Jacko of the North Star

It was some sort of vaguely opaque fluid with coagulant proprieties that came into effect with jaw-breaking hyper-speed upon application. To illustrate: There was once a raging river between two swathes of land that could only be crossed by sending six members of a family across on a raft in a certain order—but after thirty long and highly miserable seconds of trying to work out why the mother outright refused to cross with the child wearing the green shirt, I tossed a bucket full of Tipp-Ex transversely across the river, and its spilled contents congealed immediately while in suspension, giving birth to a gleaming white bridge that smelled of Pritt-Stick. The family crossed the bridge and probably found another raging river; but happily, I never saw them again.

People used to use Tipp-Ex all the time in the early years of secondary school, even despite the most fraught appeals from exasperated mathematics teachers. “Just put a clean pen line through any mistakes,” they would say. “And don’t use Tipp-Ex. I beg you. I will threaten to do the nearest thing your child-like mind can equate to suicide if you do.” Unfazed, Tipp-Ex use persisted for about three more years and then disappeared like a stain that has been tackled with a good washing detergent, like Persil.