Redbook Issues a Royal Cliffhanger

Readers of the September Redbook--which contains an excerpt of a children’s story about a plucky little helicopter--may wish their copy came equipped with an anti-aircraft missile.

The weapon would be useful in venting the frustration or incredulity provoked by the slice of a forthcoming children’s book by the Duchess of York, a.k.a. Fergie, wife of Britain’s Prince Andrew, one of many heirs to the British throne.

Called “Budgie the Little Helicopter,” the three-page extract indicates that the story could well be titled “The Little Engine That Could Gets Rotor Blades.” The tale opens with a bored Budgie--his self-esteem in need of a lift--lolling about his hangar. He meets a new aircraft, Pippa, a female Piper Warrior about to take her first flight. Off they go into the sky, where their carefree acrobatic play is soon darkened by an approaching thunderstorm. (It’s not clear whether Budgie and Pippa filed a flight plan and checked the weather.)

As the clouds move in they overhear an emergency radio call for Lionel--the big tough helicopter who just happens to be out of touch at the moment--to help in the search for a kidnaped little girl. Budgie and Pippa decide to do their bit, even though the control tower tells them they are “much too light and small” for a job that requires fully mature aircraft.

But first they have to get through those inconvenient, roiling, lightning-streaked clouds.

“Budgie felt the first drops of rain and heard the thunder,” writes the Duchess, who flies a helicopter herself. “As he watched the lightning approach, he couldn’t help feeling frightened.”

Do they make it?

Impossible to say because the excerpt stops there, followed by a note from the cunning editors--none of whom apparently have children: “The exciting ending is revealed in The Duchess’ book, of course.”

This teaser smacks of venality and marketing strategy, even though the magazine reports that a portion of the book’s royalties will be donated to an unspecified charity. It also represents Redbook’s gushing attitude toward Fergie that starts with the cover blurb proclaiming that the cover photo of the Duchess was taken by Prince Andrew “just for us.”

Inside, a page of “Fascinating Fergie Facts” reveals a world record of sorts: “Fergie, by the way, holds a private pilot’s license and a helicopter license--the first royal lady ever to have either!” The editors also write that the Duchess’ nanny is “a karate expert trained in self-defense against muggers, terrorists and kidnappers.”

Granted, Budgie is cute and it’s hard to hate an anthropomorphized helicopter who wears a baseball cap. But is Redbook’s fawning necessary?

Anyway, unless parents rush out and buy the book--to be published by Simon & Schuster next month at $9.95--for their kids, no one can know whether Budgie and Pippa engineer a predictable daring rescue. Or if the Duchess has the artistic courage to send the two little flyers on a valorous but doomed mission. Which at least would nip the dread possibility of sequels and further excerpts in Redbook.

As cruel fate would have it, the “Fergie Facts” page notes that the Duchess already has launched a second installment in Great Britain, “Budgie At Bendick’s Point.”

Perhaps Bendick’s Point is a convalescent hospital.

Elsewhere on the royal front, this week’s People reports that the Duke and Duchess of York briefly jumped into trouble with their environmentally minded subjects. The uproar began when a newspaper reported that the pair gave their daughter, Princess Bea, a $3,270 rocking horse “made of mahogany from the endangered Brazilian rain forests” for her first birthday. Not true, Buckingham Palace retorted, explaining that the horse was a present to the baby from a toy firm before her birth. “So there is no question of the Duke and Duchess of York ordering and buying it, or choosing a special type of timber,” the Palace said.

Troubled Refugees

In Stockton, the father of an 8-year-old Cambodian girl, one of five youngsters killed by gunman Patrick Purdy in a school yard last January, watches--over and over--a videotape of his daughter’s funeral. A survivor of institutionalized slaughter in Southeast Asia, the father cannot let go of his anger and grief over the death of his child in America, despite the ministrations of mental-health professionals.

Elsewhere in California, Salvadoran refugee Heber Hernandez dreams of friends assassinated in the early 1980s by El Salvador’s death squads. In the dream, Hernandez says he tells one friend, “ ‘But Felipe,’ I said, ‘I am sure you are dead.’ And he told me, ‘No, that’s a lie.’ So I said, ‘Well, then where is Joaquin, our friend who was killed?’ And Felipe says, ‘He’s fine, too. Don’t believe what they tell you. We are alive.’ ”

These are two vignettes from the troubling but enlightening spring-summer issue of California Tomorrow, which is devoted to the mental-health issues facing the state’s ethnically diverse population.

Describing the issue in an editorial, California Tomorrow president Lewis H. Butler maintains that California’s perennially overloaded, financially strapped mental-health system has been unable to cope with the problems of immigrants and refugees. “ . . . These concerns are compounded by the strains and complexities of building a workable multiethnic state. War trauma and culture shock have been added to the list of social ills afflicting Californians,” Butler writes.

He goes on to argue that Western and Anglo concepts of mental health may have to be redefined. “Clearly, in our communities, we must tap traditional sources of strength and healing,” Butler maintains. “We have to turn to families and churches and tribes and elders and caring individuals, all of whom can be assisted by professionals but not replaced by them.”

A compilation of statistics at the front of the magazine illustrates the scope of the state’s mental-health needs. For instance, among California’s population of 7 million children under age 18, it is estimated that as many as 1.06 million need some type of mental-health services. In the state’s largest cities more than 15% of babies are born addicted to drugs or alcohol. Two years ago an assessment of the mental-health needs of Southeast Asian immigrants estimated that almost 28% were in “severe need” of mental-health assistance, compared with 3% of the general population.

California Tomorrow, according to co-editor Bruce K. Kelley, is an outgrowth of a nonprofit organization of the same name founded six years ago to “promote issues of changing demographics and ethnic diversity” within the state.

Until now, the quarterly has been distributed free to members of the legislature; locally elected officials and their staffs, and selected business, community and education leaders, Kelley said. With the latest issue, however, he added that the magazine is seeking to convert some of its readership to paid subscribers. However, the old ways die hard, he said, noting that anyone who calls up will be mailed a free copy. Cheapskates can call (213) 623-6231. Earnest, financially responsible subscribers may send a check for $25 (or more) to California Tomorrow, 315 W. 9th St., Suite 110005, Los Angeles, Calif. 90015.