Soccer is a curious game, because it doesn't ask to be loved. It demands it.

Britt-Marie wanders about inside the recreation center like a confounded spirit whose grave someone has opened in order to start a discotheque.

The children sit on the sofa, wearing the white jerseys and drinking soft drinks. Britt-Marie has obviously ensured that they are sitting on towels, because she doesn't have enough baking soda to clean all the children. It goes without saying that they have coasters under their soft drinks. Admittedly there weren't any proper coasters, so Britt-Marie has used two pieces of toilet paper folded over. Necessity has no rule, but even necessity has to understand that you can't just put a soft-drink can on the table.

She also puts glasses in front of the children. One of them, the one that Britt-Marie would obviously never refer to as "overweight" but who looks as if he's had quite a few soft drinks belonging to other children, tells her cheerfully that he'd "rather just drink straight from the can."

"What animal apart from human beings can drink from a can?"

"Because we're not animals."

"That's the worst jinx! We'll lose if you do that!" yells Omar and runs up to throw them back on the floor.

"You certainly won't, here we drink from glasses," Britt-Marie interjects with uncompromising articulation.

Britt-Marie notes that he's wearing his soccer jersey back to front.

"Why?"

Britt-Marie doesn't answer. Instead she picks up the remote controls from the floor and puts them on the table. As soon as she's done it she bounces back in terror when the until-now timid boys on the sofa all roar "Nooo!" as if she's flung the remote controls in their faces.

The boy looks at his lemonade can, thinks about it, and then asks:

"What do you mean, 'we'll lose'?" asks Britt-Marie, as if he's taken leave of his senses.

"We will!" he repeats with conviction, as if this somehow explains anything.

Omar points at the grown men on the TV, who quite clearly do not even know he exists.

"No remotes on the table!" hisses the lemonade boy fearfully.

"I don't appreciate yelling indoors. I also don't appreciate the wearing of clothes back to front like gangsters," she points out, picking up the remotes from the floor.

"We'll lose if we wear our shirts the right way around!"

"I'm the one who shot the soccer ball at your head yesterday. I didn't do it on purpose. I'm pants at aiming. I hope it didn't ruin your hair," he says. "Your hair is… nice," he adds with a smile, then turns to go back to the sofa.

"They're superstitious, everything has to be the same as the last time we won," says the boy, at the same time explanatory and defensive. He suddenly looks slightly nervous.

Britt-Marie doesn't even know how to respond to such nonsense, so she takes the remote controls and the children's muddy clothes into the laundry. When she turns around after starting the washing machine, the ginger-haired boy is standing in front of her. He looks embarrassed. Britt-Marie cups one hand into the other and doesn't look ready for more conversation.

Britt-Marie keeps her eyes on him and by and large doesn't entirely dislike him. He sits on the far side against the wall behind the boy with black hair and the boy who's had the most soft drinks, so that he's out of sight.

"Pirate," echoes Britt-Marie, in the way that Britt-Marie echoes when she has to drum up all the well-meaning feelings she's capable of in order not to have to explain that Pirate is not much of a name for anyone except an actual pirate.

And there goes the limit of Britt-Marie's well-meaningness.

"And that's Toad. And that's Dino."

"We call him Pirate," says Vega.

Vega doesn't look as if she understands what this is supposed to mean.

"For goodness' sake, those aren't even proper names!"

"It's because he's a Somalian," she says, pointing at one of the boys, as if this explains everything.

She has popped up next to Britt-Marie. Apparently it's what she does: pops up, all the time. Her jersey is slightly too big. Or her body too small, possibly.

Vega points to the other two children on the sofa.

When Britt-Marie doesn't look as if it does explain everything, Vega sighs in a very bored sort of way and explains:

"When Dino moved to Borg and Omar heard that he was a Somalian he thought it sounded like a 'sommelier,' you know one of those people who drink wine on the TV. So we called him 'Wino.' And it rhymes with 'Dino.' So now we just call him 'Dino.' "

Vega shrugs.

"Toad we called Toad because he can burp so loud that it's just sick. And Pirate we call Pirate because we… I don't know, we just do."

Britt-Marie snorts hard through her nose, because that's how Britt-Marie's irritation comes steaming out when it grows too large inside her head.

Vega shakes her head.

"Surely the boy has a proper name," she fumes.

"He can't have the same name as us, can he? Or we wouldn't know who to pass to when we're playing."

"He didn't do much talking when he moved here, so we didn't know what his name was, but he laughed when we called him Dino and we liked it when he laughed. So he kept the name.

"So your real names weren't good enough, I suppose, were they?"

"And I don't suppose there are any girls' teams for you to play on? No, of course not."

She nods towards the ginger-haired boy, who still can't be seen. Britt-Marie smiles graciously and says:

Vega doesn't seem to comprehend the difference.

Britt-Marie stares at Vega as if Vega had just fallen asleep drunk in Britt-Marie's bed.

"It can't just stay out there in the rain!" says Vega, with a similar level of terror in her voice, as if this was a question of a human life.

