[ 5 ] Futbol Game 

The little boy we met on the street was waiting for us out on the street where we met him earlier. Accompnaied by a groupd of friends, he soon led us all to a nearby dirt lot which would serve as the venue where the football game would take place. Giovani and I had purchased a cooler, a bag of ice to put in it, some drinks, and several dozen tortas from a small food stand nearby. 

While Giovani set the children up into teams, the girls and a few adults helped me distribute food. But the little boys were much more interested in their game. The tortas went quickly and I reserved just enough for the boys to eat after the game.

After distributing the drinks, I closed the cooler and used it as a chair, watching the boys get to their positions before the starts of the game. From a few feet off, Giovani called out, "I thought you said you wanted to play." He said in a taunting voice, a smile playing on his lips.

I crinkled up my nose. "I'd rather just watch you guys. I don't want to inhale clouds of dust."

"No vaya a ser que te ensucies." He joked. God forbid you'll get dirty.

I played along, doing a hair flick. "That's right. I'm too beautiful to play futbol with a peasant like you."

"Mueres por jugar futbol conmigo." He chuckled, you're dying to play futbol with me. 

"In your dreams." She shot back. "Now go play with the children. I think it goes without say that I'll be cheering for them."

Giovani stuck a hand into his jeans' pocket and got his cellphone out. Tossing it at me like it was nothing inportant, he said, "Take care of it for me, yeah? I don't want it to break or something during the game." I was just about to point out the irony in his request when he turned away from me and went to begin the game. It was almost comical to me to see him surrounded by a bunch of children and he was the only adult there. It was a fun game to watch and Giovani was going easy on them, they were children after all. I was busy with my eyes trained on the boys on the dirt field when a little girl came to stand next to me. 

She didn't say anything at first, she only watched me shyly. I turned to look at her, barely noticing she was even there and a smile tugged at my lips. "Hey."

"Hi." The little girl said.

I slid over on the cooler to allow her some space to sit and then patted the spot next to me. She sat without saying a word and I attempted to make conversation with her. "Don't you want to play futbol with the boys?"

She shook her head. "I don't know how to play. And I don't understand why they would chase after a ball for fun."

Giggling at her comment, I defended, "Its actually very interesting. But don't worry. Its okay if you don't like it now. I used to get really angry when my dad spent his entire weekend watching futbol on tv. I remember thinking exactly what you just said: why would they find it interesting to kick a ball around for ninety minutes? Tell you what, we can do something else. How about we just sit here and talk, and cheer for the boys? Or you can help me boo at my friend." I grinned at the idea as it came to me.

"Who's your friend?" The little girl wondered.

"You see that boy over there?" I pointed at him, the biggest and oldest of all the ones playing futbol. "El negrito pesado de alla." The obnoxious little black guy over there. 

She nodded, "My friend is playing futbol too. His name is Giovani and I call him mocoso."

"You must be Karola." I guessed with a smile. When she nodded in confirmation, I told her, "Little Giovani told me about you."

Remembering I had Giovani's phone in my possession, I told her of a better idea I had in mind. "Ooh, how about we go on my friend's twitter account. That'll be a lot of fun and all his internet friends will think he's looney." The little girl's eyes brightened with excitement. I got the phone out of my pocket and clicked on the home button.

The screen lit up and asked me for a passcode. 

I wracked my mind for possible combinations of numbers. "What's his jersey number with Mallorca? Its number ten with la seleccion..."

My hand reached into my other pocket to get my phone out. Unlocking it with my own passcode, I searched him up on google: Giovani dos Santos, Mallorca. Hundreds of pictures popped up of him in a red uniform. I clicked on the very first one and saw the number on his shorts, number nine.

Stuffing my phone back into my pocket, I typed the numbers into his phone, 0910.

The phone unlocked instantly. I rolled my eyes, "Typical."

His twitter app was on the first page and I clicked on it with my thumb. The app opened, showing his newsfeed which I didn't care too much about. I wasn't there to snoop through his things, I just wanted to tweet a bunch of nonsense as a joke.

oficialgio: i am a peasant, @kamnoval is my queen. 

Giovani's newsfeed as well as notifications was overflown by people asking what he was talking about. I ignored the responses and giggled with Karola as I continued to post stupid tweets and eventually pictures.

oficialgio: i have a big secret. 

oficialgio: i like to pick my nose.

oficialgio: and eat the boogers.

oficialgio: sometimes when i'm alone at my house, i blast disco music, style my hair into an afro, and dance in my undies.

oficialgio: my feet smell like corn chips. 

oficialgio: i get really gassy in the mornings.

During their half-time break, Gio jogged over to Karola and I, his dark eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Why do you keep laughing?" He asked, "I've been looking at you every few minutes and you've just been typing away on your phone."

I shrugged, "I'm just having some fun with my new friend." I gestured to the little girl sitting beside me. Bringing my own cellphone out to look at the time, I informed him, "We need to leave as soon as the game ends or else we won't have time to get ready for dinner."

A slight gasp escaped his lips when he saw the phone I had been typing on the whole time was not mine, but was actually his. He snatched it from my hand and looked down at the screen, by now the phone had gotten locked again and he typed his password in. The twitter app was still open and I noticed the way his expression contorted into one of confusion upon seeing the hundreds of replies he was getting about the tweets I sent out.

Giovani clicked on his account and dark eyes scanned over the screen as he read my tweets, "My feet smell like corn chips...I never tweeted this..." 

While he read the rest of them, I got up from my spot on the cooler, picked up little Karola in my arms and ran away, the two of us laughing at the top of our lungs. "Come on, Karito, we need to run away from the ogre."

In the distance, I could hear Giovani calling, "Kamila! What did you do to my twitter account?" He tried sounding upset, but the undertone to his voice sounded as though he was trying hard to surpress a laugh.

"I was just having fun with my new friend!" I yelled from the other side of the dirt lot.

Holding his phone up in the air for me to see and gesturing to it, he told me, "Now everyone's going to think all of these crazy things about me."

From the other side of the dirt lot, I saw him take off running in my direction. I tried set Karola back on her feet and attempted to run away, but he was much quicker than me. He was able to catch up easily and grabbed my arm. I stopped running and laughed in between tired breaths, my eyes trained on the dirt below. "Okay." I said to him, trying to catch my breath. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" He asked with a smirk and I looked up to see he was filming me.

"Sorry for hacking you and tweeting all those things about you." I explained with an amused grin. "But you really need to learn to take a joke."

Turning the camera to face him, he added, "My friend Kamila thought it would be funny to hack me. That was her saying I had stinky feet and all that. Maybe she was too scared to confess those things on her own twitter account." He laughed.

"Hey!" I protested, but he had already stopped recording and posted the video on his twitter account.

Wrapping an arm around my shoulders her, led me out towards the street where our car was parked. "We should get going. We don't want to be late to dinner with the president."

I sighed. "Right. But I'd much rather stay here."

We said goodbye to everyone and promised we'd stop by again on our way back to Guadalajara. Then we went to go find Giovani's car, which was parked nearby and drove into the forest of Chapultepec, where the Presidential Palace was located. It was a beautiful place, but I felt nervous.

This was an important dinner with not only Giovani's team mates from the national team, but also the most important man in Mexico.

-

its about time i updated this. haha. i know its been about four months. maybe even longer, but sometimes i just can't find a way to put into words what i want to happen in a story, so i just leave it alone until i feel comfortable with it again. hopefully i don't go as long without updating again.

and thank you all so much for reading. i love you.

-clary xx