“I’m sorry, I don’t have any more information. Now, do you have any questions for me?”

“No,” Annika said, blinking to refocus. They’d won. They’d won EPIC! “Thank you very much.”

She ended the call and looked at June, a slow smile creeping onto her face. Screaming, they reached for each other, hugged, and began jumping around again.

“Okay, okay, but we have to read the email from the investors,” June said. “Right?”

“Right.” Annika rushed to her laptop and clicked on her email. There it sat in her inbox, with the subject line Congratulations, EPIC winner! “This is surreal,” Annika muttered, clicking on it. She and June read the email silently.

Dear Annika and Make Up team,

Congratulations on your spectacular win at EPIC! We were completely bowled over by your pitch. The emotion that imbued every word as you spoke about your parents, about how your father had relayed his love story with your late mother to you every night, was what gave you that winning edge over the competition. We also understand that you’ve signed up to volunteer regularly at a very worthwhile charity in your area, and for that, we commend you.

We know you will do a world of good with your app, and we’re delighted to be able to have some small part in your success.

Cheers! Here’s to you, and to changing the world.

Best wishes,

Lionel Wakefield, Jim Hernandez, David Smith, and Lewis Stenton

Annika sat back as the breath whooshed out of her. “Wow. Wow. They actually liked how emotional I got! It worked in our favor.” She laughed. “Well, I say ‘they,’ but that email has Lionel Wakefield written all over it.”

June did a little dance all over the office, and after a moment of laughing until she couldn’t breathe, Annika got up and joined her. When they were both exhausted and collapsed on the settee in two graceless heaps, June said, “Five hundred grand. Minimum. With that kinda money, we can afford to hire a freelance developer or two for a decent amount of time. With three of us working on the scalability issue, we’re going to have the prototype up and running within a couple of months. And then we can actually put the app out there, for people to buy and download.” She whistled. “All of our money troubles are effectively over! Are you gonna call Mr. McManor and tell him?”

“I’m tempted to let the five hundred grand do the talking for us, but yeah. I guess the more professional thing to do would be to give the man a heads-up before he keels over of shock.” She chuckled. Then, after a moment: “June?”

“Hmm?”