HARDY, FRANK AND JOE – Fictional Detectives. The ability to look into men's hearts is often dispiriting. What people like Nina Kelly blithely refer to as a ‘gift' is, actually, a terrible thing to bear. Before we continue, please think about this. The depiction of young detectives in popular fiction tends to be misleading. They're popular and constantly surrounded by admirers. Did either Hardy boy resort to going to the prom with Aunt Gertrude? Of course not! This is a popular misconception. In reality, the young person who exposes wrong doing is shunned, ridiculed and dangled naked from the flagpole with the word “spy” daubed on his torso. And this human aversion to the truth-teller doesn't take into account the fear inspired by the supernatural elements of clairvoyance. The average child is intolerant and cruel. He detests anyone who's different. If another, more sensitive, child intuits that his father beats his mother or stays out late with other women, he doesn't acknowledge the truth in the revelation or even accept it as a possibility. Instead he points his finger and shouts “freak!” encouraging his friends to surround the truth-teller and pummel him. I'm not looking for pity, merely understanding. A considerable percentage of clairvoyants are susceptible to the bleakest of depressions. Seven out of ten, apparently, contemplate suicide before reaching their teens. This shouldn't come as any surprise. Who wants to be privy, for example, to his parents' darkest desires? Should a child have his thoughts corrupted by the intrusive fantasies of taxi drivers or supermarket assistants? How is he to communicate with these people? Every genuine clairvoyant will, at some stage experience violent rejection. A child can't determine between regular thoughts and those sparked by enhanced intuition. Tact isn't inherent. A five year old can't be expected to remain silent when unexpectedly offered secret knowledge. Clairvoyant children tend to be considered socially inept. It's inevitable. Nobody wants thoughts he's reluctant to acknowledge even to himself parroted by a five year old. The potential for embarrassment is overwhelming. As my powers became apparent, my parents' circle of friends rapidly dwindled. My Uncle Gregor refused to visit for over three years after I received a vivid impression of him prancing in front of a mirror, his great red face framed by a wig, his thighs sheathed in silk. His red face and spluttered denials betrayed the accuracy of my intuition. I was immediately overwhelmed by an second image, this time of Gregor dashing my head off our fireplace and passed out, a frequent occurrence throughout my childhood and adolescence that Nina mischievously dismisses as a punishment evasion technique. (Throughout his life, incidentally, Gregor projected a constant stream of repressed urges. His company, even when I was older, was an ordeal. No talent was required on my part to discern his hatred. He conveyed it with every word and glance. Troubled and angry people often conceal their true feelings behind a mask of apparent jollity. Nina implicates me in my uncle's death, referring to a “campaign of harassment.” This was, in fact, a perfectly legitimate investigation fully detailed in my Casebook as the Mystery of the Hidden Diary.)

 

The Hardy Boys from the 1970's t.v. series

 

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