The Not so True Adventures of Brandon, Josh, and Adam

By Barry M. Fellinger

Eleven-year-old cousins Brandon and Josh return home safely at the end of their Almost True Adventure, only to discover that their cousin Adam has been captured by the very same aliens from the Intergalactic Council on Obedience to Parents they just escaped from!

Now the boys must figure out how to get back into space, rescue Adam, and return home safely again!

It's a Not So True Adventure full of action, surprises, old friends, new enemies, frenemies, and what's that about doubles troubles?

A hilarious and once-in-a-while serious story of past, present, and future antics, based on some of the three cousins' escapades in real life!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jan 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9780228879251

Barry M. Fellinger

Barry M. Fellinger resides in St. Thomas, Ontario, with his wife Beth, and currently works as a director in health care and also teaches leadership courses and seminars.He loves spending time with his adult children, grandchildren, extended family, and friends.He enjoys reading, writing, watching superhero television shows and movies, collecting comics, attending the occasional Comicon and, for inspiration, relaxing in Sanctuary II, his comic book/man room.He has a few more books in the works which he hopes to complete before or during retirement.

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The Not so True Adventures of Brandon, Josh, and Adam

Barry M. Fellinger

Illustrated by GB Faelnar & Charles K. Hopkins

The Not so True Adventures of Brandon, Josh, and Adam

Copyright © 2023 by Barry M. Fellinger

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-7924-4 (Hardcover)

978-0-2288-7923-7 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-7925-1 (eBook)

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AUTHOR’S NOTE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

This book is lovingly

dedicated to Adam’s father, Peter Robert Cudmore, a loving son, husband, father, brother, brother-in-law and uncle who lost his battle with cancer many years ago at the much too young age of fifty.

Also dedicated to my family, loving wife Beth, and daughter Brittany, son-in-law Jeff, daughter-in-law Katie, extended family, all my grandchildren and of course to my son Brandon and nephews Josh and Adam and their family and friends, who have continued their real-life adventures over the years and provided me with lots of material to work with.

For Charlie, aka The Young Avenger; Ben, aka, The Young Guardian; Sawyer aka, The Young Defender; and Addison, aka The Young Webslinger and her sibling, aka, The Young Nova, yet to appear.

CHAPTER ONE

I Wish I Would Have Just Eaten My Dinner

OR

ADAM MEETS THE COUNCIL

Twelve-year-old Adam was mad. He was very mad. He was in a cage with bars and not happy about it at all. With every bit of his 120-pound might and five feet two height, he gripped the bars and tried twisting them loose until his hands hurt. No use. They would not budge.

Adam was not sure how he ended up in the cage. Last thing he remembered, he had been horribly angry at his mother, stomping away from the supper table and up the stairs towards his room. Next thing he knew, he woke up in this dark place. Only when his eyes became accustomed to the darkness could he tell he was in some kind of jail. Still, he refused to believe it.

At first, he thought he was dreaming. He tried to wake up by pinching the skin on his arm. That hurt! Next, he shook his head back and forth, his curly brown hair waving around until it fell over his eyes, and he felt dizzy. Nope, that didn’t work either because he was already very much awake. Then he thought his two older brothers might be playing a trick on him. He yelled as loudly as possible, Danny! Ken! Is this one of your dumb jokes? It’s not funny!

No one came.

Next, he tried walking away but found he ran right into the bars and bumped his forehead. Ouch! He rattled the bars again. Nothing changed. This was not a nightmare. It was not a trick. It really was a cage. Adam was getting nervous and his hands felt clammy. He could feel the sweat on his forehead. He sat down and tried to think. His mind started racing with all kinds of crazy thoughts. Was this some weird punishment for leaving the dinner table? Where was he anyway? Was he being pranked? Maybe he was on one of those TV shows where a friend or family member plays a prank that is filmed on an unsuspecting victim. He wouldn’t put that past his brothers or his cousins, Brandon and Josh. He concluded he had to slow down and think things out and not jump to conclusions about what had happened to him.

One more awful thought suddenly occurred to him. What if he was dead? He started to wonder if perhaps he was a ghost. Then he thought if that was true, he should be able to pass right through the bars. At least if all the shows he had seen about ghosts and spirits were true. He looked at his hands to see if they were ghost-like transparent. He tried to pass them through the bars. Just a clunk. Ok, not a ghost. Besides, why would a dead person be kept in a cage?

No, he thought to himself. That doesn’t make any sense either, so there must be a better explanation. I can’t remember anything happening to make me dead.

Even though he tried to push the thought of being dead far away from his mind, a little piece of the idea stuck way back in a corner of it, adding to his fear. The best thing would be to ignore it for now, so that is exactly what he did. Then Adam resolved to do one of the hardest things for a strong-willed twelve-year-old to do—he decided to wait.

Adam was not a naturally patient person. But he understood the only thing to do now was to be patient. So, he sat down cross-legged and waited. Then he waited some more. Someone had to come along soon and tell him why he was here. Wherever here was. He got up and paced back and forth, stretching his legs, still waiting. He checked his wristwatch to see how much time had gone by. He sat down again and waited some more. He checked his watch again. He got up, he sat down and did the same thing three or four more times, waiting for something to happen. He checked his watch each time.

