is handy to know in a global emergency.

No? How about Eucalyptus McKenzie, the cartoon koala bear and government agent? The adventures of Eucalyptus McKenzie are yet to be written but I am pretty sure that this isn’t the last we will hear about this daring koala bear.

Anyway, what I am trying to clumsily get at here is that it is Ellis who has been chosen by me to be chosen by Falcon Boy to help save the world from the devilish scheme of Dr Don’t Know. With this in mind, the best thing to do here is to stop worrying about whether or not Ellis is ordinary, extraordinary or somewhere in between. Instead, why don’t we just find out how she gets on with getting on with it?

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.

Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero Volume 1: 21

‘Hairy Top Lips and Homemade Boots’ Part 2

Some people might think it very unfair that Falcon Boy had placed the responsibility for saving the entire world from some kind of as-yet undisclosed, but nonetheless, evil fate on Ellis. After all, she’s only young, what does she know about saving the world?

Ellis is an ordinary little girl who lives an ordinary life and likes to do ordinary things with her very ordinary parents, but even though she is probably based upon a real girl who does live a very ordinary (but hopefully wonderful) life with her definitely very ordinary parents, Ellis is still a character in a story and therefore is not quite as ordinary as this paragraph might suggest.

This is all further complicated by the fact that it wasn’t actually Falcon Boy who chose Ellis in the first place. It was me. I was the one who allowed Dr Don’t Know to kidnap Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird. I made the decision to give Falcon Boy a superpower, even though he lives in a world in a world where superpowers clearly don’t exist.

It was also me that allowed Falcon Boy to use his narratively-spurious superpower to make contact with an ordinary girl busily minding her own business. Of course, it is the fact of Ellis being chosen that makes her extraordinary, but again, this was entirely down to me.

I hope you are not too confused here. This whole ordinary/extraordinary thing is easily explained.

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.

Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero Volume 1: 21

‘Hairy Top Lips and Homemade Boots’ Part 1

Ellis knew that things weren’t the way they were supposed to be. Even though they were trying to hide it from her, Ellis also knew that her Mum and Dad were very concerned about the situation. She had heard them over breakfast.

‘I heard that he’s a right old loony,’ said Mum.

‘I heard that too,’ said Dad, ‘but the two of them are hardly first-rate heroes, are they?’ Dad looked out of the kitchen window. ‘I can’t understand why on earth he would bother to kidnap those two losers anyway.’

‘They’re not losers,’ said Mum, ‘just untried on the public stage.’ She smiled. ‘For all we know they could be the vanguard of a brand-new future…’

‘Whaaaaat?’ scoffed Dad, ‘that little fool with the hairy top lip and his mate who can’t walk in his homemade bird boots?’ He scoffed again. ‘In any case, if that’s how they want the future to look then I’m telling you now, I’m not growing a moustache for anyone.’

Ellis knew that underneath all of his bluster, Dad was as worried as Mum.

‘You could always shave the moustache off again,’ said Mum, ‘but preventing the destruction of the entire universe is a bit more complicated.’

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.

Falcon Boy: A Fairly Hopeless Hero Volume 1: 20

‘The reader is perplexed as well’

When characters in stories are presented with things that they don’t understand, or are placed into situations that they cannot comprehend, they are not the only ones to be confused. The reader is often perplexed as well and this is not always a good thing.

Now, I’m not taking my responsibility as the writer of this story too lightly here but I do believe that some writers feel their responsibilities too heavily and therefore feel too obliged to explain everything in too much detail. When this happens, it can leave no room for the reader to use their imagination.

Instead of being able to see events the way they want to, too much detail forces readers to only see things the way the writer wants them to. It leaves no room for interpretation and imagination. Furthermore, it makes very little difference to the characters either way.

For example, Falcon Boy was oblivious to all of this responsibility, explanation and imagination stuff and kept talking to Ellis, indifferent to any concerns over whether or not he was simply an innocent pawn caught up in a barefaced plot to take whacking great narrative liberties with a story. He just kept on talking.

