Gerbil World Cup HQ: Tunnel vs. Sooty, Sweep & Soo
Abracadabra…
The Tunnel team arrived the way they always did — one at a time, from underground, blinking in the light, having apparently walked the entire distance from their own stadium without once surfacing. Nobody had ever established quite where their tunnels led, and Griselda had long since stopped asking, on the grounds that some questions cost more paperwork than they were worth.
Sooty arrived holding her wand, as ever, and said nothing, as ever. Sweep squeaked a greeting that Gwendoline transcribed, for old times’ sake, as [Sweep, agreeing, though nobody had said anything yet]. Soo walked out last, calm, organised, radiating the quiet authority of someone who had already worked out the final score and simply hadn’t told anyone.
Minute 7: The Tunnel team’s opening spell was pure disorientation — players emerging from three different points around the pitch within the same passage of play, so that Sooty’s back line spent the whole move turning in slow, bewildered circles trying to work out who actually had the ball.
Minute 15: GOAL, Tunnel team. A forward surfaced entirely unmarked six yards out, having apparently travelled the length of the pitch underground, and finished first time before anyone had registered she was there. 1-0. Griselda wrote “not strictly against the rules” in her notes and left it at that.
Minute 23: Sooty produced her wand, waved it once, silently, and — nothing happened, visibly, though the Tunnel team’s next three attacks all broke down in exactly the same spot, which everyone found slightly more suspicious than they were willing to say aloud.
Minute 38: GOAL, Sooty, Sweep & Soo. Soo split the defence with a single, perfectly weighted pass, and Sweep — improbably, given her general size and the general velocity of the ball — got a touch on it that wrong-footed the keeper completely. Sweep’s celebration was one long, delighted squeak. 1-1.
Half-time. Soo held what looked, from the touchline, like the calmest team talk of the tournament — no shouting, no diagrams, just Soo speaking quietly while Sooty stood beside her, wand in paw, and Sweep nodded along to everything.
Minute 61: GOAL, Tunnel team. Another player surfacing from an entirely unexpected part of the pitch, this time right behind Soo’s defensive line, converting from close range before anyone had clocked where she’d come from. 2-1.
Gwendoline’s bulletin read, with real bewilderment: WHERE DO THEY KEEP COMING FROM??
Minute 74: Sooty tried the wand again — a longer wave this time, more deliberate — and the Tunnel team’s next attack collapsed in a heap for reasons nobody could quite explain, the ball simply rolling apologetically out of play. Griselda made a note to “look into the wand” and then, on reflection, decided some things were better left unlooked into.
Minute 85: Soo, sensing time running out, dropped deep to collect the ball herself, drove forward with total composure, and squared it to Sweep, unmarked at the back post. Sweep, facing an open goal, got so overexcited she squeaked instead of shot, and the moment passed.
90+2: One last Tunnel team player emerged, seemingly from beneath the corner flag itself, and simply ran the ball into an empty net while Soo’s entire side was still looking the other way, trying to work out where the noise had come from. 3-1, Tunnel team.
Soo took the defeat with total equanimity, shaking every paw individually, unbothered. Sooty raised her wand one final time as the Tunnel team celebrated — nothing visible happened, though Gwendoline swore, in her bulletin, that the scoreboard flickered for just a fraction of a second longer than it should have.
Greta’s line appeared under the glass before the tunnel entrances had finished closing:
Sooty, Sweep & Soo — out, magic notwithstanding. The Tunnel team — through, from somewhere nobody can quite locate.
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/tunnel-vs-sooty-sweep-and-soo