He kept waiting for what seemed like forever. He determined to wait this out no matter how long it took. It was like the longest time out ever! Still nothing happened. Finally, from pure exhaustion, after walking all around the cage again, he lay down on the hard metal floor and stretched out. He resolved to continue waiting and tried to force his eyes to stay open. He found it to be a losing battle and, after a little while, fell asleep.

Adam bolted awake. What was that sound? He looked around but saw that nothing had changed. He was sure he’d heard a clicking sound. He looked at the door of the cage, wondering if it had made the noise. He jumped to his feet right away.

Hello? he called. No answer. Who’s there? Why am I here?

At the same time, lights from somewhere came on. Adam raised his arm to shield his eyes from the brightness and then felt rough hands grab him by the shoulders and pull him out of the cage.

Hey! was all he managed to say at first, being so surprised at experiencing both the sudden brightness and the firm grip of the stranger.

It didn’t take him long to find his voice. Let me go! What are you doing? he yelled and kept trying to struggle and squirm to get away from whoever held him from behind. Suddenly he felt a sharp burning sting in one ear. "Ouch! Who are you? I said. Let me go! The only response from his captor was a deep cold flat metallic ominous, It is time."

Time for what? Adam shouted, still trying to get out of the solid hold on him. He stopped struggling for a minute when the same flat cold voice responded.

Time for the Council.

What council? What are you talking about? Adam demanded.

His companion stayed silent. Adam still had not been able to see the person holding him. It was now so bright after having been in complete blackness that he found it took longer than usual to adjust to the light. The guard, with both hands on Adam’s shoulders, marched him out of the cage and out of the room. Adam could smell something that reminded him of mustard mixed with smelly feet and wondered if that was just body odour from the guard or something else. The closer they walked towards two large doors he could hear a mix of strange, garbled voices from within the room. Some were high-pitched, others soft and low, and some sounded more like animal noises. The Council? The doors slid open, and Adam’s eyes came into focus. What he saw shocked him. Not only did it surprise him; it worried him a whole lot. It made him question where on earth if at all, he was.

He was placed in the centre of a big room before seven individuals seated around a U-shaped table draped in a green covering on all sides that reached to the floor. Three people were on each side of the U and one in the centre. Adam wondered if that one was the leader. Small devices that reminded Adam of computer tablets sat in front of each person, along with what he thought might be drink containers. He glanced around the large room and saw the huge double doors they came through, decorated with pictures and writing he didn’t recognize, and white walls with drawings of some green shape on each of them, which he couldn’t make out because of the bright lights.

He stood in front of the creatures at the table under a blazing spotlight, with a guard on either side of him. But with them so close, he could now clearly see the guards for the very first time. They stood slightly taller than Adam. Their green helmets covered their foreheads and ended in a pointy shape at the top of their heads. Adam could not help but notice their slim arms, black eyes, and sort of round mouths. They wore a strange insignia on their uniforms that looked like a green plant.

If the guards looked strange, they were nothing compared to the Council. The Council was made up of people (if they actually were people) of all different shapes, sizes and colours. Except they didn’t resemble people at all. One was blue-skinned and so enormously large it barely fit on its chair. It wore a large purple robe over its entire body, and Adam was sure he didn’t want to know what was underneath it.

Another two with green skin, wearing maybe bathing suits, kept slurping out of containers in front of them through what looked like fish gills on each side of their faces. He was certain the fishy smell he just noticed was coming from them.

There was also some kind of a bright yellow creature with a dainty face, shaped in such a way that its nose came out of the side of a cheek; what he thought might be its ears were lopsided but stuck out where its eyes should be. Adam could only look at it briefly and gave up trying to determine where its eyes actually were. Another strange being in a long white robe had a triple chin, a blue ponytail, and a square brown face with large white eyes that glared at Adam without blinking. It was such a creepy stare that he had to look away

There was another one he thought looked like a woman, with long curly black hair tied in ribbons and a dark brown face covered in black tattoos and blue symbols. She wore a very fancy, brightly coloured purple dress with lots of badges. The dress looked more like one of his mother’s nightgowns, but he thankfully avoided laughing.

Must be masks; some kind of Halloween prank, he thought to himself. At least he hoped that’s what it was until one of them started talking and he began to understand this was no hoax.

This hearing of the Intergalactic Council on Obedience to Parents is now in session, began an odd-looking creature. Huge green antennas sprouted out of its forehead, along with an enormous nose that ended in a point like a pencil and blue ears that flopped up and down when it spoke in its deep, growling voice.

Before Adam could respond, a different voice at the table roared. Disobedient, defiant, rebellious scoundrels! The lot of them!

Adam knew the shouting was directed at him, but he didn’t know why. He thought he better try to say something.

Mustering all the courage a twelve-year-old might have, he hollered back. I’m not a scoundrel, you jerk, and you can’t just kidnap me. Let me go, and I mean now. For good measure, he gave one of the guards beside him a strong, swift kick.

