Skills from Brazil Read online

  Karen blew her nose. She still looked unsure.

  “Your boy has a dream, love,” Mike said softly, smiling at Karen. “And this trip to Brazil can help him achieve it. What do you say?”

  Not the World’s Greatest Dancer

  Saturday 24 May

  “Just do me one favour, JJ,” said Mike, looking at Jamie through the rear-view mirror. He, Jamie and Karen had been on the drive to the airport for two hours now. They had all chatted excitedly at first, followed by some time listening to music on the radio. And then it had gone quiet for a bit, until now.

  “Make sure you take in every second of what you are about to experience,” said Mike. “To fly to Brazil as an eleven-year-old boy… Nothing like this will ever happen to you again.”

  Jamie nodded. He knew.

  “JJ, did I ever tell you that one of my ambitions in life was to go to Brazil, watch a match out there and then dance all night … you know, proper samba style?”

  Jamie and Karen couldn’t help but chuckle. Mike had many plus points, but he was not the world’s greatest dancer.

  “Just to do something spontaneous like that. That’s what makes you feel alive.”

  “What does spontaneous mean?” asked Jamie.

  “Doing something on impulse,” replied Mike. “Forgetting the risks and all the reasons not to do something and just doing it anyway.”

  Jamie nodded. He understood. That’s what the best football players did. They took a risk. They produced a skill from nowhere just at the right time.

  “I haven’t been spontaneous enough in my life,” said Mike. “It won’t happen for me now. So take it all in, JJ. Never forget how lucky you are to be able to live out a dream.”

  Watching Mike as he drove steadily on towards the airport, Jamie felt a familiar mixture of sadness and happiness settle upon him.

  When does it become too late to make your dreams come true? he wondered.

  The Book

  Jamie sat down in his seat, opened his rucksack and took out the two items that Mike had given him seconds before he’d got on the plane.

  The first was a brand new phone – Jamie’s first ever – so that they could stay in touch at any time.

  The second was a small booklet that Mike had stayed up all night writing for Jamie.

  As he read the words, Jamie could imagine Mike speaking them to him. Mike had an aura about him. When he talked, people always listened.

  Jamie liked to picture Mike when he was the captain of the Hawkstone United Youth Team. He could see Mike gathering his team around him in a huddle, giving them words of encouragement, making them feel as though they were the greatest team in the world and could destroy anyone that they came up against.

  Even now, even after all the injuries he’d had to his knees, strength was the main characteristic that Jamie associated with Mike.

  Jamie looked down at his own pale, thin arms. He hoped that when he grew up, he would take after Mike and be strong, not weak like his dad.

  Jamie turned the page.

  This was by far the best book Jamie had ever read! The more facts that he could get about football the better! And there was still another whole chapter on the Legends of Brazilian Football to go … but the revving of the engines told Jamie that the plane was ready to take off.

  He put the booklet down and looked out of the window.

  He thought that his mum and Mike would probably be nearly home by now. Jamie knew how difficult his mum had found it to let him go on this trip. That was why, just before he’d got on the plane, he had turned and run back to give her one more hug.

  “Thank you, Mum,” he’d said. “Thank you so much for letting me go for my dream.”

  The engines revved once more and the aeroplane sped down the runway.

  Jamie’s journey was about to begin.

  Part

  Two

  The Beach

  Sunday 25 May

  “Are you sure you want to wear that shirt to the beach?” asked Bernard. “It’ll be hot.”

  Jamie took a big gulp of cereal and nodded.

  At one p.m., this was a late breakfast, because it had been four in the morning by the time Rafael and Bernard had picked Jamie up from the airport and driven him back to their home.

  As soon as they had turned into the road, Jamie had been impressed. They must have owned one of the nicest houses in Rio. Apparently it was only a ten-minute walk to the beach, which was lucky because that was exactly where he and Rafael were heading straight after breakfast.

  Jamie had texted his mum to say he’d arrived safely just before he’d gone to sleep and then he’d spent the whole night dreaming about playing football on the beach!

  Both Rafael and Bernard had promised Jamie that there was someone special he would meet today. Someone who could help him learn how to play football Brazilian style…

  “I have to wear this top!” Jamie smiled, answering Bernard. He looked down at his black and white Hawkstone United shirt. “It gives me good luck and helps me to play better. You might not understand it … it’s a superstitious kind of thing.”

  Bernard and Rafael raised their eyebrows at each other.

  “What?” asked Jamie. “Why are you looking at each other like that? Loads of footballers are superstitious.”

  “I know that,” said Bernard. He looked serious, but then again he always looked serious. “But to say to a Brazilian football fan that they don’t understand superstition is like saying to an Eskimo he doesn’t understand snow. Isn’t that right, Rafael?”

  Rafael nodded proudly. “H-h-hundred p-p-per cent.”

  “Perhaps you should tell Jamie about the dog that had to wee,” Bernard suggested to his son, who immediately cracked up laughing. “If he thinks he’s superstitious, wait till he hears about Biriba!”

