If I Won the Lottery

Every Friday, four colleagues at a call center in Dublin put five euros each into a lottery ticket. Declan buys the ticket on his way to work, Niamh chooses the numbers, and Grace and Sergio, who is from Seville, keep the conversation going. They have never won more than ten euros.

This Friday, the jackpot was twelve million euros, and at lunch nobody talked about anything else. "If we won," Niamh said, "that would be three million each. What would you do with it?"

Declan didn't need to think. "I'd quit this job on Monday morning," he said. "I'd walk in, take off my headset and say goodbye to everyone. Then I'd buy a house by the sea in Galway and a boat. I'd go fishing every day."

"You get seasick on the ferry to Wales," Grace reminded him. Everybody laughed. "If I had three million," she went on, "I wouldn't stop working. I'd go back to university and study to be a vet. I've always wanted to do that, but I couldn't afford it."

Sergio said he would pay off his mother's mortgage first. "She has worked hard all her life. If I won, she would never have to worry about money again. And I'd invest the rest, maybe in a small restaurant. I wouldn't spend it all at once."

"You're all so sensible," said Niamh. "I'd waste half of it on shoes and holidays. I'd fly first class to Japan and stay in the most expensive hotel in Tokyo. Then I'd give the other half to the animal shelter where I volunteer." "That's not wasting it," said Grace.

They were still talking when Declan's phone buzzed. It was a news website. "The numbers are out," he said. He read them aloud, and Niamh checked them against the numbers on her list, the ones she chose every week. Three, nine, fourteen, twenty-two, thirty, forty-one. Her face went white.

"That's them," she whispered. "Those are our numbers. All six." For a moment, nobody breathed. Then Grace screamed, Sergio jumped up and his chair fell over, and half the office turned around to look at them.

Only Declan didn't move. He was looking at the floor. "Declan," said Niamh slowly. "Where's the ticket?"

He took a deep breath. "The shop was closed this morning," he said. "I was going to buy it at lunchtime. I forgot."

It took them a long time to forgive him. But in the end, the lunch break changed something. Grace sent an application to a veterinary course for adults. Sergio started saving for his restaurant. Niamh booked a cheap flight to Tokyo for the spring. And Declan now buys the ticket the moment the shop opens, every Friday, without fail.