Tag: Superhero
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Despite her usual self-assurance, a similar thing once happened to Pearly Stockwell in Pearly and the Harvest Moon. A mysterious meteor shower just happens to brainwash the whole of Fallstown. Pearly wakes the next morning to find that she was the only person who hadn’t been turned into an emotionless shell of her former self.
Pearly walks through the streets of Fallstown, desperately trying not to show emotion as she seeks to determine the cause of the shower. She feels alone in the world and it isn’t a nice feeling. Everyone looks so blank and dull. They smile, but Pearly can’t see anything behind their eyes.Even despite the fact that the blank dullness that now confronts Pearly is not too much different from how the town had been before, Pearly still realises that things need to be returned to how they used to be.
Eventually, as always, Pearly triumphs, by remembering that the autumnal equinox was rapidly approaching. This allows her to realise that the rays of the next harvest moon would be strong enough to reverse the effects of the meteor shower and as she does so, her feelings of complete and utter aloneness are banished once again.
‘I’m not alone anymore,’ says Pearly as the moon’s rays begin to work their magic on the townsfolk of Fallstown and they return to the people that they had been before.
As she remembered this story, Ellis was able to take some comfort from it but what did she know about rays from the moon and meteor showers? More importantly, how would any of this help her find Falcon Boy?
We have all felt occasionally, or more regularly than that, that the world is full of more questions than answers. Indeed, if Dr Don’t Know gets his way, then this is exactly what the future is going to look like for all of us.
Uncertainty is an uncertain thing and causes us all to be unsure about how we feel about things sometimes. We start to worry about who we are, and what we really mean and matter to a world that seems too busy to really care about us at all.
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
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The pass that Ellis found gave her unlimited access to all areas of the stadium. Showtime was rapidly approaching and everyone was so busy that no one really paid too much attention to a young girl wandering around on her own.
Hundreds of people swarmed backstage, some pushing boxes on wheels, others telling those pushing the boxes where to push them. Other people were up ladders, fixing things.
Up on the stage, she could see technicians straightening microphone stands and taping their cables safely to the floor. Ellis saw that most people were walking normally but every now and then, someone would be limping as they went about their business.
Television crews were also setting up, and Ellis could see large cameras being moved into position, ready to transmit tonight’s concert all around the world. Ellis walked past a giant mixing desk with more buttons and dials than she had ever seen before in her life.There was so much going on that Ellis began to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of her task. When you don’t know where to start looking for something you know you really need to find, it can be a very overwhelming thing. Everything seems too much and nowhere seems like the right place to begin. This is how Ellis was beginning to feel.
‘Mind out, kid,’ someone shouted as they dragged a trolley past.
‘Go home to your Mum and Dad,’ said a long-haired man wearing a baseball cap and carrying a clipboard. ‘This is adult pop stuff.’
‘If you are not part of the crew or one of the acts, I need you to vacate this area immediately,’ said a big, broad man with ‘Security’ written on his t-shirt.
‘If you want an autograph, you need to apply via the website,’ said a harassed-looking lady with a telephone in each hand.
Tired, scared, and beginning to wish she hadn’t been quite so brave in the first place, Ellis found a quiet corner backstage and sat down next to a massive lorry. She felt like crying.
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 @drdontknowShare this:
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Conveniently for Ellis, and especially conveniently for me, Panic Town Municipal Stadium is right next to the park and, conveniently again for all concerned, the entrance can be found just behind Falcon Boy’s house.
This means that Ellis was already in the vicinity and irrespective of which option you chose to get her to the park in the first place, it at least allowed her the opportunity to look for Falcon Boy without me, or you, needing to rely upon another creaky plot device.
‘You need to get to into the stadium and try to find out what is going on,’ said Falcon Boy. ‘I fear that Dr Don’t Know is planning something rotten for the concert this evening.’
‘Okay,’ said Ellis, ‘I’m on my way.’
Ellis walked with the confidence of a child who has suddenly acquired a special purpose for the day, and she felt just like Pearly Stockwell in When Toyshops Attack.
Much to the delight of everyone, a new toyshop had opened in Fallstown.
‘I can’t wait,’ says Windy to his brothers. ‘I can’t think of anything better than spending some time browsing in a toyshop.’
‘Better than catching a criminal?’ Wes snorts. ‘The only toy I like is a cricket bat and that is only because they are good for whacking crooks.’
‘I once disguised myself as a giant teddy bear and hid in a toyshop for two weeks,’ says Wanderley.
‘We know,’ say Wes and Windy, laughing together. ‘We were the poor fools who had to try and find you.’
