Welcome to the North

A soap opera by Bard Boy [bard_boy(at)protonmail(dot)com]

Disclaimer:

This is a soap opera about a season in the life of an Under-13 youth team of a professional football side in a counterfactual modern Norse Greenland. It is, quite clearly, a work of fiction. Boys a bit like this have existed and still exist, but this story is not based on any real people.

If it’s illegal for you to be reading this because of factors such as your location or age, it isn’t my fault if old Tayyip, big Vlad, your mother, or any other disapproving party finds out. Your responsibility. Use it wisely.

This story is the property of the other. Do not repost it elsewhere without prior consent.

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I apologise that this is a long one, but you're big boys and I'm sure you all know how to ration it out if you need to. This episode would have run to 18330 words, but I had the good grace and respect to retire 22 of them in honour of Jude Bellingham.

This episode had been planned for months, and some parts were written up at the same time as the last two episodes, but I've been crazily busy with work and life and other writing projects over the past few months. I get the feeling this particular series is going to end up taking a few years to reach its conclusion at the end of B22 U13s' 2020 season, so you'll all have to bear with it if you're liking the story and characters!

I'm still keeping on top of my website, which contains a collection of all my stories and a growing encyclopaedia of the world of Welcome to the North, which might be helpful to avoid confusion with the huge supporting cast and references to so many places and organisations.

I'm consistently very pleasantly surprised by how much of a following this series seems to have already. Thanks everyone who is reading, emailing, visiting the website for other stories, etc. On with the show, which I hope you'll find reason to enjoy. bard_boy at protonmail dot com to get in touch with me.

Episode Six

In the year 2020, Teitur Jóelsson turned thirteen years old. He lived with his parents in a two-floor apartment in a modern mid-rise block in Trollhauger in Brattahlíð; his elder sister was nineteen and away in Ottawa for university. Trollhauger was in the little undulating dell between the main hills of Brattahlíð centre on one side, and the Vindbakke and Nordbakke on the other, close to the Eiríksvøllur stadium.

Most of the kids at school – at least those who showed any interest at all in football – were Eiríksdrengur fans, and they always found it strange that Teitur wasn’t, even though he was part of the academy of their rivals. Teitur had been playing for B22 since he was seven, though, and it wasn’t as if he had any local connection through his family. Dad was from Ontario, so that ruled out any strong football allegiance at all unless Toronto’s latest MLS game happened to be on TV, and Mum and her family all came from Stórfoss in Vínland – and Teitur couldn’t exactly jump on a plane and watch BK Foss every week.

His mum and dad had met while working in Austerhavn, so he kind of had half a claim on B46 if he wanted to be a glory hunter. That made no sense, though, when he was already a member of another Toppur Deildin club. Especially when, in his second year there, another boy his age – a small, quiet boy with fiery red hair – joined the team and became his best friend. Stef was an avid B22 fan, and so excited even just to have joined the under-8s team. That made Teitur all the more excited too, and it was obvious from then on that B22 were his team, forever. Besides, if B22 lost the Brattahlíð derby to Eiríksdrengur (which they often did), and the kids at school started getting cocky saying “we did this, and we did that,” Dad taught him always to respond: “We? That’s weird. I didn’t realise you were on the team.” That soon shut them up, because, of course, Teitur was on the team. At least in some sense.

Trollhauger High School sat on its own cul-de-sac, boxed into a corner where the railway line picked its way around the bottom of a ridge below to terminate at the main station, further east towards the old city. The railway lines only ran south, of course. Just beyond the lines to the west side was the main highway, marking something of a boundary of where Trollhauger ended and Vindbakke began; some of Vindbakke’s large blocks of grey flats overlooking them from further up the hill. The highway was a highway going south, but once it carried on west past Litlirraitir and the small town of Bláhavn on the banks of the next fjord, it just became a normal road. In theory, you could drive all the way north to Nuuk and Sandnes, but that was a hell of a long way, winding along the coastline west and north to avoid the towering mountains and impenetrable ice cap of the interior. Trucks obviously did it, though, as they were often passing by. Teitur had never been that far north, and it existed only vaguely in his imagination as some place with practically no trees and little, blocky, colourful houses. Even football had only managed to take him as far as the small fishing and ranching town of Miðbygd, just beyond Cape Desolation, and its upfjord twin, the mining town and naval base of Grøsugur.

So, Trollhauger was kind of the crossroads of Brattahlíð, where you could go south to the rest of the Austerbygd through the break in the hills, east to the centre of the city and its suburbs across the other side of the fjord, and west to the suburbs towards the other fjord, and from there far to the north. Nevertheless, Teitur had always thought it had a stupid name, ever since he’d been about old enough to consider it. He’d lived there practically his entire life, and he’d never once seen a troll nor any evidence of one. The early settlers must’ve had very active imaginations to name the area after them. Though, they also told the legend of Þorgils Orrebeinsfóstri and his shipwreck on the east coast in the year 1001, and how he’d managed to feed his newborn son from his hairy man-tits, after his wife had died somehow. They said he kept the boy alive that way for four years until he finally found his way to the settlements of the Austerbygd, so they definitely believed some crazy things. Though, Teitur had to admit, perhaps no crazier than things that lots of people still believe today.

