h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You have realised that you have neglected to mention that the Star has a secret superhero identity, and has had it for a good six months now.

He is Rescue Boy! A name which can only be said with a fist pump, swirl of an imaginary cape and a rhetorical flourish worthy of the best Hollywood voiceover.

His special power is retrieving felt tip pen lids.

You discovered it thus.

There you were, spending an idle twenty minutes encouraging the Star to colour inside the lines, when the blue pen’s top rolled of the table.

Immediately, the Star bounced out of his seat, and with a cry of ‘Rescue Boy!’* he burrowed under the table and came up triumphantly clutching the item in question.

When another pen lid ended up on the floor as pen lids are wont to do, he did it again. And again. And again and again and again. Then he started surreptitiously sliding whatever items he could find off the table so he could dramatically pick them up. Soon that became unsurreptitiously chucking them on the floor.

Which is when you put a stop to it.

Until the next time you both sat down to draw.

You find yourself charmed but slightly nonplussed by this behaviour as you were not aware that the Star had a particular interest in comic book characters. Bugs, yes. Peppa Pig, yes. Dinosaurs, yes. Flowers, yes. The Wot Wots, yes. Trains, yes. Football, up to a point.** Wearing his underpants over his tights? Meh, was what you had thought were his thoughts on the subject. You couldn’t even recall him coming across any of the baggy-trouser challenged brigade. Until you remembered this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/gigglebiz/watch/gigglebiz-captainadorable/

Still. While Justin Fletcher clearly has a lot to answer for, secret superhero identities must be hard-wired into little boys’ psyches.

*Said with a fist pump, swirl of an imaginary cape and a rhetorical flourish worthy of the best Hollywood voiceover. Of course.

**Sharing the ball is the point, but that’s a post for another day.

Captain Adorable? Not available in Sweden, though *sulks*

*trying to remember if she ever imagined being a super hero as a kid, or adult, for that matter*

Nope, not that I can recall - I guess super heroes in general were actually around much during my childood except, possibly, The Phantom, but that was probably more due to his white horse.

I used to make 'Queen of Africa' (why yes, the whole continent) robes out of bath-towels, and then when I WAS Queen of Africa, I'd run around like a loon waving a stick (sceptre! It was a magic sceptre!) and rescuing elephants, until the Queen of Africa's mum realised who'd taken the clean towels outside, rolled about in them, and left them in a heap in the middle of a farm-yard.

I don't recall ever particularly pretending to be anyone, except occasionally Doctor Who... and that didn't require any special costume save an attempt at impersonating Peter Davison's voice in a manner which probably made everyone else think I had a bad cold.

Oh, and the time I drew on my face with permanent marker to become Frankenstein's monster.

Do little girls still pretend to be princesses?

Absolutely! Or so I hear.

I always wanted to be Underdog.