‘I’ll think you’ll find it was me who actually found him,’ Pearly corrects the brothers. ‘It was also me who revealed the truth about Blinko the Balloon Magician and his plot to flood the magic accessories market with cheap foreign imports.’
‘We know,’ sigh all three of the Interesting Twins together.
All of this happens, of course, in Pearly Squares the Magic Circle. Blinko turns out to be in the pay of Export International, a nefarious multinational company intent on dominating global markets through skulduggery, lies and blackmail.
One of their shadowy operatives had convinced poor old gullible Worcester Knudsen, a retired civil servant now barely scraping a living as Blinko the Balloon Magician, that his bookings would treble if he used a new brand of super-modelling inflatables.
Needless to say, Pearly eventually gets to the bottom of the goings-on and Worcester receives a four-year prison sentence for his part in the plot. As always happens, in real life and in stories like this, Export International could not be sufficiently implicated in the scandal and is allowed to continue its financial finagling for another day.
On the day of the toyshop opening, Fallstown is stunned to discover that the only things on its shelves are thousands and thousands of tiny toy helicopters.
After some clumsy plot exposition involving a new employee at the Fallstown Telephone Exchange and a pair of open windows, it is eventually revealed that the shop’s proprietors, Kurt and Irena Flue, are a husband and wife spy team, hell-bent on using Fallstown as a launch pad for their hundred-thousand-strong toy helicopter fleet.
During a daring raid on the warehouse at the back of the shop, the Interesting Twins are captured and Pearly has to rely upon her native wit and big city sense to free them and save the country from being destroyed by the fleet of tiny toys. Needless to say, she succeeds. Ellis felt sure that she was going to do something similar.
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 @drdontknowShare this:
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Remember the Queue? All that gloomy-sounding stuff you read about in the first few pages? About things not working? About the world not spinning properly anymore? That stuff that sounded like the beginning of the best film that has never been made (yet)? Now is the time for you to know more about what has been going on.
In case you haven’t guessed by now – and even if you have – Dr Don’t Know is planning to use Doodah’s homecoming concert to cause a whole world of trouble for the world. Disguised Troublebots have joined the hundreds of people who are helping to set up the concert, and even as we speak are putting the finishing touches to Dr Don’t Know’s terrible plan.Here is the plan in full:
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Dr Don’t Know has kidnapped Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird and hidden them in a special soundproof and lightproof container lorry parked in the stadium. He has left them enough food and drink for a week. Working on the principle that stolen letters are probably best hidden in plain sight, Dr Don’t Know feels very confident that nobody will think to look for them so close to the scene of the big crime he is about to commit. (Obviously, he’s not so confident now.)
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Disguised Troublebots have infiltrated all aspects of the preparations for Doodah’s concert, including some disguised as backing dancers. They’ve filled the stadium with special paralyzing voice-activated audio super-hertz mega-bombs connected to the stadium’s sound system.
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Four Troublebots will kidnap Doodah, tie them up and keep them somewhere out of the way. With the band out of the way, the four Troublebots will then go on stage disguised as Doodah.
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As the show reaches its finale and the introduction to One-Thumb, Two-Thumb Good begins, Dr Don’t Know will appear on stage via a hidden trapdoor and use a secret code word to activate the special paralyzing voice-activated audio super-hertz mega-bombs.
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The special paralyzing voice-activated audio super-hertz mega-bombs will detonate and paralyze everyone in the stadium, as well as the rest of the world as it watches via satellite and the Internet. The whole world will be paralyzed for exactly nineteen hours, forty-three minutes and thirteen seconds.
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With the whole world unable to move, Dr Don’t Know’s army of Troublebots will then steal the answer to every single question that has ever been asked in every single language around the world. Answers to questions that have yet to be asked will also be stolen.
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The stolen answers will be encrypted and filed away on a special miniature planet hidden just behind the Moon. Dr Don’t Know has had this planet built especially for this purpose, and even though the building of this planet was one of the many reasons why his criminal empire has now been drastically downsized, once the world reawakens, no one, not even scientists and people with telescopes, will be able to find it.
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When the world wakes up, it will be a very different place. Nobody will remember the answer to any of the questions that have been asked since the world began.
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From then on until the end of infinity, the only way to find the answer to anything will be via a new ticketing and appointment service overseen by Dr Don’t Know. This will make him the most important person in the Universe, full stop. Exclamation mark!
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The new rules are self-explanatory. You fill out the required form in triplicate, ensuring that you adhere to the one question per person guidelines. Any question containing six words or more will be instantly deleted by the system. Each family member must fill out a separate form. Only one question per application is admissible. Should you wish to know the answer to something else, you will need to make a separate application.