Teitur also found that Trollhauger High School was definitely a school for trolls and teases of the human variety. Not that he couldn’t hold his own, of course. However, something particularly teasing happened on the Wednesday before the opening weekend of his football season, which is why he found himself telling his own saga to Kolbeinn as they sat together on the club minibus that Anders piloted to Nyburg that Saturday, 7^th March, through miserable murk and mizzle.

“So I had PE on Wednesday, and we had to do cross country running round and around our field because apparently it’s spring and we need to set a time for the new year and all that, so I was running back to the changing rooms with my mate Eiríkur because it was freezing cold and I needed to piss before I got changed.”

“I hate cross country,” said Kolbeinn. “It’s so stupid. I play football all the time. They know I can run around in the mud, so why do they need to see?”

“Anyway, me and Eirík were messing about a bit, nudging each other as we ran just for a laugh, like, as if it was a race to get there first. And then Eirík must have seen the big muddy puddle coming up and nudged me a bit harder and hooked one of my legs, so I fell over and had to save myself by putting both my hands right down deep in the mud.”

“Hahaha!” giggled Kolbeinn. “What a dick! Did you wipe the mud on him?”

“No,” said Teitur. “This is the weird bit. Some older girls must have been walking past going from one lesson to the next or something, cos…”

“Yeah?” grinned Kolbeinn. “What happened?”

“Well, I… I felt…”

Teitur felt the warm of Eiríkur’s leg on his before he realised he was getting tripped over. His hands came out front instinctively to save himself, and he groaned as they planted deep in the muddy puddle before him. Feeling his hands stick in the sludge, he walked his legs up almost straight, so he was nearly bent double, to delay having to pull his fingers and palms free and see the state of them. They were nearly back at the changing rooms, for crying out loud! His feet were on the concrete of the playground already. He growled in frustration at his predicament and at Eirík, whom he could hear laughing somewhere beside him. Then he felt something that sent a jolt of electricity up his spinal cord.

“Mmm, nice ass,” came a girl’s voice, as warm hands fondled his defencelessly presented buttocks through his shorts. There was giggling from behind. There must have been other girls there too! “I can really feel” – she added a double-handed squeeze for emphasis, causing Teitur’s anus to involuntarily wink open for a split second – “the muscle on this one.”

“Aww, leave him alone, Lissy,” another voice said.

“It is a nice bum though, innit?” the owner of the hands replied, withdrawing only to give Teitur a gentle spank.

Teitur grunted and felt his face burning from embarrassment rather than cold as he bent over into the mud. It would take some effort to pull his hands free, and now there was a hand on the small of his back, firmly encouraging him to stay bent over in place. A growing part of him wanted to comply. Teitur could feel tingles all over his scrotum as his penis chubbed in his pants, foreskin also tickling with anticipation as the growth of his member forced it to chafe against the front of his boxers.

“Look at these powerful thighs, too,” the girl – Lissy – said, using her free hand to stroke up and down the backs of Teitur’s legs with her fingertips and fingernails. Part of him was deathly embarrassed that he’d begun to grow out of his PE shorts over the past few months, so he was showing rather a lot of leg while bent over in this position, while, again, another part was straining quite forcefully in its wish to show the girl more. There was more loud tittering behind him from the girls. Eirík was watching with slack-jawed silence. “You must be a footballer with legs like this” – she ran both index fingers at once up the rear insides of Teitur’s thighs, and he whimpered as he felt them push quite deliberately under his shorts until they pressed against the base of his bum cheeks through his boxers, one either side, right beneath his hole – “am I right?”

“Yeah,” Teitur panted, sliding his hands in the mud to attempt to get some purchase to free himself, as a deep sense of shame fought his intense erection, threatening to split his shorts there and then for the watching girls. “I’m in the under-13s at B22.”

“Ooouuugh!” grunted the girl lewdly, taking a two-handed squeeze of Teitur’s rear end again. “Don’t you forget me then. Make sure you come and get me when you have loads of money, alright?”

“I will.” Teitur took a big gulp of saliva for the dryness of his mouth, feeling the pounding of his pulse in his still-lowered head. “I promise.”

More cackling.

“Aww, you promise, boy?” Lissy replied. “Well, you’d better wait and keep that promise when you’re all grown up, cos I don’t think you have enough for me now.”

Just to make doubly clear that she wasn’t only talking about financial assets, she finished with a savage squeeze between Teitur’s legs, almost tearing his shorts clean off, before pushing him roughly on the backside again and turning away to the whoops and laughter of her friends. Teitur didn’t even get to see her face. His hands slid again in the mud and he barely saved himself from faceplanting in the boggy ground as his body spat a mess of warm, sticky fluid into the front of his underpants. He let out a voice-cracking groan as he finally was able to push himself out of the mud, shivering violently. His face was bright red and his eyes tearful with the combined effect of having been upside-down for a while and his humiliation. His hands dripped a thick layer of mud, and his boxers were stuck to him by a thick layer of ejaculate. He could even feel a dribble of semen running down the inside of his thigh. Allied to all this, his boner had refused to subside, and his filthy hands prevented him from effectively covering himself without leaving even more mess on his shorts.

