Ted Rules the World Read online

  “We can’t have you waiting at the till like our other customers.” She smiled. “How are you today?”

  “I feel OK for a redhead,” I said. “People with red hair are always getting into trouble. We’re always getting the blame for stuff just because it’s easy to spot us. There should be a law that says if a redhead gets blamed for something, they probably didn’t do it.”

  I know I should have told her my brilliant idea for ending poverty and global warming in one go. But I was too upset about getting the detention. It wasn’t fair. It was Evil Owen that threw my bag at Mr Mercer, not me.

  My Prime Minister was on the news two days later telling us about the Redheads Innocence Act.

  If the police arrested any redhead, they had to set them free again unless the police had photos that proved they had done the crime. If a redhead went to court, he had two lawyers not just one like anyone else.

  Not everyone thought it was a good law. Criminals started to dye their hair red so they’d have a better chance of getting away with it. People from Africa and China and South America – in fact, most people in the world – were annoyed because they hardly ever have red hair. There were blond riots in Manchester and Glasgow. Bald people went on strike in Wales.

  I felt I was a bit to blame for all this. So I didn’t go to NextDoor for a week or so. Then a letter came in the post. It said:

  Any minute now? I looked out of the kitchen window. I couldn’t see a helicopter. I carried on reading the letter. It said:

  And there was a helicopter. It jerked as it dropped down towards the garden, churning up grass clippings and compost. Dad came running downstairs.

  “Who is that maniac?” he yelled. “Look at what he’s doing to my apple trees!”

  The apple trees were thrashing about like goths in a mosh pit. A ladder dropped down from the cockpit.

  “Got to go, Dad,” I said. “See you later.”

  “You’re not getting in there!” he yelled. “What have I told you about taking lifts from strangers?”

  But it wasn’t a stranger. It was the nice lady from the till in NextDoor.

  “Sorry about the helicopter,” she said. “But the noise is good. No one can hear us talk. This is a secret talk.”

  “Right,” I said.

  “You know that we’ve been using you as a kind of secret adviser,” the lady said. “You’ve been brilliant so far but now you’ve let us down.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I was upset. I can explain.”

  She held up her hand. “It’s not your fault. It’s ours. We never asked you. It was our idea. Not yours. Have you worked out why we chose you?”

  “Because I’m a genius?” I said. “I came second in my Maths test and third in History and—”

  “No,” the nice lady from the till said. “We chose you because you were average. We looked at all the SATs scores, CATs scores, school exams, shopping habits and TV habits. You are the most average boy in the country. We thought that anything you like, most people would like too. Because you are like most people. There’s nothing special about you. Or we thought there was nothing special about you. But we didn’t know about your hair.”

  She leaned closer. “You see, on CCTV footage your hair looks like normal hair,” she said. “But, in fact, there’s nothing normal about it. It’s fantastic. And a bit hilarious. It’s not average. I guess the lesson for us is that no one is average. Everyone is special. We’ll try to remember that in future. In the meantime, this helicopter ride is your thank-you present …”

  “Oh, thanks,” I said.

  “And it’s also to help you remember,” she said. “If you ever say a word about this to anyone, a squad of commandos in a helicopter like this one will snatch you and fly you out of the country. You will live out the rest of your days in a secret hide-out with no TV and only goats for friends. You have to remember that.”

  “Oh. Right,” I said. “Well. I won’t forget.”

  “Good,” the lady from the till said. And that was the end of our secret talk.

  Chapter 9

  Back to Normal?

  So that was it.

  I went back to being Ted McKillop, the most average boy in Britain.

  Everything was just the same except the weekend still went on until Monday and we had to walk to school on Fridays. People looked a bit happier. And that was down to me. Life went back to normal.

  After that, the only exciting thing that happened was Benedict’s birthday. He got a bike too, and we had another massive bike and water fight. It was only afterwards, when we were eating pizza, that I saw the NextDoor loyalty card on the shelf.

  “After this, do you fancy a quick go on the PlayStation?” I said.

  “No, I really want to watch the news tonight,” Benedict said.

  “The news? On your birthday? Why?”

  “I just do.”

  So we watched the news. The lead story was “Snake Swallows Antelope Whole”.

  “Cool,” said Benedict.

  And in my memory, I heard him go on. “Tell you what I found on YouTube … blah blah blah … a snake swallowing an antelope whole … blah blah blah … put stuff like that on the news?”

  I smiled. “OK, that’s enough news,” I said. “Let’s get on the PlayStation.”

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  Copyright

  First published in 2022 in Great Britain by

  Barrington Stoke Ltd

  18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, EH3 7LP

  This ebook edition first published in 2022

  www.barringtonstoke.co.uk

  This story was first published in a different form in The Birthday Book (Random House Children’s Books, 2008)

  This 4u2read edition based on Ted Rules the World

  (Barrington Stoke, 2015)

  Text © 2015 & 2022 Frank Cottrell Boyce

  Cover Illustrations © 2008 Chris Riddell

  Internal Illustrations © 2015 Cate James

  The moral right of Frank Cottrell Boyce and Cate James to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in any part in any form without the written permission of the publisher

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library upon request

  eISBN: 978–1–80090–142–1

 

 

  Frank Cottrell Boyce, Ted Rules the World

 

 

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