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Once submitted, your application will be processed and provided that all the appropriate criteria are met, you will eventually be allocated an appointment. You are advised to arrive well ahead of your allocated appointment time as you can expect significant delays due to lengthy queuing times and probable staff shortages due to inevitable cost-cutting activities.
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You arrive at your designated queuing station and begin to queue. You queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue and queue.
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An extremely significant and lengthy period of time later, in some cases whole lifetimes, you are stunned to find yourself at the front of the queue. A small sealed booth with a single door is there. The door opens automatically and you step inside. You see a three-legged stool and a speaking tube attached to the wall.
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Your moment has finally arrived. You sit on the stool. You lean forward. You ask your question into the tube. You make sure that you speak slowly and clearly because any inaudible questions will not be answered. You can expect a small delay following the asking of your question. Eventually, a badly-recorded voice will simply say ‘Don’t Know’.
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At no point during this process will any discussion be entered into regarding any elements of the process. If you wish to discuss your concerns in relation to the process, or any part of it herein, then you should do so in writing via a separate online system.
It doesn’t take a doctor, dentist or dinner lady to tell you that the world is well and truly doomed.
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 @drdontknowShare this:
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Three Troublebots separated themselves from the shadows in the corner of Dr Don’t Know’s office and stood before his desk. The scientist shuddered.
The first Troublebot snatched the envelope from the frightened scientist’s hand and ripped it open with its can opener attachment.
Using a tweezer attachment, the second Troublebot clumsily removed the photograph of Ellis from the envelope. The third Troublebot had no role to play in this part of the proceedings, and so satisfied itself by waiting for the right moment to strike.
The three Troublebots peered, pored and pawed the photograph of Ellis and as they did so, you could hear a horrendous racket as the gears in their computer-brains whirred and clanked. Dr Don’t Know and the scientist waited for something to happen and eventually something did.
The third Troublebot snatched the photograph from the second Troublebot’s hand.
‘I will stop her,’ it said, and the Troublebot’s voice reminded the wary scientist of a telephone being dropped down a toilet mid-conversation.
The second Troublebot reacted by swatting the third with the back of its metallic hand.
‘I will catch her,’ it said, in a voice that sounded like the final gasp of a dying microwave.
The first Troublebot moved slightly behind the other two and with a swift sweep of its rusty arms, crashed their two heads together. Over the clang of two metal heads being forced violently together, the first Troublebot spoke and as it did so, the scientist thought it sounded like an old transistor radio being thrown out of the window of a slow-moving car.
‘I will bring her here,’ it said.
In a scary flash of oil, sparks and robotic resentment, the Troublebots left the office.
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 @drdontknowShare this:
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Troublebots are not like any other kind of robot you have ever seen before. Were you to meet one, you might start feeling sorry for it but for the simple fact that their general down-at-heel-ness has made them extremely bad-tempered.This is because that for all the reasons outlined above, and many more that I haven’t even begun to mention, Troublebots are aware enough of their own inherent flawedness to be totally insecure and forever angry.
It is no wonder that Troublebots look like they are about to smash you in the mouth with a badly-clenched fist or stamp on your toes with an ill-fitting foot.
Troublebots are not even able to find any solidarity in their shoddiness. It isn’t just the world and everyone in it that causes a Troublebot to lash out in frustration, they also find it impossible to get on with each other. Picture the following scenario:
Troublebot A leaves a leg out to trip Troublebot B while Troublebot B is trying to blindside Troublebot C and attach a magnetic rope round the ankles of Troublebot D.
While this is all happening Troublebot D is attempting to short-circuit Troublebot E with a long-handled screwdriver.
Meanwhile Troublebots F and G are holding Troublebot H out of a thirty-five-storey window by its badly-fitted legs.
Ever alive to the possibility of a nice bit of roboticide, Troublebot I is poised to shove F and G out of the window, taking H with them.
Quite understandably, no one, not even Dr Don’t Know and he has had a small army of them manufactured, can stand to be in the same room as a Troublebot.
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 @drdontknowShare this:
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Troublebots were always trouble. They stood the tallish side of average and would look reasonably alright from a distance, were it not for the fact that they were usually scratched and dented.
Each Troublebot had two eyes, a dial where the nose should be and a small round hole for a mouth. Variations do exist within this format, and you couldn’t be sure that the distance between the eyes is exactly the same on each head, or that each mouth was die-cut exactly in the centre of each face.
The upper body was square-like and hollow, with enough room inside for all of the various pistons, wheels, wires, switches, motors and circuit boards required to keep the Troublebot working.
There was also a rectangular grille on each Troublebot’s chest and if you looked through the flimsy bars, you could see their badly-soldered inner circuitry sparking, shorting and generally threatening to give up.