“Are you o–” Eiríkur had begun to ask as Teitur had got back upright, flinging mud from his hands and not looking at him, but he was interrupted by the annoyed growl of their PE teacher, Mr Sævarsson.

“Look at the state of you!” he snapped. “This is what happens when you run off ahead being silly. You know the rule about walking back from the field sensibly. You’re both going to be in detention!”

“But sir…” Eiríkur replied. “It wasn’t our fault. A much older girl just came and, like…”

“What?”

Eirík dropped his voice, “molested Teitur.”

“I don’t think they did,” the teacher replied with evident exasperation, “Teitur–” Mr Sævarsson took a second look at the boy. He was looking at his feet, holding out his mud-soaked hands pathetically in front of him as they dripped on the playground. He seemed on the brink of tears. Plus, there was a noticeable problem in the front of his shorts. Unwilling to get drawn too much there and then into thinking about what might have happened, Sævarsson changed tack. “Teitur, here, take the keys from me now and run ahead to the changing rooms. You’ll have two minutes if you’re quick to get yourself a shower to clean yourself up before the rest of the class has walked back.”

“Thanks, sir,” Teitur replied.

“Go on, take them,” said the PE teacher, jabbing the set of keys at a filthy hand. “You need to be ready to get to your next lesson in a fit state, so I’ll talk to you both about this another time.”

“Oh my God!” gasped Kolbeinn, thrusting a fist unselfconsciously into the front of his pants and rooting around. “That’s so weird. And so hot!”

“I know,” Teitur responded, having to use his pocket to adjust himself slightly too. “I had, like, the biggest, hardest boner I’d ever had. I had to have a cold shower just to make it go away so I could go to my next lesson.”

“What did she look like?”

“I dunno. I never got to see her face. Eirík said he’d point her out to me if I wanted to tell on her, but I didn’t want to know who it was, and I didn’t want to tell.”

“Did the teacher ask you about it again?”

“No. I think he was weirded out too. I mean… he must have seen me… you know. It’s not like I could hide it.”

“Eww,” Kolbeinn laughed, still openly playing with himself in the middle of the bus. “A teacher seeing you with a boner.”

“I hope he didn’t see that I had cum on my legs, too. I had to go commando for the rest of the school day.”

Kolbeinn laughed out loud. From the next seat, Jónatan threw a Mars bar at him as if to tell him to shut up. The lanky defender had a neck cushion on and was leant against the window on his side, evidently not wanting to be disturbed by any unnecessary raucousness.

“Nice!” Kolbeinn said. “Free Mars bar! You want it?”

“Sure,” Teitur shrugged, and took the chocolate bar for himself.

“Is it mean of me to laugh?” Kolbeinn asked as if struck by a sudden epiphany, hand still in his pants fondling his willy. “You are okay with it, aren’t you?”

“It was really, really, so embarrassing and so weird while it was happening,” said Teitur. “But it made me so horny too, and it’s all I’ve been able to think of since. I’ve not wanked over anything else.”

“You have to find out what she looks like,” smiled Kolbeinn. “If she’s fit you could shag her, like, for not telling on her.”

Teitur shrugged again. His mouth was full of Mars, and he was glad of it.

“Okay, maybe I should find out who she is and shag her for you.”

“Hah,” Teitur smirked through a gobful of chocolate. “If I wasn’t big enough for her, there’s no chance for you.”

“It’s not what you’ve got,” Kolbeinn countered with a smirk, leaning into Teitur’s face. “It’s what you do with it.”

“Kolbeinn, will you stop playing with yourself, you little perv,” Mass yelled. The forward was sat diagonally behind and across from Kolbeinn, and evidently able to see what he was doing. “Nobody wants to have to see you pulling your little pecker.”

“Boys,” Anders’ voice crackled sternly from the front, “Being sensible, thanks.”

Anders was quietly satisfied, watching his team practise on Thursday evening ahead of their opening game of the season on Saturday. The boys seemed in good spirits and the performance of the group looked good throughout the session. All, that is, except for Faisal. He didn’t look bad; it was more that he was still struggling to find his role within the team and his place within the group. Anders had noticed on a couple of occasions that Stef and Kolbeinn in particular had gone into challenges with the little Afghan boy rather harder than they usually would with other teammates in training exercises, catching him late more than once and then walking away. It was unlike Kolbeinn not offer a hand, a joke, or an apology to a knobbled teammate. It was very unlike Stef to mis-time a tackle at all. Anders made a mental note to catch up with the boys about it later.

After the session came to its conclusion, Anders had another mental note to act upon. He called Faisal to wait with him in the office for whoever was picking him up to arrive. There was a snag they needed to discuss.

“Faisal, did you know that your dad hasn’t completed your registration form yet?”

“We don’t have no computer at home,” Faisal shrugged.

“The registration needs to be done on paper anyway,” said Anders. “We need his signature, Faisal.”

“I can ask him, but he’s always sleeping or sitting around and stuff.”

“If we don’t get a signature from a guardian, you won’t be registered,” said Anders. “That means you can’t play. Isn’t there someone else who can sign it for you?”

