The bulletin had come through at 11:47.
England were through. Mathematically confirmed. The final group game had not yet been played and England were through regardless, and Gerbil World Cup HQ had received this information with the composure and professional restraint for which it was known, which is to say that Gwendoline had made a noise that she would later describe in writing as “a controlled exhalation of procedural satisfaction” and which had in fact been a shriek that rattled the laminated bracket.
Then everything happened at once.
Griselda had immediately wanted to know how this was possible, and had taken to the fourth whiteboard at a pace that could not technically be called running because Griselda did not run, and confirmed it in under ninety seconds, and then confirmed it again, and then turned around with an expression that she would describe later as “measured satisfaction” and which was in fact the face of someone trying extremely hard not to bounce.
She bounced.
Gertrude had produced seeds. Not the usual seeds. Special seeds, from a tin that had not previously been mentioned and whose existence raised questions that nobody was asking because Gertrude was throwing them in the air like confetti and laughing in a way that suggested the tin had been waiting for exactly this moment for quite some time.
Gwendoline’s bulletin had reached version eleven. Versions one through ten had contained, variously: four exclamation marks, the word “INCREDIBLE” in capitals, a small drawing of a flag that she had typed using punctuation marks, and on one occasion an entire additional sentence that just said England are THROUGH!! which she had written and deleted and written again and deleted and written a third time before deleting the whole bulletin and starting over. Version eleven said that England’s qualification had been “confirmed ahead of schedule” and was “noted with satisfaction by HQ.” She read it back. She added an exclamation mark. She removed it. She sent it with the exclamation mark still in. She did not correct this.
Glory the mascot was not just brought out. Glory was paraded. Griselda carried Glory twice around the perimeter of the office in a lap of honour that she would deny having performed if asked, and nobody was going to ask, because Gertrude was doing it too, and they had somehow acquired a small flag whose provenance was unclear and which Greta had definitely not produced from somewhere because Greta was on the floor and had not moved.
Greta had not moved. She was still looking at the ceiling. But she was smiling, which was either very significant or simply a coincidence of facial geometry, and nobody was going to ask about that either.
She reached over.
She filled something in on the bracket.
The confetti — and there was confetti, nobody knew where it had come from, it was simply present, as these things sometimes are — continued to fall.
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