Free Yes Man by Danny Wallace

scratch card. And it said I should play it, and I did. And I won.”
    Ian laughed. “Wow …,” he said.
    “It was a chain reaction, Ian. Each yes took me closer to that twenty-five thousand pounds. Yes
wanted
me to win.”
    Ian slid the scratch card back across the table to me.
    “God … so … When do you get the money?”
    Ah.
    Now, that was the problem.
    What I now had to tell Ian, and what I’d had to tell Hanne before, was a little difficult for me to go through.
    It’s something that, until
you’ve
won twenty-five thousand pounds while sitting on a Tube train dozens of miles underground and surrounded by complete and utter strangers, you may find a little difficult to relate to. But this is what happened, and there’s not a part of me that wishes it hadn’t.
    Ten minutes after winning twenty-five thousand pounds …
    … I lost twenty-five thousand pounds.
    The very second I’d won the money I’d wanted to tell someone. Anyone. But phones don’t work underground, and it wasn’t as if I could just run up and down the carriage screaming and dancing, as this is London, and even sneezing in public is illegal if you make eye contact. So I just had to bite my lip and sit there and try somehow to suppress my giggles and smiles.
    Twenty-five thousand pounds!
    I’d get off at the next stop. I’d get out of the train, head for the streets, and then phone the claim line. And then I’d go to Rio or Cuba or wherever the travel agent recommended this time of year, and I’d smoke elaborate cigars offered to me by dusty street urchins, and I’d … I dunno … I’d buy a panda. Yes! I’d buy a panda! For my mum! And a top hat for my dad! A top hat of solid gold!
    But as the train lurched and rocked its way through the tunnels, I suddenly started to feel a little paranoid. What if I’d done this wrong? What if I was mistaken? What if I
hadn’t
won twenty-five thousand pounds after all?
    I rechecked the numbers. My fears were unfounded. I’d
definitely
won. They were the same.
    But what if it was an old card? From another day?
    Nope. It was today. Absolutely.
    I rescanned the rules.
“Scratch off the six numbers
…”
    The six numbers? Well, I’d only scratched off
three
. So, quietly and secretly, I found the other three numbers and matched them too.
    FIVE THOUSAND.
    Next one …
    FIVE THOUSAND.
    Blimey! What if I got another five thousand?
    I scratched the next one….
    TWO.
    Gah! Nearly another five thousand there! How cool would that have been? To have landed the only multiwinning scratch card ever produced! And it made me wonder … What was under the other squares? If there was another five thousand, would that mean I could claim for
thirty thousand pounds?
    Quickly, I scratched away …
    ONE.
    One! Pah! I laugh in the face of one! I had twenty-five thousand of those now!
    FIVE.
    Gah. Not good enough.
    But the next one …
    FIVE THOUSAND.
    Five thousand!
    My God! That can’t be right! What did
that
mean?
    I struggled to maintain my composure but failed, and let an odd, slightly feminine yelp sneak out. Could they count? I know that only the first six really counted, but what if there was a loophole of some kind? What if I’d now won
thirty thousand pounds?
    I tore through the pages once more to find the rules. There was one box with big, bold letters telling you what to do and how to do it. And there was another box, which seemed to stretch out over half the page and had some of the smallest print known to mankind …
    I squinted to read it.
    “Minimum age” … fine … “claim line” … fine … “three like amounts” … fine … “late claims will not be accepted” … “cards containing printing errors will be void” … “limited prize pool” … fine, fine, fine …
    But what about the extra bonus money? Was there anything about that?
    “Numbers will be published all week” … I scanned on …
    “Claims must be” … I kept scanning …
    “Residents of” … I scanned on