‘Dr Don’t Know will be expecting all the forces of law and order across the world to be mobilised in order to secure our immediate release and reinstatement as leading crime-fighting authority figures,’ said Falcon Boy, somewhat misguidedly. ‘He would never suspect someone like you, not in one hundred thousand million years.’

Falcon Boy had a point. International super-criminals tend to oversee vast criminal networks teeming with minions engaged in illegal activity, and all contributing to the creeping threat of a global menace. For example, the principle villain in the Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Wonder Detective Comic Book Super Series, as well as its audio counterpart, is the nefarious Octopus and Ellis remembered that Pearly always speaks about the Octopus’s vast evil empire and ‘his eight mean legs of greed, theft, evil, selfishness, anger, violence, meanness and insanity’.

‘You cannot possibly be a master criminal,’ thought Ellis, ‘without an enormous evil empire and if you have an enormous evil empire then you would need lots and lots of evil people doing lots and lots of evil things for you. This would make it very easy not to know everything that was going on.’

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

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: 19

‘What a coincidence!’

You remember earlier when I listed all of those superpowers that the people chose for their superhero avatars in SuperHeroVerse™? The list was a very long one and chock-full of exciting-sounding powers. Looking back now, I feel guilty that Falcon Boy wasn’t allowed to add a superpower to that list. He was very disappointed once he found out.

Well, guess what? I changed my mind. Falcon Boy has got a superpower after all. He can now speak to people without having to stand next to them. Isn’t that great?

Falcon Boy had no idea that this was going to happen. How could he? He doesn’t even know who I am. Unless we happen to meet one day in the future. But that’s for another story. Or maybe even a film. I’ll introduce myself one day but that won’t be happening anytime soon.

I have also decided that Falcon Boy can use his new superpower right now. Which is lucky, because otherwise, this story might never get going again.

‘I don’t know where this ability has come from or how I am able to do it,’ Falcon Boy continued, ‘but I am now amazingly able to talk in your ear without having to be standing next to you.’

Falcon Boy stopped and thought for a moment.

‘Which is lucky,’ he continued, ‘otherwise we might both be stuck wherever we happen to be stuck for the rest of our lives.’

‘Where are you?’ asked Ellis. ‘You do know that everyone is looking for you but can’t find you anywhere? Dr Don’t Know was interviewed on the television but he wouldn’t tell Juniper Jarvis where he has hidden you.’

‘I knew it!’ exclaimed Falcon Boy. ‘I told you it was the work of Dr Don’t Know,’ he said to Bewilder Bird. ‘This means it is serious, very serious indeed.’

Falcon Boy turned back to Ellis.

‘The problem is that we don’t know where we are,’ he said. ‘If we don’t know where we are, then we can’t figure out how to escape, and if we can’t figure out how to escape, then we won’t be able to save the world from the evil plans of Dr Don’t Know.’

‘Why are you asking me for help?’ asked Ellis. ‘I’m not old enough yet and there are lots of things I don’t know how to do yet, like Kung Fu, topiary and electronics. I have no idea how to stop an international master criminal.’ Ellis paused. ‘More importantly,’ she continued, ‘you don’t even know who I am.’

All of which, of course, is perfectly true.

‘But that’s exactly why you are the perfect person for me to be suddenly and surprisingly asking for help out of the blue,’ replied Falcon Boy.

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

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: 18

‘You really are our only help’

Ellis was listening to the exciting conclusion of Pearly Stockwell and the Letter that Was Hidden but Everyone Could Really See when she heard a soft voice she didn’t recognise.

‘Help,’ said the voice. ‘Please would someone help us?’

‘That’s strange,’ thought Ellis. ‘I don’t recognise that voice.’

‘Help,’ repeated the voice desperately. ‘Please would anyone help us?’

To begin with, Ellis thought that the voice belonged to one of the characters in the story. Wanderley had just disguised himself as a scarecrow and was standing in a turnip field at midnight waiting for the letter thief to rendezvous with his wicked one-legged accomplice.

Though it was a freezing January night, Wanderley stuck bravely to the task and had just gritted his teeth against the cold for the third time when Ellis heard the voice again.

‘Help,’ said the voice. ‘You really are our only help.’