It wasn’t the best idea in the world. His foot ached like he had kicked a concrete pole. "Ow," he moaned, jumping up and down on the spot, then holding his foot to fight back the tears. He wondered if he had broken it and if he’d still be able to play hockey. The truth is that his watery eyes came more from being scared than from the throbbing ache, but he certainly wasn’t going to let his captors know that.

Impudent Earth dweller, screeched a different high-pitched voice from behind the table. This time it sounded like the female. We have experienced your kind before and understand clearly what to do. You are not going to escape like the last two who caused us such trouble.

Somewhat reassured, Adam thought, Well, at least if somebody got away from these nutbars, guess I can, too. I’ll have to look for my chance to escape. First, I better figure out where I am. Maybe being polite will help.

Some of the creatures shook their heads, mumbling loud enough for Adam to hear. What does she speak of? We have never had this kind before. She must be in error. Others of the group said, No, no, yes, yes, we have, while others shook their heads, limbs, paws or ears in disagreement.

Adam tried to take advantage of their confusion using his sincerest voice—the one he used when he’d done something wrong and would try to get his mom or dad not to be too harsh with the punishment. The politer and more apologetic he sounded, usually getting grounded wasn’t for too long.

He thought a smart move would be to compliment the one he guessed must be the leader of the group, the one with the floppy up-and-down ears who had first spoken. He turned towards them, cleared his voice and started, Forgive me your, your um, high, er, your majest … I mean … I am not used to being in such places or with um people of such great ears. For good measure, he added, and years of wisdom. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m confused because I don’t know where I am or why I am here.

Confused, yes and chaotic. Of course, you are. All humans are; that’s their problem, another angry voice interrupted, glaring at Adam and spitting out their disgust. Whole place should be erased, demolished, wiped out, terrible planet. Filthy place; can barely breathe there.

Yes! Yes! Not worth the DNA code it’s written in. Waste of space, waste of space, yes, every one of them disorderly. Yes, now where was I? exclaimed a shrill voice. This new speaker sounded more mixed up than Adam, and she kept talking and talking, which made him think about one of his most boring schoolteachers.

Another voice broke in, saying, Oh, Jor. Don’t reveal everything yet. You will ruin the master plan. You sound more befuddled than the Earth child. Be quiet now while we determine what to do from here. We can correct for lost time. Hush now.

Master plan? Sounds like something from a movie! Whoa! Adam thought. Why can I understand these guys? If they really are aliens, then wouldn’t they be talking in some language I couldn’t understand? This made him think it definitely must be some weird prank. He actually looked around to see if there were cameras anywhere filming him and decided to risk another question.

Excuse me, um, sirs or mams or whatever. If you can’t tell me where I am, could you tell me how I can understand you? You don’t look like you’re from Earth, but I mean, this must not be real because I can understand your language. If I can do that, you must be from Earth cause if you were from another galaxy or something, then I wouldn’t be able to understand you. Right?

Ignorant pup!! answered a voice coming from his left. Adam had not heard this one before. No one said you have permission to speak. The translator makes everything understandable. Check your ear lobe, slow one. You will see we have looked after that.

Adam touched his ear. If he squeezed hard enough to make himself flinch, he could feel something like a metal object that hadn’t been there before. So that explains the sting when that guy yanked me out of lock-up. So, thanks for explaining that, he replied, followed by, Well, I guess I should go now. My mom will be expecting me for dinner. Don’t want to be late for curfew, you know. You wouldn’t want to see her upset! Bye now! Don’t call me, I’ll call you and all that, and he turned to walk out. That was absolutely the wrong thing to say.

Anger? Temper? You already made your mother furious, you little scamp. Why do you think you are here? Now here you are lying, too. Well, there’s no more to be said. It’s obvious you are guilty. Sentencing, mmm sentencing! What do you think Council members?

One Council member proclaimed, Death!

Another one disagreed. No! Too good!

Sentencing!

At these words, Adam looked frantically at the creatures, his head turning left and right at each of them to see if they really were serious. A third bellowed so loud Adam’s ears hurt, and he started shaking in fear.

Feed him to our sacred broccoli plant god!

At this, all the Council members stopped talking and looked at the speaker, considering this exciting option. Exciting to them, not to Adam, who, by now was shaking, nervously thinking, this is it, I’m going to be fed to a monster plant!

The leader shook their head. No, humans are probably indigestible.

Adam stopped shaking a little, breathing a sigh of relief.

What’s that? someone asked, listening to another alien murmuring, and repeated, Exile to the prison mines for him? No, too easy! Well, what else?

Perhaps have him destrooooooyyyy his own homeworld!! the fishy looking two exclaimed together.

The other one shook their antennae. No, too cruel, even for us! But a tasty idea, though. Mmmm.

What to do? the head of the Council carried on with all types of unpleasant ideas that got worse the more they spoke.

At words like ‘death’, ‘destruction’, and ‘exile’ being fed to strange plants and all