“My mum and my baby sister got lost in Turkey,” Faisal answered, matter-of-factly.

Anders’ eyes bugged. “Faisal… What do you mean by ‘lost’?”

“We was going into Turkey from Iran. It was dark and snowy and cold. Then there was some soldiers shouting, and firing flares and guns up into the air. I ran with my dad, and we thought mum was following with my sister. Then they wasn’t there anymore. We looked, but we couldn’t find ‘em.”

Jesus Fucking Christ, thought Anders, and only barely contained himself from saying it. He was glad Faisal was fiddling with the hem of his shorts rather than looking him in the face, because he was sure that his reaction to the boy’s simple and dispassionate retelling was etched all over it.

“So, just you and dad?”

“Just me and dad. We got to Istanbul without mum and Hooriyah – that’s my sister – and then a charity man took us to the Greenland and Vinland Consulate and we got brought on a plane here forever.”

“Did you want to come here?” Anders asked.

“This is the best country!” Faisal grinned. “I think my dad wants to go back to Turkey, though. He says mum and Hooriyah will be waiting for us there. That was like, two or three years ago, though. They’re probably in some better country by now like us.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Anders, hoping he sounded supportive rather than telegraphing his actual thoughts. “So only dad can sign your forms, then?”

“I can ask him again,” said Faisal. “But he doesn’t say much when he’s in a bad mood, so I just go out and hang with my friends.”

“It’s night-time, Faisal,” said Anders. “It’s a bit late to go out playing with friends.”

Faisal shrugged.

“Make sure you ask him again,” said Anders. “He has a paper permission slip for Saturday as well, doesn’t he? I’ve told them to hold a bed for you just in case. All your dad needs to do is call me tomorrow and I can pick the papers up and bring them to the admin staff here. You can talk to me if that’s easier – or send a text even. I just need those things before you can play, okay, Faisal?”

“Okay,” the boy agreed.

Anders sat with the edge of his buttocks perched against the edge of the desk, mostly upright. Faisal gazed around the room for something to fill his attention. He was clearly a boy who craved stimulation.

“How are you settling in with the other boys on the team?” Anders asked.

“Good!” said Faisal. “They play football really good.”

“You haven’t had any problems making friends with the other boys?”

“No, coach,” said Faisal emphatically, shaking his head. “I would never be unfriendly or unkind to the other boys. That would be mean.”

“Oh,” Anders responded, finding the answer somewhat odd. He thought it was clear that he’d been enquiring about Faisal’s wellbeing, not accusing him of affecting anyone else’s. “What about how the other boys are with you? Nobody causing you any problems?”

“No,” Faisal nodded. “All the boys here are good boys.”

“I think so,” said Anders, “but I hope if any of you had any problems, you’d tell me.”

Faisal furrowed his brow, but they were interrupted before any response was forthcoming by Edin entering the room.

“Hello, Coach Anders,” he smiled, offering a shake of hands. “Sorry I’m late. I’m ready to take Faisal home now! Did you have a good training session?”

“It’s always good, Edin,” Faisal answered.

“Great, great,” Edin said, grinning down at the boy. “I bet you’re raring to go for your first real game on Saturday?”

“Coach Anders says I can’t play on Saturday unless my dad signs my forms,” said Faisal, shoulders drooping to match his deflated tone.

“Really?” said Edin, looking at Anders questioningly. “How come?”

“Federation rules,” Anders explained. “Players need to be fully registered, which includes full parental details and signed permission for junior players.”

“Nonsense,” said Edin, shaking his head. “I can sign for him.”

“You’re not his guardian,” Anders said, slightly more sharply than he had originally intended. “His father needs to complete the form for him.”

“Can’t he play this weekend without it? It seems such a silly small thing.”

“It’s a cup game this weekend,” said Anders. “An official, competitive game. Until he’s registered with the GVFF, he isn’t our player.”

“But he’ll miss going away with his new teammates!”

“There’s nothing we can do if he’s not our player,” Anders repeated, mentally counting to ten, “I’ve asked the hosts to hold a bed for him on Saturday, and I would love him to be available, but I need those forms signed tomorrow for that to be able to happen.”

“And you’re sure I can’t sign for him?”

“You can’t.”

“Hmph,” sniffed Edin. “I will tell his father then. I don’t know what you expect him to do this weekend if he can’t play. Football is life for so many of our boys.”

“Why not have him play for SGV if there’s a game?” suggested Anders. “Give Faisal the chance to show off how much better he’s got just in the past couple of weeks, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah!” Faisal grinned smugly.

“Well, if that’s how it is…” said Edin.

“Hopefully see you on Saturday, Faisal,” said Anders, closing off the conversation. “If not, looking forward to you being back here on Tuesday.”

“Bye, Anders,” said Faisal, trotting through the door with Edin close behind.

“See you soon,” Anders replied, feeling an involuntary shiver running all the way down his spine.