Wanderley wouldn’t be calling for help, thought Ellis. He’s a master of disguise and one of the Interesting Twins. Anyway even if he did, no one would hear him apart from the bad guys and that would mean the story wouldn’t make sense.

Ellis took off her earphones and looked around. There was no one in her bedroom. Her Mum was downstairs. Her Dad was still at work.

‘Please help,’ said the voice again. ‘We really must get out of here.’

Ellis was puzzled. I bet you are as well. Whose voice is this? Who does it belong to? How can Ellis hear it? How is this going to work? Really? What now? Are you sure? Do I really have to keep reading? Should we just ignore this voice?

‘Please don’t ignore me,’ said the voice, and there was a very real sound of panic evident now. ‘If you don’t listen then no one will.’

‘Who are you?’ asked Ellis. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’m Falcon Boy,’ said Falcon Boy. ‘I’m here with Bewilder Bird and normally we would be doing something to make Panic Town a better place but we have both woken up to find ourselves trapped somewhere dark and quiet.’ He sounded scared. ‘We don’t know where we are or why we are where we are.’

Falcon Boy’s words tumbled into Ellis’s ear like sand falling through a hole in the bottom of a bucket. Ellis thought for a minute. She kind of knew that hearing Falcon Boy’s voice could turn out to be really important for her and everyone else.

‘How come I can hear you?’ she asked.

And now we are at the heart of the matter.

 

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

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: 17

‘Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins’

Pearly heads every investigation. She is also very good at telling people things, normally things that they already know. This is a profoundly annoying trait for a character to have but within the context of the stories, her big city ways are a useful narrative device.

For example, during The Lost Treasure of Fallstown, Pearly convinces the elderly Mrs. Elvira Toothpull, Fallstown’s resident millionaire, to lend the Incredible Twins her antique sports car even though it is worth $300,000 and none of them are old enough to drive. As it turns out, they don’t need the car to solve the mystery but the writers are happy to use this as an example of just how convincing Pearly can be.

Wes Gordy is the gang’s muscle and his main purpose is to step in and stop someone from doing something mean to someone else, or else save the gang in some way that needs exceptional strength.

It is Wes who saves his friends from drowning in Fallstown Bay when he rips open the hatch on the sinking fishing boat at the thrilling climax of Pearly Meets the Ghostly Angler. It also takes a mighty dead-leg from Wes to get the Octopus’s henchman to let go of Pearly’s arm as the helicopter is about to take off with her on board in The Octopus and His Evil Plans for Pearly Stockwell.

As the telephone box demonstrates, Wanderley is a genius at disguising himself and no adventure is complete without Wanderley revealing himself from a disguise so ingenious that no one ever recognises him.

At the end of Pearly and the Merchant Bankers, Wanderley disguises himself as the Chief Executive Officer of a multinational bank to help bring about the end of the Drumm Boys, a gang of corrupt financiers intent on selling illegal shares and bankrupting a small country.

Wanderley’s disguise is convincing enough for the Drumm Boys to incriminate themselves via email and audiotape, surrender their passports and provide the Fallstown Police with the details of all their offshore bank accounts.

In Here Comes the Interesting Twins to Save the Day, Pearly, Wes and Windy have been kidnapped by Professor Ingenious, a mad scientist intent on taking over the world with his army of manky, mutant, melted monkeys and it takes Wanderley disguising himself as the President of the United States to finally put a stop to the manky, mutant, melted monkey menace.

Windy is the gang’s athlete and it is his job to be ready to run for help when it is required. His natural athleticism allows him to run like the wind to notify the local authorities when smugglers threaten the local economy in Pearly Saves the Seaside. It also helps him escape from the clutches of the desperately dangerous teenage Bicycle Boys when they try to take over Fallstown in Windy Wins the Deadliest Race of his Little Life.

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

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: 16

‘Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Detective Comic Audiobook Series‘ Part 2

In the first episode in the series, We Hope You Can, Pearly Stockwell, Pearly moves to Fallstown following a commuter train tragedy that killed her parents. She doesn’t have much to bring to her new home apart from the fortune she inherited from her parents, and her big city ways.