The limbs of a Troublebot were designed with action in mind. Unfortunately, the measurements used for the prototype were very slightly out, and this mismeasurement was most noticeable in the slight limp caused by the right leg being ever-so-slightly longer than the left.
The left arm looked normal enough for a humanoid and ended in a metallic hand. The right arm ended with a bewildering array of random tools attached to it instead of fingers. These tools included useful ones like screwdrivers, mini-saws, sharp knives, small-bore guns, digital cameras, half-size samurai swords, and blow-torches.
Less useful tools that have been found at the end of a Troublebot’s arm include sporks, pencil sharpeners, miniature golf clubs, thermometers, toffee hammers, fountain pens, litter grabbers, flag guns that say ‘Bang’, analogue remote control systems, small kites on short strings, spirit-levels, kaleidoscopes, sextants, mascara brushes, wooden spoons, egg toppers, paper clips, microphones, Clingfilm dispensers, radio aerials, small fizzy sweet dispensers and a ruminator (whatever that is).
Anyone with an eye for the aesthetic, especially sensitive designers and engineers, is likely to find that same eye filling with tears at the simple sight of one of these hapless things.
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 @drdontknowShare this:
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If robots, treacherous or not, don’t work for you then perhaps you would prefer a brain-searingly intelligent android. You know, the kind that is always philosophical in their outlook and vaguely sympathetic towards the plight of the obviously inferior human race that they are nevertheless duty-bound to serve without question.
Whilst androids like this might get a little agitated sometimes – and occasionally end up breaking things or themselves – they tend to calm down in the end and go back to adopting the role of the benevolent guardian. It is highly unlikely that they would ever sell the whole human race for scrap.If an android doesn’t really work for you, then you might be the kind of person who prefers synthetic people whose real tragedy is the fact that they will never be properly human, however hard they secretly pine and moon.
Despite their broken synthetic hearts, these artificial people still manage to nobly provide the world with an amazing service and are always seemingly at their happiest when they are doing complicated scientific things for little or no real reward in the face of very real danger.
At the danger of building you all up only to have to knock you all down, I am sorry to have to tell you that the robots in this story are the most irritating and hateful non-human things to ever trouble the pages of a story.
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 @drdontknowShare this:
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Once the plot had been revealed, it was a relatively simple task for the writers to allow Pearly to discover that the aliens were, in fact, being controlled by a special transmitter designed by the wicked professor.
‘So this is what the real embezzlement of public funds looks like,’ she says to herself when Wanderley, who had disguised himself as a bicycle courier with an important message for the professor that could only be delivered by hand, shows her the photographs he was able to take of the professor’s Alien Contact and Control Transmitter. ‘That needs smashing straight away,’ she says.
‘I’m on it,’ says Wes, and he was. Wanderley disguises himself as a visiting professor ‘who had heard about Professor Pipkin’s genius and wanted to see for himself what all the fuss was about.’ As ‘Professor’ Wanderley flatters the vain Professor Pipkin, Wes sneaks into the Control Room and takes a sledgehammer to the transmitter.
With the transmitter broken beyond repair, the cruel, invisible, and nameless aliens simply vanish, and it is an easy thing for Windy to race to notify the authorities of Professor’s Pipkin’s wrongdoings. The naughty professor is led away by the police to spend the rest of his days behind bars.
‘There won’t be any books or clever talk where he is going,’ says Pearly to her friends. The following day Pearly Stockwell and the Invisible Twins receive an official apology, and Professor Pipkin’s Space Observation Station is demolished and replaced by light industrial units.
This particular adventure tends to buck the more prosaic trends of all of the other Pearly Stockwell adventures, by ending with a flashback to an event that took place before the adventure began.
The flashback reveals that the Professor Pipkin who almost caused the world to be colonised by aliens was, in fact, a robot created by Professor Pipkin to replace himself.
‘I’m very old now,’ lamented Professor Pipkin, ‘and my head can no longer cope with all this scientific stuff.’ He looked down at the robotic version of himself laying dormant on his operating table.
‘This way,’ thought the warped Professor to himself, ‘I will never get old again, and will be able to read books and do research forever.’
Unfortunately, there was a fault in the central processing unit and the ‘new’ Professor Pipkin considered the human race so inferior that he sold the entire planet to the highest bidder on an intergalactic auction website.
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 @drdontknowShare this:
‘What is going to happen to Panic Town if I don’t find Falcon Boy and Bewilder Bird?’ Ellis said to herself. ‘Will everyone blame me if things turn out really badly for everyone?’ Her poor small heart began to sink.
BARNABY TAYLOR 