He headed home, busying himself by thinking about the game on Saturday and all the different plans and arrangements, so as not to end up thinking about Faisal’s poor mother and sister. Not just that, but his dad, too, simmering in self-loathing and regret every hour of every day. Surely he must know they were dead, or alive only in a living hell having been trafficked to some godforsaken place? Why would he want to leave and jeopardise his son’s new life, too? Though, Anders thought, if it was his family, and there was even a chance they were alive somewhere and needed him…

He did everything he could not to think about it again. All Thursday night, and all Friday, too. Until, eventually, on Friday evening, his phone rang. He scrambled to pick it up, expecting the number displayed to be in his phone as Mr Nasratullah. To his surprise, it was a different parent instead.

“He’s done what?” Anders sighed, inviting the annoyed mother’s voice to repeat the bad news again.

Anders parked up the minibus next to the field which would serve as their venue for the day. It was a level surface only comparatively to the surroundings, heavy from the rain, overlooked by pasture climbing up a steep, green, rounded hill. The boys stood around in their club tracksuits, the rain having briefly subsided, but the wind still whipping back and forth at will. Over the course of the next twenty minutes, parents’ cars also began to pull up, carrying the boys who would not be staying the night.

“Yes, Chigs!” said Jónatan, offering a fist bump to the first of the arrivals. Chigs touched fists in greeting to his defensive partner before moving on to squeeze in alongside Teitur and Kolbeinn, who leant against a sodden wooden fence gazing towards the hills.

“Alright?” said Chigs.

“Fine,” Teitur shrugged.

“You?” Kolbeinn returned.

“Okay,” said Chigs noncommittally. His breath steamed a little in the air before his face.

“How come you’re not staying the night?” Teitur asked.

Chigs laughed, billowing more condensed breath through the moist air.

“What is it?” said Kolbeinn.

Chigs gestured to a hairy brown pony in the field underneath the hill, over beyond the football pitch. “Does this look like the kind of place a black man should be staying overnight to you?”

Teitur shrugged, not knowing what to say.

“Dunno,” was all Kolbeinn could muster.

“Hey, guys!” said Stef, arriving behind them. “How was the bus ride?”

“It would’ve been boring,” said Kolbeinn, “but Teitur had the best story to tell!”

“What’s that?” Stef asked.

“Tell you another time,” said Teitur. “It’s a bit of a long story.”

“Okay,” said Stef.

“How come you’re not staying the weekend either?” asked Chigs.

“My mum and dad are going out tonight, so my brothers have to stay with my nan and granddad. They’d, like, throw the world’s biggest bitch fit if I wasn’t forced to go as well, so I have to go there tonight instead.”

“Peak,” Chigs sympathised.

“Yeah,” Stef sighed. “How come you’re not stopping?”

Chigs snorted once more and gestured again to the mist of the surrounding hills and the pony, whose tail was now raised to begin a mammoth shit.

“I get it,” said Stef. “Nothing but hicks and horse shit.”

“Yeah,” grinned Chigs. “You get it.”

“Same in Brattahlíð sometimes,” Stef smiled. “Just minus the literal horse shit.”

Anders had the team together warming up on the pitch in their tracksuits and waterproofs. The field they were using was next to the main football ground at Salt Sviðum, probably more usually a training pitch, with its own little brick set of changing rooms on the nearside. The few visiting parents gathered slightly further along, where a rustic-looking corrugated shed offered at least some shelter near the away benches. The benches were slick, sodden wood, completely exposed to the elements. Atli sent Odie, whom he had driven from Brattahlíð, back to his car to collect a couple of large dog blankets to cover them so that the boys not starting the match could actually sit down when the game started.

“Where’s Thom?” Ingi asked Anders as the coach led a warm-up routine.

“He couldn’t make it today after all,” Anders answered grimly.

“Got grounded, ennit!” Mark laughed. “Got caught popping firecrackers.”

“Markus, concentrate on your hamstring stretches, thank you,” Anders chided. “I don’t want you complaining of a sore backside at half time.”

There were some giggles and sniggers through the group. They quieted Mark down for the time being.

“How’d’you know about that?” Bárður then cut in.

“Messaged me last night before his dad took his phone, to tell me I’d be starting today,” Mark answered.

“Barty! Mark!” Anders snapped. “Concentrate on what we’re doing now.”

Anders led the warm-up to completion, then had the squad doing some simple preparation drills while Atli went through some exercises with Mark. Anders enjoyed keeping half an eye on what Atli was doing. His goalkeeper training was wacky and creative, like something you’d see on YouTube. He could only wait and wonder whether it was truly effective. Eventually, Anders led his starting XI back to the sidelines to strip their waterproofs and tracksuit bottoms and reveal their playing kit. Some would also have to switch shirts if they had travelled in a training shirt. The substitutes remained on the pitch, dressed against the weather, idly kicking a ball back and forth in a group.

Anders shook hands with his counterpart. Then he did the same with the referees: a young man stood around waiting with a teenage boy and girl – possibly twins – whom he’d been trusted to drive over with him from wherever they’d come from. Evidently this game would be considered entertainment for a Saturday afternoon in sleepy Nyburg, as it seemed there were a few random locals gathering amongst the home parents behind a rope barrier held up by rickety metal stakes.

