Ender's Football

??

"Helena, didn't you say your brother is here? Have you seen him?"

In the afternoon, Helena walked melancholy, carrying her badminton racket, to the children's club in the urban area, and met her good friend Demi.

Demi is a very curious girl with a "world-weary face", but her personality is actually silly, and she is often out of touch.Helena is the complete opposite of her. She claims to be a smart girl. Although she looks like a piece of sweet cotton candy, she is actually very proud. So far, she has only recognized Demi as a good friend.

The two little girls live in the same neighborhood and go to the same elementary school, and Demi always likes to run around behind Helena, so the relationship between the two families is not bad.

Helena likes to play badminton, and Demi also goes to the kids club with her to train.

"Don't mention him," Helena immediately pursed her lips when talking about her brother who came the day before yesterday, "He's not my brother, I hate him."

"Why?" Demi asked stupidly, "I remember you told me last week that you prepared for him..."

Helena blocked her friend's mouth anxiously, and immediately took out a bento box from the small strawberry backpack behind her: "I just hate him, don't ask! I brought you chocolate biscuits made by my mother, you want do not eat?"

"Okay!" The happy Demi was immediately distracted, "I like Aunt Rose* so much! The little biscuits she makes are terrific—delicious!"

So the girls sat on a bench in the Kids Club and shared the chocolate chip cookies.

Seeing Demi's carefree eating, Helena sighed melancholy.

"Stupid."

"You're calling me stupid again, Lianna!" Demi raised her head from the happy food and protested, with chocolate crumbs still sticking to the corner of her mouth, "Why am I stupid! Miss Miriam even praised me for being smart. "

"I've said it before, it's because Miss Miriam received her tuition from your father, but she didn't teach you anything. She can only cover up her incompetence by praising you," Helena said.

"Is that so? QAQ," Demi became visibly depressed, she looked at her little sister, and some little stars appeared in her beautiful glass-colored eyes, "You know a lot, Helena, my mother always It's a compliment that you don't look like a six-year-old child."

"But I'm really only six years old," Helena said, sighing again, "I can't even defend my own home, and now that terrible 'Genghis Khan' has entered my house, and he even made Dad We only speak English at home with my mum - even I'm banned from speaking German."

"Is it so scary?" Demi gasped.

"Yes, that's why I called him 'Genghis Khan'," Helena replied seriously, as if she was doing an academic report, "I have a basis for calling him that. He is a Chinese and came to Europe again. It also made me feel sad, so he is the 'whip of God'* in our family."

Demi looked horrified: "In addition to forcing you to speak English, did he whip you?"

"No," Helena shook her head, "but my mom started cooking Chinese food for him, and my dad is going to take him to watch the German team match today... He actually said that because he wanted to go to the football game with him earlier, he would Don't come to the club to pick me up!"

"It's too much!" Demi condemned along with her little friend in a very righteous way.

After the reprimand, Demi remembered that today was the match between the German team and the Brazilian team. She immediately added with a sense of national honor: "I want to see it too. Why didn't uncle take us there?"

Helena shrugged her shoulders—this action was full of sense of disobedience for her: "Who knows, maybe it's because I'm afraid that the German team will lose the game." Then, she muttered in a low voice, "And I don't want to Go and see."

Demi didn't hear her last sentence, she tilted her little head, and looked at the little sister with wide doubtful eyes. "Could it be that we will lose if we bring it?"

"Well... I think it might be because they couldn't bear to let us see the German team lose." Helena said flickeringly, "This year's World Cup is held in Brazil, Brazil won, Germany lost, we The team could be miserable."

Demi was caught by the little sister's seriousness, and didn't understand the logic behind it at all, but still applauded the little sister very appreciatively: "You are really smart, Helena!"

"Oh," but the smart Helena was not happy, she sighed again, propped up her baby-fat face, and said while thinking, "Does Dad like him just because he likes to play football? I can kick too..."

"Can he play football?" Demi asked curiously, "How is he playing?"

Helena replied honestly: "I don't know either, my mother said he played well...but my mother is also his mother, you know, she always thinks that everything is good about the child, even mine has nothing. She agrees with the paintings of the soul."

"Then maybe he plays football at the same level as you draw," Demi said, giggling when she thought of her little sister's 'masterpiece', "That would be fun too!"

Helena nodded solemnly: "If his talent in this area is not outstanding, I would rather compare my painting skills with his football level." After finishing speaking, Miss Schneider raised her head proudly, "After all, I am good at Its domain is not in art."

