Striker Boy Kicks Out (2 page)

Nat nodded and went over to Emi and Kelvin to say goodbye. As the three youngest players in the squad, they'd been given the short straw when it was discovered that the hotel the club had booked couldn't accommodate the entire squad.

“I can't believe we miss out on the hotel,” sighed Kelvin.

“Don't worry,” said Emi, “we'll still be spending loads of time there.”

They all shook hands and headed off to their respective greeters.

Nat's Spanish adventure was about to begin.

“Hi,” said Nat.

“I'm José,” replied the boy. “Welcome to Andalusia. You'll be staying with my mother and me. Shall I take your bag?”

“I'm alright, thanks.”

“The car's just outside,” said José, leading the way.

Nat took a quick look over his shoulder and saw Emi and Kelvin heading off with their hosts, and the rest of the Hatton Rangers party clambering onto a large coach. Nat followed José out of the building. They turned left and walked to a short-stay parking bay. José took Nat's suitcase and dropped it onto the back seat of an old and battered green ex-army jeep. He motioned for Nat to climb into the front passenger seat.

The jeep roared away from the parking bay, past the Hatton Rangers coach. They drove down a long road that ended in a T-junction. The signpost pointing left read ALMERÍA. The one pointing right said TALORCA/MÁLAGA.

José turned right. The road curved to the left, and after a few minutes, Nat spotted the inky-black waters of the Mediterranean Sea on his left. On his right was dry open land covered in the silhouettes of evergreen trees – one of the only types of foliage that could withstand the baking, rain-starved summer months of Andalusia.

“It's good of you to have me to stay,” said Nat.

“No problem,” replied José, his eyes firmly on the road.

“How was it arranged?” asked Nat. “Are you connected to Talorca FC?”

José nodded.

“What's the connection?”

“My father used to work for them.”

“Cool,” nodded Nat. “Are you into football?”

“It's OK,” responded José, with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Are you a Talorca fan?”

José shrugged again.

“Do you ever go to matches?”

José moved his head a fraction, though whether this was a nod or a shake of the head was impossible to fathom.

OK,
thought Nat,
so José isn't the world's number one conversationalist.

The road curved left again until they were driving right beside the sea. Nat smelt the salty freshness of the water. In the distance ahead he saw the silhouetted
outlines of a city skyline. But before they approached Talorca's outskirts, José took a right, away from the sea, and onto a much smaller road that climbed a steep hill. They drove through a vast olive grove, the jeep's tyres kicking up clouds of dust in its wake. When they reached the brow of the hill, José sped down the other side and applied the brakes as they reached the bottom, next to a small whitewashed villa.

A compact red Fiat was parked beside a fence. There was a courtyard to the right of the villa, containing a small pear tree, a wrought-iron bench and a basketball hoop attached to one of the walls. On the far side of the courtyard was a dilapidated wooden shack with a sloping corrugated plastic roof punctured with holes.

José climbed out of the jeep, grabbed Nat's suitcase from the back seat and walked towards the front door, with Nat following behind.

They went inside and Nat found himself in a small entrance way, the floor of which was covered in shoes, old tennis rackets, a fishing rod, piles of fashion magazines and an assortment of hats, hanging on a thin oak hatstand. In front of him was a corridor with a series of rooms leading off it on both sides. Paintings of flowers in bold bright colours adorned the corridor walls.

To his right was a small passageway, and it was from a door at the end of this that a woman appeared, wiping her hands on her apron and smiling broadly. She was wearing a flowing emerald green dress and had long, curly brown
hair, which was tied back in a ponytail. Her sparkling eyes matched her dress, and her narrow features were very similar to José's.

“Hello Nat,” she said warmly, offering him her hand, which he shook. “I'm Inés, and you've obviously met my son José.” Her English was spoken with only the barest trace of an accent.

José put Nat's suitcase on the ground, said something to his mother in Spanish and walked off down the corridor, disappearing into the second room on the left.

“It's lovely to have you here,” smiled Inés. “I'll show you around and then we'll eat supper, or
cena,
as we call it.”

Nat had picked up a bit of Spanish on his travels and was keen to learn more. He took hold of his suitcase and the tour commenced. Inés pointed out the bathroom and her bedroom, the first on the left of the main corridor, the second facing it. The doors to these rooms were open so he took a quick look inside as they passed. Inés's room was neat but sparsely furnished, with a bed, a wooden dresser and a wardrobe. The bathroom had a simple shower and a sink. José's bedroom was next on the left but his door was firmly shut and angry chords from a Spanish heavy rock band spilled out from under his door. Facing that was a small office with a desk and a computer. The last room on the left was a toilet, and facing that was another bedroom.

“This is your room,” declared Inés, opening the door.

It was a square-shaped space, housing a single bed next to a latticed window, a tall cupboard, a small writing desk and a pile of old board games on the floor. Inés opened the cupboard door. It was empty inside.

“We want you to feel at home here,” she smiled. “Please arrange the room however you wish.”

“It's fine like this,” replied Nat, parking his suitcase next to the bed and dropping his wallet and keys onto the desk.

