The announcement reached the Bluestocking before the official time did.
Somebody somewhere had run the fastest mile in history.
That was all the gerbils needed.
By the time the newsreader reached “…world record…”, Griselda had already rung the Celebratory Bell, the capybaras were laying a running track across the lawn at engineering speeds that violated several pleasant assumptions about physics, and Ginger had sprinted past so quickly she heard the news three seconds before everyone else.
“FASTER!” she yelled over her shoulder.
“We’ve only just started!”
“EXACTLY!”
Nobody knew who was organising the event. Everybody assumed it was somebody else.
Within minutes there were starting blocks, finish-line tape, grandstands full of cheering patrons, several thousand tiny flags, an official band playing something that began as Chariots of Fire before accelerating into complete panic, and enough bunting to be visible from low Earth orbit.
Genial had somehow acquired a commentary box suspended from two optimistic balloons.
“Ladies! Gerbils! Honourable capybaras! Today we celebrate the fastest mile ever run by immediately attempting to run absolutely everything faster!” A roar went up.
Grog fired the starting pistol. Nobody had been called to the line. This was not considered a problem.
Several dozen gerbils exploded in different directions.Some raced around the track.
Others simply picked a direction they felt emotionally committed to.
Ginger was already halfway round before anyone realised the race had officially begun.
Gauge stood beside the track with six clipboards, four stopwatches, a sextant and, for reasons known only to herself, a large cucumber. “Split!” she shouted.
Everyone obediently split into two groups before realising she’d meant times rather than participants.
Gratuity was running an entirely respectable sweepstake.
“Fastest lap!”
“Largest smile!”
“Most spectacular cornering!”
“Best use of centrifugal force!”
There was now a separate betting market on whether the betting markets would overtake the runners. The crowd certainly did.
Patrons poured out of every door carrying homemade banners. The guinea pigs emerged from the garden pushing flowerpots mounted on tiny wheels because flowers should be encouraged to experience speed too. The wombat applauded so enthusiastically that the applause developed an echo of its own.
Rosie the red panda distributed congratulatory hugs to competitors who hadn’t finished yet, on the grounds that they almost certainly would eventually.
The first lap became the second largely because nobody could remember whether anyone had rung the bell. The third became the fifth after Ginger lapped the lap counter twice.
Groom announced impossible split times. “Fifty-six seconds!”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve got a feeling.”
Everyone accepted this as perfectly adequate evidence.
Then the excitement escaped containment. The brass band doubled its tempo. The crowd began chanting. The capybaras decided the back straight would benefit from a slight downhill gradient and quietly rebuilt it while people were running on it. Confetti cannons erupted. Someone released celebratory balloons. The balloons released smaller balloons. The smaller balloons released glitter. The glitter somehow achieved escape velocity.
By now the race had become less a competition than a shared belief that velocity itself deserved a standing ovation.
Ginger hit the finishing tape at astonishing speed. The tape surrendered immediately. She carried it another forty yards before noticing she’d won something. Gauge clicked her stopwatch with enormous satisfaction. “Three minutes thirty-eight.”
“Was that accurate?” asked Genial.
Gauge looked mildly offended. “Not remotely.”
“Excellent.”
“It felt like a world record.”
Everyone nodded. That was, after all, the important measurement.
The cheering continued until several gerbils became temporarily airborne.
Someone produced a trophy approximately three times taller than its eventual winner. Someone else produced medals for everyone present, including spectators, musicians, flowerpots and one extremely pleased capybara who hadn’t realised there was a race but was delighted to have participated anyway.
As dusk settled over the Bluestocking, the track slowly faded back into ordinary grass.
The bunting remained. The applause lingered. The brass band finally reached the end of its piece several keys higher than where it had begun. And somewhere, far beyond the pub, a human athlete may have broken the world record for the mile.
But everyone agreed that, impressive though that undoubtedly was, it had been a shame they hadn’t been there to see how the gerbils celebrated it.
