he Adventures of Robin Boyd in a Nut (And How) Shell

-- The time: The mid-sixties. The place: Hollyweird, California. The girl: A cute, 16-year-old, red-headed kook named Robin Irene Boyd (and for God¹s sake, don¹t let on that you know about that vile middle name).

-- The story: This aforementioned nut is a devoted and hard-working fan who tirelessly supports the careers of her favorite rock stars. (She is also tirelessly in love with every single one of them.) As a thank-you for helping with fan clubs and showing up at airports in the middle of night to scream for arriving favorites (kids used to do that), Robin is gifted with magic powers.

-- Yeah, right. No, really! The battered teapot Robin finds teetering atop a garbage can just happens to contain a genie. Oddly enough, he looks exactly like George Harrison. (Robin is not a partial bird, but should she ever be forced to make a choice of favey-raveys, The Beatles chances are excellent.)

-- About those powers: Suddenly, Robin can turn herself into a real robin and fly anywhere she wishes to terrorize, er, visit her faves. Providing she wears her tiny Byrd glasses, that is, which she's blind as six bats without. Also providing she can sneak away from her genie, who takes a proprietary interest early on and then gets all jealous and cranky. Despite his attempts to have her all to himself, Robin proceeds to have disastrous, oops, glorious encounters with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, even Batman and Robin. In fact, she gives her beloved John Lennon such a start, he swallows his guitar pick, and she has Mick fearing for his sanity when his jacket flaps out of sight (Robin, in real bird form, is in the pocket).

-- Robin also has encounters with an officious member of the dread Bird Patrol (she was speeding), her crazy aunt (the cat lady of Catalina, 17 at last count), her sturdy 12-year old sister Ringo Boyd (actually Beverly Lou) who always wears a Ludwig drumstick around her neck (on a chain, on a chain). Craziest of all is her adventure with Dr. Alex Andersrag, Psychiatrist. (This last fiasco was her frantic mother's idea‹by now mom was convinced that Robin had bonkered out.)

-- But her greatest adventure unfolds when Robin uses her budding womanly wiles to convince her gorgeous genie to grant her dream of a lifetime. (No biggie, maintains Robin. She only wants to go back in time to see the Beatles perform at the Cavern before they got famous). (Only?) To pull this off, George is forced to get a power boost from his fellow genies, and do we even have to tell you that they look exactly like John, Paul and Ringo?

-- Anyway, that's some of what transpires in the first 27 chapters. (The series was intended as a 12-parter, but it was so popular, it contined for over a year.) (Robin¹s success on the newsstand was absolute proof that she really wasn¹t crazy. It really was the rest of the world.)

-- Those first 5 chapters are what you¹re about to read. The story doesn't end there (oh no, it goes on) (and on and on), but we could say that at Chapter 28, the story begins anew. In fact, we just did.

-- We're kicking off this site with the first five chapters of Robin¹s saga.

-- Speaking of on and on, the saga of Robin Boyd currrently contines in "Zigi and The Magic Drumstick," a serial now appearing in the online teen 'zine on www.janeymilstead.com. Zigi is the daughter of Robin's younger sister, the abovementioned Ringo (her real name is Beverly Lou‹cough‹and she now calls herself Harvest) (that sort of thing has been known to run in the family).

-- Session drummer with street cred and member of the rock band Hat Money, Harvest disappears in Asia, where she traveled to learn the tabla. This forces Zigi to move out of funky old Venice and go to live with her violinist dad (L.A. Phil, yet!) in his totally uncool condo. Still crazy after all these years, Aunt Robin cheers Zigi up by sending her a magic Ludwig.

-- Following family tradition (right into the bin), 15-year-old Zigi begins using her new-found powers to terrorize, er, visit her favorite rockers. And just take a guess who¹s included in that list. One of Zigi¹s first trips (and we¹re loose on the use of that term) is a time-travel escapade back to the 1964 Hollywood Bowl debut of The Beatles! (Like aunty, like niecy.) There have also been visits (make that terrifiying appearances out of nowhere) to Dave Grohl, Eminem and other stars now mumbling quietly to themselves.

-- Zigi also finds her mom, who was snatched right off her bicycle, put into a harem and can¹t leave (yet) for reasons you¹ll just to find out for yourselves.

-- And where is Robin I. Boyd herself these days? Herself resides in London with her husband George (who oddly enough looks exactly like, oh, you know). They have four sons who have a singing group, not to mention some rather unusual powers of their own. And do we have to tell you who they look like? Nope. Fortunately for us all, that is another story.