An unfortunate misunderstanding with a flower seller and a taxi driver at the Fallstown railway station results in Pearly picking up the wrong suitcase. She opens the suitcase to discover an old telephone directory.

‘Who brings a telephone directory on holiday with them?’ Pearly says to herself. ‘Surely, if they really needed a telephone number they could ask a policeman or someone who works at the Post Office.’ With her curiosity piqued, Pearly decides to investigate the mystery.

She places an advert in the Fallstown Provider for detectives to join her in the investigation.

‘Experience not essential,’ reads the advertisement, ‘but you must have a belief in truth, justice and an aching desire to find out things.’

The next day, Pearly receives a badly-scrawled letter inviting her to a secret rendezvous on the sandy beach at Fallstown Cove.

Pearly gets to the rendezvous early in order to spy on who might arrive and is disappointed to see two young boys sitting next to a telephone box.

Pearly narrows her eyes. ‘Who are you and what is a telephone box doing on the beach?’

‘We have come to join your detective gang,’ replies the telephone box. ‘My name is Wanderley Gordy and I am a master of disguise,’ the telephone box continues. ‘These are my brothers, Wes and Windy.’

Wes and Windy stand up and bow dramatically.

‘We are the Interesting Twins,’ says the box.

‘But there are three of you,’ replies Pearly.

‘And that’s what makes us so interesting!’ exclaim the Interesting Twins together, and the adventures of Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins begin.

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

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: 16

‘Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Detective Comic Audiobook Series‘ Part 1

As she waited for her tea, Ellis listened to the Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Detective Comic Audiobook Series. This is one of the many commercial ventures to spring from the bestselling and forever-bewildering Pearly Stockwell and the Interesting Twins Wonder Detective Comic Book Super Series.

Pearly Stockwell is a six-year-old girl who solves puzzles, saves the day and achieves countless major triumphs that are forever beyond the adults who populate the world of these stories. Wes, Windy, and Wanderley Gordy are the Interesting Twins and the fact that there is actually three of them and that they aren’t twins is apparently what makes them interesting.

In each episode, someone is kidnapped or something is stolen or threatened with total destruction, like a school, a train, a town, a livelihood or a way of life. Pearly and her friends always notice something that the police miss, or overhear a conversation on the bus. Other times they might decide that two men standing talking outside the cake shop look suspicious and the adventures begin.

Everything happens in Fallstown, a small place in the middle of nowhere that is somehow a perpetual magnet for all minds and matters criminally oriented.

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

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: 15

Falcon Boy looked slightly rubbish?

Ellis knew that everyone was terrified. She knew it was something to do with Dr Don’t Know doing something to Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird. All the teachers at the Panic Town Elementary Academy urged their pupils to write letters to Dr Don’t Know pleading for the safe return of Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird. The youngest children drew pleading pictures instead.

Ellis had seen Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird many times in and around the park. She had also seen them directing traffic on bank holidays when the crowds of holidaymakers blocked the road.

Falcon Boy considered duties like this to be part of his new life. However, the Panic Town Police didn’t see things quite the same way and asked him not to interfere.

According to Falcon Boy, the police were worried about a possible conflict of interests. Also, as he added to anyone listening, ‘I suppose there is also the issue of being properly qualified.’ Falcon Boy would glance over his shoulder. ‘It might be an idea,’ he would say conspiratorially, ‘if the Panic Town Police reviewed their operating procedures now that we are here to give them a much-needed helping hand.’

I am sure that this suggestion had reached Captain Lorimer. I am also sure that she wasn’t too impressed.

Even though Ellis knew that the two superheroes were probably a good thing to have around, she still couldn’t help feeling that Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird looked slightly rubbish. Falcon Boy with his silly blue beak-cap-mask and Bewilder Bird with his shoes designed to look bird feet. They made it hard for him to run as he was always tripping over the elongated claws.

But Ellis already knew enough to know that she shouldn’t really judge people by their appearances, despite the very serious challenges that the two superheroes presented to this maxim.

You can also follow Falcon Boy on Twitter @PBoyProductions #afairlyhopelesshero

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.