Scotland had lost 3-0 against Brazil. Gerbil World Cup HQ received the news in silence. Not the procedural silence of the Morocco memo. A different kind of silence. The kind that sits in a room and declines to leave.
Scotland were third in their group. They were seventh in the third-place table. There were teams yet to play. The Scotland manager had, in her post-match remarks, said something that Gwendoline had read once and then closed the tab on, and had not reopened. There was nothing to do but wait.
Griselda found this operationally unacceptable and had said so to no one. She had opened the Tournament Operations manual to the section on third-place qualification criteria and had read it with the focused attention of someone who does not want to think about something else.
Gertrude had brought extra seeds. Nobody had asked why.
Greta’s chair was empty. On her desk was a single printed copy of the third-place standings table, with Scotland’s row circled in pencil. Whether this was an act of solidarity or simply data management was not clear. With Greta, it rarely was.
They waited.
← Previous Instalment | Next Instalment →
