Nico Pappas
Nico Pappas (1988)
Nicholas Papademetriou
Episodes: 11–23; 92–105
When Lynn ran away from home she turned up at Nico’s house and helped herself to his food. He later found her sleeping in his farmhouse and offered her a place to eat. He introduced himself as ‘dummy’ because that was what everybody else called him.
Nico showed Lynn his best friend, a cow he called Jessie. Then Nico’s grandmother rang a bell from the house near the farmhouse. Nico told Lynn he had to go to his grandmother every time she rang the bell. Lynn didn’t like this and asked him to explain to his grandmother to call him by his name instead of using a bell.
In the store Nico was teased by Lance and Martin for being retarded and back at home Lynn found his sleeping tablets and persuaded him not to take them. It transpired though that the pills were really to control his temper and without them Nico got violent quite quickly. When The Fletchers turned up looking for Lynn, Nico denied seeing her but was found out when Lynn was discovered hiding on his farm.
With Lynn returning to her family Fisher started a petition to get the ‘loony’ Nico run out of town but nobody would sign it, he was convinced that Nico sexually took advantage of Lynn but she denied it. Later Nico’s bike was destroyed and a sign left saying ‘get rid of dummy’. Nico noticed his name on a notice Ailsa put up to support the proposal that Nico should not be locked away. He was curious what the text said as he couldn’t read anything except his name. Lynn told him it was an advertisement for the vegetables he sold from the farm, so as not to upset him. Nico then ran into a man who said he would get locked away and laughed.
When somebody poisoned his beloved cow he was convinced Fisher was the culprit and almost strangled him. The police told Nico he could no longer live at his home and he was sent away to a mental institution. Pippa and Lynn went to visit him but he did not recognise them because he was so traumatised about being locked up.
Nico was next seen when Lynn heard a noise outside her bedroom window and it turned out to be Nico, having run away from the mental institution. He wanted to stay with Lynn but the rest of the Fletchers outvoted her. When the local nutter was revealed to be headmaster Walter Bertram Nico went seking revenge was was handed a new cow by Pippa, who had been given it by Walter and The Fletchers agreed he could stay in a caravan. He caused chaos though by wanting to be Frank’s best man and soaking him and ruining his job interview when Frank wouldn’t let him. After he destroyed Frank’s new caravan Pippa tricked him into returning to The Pappas farm by hiding his cow there and Nico returned to live at the farm.