This is StoryQuest. Today's story is the land of lost socks. There's a mystical land that you can only access by a secret door, and that secret door is inside the house of Connie. Connie was a kid who did not like things to be odd. Connie liked things to be

even, to be the same, and for things to match, preferably all three. When he helped Dad put the

washing on the line, Connie made sure every item of clothing was pegged with a matching pair of pegs.

Two reds for his school trousers, two blues for mum's shirts. You get the idea. In fact,

he redid the pieces that Dad had pegged because Dad showed scant regard for such an important

system and just picked any old peg out of the bag. Even mixing a plastic and a wooden one like

some sort of maniac. Must you?

Grumbled Dad.

As yet again, Connie plucked an aged yellow peg from the corner of the teetow

dad put up to replace it with a matching blue one.

You might as well do it all yourself.

You asked me to help, Connie pointed out.

This way of looking at the world seemed to affect

lots of things in his life. His best friend was just like him. Stel came from Greece too, and both

boys liked video games with fast cars and both boys and both played basketball. His books were

arranged on his shelves with the matching colours together, and if he took two potatoes at dinner, even they had to match.

It wouldn't be a surprise to learn that Connie couldn't even imagine wearing odd socks.

So terrible was the prospect that he sorted his own washing to match them in exact pairs.

And this was going to prove to be a problem on the day our story starts.

It was one of those days where you could wear your own clothes to school for charity, and the theme was to dress in red.

This just about made Connie's year because it gave him an opportunity to not only match his socks,

but to match his socks to his trousers, to his shirt, to everything,

...