On paper, this ought to be a walkover for B22. Not only were they supposedly one of the better teams in Greenland, if not all Greenland-Vinland, for their age group, and backed by the slick machinery of a professional club, but Nyburg was a community of about 5000 people. Kirkjan Klúbbur’s catchment area was perhaps bolstered a little by a few tiny surrounding villages, but essentially they were just sending out the best eleven boys in their very small town for their age group against boys from a professional academy. The senior players at Kirkjan Klúbbur, playing two leagues below B22’s men in the regional division for Greenland, were largely journeymen semi-professionals who had been youngsters released from clubs like B22 at 16, 18, or 21, rather than players who had started out as boys representing the team on days like this.

Still, as more thick drizzle blew directly into his face, Anders was not looking forward to the game. Not only were conditions atrocious again, the pitch here was a pudding compared to the artificial surface at Hvalsey the prior weekend. It was also clear to Anders that some of his players were complacent, more interested in the team sleepover that night than considering the potential challenge of the game that preceded it. He could only wonder just how vocal the random locals might get – even for a game being played mostly by twelve-year-olds – if their boys started doing well. As if to answer his question, a fat, froglike older man with a hairy mole on one cheek and a flat cap perched on his crown, piped up.

“Got any Greenlandic players in your team, Dahl?” he said loudly, watching the B22 starting XI begin to file onto the pitch.

“All of them, pal,” Anders said flatly, before turning away to give final instructions to his boys.

“What did that twat mean?” Odie bristled.

“Just ignore him,” Anders said. He began to talk to his players before Odie had the chance to add anything more. The substitutes had gathered around the back of the group. “Okay, boys. Listening in. This is our first big test as a group together: poor conditions, poor pitch, players missing, and all the expectation on us. This is where you have to use your heads. Be clever. You know you’re the much better team, but we have to adapt to what’s in front of us today and make sure we’re all giving 100%. There’s no need to show off today. Play simple, keep up your pressing, do all the things we practised. Okay?”

There was a collective chant of agreement from the team.

“Chigs,” Anders said, “you’re captain again today. Put the armband on. I need you to be loud and make sure everyone is pulling their weight. Lead by example.”

“Coach,” Chigs assented, adjusting the armband on his sleeve.

“Oh, and if you win the toss. Kick towards the right in the first half.”

“Why?” asked Kris.

“Because the wind is blowing towards the left from where we’re looking here. If we’re attacking the left in the second half, we’ll have the wind with us as they tire out.”

“That’s clever,” Ingi smiled.

“Like I said: use your heads. Right, we’re starting 4-3-3 again today. I think those who are starting already know where they should be, so let’s get going. C’mon!”

The group gave another collective shout, and the starters jogged out to take up their positions. Mark started in goal with Thom absent; Stef, Chigs, Geir, and Ingi made up a back four. Kolbeinn sat at the anchor of a midfield three with Kris expected to be the dynamo and Torben free to get forward and be creative. Ali Abbas started as an inside forward on the right with license to drift in and join Massawa centrally, opening space for Stef to overlap. Teitur was a more conventional left winger. Just as they had taken up this shape in the right half of the field – minus the captains in the centre circle – Chigs won the toss.

“Change ends, boys,” he bellowed at his team. So they did.

The substitutes were Jónatan, Kristinn, Joorsi, Jón, Oli, and Barty. It was Bart who had agreed to be goalkeeper should anything prevent Markus finishing the game. They made themselves comfortable on the bench upholstered with Atli’s dog blankets. There was just enough room for Odie to join them, pressed against Joorsi on the end. The adults stood.

The game got underway. Kirkjan Klúbbur, playing in green shirts, white shorts, and white socks, appeared to have set up in a 5-4-1 shape. They were clearly expecting a long afternoon. They had lost the ball almost immediately from kick off, and five of thirty-five first-half minutes had gone before they next had it back long enough to complete a pass. Off the ball, all eleven boys were staying behind it, limiting the space that B22 had in which to operate on the attack. So, Anders’ boys remained patient. They passed the ball back and forth and tried to stretch space open.

After eight minutes, there was a chance for Torben. A defensive clearance was collected by Geir on the halfway line. He went short and forward to Kolbeinn, who angled the ball wide left for Ingi. Ingi went immediately into Teitur’s feet, but he was swamped by three green shirts. He went back to Ingi, who went back to Kolbeinn, who retreated a few paces before laying the ball to Chigs, who was on the base of the centre circle. This drew Kirkjan Klúbbur’s defensive line a few metres forward. Ali Abbas had wandered infield when Teitur received the ball, in case of a cross into the box, and remained in a more central position as the ball was recycled, keeping the positionally-naïve left back with him. Stef was on the shoulder of the left midfielder, spotting the gap behind the area the other boy was defending. Chigs rolled the ball out of his feet ready for a punt forward. Kris read this and also began a forward run beyond his central midfield counterpart, further overloading the left side of the Kirkjan Klúbbur defence. Chigs’ chipped pass died in the wind and dropped perfectly into the path of Stef, who had burst into space. The left back chirped with panic and came sprinting out to meet Stef, who waited for the perfect moment to slide the ball past him and on to Ali Abbas, who hit a cross first-time towards Mass. He got his head to the ball, but the defender with him was able to touch it away with his own. The ball bounced once into the path of Torben. Having seen and anticipated the flight of the ball faultlessly, he set himself on his right foot and hit a ballerina-pirouette over-hip left-footed half-volley, scorching with spin and power, which the barest reflex block from the kneecap of a Kirkjan Klúbbur defender took onto the outside of the post and out for a corner.