*

Ender didn't know that he had become a "God's Whip" in the mouths of his half-sister and her friends, who "played football at the same level as Helena's painting". He read an introductory German book in the room prepared for him by Er.

When Stanzel came knocking on the door, he wasn't particularly in the mood.

"Ender?" The tall German man called his name from the door and leaned over to call him. "You are ready to go, son."

"I..." After a moment of hesitation, Ender closed the book, stood up, and asked a little cautiously, "Uncle..."

"Call me Stanzel," the man said with a smile, "what's the matter, kid?"

"Okay, Stanzel..." Ander paused for a while, then changed his words, "I still want to read some more books, uh, you know, this one..." He raised his hand language learning booklet.

Stanzel looked at him for a while, and tried to persuade: "Let me tell you... I'm not in a hurry to learn the language? I'm discussing with your mother to send you to the language school first. The teachers there will help you learn. We will Can I go to the game first?"

"But..." Ender hesitated, "I think...you were supposed to pick up Helena from the Kids' Club tonight? She seems a little unhappy today..."

Stanzel laughed: "So you think so, Ender? In fact, Helena is just not used to it. She has always been looking forward to having an older brother."

Ender was silent for a moment. He thought for a while and considered, "Then maybe we can go to the kids club to pick up Helena first, and then go to the game together? Is she interested in football games?"

"I asked her, and she said she didn't want to see it," Stanzel put his hand on the boy's shoulder. The man spoke softly and lovingly about his little daughter, "Helena is a very smart and independent child. Generally, in our family, your mother and I will listen to her as long as she has a point, and she says she doesn't want to go to the ball today, so we let her go to the club with friends to play."

"Then... alright." Ender responded.

"That's right, I'm going to drive, hurry up, kid."

Stanzel smiled, went out and closed the door for him.

Maybe it's because he's new here, and Li Mei didn't tell Ander that he has a younger sister in advance. In short, this child was overly cautious in their house, even a little cautious.

Li Mei didn't get close to the children because of this, and Helena was also a little sullen. Stanzel, the only one who got along well with Ender, simply consciously assumed the role of family lubricant, and began to travel among his wife, daughter and stepson. Walk.

He felt that he was doing pretty well now, so he happily hummed a song and went to drive.

*

Uwensburg's central stadium is not located in the city center, but in the northeast corner of the city.

"This used to be the home court of the Uwensburg team," Stanzel introduced, "but then the team moved to another new stadium after they got a sponsor. Big event."

They drove to the stadium early, so they found a seat with a very good view, directly opposite the big screen in the stadium. They didn't need to look up or twist their bodies, and they could watch the projected game just by sitting upright.

Stanzel bought a beer and sat down with Ender to wait for the game.

During this interval, he was also constantly introducing the city of Uwensburg to Ander.

It can be seen that Stanzel has a deep affection for his hometown Uwensburg and the Uwensburg team. He is very proud of the history of Uwensburg and the Rhine River that flows here.

"Sorry to bother you." A voice broke into Stanzel's conversation.

The person who spoke was standing beside Stanzel, and Ender looked up. The boy was standing against the light, because the searchlights of the stadium were too bright, so his face was blurred, but Ender could clearly see that he was cheerful. Sunny smile.

"I'd like to sit in that seat over there," the boy asked, pointing to the remaining seat next to Ender, "can we go there?"

"Of course." Stanzel replied friendly, "Anyone can sit here."

"Thank you so much," said the other party.

He is also very tall, he can be more than 1.8 meters [-] by visual estimation. With a step of his long legs, he jumped nimbly from the gap made by Stanzel, and landed beside Ender.

The boy was still wearing a training jacket with messy hair. He took off the jacket when he sat down, and Ender could clearly smell the scent of cologne from the jacket, mixed with other perfumes.

Ender frowned. He couldn't distinguish these smells, but he didn't like them very much anyway. He wanted to move his body away from the boy.

The boy didn't notice it, and turned to greet Ender in German in a low voice.

"Hi boy, are you here for the ball too?"

Seeing that Ender didn't respond, he asked again in English.

Ender responded with a cry.

Perhaps because of the obvious features of Ender's black hair and black eyes, the boy was a little curious, and continued to talk to him: "Sorry, I'm just a little—um... you're not Brazilian, are you?"

Ander was in a foreign country, and he didn't want to cause trouble. He suppressed his discomfort and forced a smile: "I'm Chinese."

"Ah," the boy suddenly realized, and smiled embarrassedly, with a very nice smile, "Hello, welcome to watch the German team's game, my name is Sieghard."