  “Botafogo is a very famous team in this country from here in Rio,” began Rafael, without a hint of a stammer as they left the house to head to the beach. It was amazing: as soon as it was just the two of them, Rafael’s speech was completely uninhibited. Jamie wished Bernard could see it. He even wondered whether he should record Rafael speaking like this and play it to Bernard. That would be too risky, though; if Rafael found out, he wouldn’t trust Jamie any more and, from what Jamie understood, trust was the whole reason that Rafael felt able to speak freely with Jamie in the first place.

  Bernard had been right. It was boiling. Jamie could feel the sweat trickling down his forehead instantly. He looked up at the sun and his eyes were dazzled by the golden rays shining down on him. He looked around him at the busy streets, all hustle and bustle – people cleaning the cars, dusting off mats and talking to each other. That was what he noticed immediately that was different from home.

  At home, people ignored each other in the street. Here, all Jamie could hear was the chatter of conversation coming from everywhere. And the colours – everyone seemed to be wearing bright, vibrantly coloured clothes.

  “…And perhaps Botafogo might be the most superstitious team in Brazil,” Rafael said, continuing his story with a cheeky smile that promised something entertaining to come. “…Because I am going to tell you a true story of something that happened in the last century – in the nineteen fifties.

  “So, imagine this: the reserve team of Botafogo were playing a game and they were on the attack. The striker was through; one on one with the ’keeper. He looked up and had a shot and, at that precise moment, a mongrel of a dog came running on to the pitch after the ball. It ran straight at the goalkeeper and completely put him off because he didn’t know whether to look at the ball or the dog! So the ball went in the net and the referee allowed it! Goal to Botafogo! Or gooooool! as we say here!”

  “No way!” said Jamie. “Assist to the dog!”

  “You got it! The dog helped them take the lead!!” joked Rafael.


  They were turning off the main road now and into some smaller side streets. There was a steep downward hill that offered, in the near distance, a view of the shimmering blue sea. Jamie took in a breath. He’d never seen anything quite so beautiful.

  “Anyway,” he said, suddenly coming back to Rafael’s story. “I thought this was supposed to be a story about superstition?”

  “Jamie!” said Rafael. “I haven’t even got to that bit yet!”

  “Well, get on with it!” Jamie laughed. “We’ll be at the beach in a minute and then I’ll be too busy playing to talk!”

  “It turns out that the dog was a stray and, because it had helped to score a goal, one of the Botafogo players adopted it and it became the mascot of the club, coming to every game. They called it Biriba.

  “And you know what they did? If they were ever doing badly in a game and needed a break, they would let Biriba run on to the pitch and scamper all over the place until the referee stopped the game.

  “The Botafogo players never helped to get Biriba under control, so it always took ages, and by the time the match got restarted, Botafogo had reorganized and were ready to make a comeback. It was such a good plan and the dog became so famous that other teams even threatened to kidnap Biriba. Or do you say dog-nap him?”

  “I don’t know!” laughed Jamie. “Fair enough, Rafa, that is a pretty good story.”

  Rafael grabbed Jamie’s hand so hard that they both stopped walking. Rafael was shaking his head and his face was going red with laughter.

  “That’s not the best bit!” he giggled. “One day before a really big match, all the players were in the dressing room, warming up, you know, talking tactics, making their plans for the game when, out of nowhere, Biriba, you know … did his … pee on the full-back’s leg! Right there in the dressing room.”

  “No way!” said Jamie. “That’s gross!”

  “Anyway, so Botafogo end up winning the game … and the president of the club, the man in charge of the whole of Botafogo, gets to hear about what happened – that before the game Biriba had peed on the full-back’s leg. Well, this president was so superstitious that, from that day on, he made it an actual order that BEFORE EVERY SINGLE GAME Biriba had to pee on the same defender’s leg because it gave them good luck!”

  The two boys had to stop. They were laughing too much.

  “What? Every game the same player had to get peed on?!” said Jamie, in between his convulsions. “Imagine if that happened in the Premier League!”

  “I know! I know!” said Rafael. “And to top it off, that year Botafogo won the league!! And everybody believed it was down to the peeing dog! You see – we know about being superstitious in Brazil!”

  The Streets

  The boys’ laughter had only just subsided when they turned another corner and entered another set of streets.

  Instinctively, Jamie understood that they had turned a corner in more than one way. He looked at Rafael, who was already staring at him.

  “These are the poor streets,” said Rafael. “This is what we call a favela.”

  Jamie looked around him. They had been walking less than five minutes from the luxurious area in which Rafael lived and yet, suddenly, they had reached a different world. Poverty seemed to drift through these streets like smoke in the air.

  However, there, right in the middle of it all, looking as happy as anyone Jamie had ever seen in his life, were seven or eight kids, dashing around playing football.

  Jamie was hypnotized by the scene. The kids – boys and girls of all different skin colours – were running barefoot along the gravelled street, chasing after a ball, which was clearly badly punctured. Their clothes were ripped, their faces and hair were very dirty … and yet they seemed to be having such fun. The football they were playing seemed to be full of joy.