Vega starts looking around as if there's a person missing.

Vega looks annoyed.

Britt-Marie nods with absolute, absolute helpfulness.

Before Britt-Marie has time to realize what's going on, a chain of Stones and Scissors being put in Paper Bags is initiated across the room, until ginger-haired Pirate in some way loses and is on his way up from the sofa towards the door in a fluid movement.

"Where's the ball?" she calls out into the room.

A player on the TV is rolling about on the pitch. Omar uses the stoppage time to climb up on one of the kitchen stools and start changing the lightbulbs on credit. Britt-Marie circles nervously.

"This is my team!" she says.

"Shit! Outside!" Omar cries, looking out at the rain outside the window.

"You can't possibly be thinking about bringing that ball in here!" gasps Britt-Marie in terror.

"I suppose that team wasn't good enough for you, was it?"

"All the girls play for the team in town."

The boy is standing six feet away, with the muddy soccer ball in his arms.

"Mother of God! Not in your newly washed jersey! No!" She catches hold of his collar but he's already wearing his shoes and has already gone over the threshold. Britt-Marie, in absolute agitation, gets into her own shoes and runs after him.

"Can I ask you something?" he says.

Britt-Marie doesn't know if he is apologizing to her or to the soccer ball. She holds her hands over her hair so the rain doesn't ruin her coiffure. The boy peers at her, smiling sincerely, and then, embarrassed, looks down at the ground.

"Excuse me?" says Britt-Marie, the rain running down her face.

"Sorry," he mumbles, staring down at the leather.

"Would you help me fix my hair?" he mumbles, avoiding eye contact.

"I have a date tomorrow. I was going to… I was thinking… I wanted to ask if you could help me fix my hair," he manages to say.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" asks Britt-Marie while she keeps her gaze focused on a patch of mud left by the soccer ball on the boy's newly washed jersey.

"Your hair's really nice. I was thinking you're good at doing hair, because your hair is nice. There isn't a hairdresser in Borg because it closed down."

"I don't suppose you have any hairdressers in Borg, oh no. I suppose that will also be my responsibility now, is that what you mean? Is it?"

The boy shakes his head at the ball.

Britt-Marie nods as if this was quite typical.

Possibly she's not an expert at this, she'd be willing to admit. She has only ever been on two meetings with boys. One of them she ended up marrying. The rain stops completely while they are standing there, she and the boy with the ginger hair and the muddy soccer ball.

"Is that what it's known as these days? A 'date'?" she says, a touch thoughtfully.

"In my days it was known as a 'meeting,' " says Britt-Marie firmly.

The rain tails off somewhat. Britt-Marie is still holding the palms of her hands like a pitched roof over the top of her head, and the rain is running down into her sleeves.

"What did you call it before?" asks the boy, peering up from the ball.

And then their silence is so abruptly broken by the children's howls of euphoria from within that Britt-Marie is startled and makes a grab for the boy's jersey, and the boy in turn is so surprised that he tosses the ball into her arms. She gets mud on her jacket. Half a second later the men in the pizzeria burst into fits of braying until the neon sign above the door rattles.

"What do you mean, 'we'?" asks Britt-Marie.

"We say date, or at least I do," mumbles the boy.

"It doesn't matter! I can make it anytime tomorrow!"

"It's still Christmas holiday."

Britt-Marie takes a deep breath and avoids his avoidance of eye contact.

"You really must understand that I can't give you an answer now, because I have my list in my handbag," she says in a low voice.

"What's going on?" Britt-Marie wants to know, with panic in her eyes, as she throws the ball on the ground.

The boy immediately starts nodding with altogether worrying enthusiasm.

"We scored a goal!" howls the Pirate boy ecstatically.

"Ha. I imagine school isn't of much concern here in Borg."

Because it's the first time in an absolute age that anyone has told Britt-Marie it's important for her to be somewhere.

"But I mean: our team, the one we're supporting! On the TV!" the boy tries to explain.

In the next second the sound of a front door being slammed cuts through the January night. Britt-Marie spins around in pure dismay and starts running towards it. The boy runs after. The door is locked from the inside.

"Preposterous," snorts Britt-Marie.

"Like, they've locked it so we can't come in! Because we were out here when we scored!" puffs Pirate, jubilant and out of breath.

"We've supported this team for longer than most of the players in it. So it's more our team than theirs."

"I mean it's important that we stay out here, because while we were out here we scored! We're bringing good luck out here!" hollers the boy as if that's reasonable. Britt-Marie stares at him as if it certainly isn't. But then they stand in the parking area, despite the rain that's falling again, and Britt-Marie doesn't say anything else.

"But how is it your team if you don't play in it?"

"I thought you didn't have a team!"

"Our team!"

The boy thinks this over for a moment. Then he seems to take a firm grip on the ball.

"What on earth are you trying to say?" Britt-Marie demands and tugs frantically at the door handle.

Soccer is a curious game in that way. Because it doesn't ask to be loved.