Black Poison

1. 'Soccer'?

My parents got jobs in America, and when I was 16 we moved. Permanently. There were three main things which I noted were different here from my hometown in England:

1. It was 15 degrees hotter (which was now measured in Fahrenheit not Celsius).

2. The schools were way bigger (like 3 English schools in one).

3. The girls had super-hot tans (and were also super-hotter).

It had taken a little getting used to at first, but soon I was getting into the American way of life. My parents had been offered amazing well paid jobs here, but it meant they had to work long hours through the day, so it was just me and my older sister Lily most of the time.

The school I was enrolled in wasn't too far from our house, but I would still have wanted to drive, and I would have got a car too, if it wasn't for my sister. She was 18, and back in England you had to be 17 to drive, so Lily complained to my parents and argued that I should have to wait until I was 17 too. They agreed. Bitch.

Sometimes she could be alright, but sometimes she could be a bitch. It depended which version of Lily woke up on a morning.

School was quite fun, and I never thought I'd hear myself saying that. I was friendly to start with, and most people took an interest in me considering I was from England. I soon got bored of their questions about British culture, and American things they believed I was naïve about. The worst part had to be words and spellings, we had our differences with them and it annoyed me a lot.

One thing I certainly loved was Physical Education. I refused to call it soccer, it would always be football to me, but that was what we played. The term 'football' was reserved for their own rugby-like game which I found mildly entertaining.

'Soccer' was my passion though. The English invented the game, back home there wasn't a kid who didn't play. When we played I enjoyed sharing game winning tactics, and allowing my natural skills to show for themselves. It also helped me make friends.

I played in midfield, and my three best friends at the school lined up alongside me. Matt shared my over six-feet height, and awesome sense of humour, Jay and I shared blue eyes, and a real love of sport, he was always pestering me about different English ones. The crazy, hard partying, wisecracking wildcard was Tom. Wasn't there always one?

"Hey Harry," Jay called as we were showering off after a hard session. They loved to invent nicknames for me; Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes, they were like second names to me now. Hardly very inventive either. I was actually called Ben. Well Benjamin, but only my parents called me that.

"Yeah?" I asked, stepping out the shower and working some wax through my hair, part of the crate I'd brought from home. No way was I changing from my magic formula, this stuff knew my hair, we were one. They didn't sell the British brand over here.

"Are the English National Soccer team any good?"