Jack's Past (2)

"Remarkable!"

As if they were controlled by a remote, the boy and the three men chasing him stopped and looked at the source of the voice. It was a man that looked to be in his late thirties. He wore a tracksuit with the Merseyside logo designed into the left side of the chest area.

"Tell me, what's your name, boy?" The person that stopped them walked over to the boy and squatted in front of him.

"My name's Jack". The boy answered. 

The man smiled and asked another question. "And how old are you?"

"I'm seven". Jack answered. 

It was strange that Jack would willingly and quite easily disclose such information about himself to a complete stranger, but he smelt money. Looking at how neat the man that was interrogating him looked, the state of his clothes, he smelt money. And if he smelt money from the person, then he'd consider himself a fool not to answer the questions.

"Oi! Catch him, he's stopped running!" one of the three men that were chasing Jack finally came back to his senses. He ran towards Jack but was blocked by the man that kept asking Jack questions.

"And what did this child do to you?" He asked the three men.

"That little devilspawn is a thief!" One of the three men answered.

"He stole our wallets". Another one of the three men continued the short tragic tale.

"Then he ran off with them". The last of the three men finished the story.

"So that's what it's all about then?" The man dipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers and fuddled about for a bit. He removed his hands, although this time it had several money notes attached to it.

Jack and the three men's eyes shone with greed when they saw the money in the hands of the man wearing the track suit. It took all the self control that Jack had inside him to stop himself from grabbing the money from his hands and running off.

When he was about to cave, rationality took over. If the man casually took those notes out to give to the three men, then how much would he be willing to give someone close to him. He immediately made up his mind to cling to the man as much as he possibly could.

"Is this enough to cover the money that was in your wallet?" The man asked innocently. From the looks on his face, it was obvious that he felt that he was overpaying the three men.

None of the three men could make intelligible speech when they saw the money. Their lips trembled when they attempted to talk.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of awkwardness, one of them could finally get his vocal organs working and fashion a reply. "Yes, that's enough".

He unceremoniously grabbed the money from the hands of the man, muttered some words of thanks and like that, all the three men were gone.

"Alright kid, my name is Giovanni van Ruuz, but you can call me Gio". The man said to Jack as soon as the three men were out of sight. "Now, have you ever played football before?"

Jack stared blankly for a few seconds trying to decide whether to lie or not. In the end, he could only shake his head. 

His answer did not seem to have any form of effect on Giovanni's attitude, he only smiled. "That's alright, why don't I take you to a park and we'll see what you can do with a football".

Jack nodded. That sounded good enough to him. He followed Giovanni over to his car and entered it. When he entered, he felt like he was in heaven, the air conditioning that fired cold air at him.

For someone that was used to facing the grunt of the harsh rays of sunlight all his life, the cool breeze coming from the air conditioner inside the car was like paradise to him.

Unfortunately, his paradise was short lived. The journey to the park was very short. He reluctantly got down from the car and followed Giovanni further into the park.

Inside the park, there were already children within his age bracket kicking balls to each other. There were training cones arranged and other coaches directing the children on how to play.

Giovanni called for a football and handed it over to Jack. He ran over to his car and came back with a bunch of cones.

"Alright, what do you know about football?" Giovanni asked Jack. He believed that there wasn't a single male child that could claim that they had never heard about football.

"It's just a game where twenty two sweaty grown men kick a ball over a patch of grass". Jack answered bluntly.

Giovanni frowned when he heard what Jack said. "Who told you that?" He was convinced that a child couldn't have gotten that outlook on football all on his own. 

"My dad". Jack answered.

Giovanni's smile returned to his face like it was never gone. He wrapped his arm round the Jack's neck. "You see, your dad's wrong. Football isn't just a game, football is life!"

Jack's eyes shone when he heard Giovanni's words, and for the first time since everything stated, he was actually filled with enthusiasm for the entire thing.

"Alright, you're going to kick the ball around the cones as fast as you can and try your best not to hit any of the cones, after you're done you're going to take a shot into that goalpost over there". Giovanni arranged the cones on the floor and explained to Jack what he was supposed to do. Jack nodded and started kicking the ball.

The sound of the ball hitting the back of the net was barely audible, but it made Giovanni open his mouth nonetheless. Jack dribbled round the cones quicker than Giovanni had anticipated. He also actually made a shot on target when he expected him to miss the goal.

"Are you sure that you've never played football before?" Giovanni asked Jack. The look on his face made it obvious that he was still quite shocked with what happened.

"No" Jack answered innocently.

"Congratulations then, you're officially a part of Merseyside's under eight's football team" Giovanni had a wide grin on his face.