The Junior Woodchucks and the Coachman

This story is a crossover between two Walt Disney Universes, The Donald Duck/Scrooge McDuck/Junior Woodchucks universe and the universe and late 19th century time where Pinocchio takes place. It also contains some science fiction elements such as the idea of the Wishing Star being a wormhole between the various Disney universes. Can the Junior Woodchucks withhe aid of Pinocchio, Lampwick the donkey and their Junior Woodchucks Guidebook that seems to hold all the knowledge in the world put an end to the curse of Pleasure Island. Lets look and see.

Chapter 1, The Mission Begins

Pleasure Island, Off the Tuscany Coastline of Italy, 1881:

The steamboat came to the dark foreboding high rocky island shoreline like it had many times before. Captained by an obese grandfatherly looking man in a long red coat and short crowned top hat and crewed by mysterious beings in black cloaks the steamboat's main passengers were a collection of rather rowdy and chronically truant boys that once filled the stagecoach belonging to the same grandfatherly man now running the steamboat. However unknown to these children the man was hardly the grandfather type. He well knew what fate awaited the boys who came to the island. He also knew what would have been the fate of those who tried to escape from the island by sea at least as of a week before this current trip.

Yes he knew of the curse of the island itself and also the great monster whale that guarded it from parents, truant officers and other adults that might want to come snooping around. The monster was large enough to swallow even whole boats of the yacht and small ship classes. Yes most adults knew of the former amusement park Pleasure Island and of the great whale Monstro that lived between Pleasure Island and the mainland effectively closing it down when it was a legitimate amusement park. For some reason probably known only to the Coachman as the grandfatherly man was called by his one minion who could speak, the anthropomorphic fox John Worthington Fowlfellow his steamboat was one of the few boats and or ships that Monstro would leave alone for something about it seemed to be permeated with more power than even the great whale possessed and a wickedness which the whale being a simple animal did not have and could not understand. Monstro just knew by instinct that the Coachman's steamboat was something to steer clear of.

However the Coachman's profitable endeavors involving the curse of Pleasure Island were put in potential danger a week before this current trip. It seemed Monstro had died by a broken neck chasing what at the time was considered to be a mysterious prey item into the rocky part of the mainland shoreline and bashing himself into the rocks at full speed. Some said that the water spray coming out of his blowhole was black and more like smoke than water spray as if he had a fire burning within him. Monstro had lived as he had died a true creature of hell and not just a simple overly large sperm whale according to most mainlanders who witnessed the event. Those included the rescuers of the presumed "prey item" a truly grandfatherly old man accompanied by a small black and white kitten, a goldfish in a fish bowl and a marionette puppet without strings that had the form of a little boy with an amazingly realistic donkey tail and ears. However some of these witnesses must have been as drunk as boys in the Coachman's 8 Ball Saloon on Pleasure Island before the curse took a full hold on them as they reported that an anthropomorphic cricket was also seen in the area.

However the Coachman could never get Mr. Fowlfellow to come to Pleasure Island himself. Even though Mr. Fowlfellow was a highly accomplished Faro bank cheat and con artist even he had his limits and actually seeing the curse of that place take over the boys who came to it apparently over reached those limits. Indeed Mr. Fowlfellow still cringed at the very name of the place just as he had when he first heard of its still being operated shortly before Monstro's death when the Coachman first assigned him to collect "stupid little boys" for the curse to work on so they would come back as BOYS!!

The Coachman docked his steamboat on the one still functional port causeway on the entire island. At its end were two great oak doors in the rocky shoreline with a donkey's head carved in an oak plaque above them. This plaque was the first reminder of the island's curse but as usual the boys on the steamboat paid no attention to it or its possible meaning. In fact there were even reminders of the curse from the first time the boys ever met the Coachman. He did not use horses to pull his stage coach but donkeys, donkeys with their ears hanging low like a dog's ears as if in mourning for a previous life and position they had lost. The Coachman lifted his arms above his head and then dropped them suddenly and saw that the first part of the curse was now in operation. The great doors under the donkey's head plaque opened and inside was the Pleasure Island Amusement park in full operation just as it was before Monstro chose the sea around its vicinity for his living place. Gone were the rusty and weather corroded rides and attractions that were the truth of their condition and in their place was a seemingly brand new carnival midway layout but with some strange things about it compared to its operations before Monstro showed up. Places that were originally for adults only in the park now had signs saying EVERYBODY WELCOME, HAVE A BALL in place of their original NO PERSONS UNDER TWENTY ONE YEARS OF AGE ALLOWED signs. One of these was a former boxing and wrestling arena called the Rough House which was now open for spontaneous fighting and fight picking by boys of all ages. A huge thuggish statue acted as a carnival barker for this attraction. Another was Tobacco Row where now even the youngest of the wayward boys could "smoke their heads off!!!" according to an invisible barker as robotic cigar store Indians threw out cigars, cigarettes, smoking pipes and bags of pipe and chewing tobacco like they were rain water. Yet another former adults only site in the park that was now open to all was the 8 Ball Saloon and Pool Hall named for its shape as the 8 ball in the game of Pool or Pocket Billiards. In addition to pool the saloon also featured copious cigars and beer along with even more explicit gambling games like Faro and Poker played not for money because everything was "free" on Pleasure Island. Rather these games were played for hard candy chips.