  Suddenly, one of the kids kicked the ball in the direction of Jamie and Rafael and now all of the players were rampaging towards them. Without thinking, Jamie advanced towards the ball at the same time as the smallest and thinnest of the kids.

  The little Brazilian boy, who was wearing a ripped and tattered old Brazil football top, got to the ball just before Jamie and knocked it right between Jamie’s legs, gleefully shouting: “Caneta! Caneta!!”

  Within seconds, all of the other kids were crowding around Jamie, laughing, pointing at his red hair and grabbing at his Hawkstone top.

  And now, holding the punctured ball under his arm, the boy who had just done the caneta had returned too. He also started grabbing at Jamie’s Hawkstone shirt. He seemed to want to take it from Jamie.

  Jamie’s body tensed. He would never allow anyone to take this top. Every part of him was ready to fight.

  But Rafael put his arm around Jamie and walked him away from the group, waving back at the other kids as he did so.

  “They are just interested in you because you are different,” said Rafael. “You don’t have to be scared of them.”

  “I wasn’t scared!” replied Jamie, a little too eagerly.

  “Good,” said Rafael. “Because I wanted to show you these streets. Many people, they come to Rio and all they see – all they want to see – is the beach. But Rio is about the streets as much as it is about the beach. Only when you understand that do you start to understand our city. Oh, and by the way, caneta means n—”

  “Nutmeg – I know,” said Jamie, feeling a twinge of embarrassment at having had the ball knocked through his legs by a kid younger than him.

  “Those kids can play,” he acknowledged. “They had talent.”

  “Of course they have talent!” laughed Rafael. “They are Brazilian.”

  The Master

  “What’s wrong with here?” asked Jamie.

  It seemed as good a spot as any. There was space on the beach and people playing football all around.

  “No, we are not there yet,” said Rafael, trekking ahead, further along the beach.

  Jamie and Rafael had been walking along the beach for fifteen minutes but it felt like six hours. Jamie could feel his skin burning in the roasting sun and his throat was so dry he would have given his life savings to have just one glass of ice-cold water.

  And all of this was to find this man. This mysterious person who was somehow going to help Jamie play football Brazilian style.

  Jamie watched Rafael march on. He had no choice but to follow.

  “Whoever this guy is, he better be worth it,” Jamie muttered to himself.

  “There!” said Rafael a few minutes later. “There he is! Olá, Mestre!”

  He was shouting and waving to someone by the sea.

  Jamie followed the line of Rafael’s wave. He looked past the string of cafés with music blaring out, beyond the sunbathers strewn across the beach and on towards a group of kids near the sea.

  Even from his vantage point, Jamie could see that all of the kids were practising their skills. They were displaying acrobatic ability, continuous concentration and sublime skill. And every single one of them was beaming with pleasure. This was something close to football heaven.

  Standing next to the footballers, watching their every movement, stood a tall man with his arms folded. He had clearly heard Rafael’s shouts but had not reacted in any way.

  Then, after another minute, he said something to one of the players and began walking towards Rafael and Jamie.

  Jamie could sense just by Rafael’s reaction that this was a significant person. He strained his eyes to get a closer look at the man as he approached.

  There was something in the way that he moved along the sand of the beach so smoothly that reminded Jamie of a lion prowling its territory. His natural movements spoke of power, athleticism and strength. And yet, as he drew nearer still, Jamie recognized that this was not a young man. Perhaps he was about sixty. About the same age as Mike.

  The man had a mane of
long, thick greying black hair, which contrasted to the short, clipped beard that completed his lean, chiselled facial features. His skin was brown and creased from years in the sun but his green eyes seemed bright and inquisitive.

  As the man drew within a few feet of the pair, Rafael looked at Jamie and smiled.

  “Jamie,” he said proudly. “Get ready to meet O Mestre – The Master.”

  “Your Feet Must Be Free”

  “M-M-Mestre, th-th-is is J-J-Jamie,” Rafael had said. “He wants to l-l-learn.”

  Mestre had smiled kindly at Rafael and gestured for the boys to follow him to the area by the sea where all the skills were being demonstrated.

  Now, as he walked behind Mestre and Rafael, who seemed to know each other pretty well, Jamie could feel his feet starting to tingle. They wanted to do just one thing: kick a ball.

  As soon as they arrived in the area where the other kids were practising their skills, Rafael sat down cross-legged in the sand, got his notepad out of his bag and began writing immediately.

  Meanwhile, Jamie watched the boy next to him flick the ball into the air, trap it on the back of his neck, flick it back into the air and then bicycle kick it into the sea! Then he dived in and swam the front crawl with incredible strength to recover it. The boy seemed to be a mixture between Tarzan and a freestyle soccer-skills sensation!

  Then Jamie looked at the girl next to him. She was balancing the ball on top of her head, walking down towards the sea and then back up the beach. She seemed so in control of her body. As she walked, her eyes were fixed firmly on the ball on her forehead and a smile was fixed firmly on her face.