5 Terry Tetch

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TERRY TETCH NO ONE LIKES QUEUEING. You never meet a single person who says, "My favourite hobby is standing in queues all day long. Then, when I finally get to the front, I go straight to the back so I can queue all over again!" Queues are boring. Queues are time-consuming.

Queues make your feet ache. But they are a necessity. You have to queue to get to the thing you want to do. Get on the bus. Have your school dinner. Go on a ride at the fair. British people are exceptionally good at queueing. Queueing was invented by a British lady, Duchess Queenie Queue, in 1766. Her husband had just invented the toilet. As it was the only toilet in Britain at that time, there were a lot of people clamouring to use it. Everyone in Britain, in fact. There was nothing short of a stampede of people who needed to go. So the duchess made everyone stand in line to take turns to use her husband's great invention.

The queue for the one and only toilet in the country stretched the entire length of the British Isles. As soon as you had gone, it was sensible to go and join the end of the queue again, as by the time you reached the front you would most likely need to go again. Now, everyone is expected to queue. However, there once was a man who refused to queue. Terry Tetch. If he saw a queue for anything, even a queue of one person (which isn't really a queue until you join it), he would have an EXTREME REACTION. His red hair would stand on END. His legs would SHAKE. His glasses would STEAM UP. His nostrils would FLARE. And his ears would FLAP SO much you might think he was going to TAKE OFF.

Terry always embarrassed his two sons, Ted and Todd, by coming up with the most extraordinary excuses for why he should never queue. If there was a long line at their local burger chain, Terry would tell the server, "I've been lost at sea! I haven't eaten anything for three years except seagull poop. Please, please. I beg you! Let me get my chicken nuggets, chips and chocolate milkshake first!" Everyone in the line would give the trio dirty looks as Terry dragged the twins to the front. When there was a crocodile of people waiting to enter the football stadium, Terry would shout, "I am England's new star striker! I know I am old and a bit podgy, but I am playing today! Let me through!" Todd and Ted's faces would blush BRIGHT RED as their father elbowed his way to the front.

Worst of all was when Terry was faced with a really long queue to get on the bus. "Let me through!" he shouted, pulling the twins along, and barging people out of the way. "This bus isn't going anywhere without me!" "How is that so?" called out an elderly lady struggling with her shopping trolley. "Because I have to sit at the back and pedal!" Todd and Ted wished the ground would swallow them up! The twin brothers were turning ten, so their father asked them what they would like to do as a special birthday treat. "I promise to take you anywhere you like!" he said. "Just name it! Anywhere at all!" The twins looked at each other, and then both said in unison... "Loopyland!"