“Fuck!” said Torben, running his wrinkled little fingertips through his wet hair to his scalp. He looked at Massawa and stuck his tongue out, teeth pinching down on the middle. That was close.

Kris lined up the corner and took his time to wait for a momentary break in the wind. He lofted it in. Chigs attacked the nearside, but the wind bit again and the ball swung out and dived rapidly towards where Geir was grappling with a tall, slightly overweight Kirkjan Klúbbur defender with a monobrow and a broken voice. The ball crashed off Geir’s left knee, looping like a beach ball and pinging airily off the angle of crossbar and left post, the same one onto which Torben’s drive had just been deflected.

“Farðu í rassgat!” Geir swore at the large boy, as the duel put him on his backside. But the scramble wasn’t over.

Ingi took down the ricocheted ball on the left corner of the box and immediately swung a curling cross into the six-yard box. Massawa threw himself at it as defender and goalkeeper alike slid in to challenge him, but he could only pound the spongy turf in frustration as his half-caught attempt on goal clipped the outside of that left post again.

“Good work, boys!” Anders applauded. “Keep going. It’ll come!”

The game got back underway, and the rain intensified a little. Kirkjan Klúbbur evidently decided they had to be much more dogged if they were to get anything from the game. The niggling trips and barges increased in frequency. The tackles began to fly in, green-shirted players skidding across a pitch that resembled some honey-laden Middle Eastern sweet treat: a spongy surface spewing sweet, sticky liquid when pressed. The worsening conditions and increased defensive intensity seemed to take the boys from Brattahlíð by surprise, disrupting their composure – though their opponents still failed to register an attempt on goal.

Flecks of mud and water flying up off boots were everywhere, sticking to boys’ bodies and clothing. Even in black shorts and socks to avoid the clash with Kirkjan Klúbbur’s white, the mud was showing everywhere on the B22 boys as they were knocked to the ground over and over again, their patient play disrupted more and more by free kicks. The referee found his book and gave two cautions in quick succession. The difficulty of the situation was visibly wearing the team out, and Anders could feel the spirit and confidence being sucked from his players. A sloppy return pass from Torben to Kolbeinn stuck in the turf. Kolbeinn rushed to turn and shield the ball with his body, seeing an opponent steaming towards the ball. He was clattered from behind with a knee to each calf as the Kirkjan Klúbbur boy slid through him.

“Fekk még!” Kolbeinn bellowed, falling backwards over his assailant and landing with a dull, heavy splat. A murmur of amusement rippled around the small crowd of onlookers. His loud expletive made him the third player in the referee’s book, with the Kirkjan Klúbbur midfielder following in short order for his poor tackle.

Torben took the free kick, hitting a straight ball through the air towards Geir at the back post. Through the wind and rain, it never reached him. Kirkjan Klúbbur had it clear, and their left-sided midfielder skipped excitedly into space on the ball, punching it several metres ahead of him with each touch so as to avoid leaving the ball behind in sticky patches of the pitch as he dribbled, his Bambi-like 12-year-old legs carrying him as fast as he could go in the circumstances.

Stef tracked him every step of the way, gaining every time the boy poked the ball ahead of himself. Eventually, Stef’s sprint drew him alongside, and the boy’s trek infield towards goal was checked, just as the gathered home parents and few other assorted spectators were beginning to sound their excitement with gusto. The boy kept running, but he couldn’t beat Stef, who now calmly jockeyed him, showing the boy outside and away from goal. Further attacking support not forthcoming, the boy went for goal from what might otherwise be a crossing position, and Stef pulled out from any block upon hearing Mark’s call, the goalkeeper plucking the ball from the air without fuss for his first meaningful touch of the game. Kirkjan Klúbbur finally had an attempt on goal, but it only served to underline the difficulty of the task ahead of them.

Just as half-time drew closer, the rain eased up slightly, though the wind still blustered across the exposed pitch, visible in the patterns of the sheets of drizzle. Anders, water dripping from the end of his nose, did what he could to raise his team’s spirits for another big push – essentially just more clapping and chirpy shouting. Kolbeinn collected the ball from another hurried Kirkjan Klúbbur punted clearance and rush forward. He gave the ball to Kris on the halfway line. He spotted Teitur breaking past the right back and played a long pass into the left channel. The Kirkjan Klúbbur right back slipped trying to keep up with Teitur, faceplanting his freckled nose and cheeks into the mud. Panicked pre-pubescent squeaks and chirps followed from across the Kirkjan Klúbbur lines as they tried to order each other back and forth. Teitur gathered the ball and curled in a low, driven cross for Mass and Ali Abbas, both having been frustrated by a lack of action for most of the first half, to attack. Massawa was clear of his defender and thumped home decisively, a sheet of water bursting from the goal net. 1-0.

“Yesss!” Massawa squealed, clenching both fists and arms, muscles flexed all the way to his shoulders in celebration, as Ali Abbas joined to put an arm around him. He looked across at Teitur to give thanks for his assist, but Teitur was shaking his head in return. He gestured to the other side of the pitch.