“Can I ask you a question?” he said.

“Of course.”

“How come your English is so good?”

Inés laughed. “I'm an English teacher,” she replied. “It doesn't pay very well but I absolutely love it. I teach Spanish teenagers to speak and write your language. Some of them are good learners, while others are better at looking out of the window. We're in the middle of the school holidays at the moment. Having you stay here is a great opportunity for me to practise my own English with a genuine Englishman!”

Nat laughed.

“Get comfortable and come to the kitchen for something to eat in, say, half an hour?” said Inés.

“Sounds great,” nodded Nat.

When Inés left, Nat lay down on the bed and shut his eyes. Once again he thought about the unbelievable situation he found himself in. He was thirteen but he'd already appeared three times as a Hatton Rangers
substitute, and these hadn't been insignificant games. They'd been high-octane, Premier League matches against Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United. Nat still had to remind himself that being part of the Rangers set-up was real. Some mornings he woke up expecting to discover the whole thing had been part of an elaborate dream. But it wasn't. It was really happening. And more than anything else, he wanted to keep it going for as long as was humanly possible.

It had all started because of an incredible piece of luck.

Nat and his father, Dave, had been at a Hatton Rangers ‘in the Community Day'. Nat had been playing a superb cameo role in a five-a-side match when Stan Evans happened to be passing. The Rangers assistant manager had been blown away by Nat's speed and the ferocity of his shooting. Rangers were in deep trouble at the bottom of the Premier League. Evans saw amazing potential in Nat, just from those five short minutes, but he'd been very disappointed to discover that, despite Nat's size and maturity, he was only thirteen, and so could be of no use to the team.

But when Evans told Rangers manager Ian Fox about this ‘wonderkid', the two of them hatched a plan. Nat and his father had been out of the country for seven years and had broken off all contact with anyone they'd ever known in the UK. So no one knew them, or knew that they were back.

This meant that Hatton Rangers could tell the world
that Nat was sixteen, making him eligible to play for Rangers. It was mad. It was risky. But it might just work.

Dave had initially been dead set against this plan, but Nat had finally won him round.

So Nat had finished the season as a Hatton Rangers player, in addition to thwarting a massive match-fixing scam involving the Hatton Rangers goalkeeper Chris Webb. It had been a quite remarkable few months.

Nat had fed the story of his involvement with the match-fixing scam as an exclusive to journalist Ray Swinton, which stopped Swinton from running a piece raising questions about Nat's real age. Not that Nat trusted Swinton to keep quiet about this forever – after all, he was a journalist. And none of this stopped Nat from constantly worrying that one day he'd be found out. Sometimes this worry lurked in the deeper recesses of his mind, but at other times it was right out there at the front, screaming loudly.

As Nat lay on the bed, mulling all of this over, he must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew was a knock on his bedroom door. He opened his eyes, got off the bed and opened the door.

It was Inés. “
Cena
awaits,” she smiled.

Nat followed her back down the corridor, along the narrow passageway and through the door leading into the kitchen. The first thing that hit him was the incredible smell. It made him realise how hungry he was. He'd eaten lunch hours ago with Dave at their cottage. All he'd had
since then was a small packet of nuts on the plane.

The kitchen was rectangular, with an Aga-type oven and a large map of Spain on the far wall.

“Please, sit down,” said Inés, pouring Nat a glass of thirst-quenching lemonade. She opened the door and called José's name. A minute later he walked into the kitchen, taking his place opposite Nat.

“OK,” announced Inés. “We have
pescado frito
– that's fried fish.” She placed a large bowl containing a mountain of fish pieces, fried to perfection, on the table. “And this is
ajoharina
and
ensalata mixta
– potatoes in garlic sauce and salad. Please eat what you want and leave what you don't.”

Nat nodded his thanks, served himself some of the fish and potatoes and passed the bowls on to José and Inés. It all tasted delicious.

“So why did Everton pull out of the tournament?” asked Inés, pouring herself some lemonade.

“Lots of their players caught some kind of virus,” answered Nat, wiping his mouth on a napkin. “Talorca FC wanted Newcastle to replace them but they couldn't make it either, so they contacted Hatton Rangers, literally at the last minute. I only got the call a few hours before we had to be at the airport.”

Nat glanced sideways at José who was spearing a piece of fish on his fork. He wore an expression on his face that didn't indicate whether he was interested in this conversation or not.

“So there are two leagues for the tournament?” asked Inés.

Nat nodded. “We're in a mini-league with Lazio and Celtic. Talorca are in the other league with Hamburg and Marseilles. Each team plays the other teams in their league. The winners of the two leagues play each other in the final on Saturday.”

“Talorca will get through,” observed José, taking a sip of lemonade from his glass. “They've spent a huge amount of money in the last couple of years. It's like Chelsea in your Premier League – they've
bought
themselves success.”

“You're so right!” nodded Nat enthusiastically, pleased to find something that he and José agreed on.

“I follow Talorca and Spanish football avidly,” said Inés, “but I'm not very familiar with the English Premier League – I apologise for that. But from the information Talorca emailed me, I know you're sixteen and that you're a striker?”