Indeed candy, ice cream, liquid sweets like sarsaparilla, flavored sodas and lemonade and baked sweets like pies, cakes and doughnuts and various types of sweet and filled rolls were to be found everywhere in the place. "Come on, Eat your fill, be a GLUTTON!!!" another of the invisible barkers announced relating to the ubiquitous presence all of this junk food. Another attraction was the former management office. It was now a "Model House Open for Destruction" where outright vandalism was encouraged on the part of the boys by yet more hidden barkers. A gigantic and rather hideous clown face statue seemed to oversee both the conventional amusement park aspects of Pleasure Island along with its more dubious "attractions". Copious helium filled balloons and fireworks completed the scene of an apparent still active amusement park.

Once the doors were opened the boys from the steamboat rushed in like a stampede of donkeys, EXACTLY what the Coachman wanted. Once the last ones were inside he cracked his whip at his black cloaked minions and ordered the doors closed and their great locking bolt set until the curse had done its work. Those doors were like the jaws of a Venus Fly Trap. The first part of the curse was what brought the park back to operational condition and made it an attraction for the boys. When the sun went down on this day the boys would come under the dread second part of the curse by being changed into donkeys to be sold to various places of business and people needing animal labor by the Coachman. The evil magic that restored the park to full operating condition would then wane and it would revert to its condemned abandoned condition until the next load of boys was brought in to suffer its curse.

Junior Woodchucks Troop 1 Campout, Somewhere in the Black Forest outside Duckburg, 1955:

The nephews of Donald Duck and grand nephews of Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck were the most accomplished members of Junior Woodchucks Troop 1. In their pre Junior Woodchucks lives they were much like the boys that would be attracted to places like Pleasure Island in that they were mischievous, disobedient to parental authority as represented by their legal guardian Uncle Donald and rather chronic truants. However since joining the Junior Woodchucks and having partaken of their mysterious Guidebook which seemed capable of holding all the knowledge in the world despite its size being no larger than the handbooks of similar youth organizations like the girl only Chickadees and the Boonheads they have become as civil and studious as boys their age were capable of being.

Troop 1 was engaged in a simple campout that was practice for the Junior Woodchuck Camporee that was to be held the next Friday, Saturday and Sunday after this campout but Huey, Dewey and Louie never went to the Camporee because they could not afford the full Junior Woodchuck uniform for Avian anthropomorphic. As anthropomorphic ducks the pants were of no concern to them because their feathers took care of covering for both modesty and warmth purposes and were thus recognized as part of the official uniform for anthropomorphic avians in the Junior Woodchucks. However to attend the Camporee they had to have the Junior Woodchuck official uniform coat and sash for avains and for their rank of ten star generals and that was expensive. For this reason pretty much the only uniform they had was the Troop 1 neckerchief and hand me down examples of the artificial coon skin hat with the Junior Woodchucks badge on its front and faux tail on the rear that they wore with their everyday black sweaters. While they were called Ten Star Generals this did not mean the same thing that it meant in the actual military. Ranks in the Junior Woodchucks were like grades in school and based on achieving certain requirements laid out in the Junior Woodchucks Guidebook just as with other similar youth organizations. Thus a ten star general was pretty much the same as Eagle Boonhead or Queen's Chickadee in the competing youth organizations of Duckburg.

Louie was the first of the boy ducks to see the new star in the sky. It was the first star to show in the coming night and continued to outshine all of the others. "Look, the Wishing Star" he shouted.

"We're too old for that Wishing Star stuff." Dewey the most intelligent of the boy ducks said.

"Well, I'm going to give it a try anyway." Louie said and then continued "Star Light, Star Bright, the first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I make tonight." He then made the wish in silence.

All of a sudden the star turned an amazingly bright blue and a smaller star seemed to emerge from it.

"Maybe there's something to this after all." Huey the leader of the three duck boy brothers said.

"That star is spitting something pretty strange in this direction."

The strange thing that Huey referred to took the form of a most beautiful true human woman in a blue dress that seemed to be made of fabric and fine crystal intermeshed into a single garment. She seemed to

fly on pure transparent crystal wings and held a wand with a star at its end in her right hand. She waved that wand and all three duck boys were suddenly dressed in the full Junior Woodchucks uniform for their rank and avian kind featuring a white military like coat with golden epaulettes and two large pockets over which was a blue sash with ten gold stars in two rows of five upon it. Brand new neckerchiefs and faux coonskin caps and tails replaced their older hand me down ones with shiny new Junior Woodchucks badges on their fronts.

"Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck" the woman said. "You have formerly lived lives of selfishness and willful ignorance but on joining this organization you have proved yourselves to be amongst the most brave, truthful and unselfish of its members. Therefore you deserve to have your wish of the uniform items needed to attend next week's Camporee come true. But first I also decked you out like this because I need special boy soldiers for a special mission on another earth.

"AAAnother Earth!" Louie exclaimed.

"Yes, kindly explain what you mean by that expression." Dewey returned.

"You have heard the story of Pinocchio haven't you Dewey."

"Yes, We say the movie at the Duckburg theatre some time ago, but that is just a story isn't it."

"Here yes, but on the earth you will soon be visiting, A world of both true humans and anthropomorphic animals like yourselves Pinocchio and his becoming a real boy was and is a historical fact, In fact I was responsible for that historical fact."

"If Pinocchio is a real boy on that other earth now than why do you need us, It would seem that your mission there is over."

"No, my mission with Pinocchio, his father/maker Geppetto and friends is never over. Simply granting a wish does not end our responsibility to the persons involved. As I said, Pinocchio's transformation is a fact of history on that earth but so unfortunately are others less desired."

"You mean Pleasure Island and its ability to transform boys into donkeys, don't you." Louie interrupted.

"Yes," the woman returned. "I do see that you are familiar with what is a story here but the truth there."

"Then I would be correct in guessing that you are the Blue Fairy of the story here and the truth there."

"You are correct, Louie."

"Two more things." Huey said "Just what is this mission of yours and how to we get to Pinocchio's earth."

"I'll answer your second question first Huey. See, that star that Louie wished upon to bring me here, it is what your more advanced scientists would call a "wormhole". It connects two different earths at two different times together. Go through it from here and you will eventually wind up in the seaside village of Collodi in the province of Tuscany, Italy where Pinocchio lives in the year 1881. Go through it from there and you will return to this Black Forest Junior Woodchucks campout site in your current year of 1955.

"Sounds like a really great adventure and we appreciate you choosing us for it," Huey said "If we only knew what it is."

"You three have been chosen to accompany Pinocchio and Lampwick, one of the boys who is now a donkey on a mission to discover the source of and end the curse of Pleasure Island.

"Then why choose us?" Dewey asked. "If the curse of Pleasure Island exists on that other world it can be presumed that it would have no effect on girls since girls were never selected to go to Pleasure Island, even bad and truant ones. Therefore the Chickadees may have been a better choice for this than the Junior Woodchucks."

"And that is why I selected you. As boys of an unusual type like Pinocchio was when he was a puppet the fox man John Worthington Fowlfellow aka "Honest" John is sure to select you for the Coachman. What the Coachman and Fowlfellow don't know but I do however is that your anthropomorphic avian structure and condition makes you immune to the curse. It can only turn one mammalian species, true humans under the age of twenty one onto another mammalian species, donkeys. Your anthropomorphic avian condition is totally out of bounds for it. Now before we go, Your Junior Woodchucks Guidebook please."

"But we aren't supposed to give that to anyone but another Junior Woodchuck." Huey reminded the Blue Fairy.

"You don't have to give it to me. I already know what is inside it. In all probability someone of my own kind had a hand in creating the original Junior Woodchuck Guidebook and that is why it and all subsequent copies of it can contain more knowledge than any other book its size. Just hold it out in front of yourself."

Huey followed the fairy's instructions and she waved her wand at the book.

"Now in addition to the knowledge of the Library of Alexandria before it was burnt down and all of the knowledge of your world that followed your Guidebook now contains all known information about John Worthington Fowlfellow the fox man and Gideon the cat man including their rather extensive police and prison records, and all known information about the Coachman, Pleasure Island, Lampwick and Pinocchio and his family from the earth you will now be going to. You will now find it a much important guide to your mission than it would have been before. Now are you ready my three little Junior Woodchucks.

"Ready!" said Huey.

"Ready!" said Dewey.

"Ready!" said Louie.

The Blue Fairy waved her wand again and a sky blue transparent bubble formed around the three duck boys. As the fairy herself began to fly toward the Wishing Star the bubble containing the duck boys simply followed her. The Wishing Star turned out to be very close to earth, even closer than the moon and before ten minutes were up both fairy and bubble were going through the wormhole proper that was hidden by its light. It was like going through a tunnel made of straight rainbow lines that extended as far as the eye could see. Suddenly the rainbow lines ended and the three duck boys were looking at earth again, but NOT the earth of Duckburg and the Black Forest. This was an earth where a movie Huey, Dewey and Louie once saw in a Duckburg theatre was actual historical truth. Not only that but they were on a Junior Woodchuck good deed mission for a blue fairy that would wind up in the worst location of that world for boys, Pleasure Island, the land of what more modern minded folk might refer to as "species re-assignment therapy". The three were beginning to worry that maybe despite the fairy's saying they wouldn't because of their avian forms that they might indeed be "species re-assigned" to donkeys on that horrid island.


This story takes place a week after the final events in the movie which include Monstro's presumed death from crashing into a rockey part of the Tuscany coast line at full speed and Pinocchio's becoming a real boy.