The teenage assistant on the nearside was stood stock still, level with the penalty spot. She held her flag out straight and level in front of her. Offside in the middle of the pitch. Massawa’s goal would not count.

Anders clicked a set of fingers in frustration.

“Fucking hell!” Kristinn whined from the bench.

“Well done, girl!” the raniform local man called loudly from his perch.

The gangly Kirkjan Klúbbur goalkeeper, mushroom-style mid-length blond hair stuck to his head with accumulated water, retrieved the ball to take the indirect free-kick. Soon after, half-time came, goalless.

“You’ve been doing all the right things,” Anders reassured the boys. “I know it’s frustrating, but all they’re doing is playing not to lose. That’ll happen sometimes and you just have to keep playing your own game.”

“The ref gave me a yellow for getting fouled!” Kolbeinn whined.

“No, Kol – he gave you a yellow for shouting swear words at the top of your voice,” said Anders. “We have to make sure we keep our frustration in check, else we’ll make bad decisions. Understood?”

There was a quiet murmur of assent. Most of the dripping-wet boys said nothing.

“Conditions are terrible, but we have the wind with us from now on,” Anders continued. “Play more direct football. There’s no point in trying to play short passes on this pitch now. Use the wind and each other’s pace and movement. You’re the better team.”

“C’mon boys,” Chigs added by way of encouragement. “There’s nothing to beat here!”

“Keep giving it everything,” said Anders. “Don’t get frustrated and keep going. I’ll use all six subs to keep us fresh out there. Go on.”

The boys retook their positions again, ready to kick off with the wind, right to left. Kirkjan Klúbbur kept them waiting as long as possible, right until the referee had to whistle to indicate they should return to the field. Come on boys! and Go on, Kirkja! echoed around as the home side lined back up. The boys on the bench led the small group of travelling parents in a somewhat less convincing chorus for their team.

B22 began with one of their newly drilled starting routines. Kris laid the ball back to Kolbeinn, who took one touch and hoofed long down the right flank towards Ali Abbas. He was under pressure from the left back and left-sided centre back, but chested the ball down, facing away from goal, for Stef to run on to. Stef’s touch took the two defenders occupied by Ali Abbas out of the game, and the little defender burst free and into the box. Stef’s pull-back was far beyond the reach of the unathletic, uni-browed centre back’s stretch, allowing Torben to strike first time on his right from a central position just inside the box. Torben couldn’t quite direct his strike beyond the reflex dive of the Kirkjan Klúbbur goalkeeper, who parried and smothered the ball on the ground at the second attempt, but it was a smart move and an encouraging start to the half. Measured smiles, chirps of encouragement, and thumbs-up raised overhead all round.

The Kirkjan Klúbbur goalkeeper drop-kicked the ball long, hoping his sole attacking teammate might get on the end of it. A midfielder won a flicked header in the centre circle against Kolbeinn more by luck than judgement; the ball bounced off the top of the taller boy’s head. It came towards the home side’s lonely striker, but he couldn’t get it under control with both Geir and Chigs for company, and Markus gave the call for the defenders to let the ball run all the way back to him. The striker trotted half-heartedly towards Mark as he controlled the ball with his feet, forcing the B22 goalkeeper to pick the ball up and preventing a quick release. Understanding that they were to play long with the wind, the rest of the team began to jog forward ready for Mark’s kick. He readied himself to drop-kick the ball, but the Kirkjan Klúbbur forward, a stocky boy with curly brown hair, continued to loiter right next to him.

“Ref!” Mark shouted. The referee simply indicated that the goalkeeper should get on with it. Mark lined up another drop-kick. The attacker was standing right next to him and twitched a leg as if to block him from releasing the ball. Mark pulled out of the kick in frustration and let the ball bounce by his side, gesturing to the assistant, she simply looked back at the referee. With the ball free by Mark’s side, the striker reacted, muscling past and side-footing the ball into the empty net. The referee motioned to the centre spot to indicate the goal, and the assistant, following his lead, sprinted off for the halfway line in equal indication that a goal had been scored.

Once the decision had sunk in, the watching home parents went wild. Bizarrely, and completely against the run of play, their smalltown boys had taken the lead!

Mark stood horror-stricken in place, staring at the greens celebrating in front of their bench, his face reddening with humiliation and anger. “This is pure horse shit, man!”

The substitutes were on their feet, looking at each other in shock, raising their arms and beginning to shout in boyish pitch at the refereeing team. Their teammates on the field of play were surrounding the referee for an explanation.

“It was a foul!” Markus’ dad was loudly shouting from beneath the corrugated shelter. “He can’t bloody do that! It’s a foul!”

The referee brandished a yellow card at Kris, as Chigs sensibly yanked the already-booked Kolbeinn away by his arm. Geir was miming the striker’s attempts to block the ball to the ref, who was furiously waving the hive of barcode-striped boys away.

“Ha, ha! They don’t like it up ’em! Great goal lads!” the usual suspect chortled from close behind the away bench.

Odie was apoplectic, spitting feathers. “I’m getting the laws up on my phone,” he blustered. “That’s not right, that. You can’t stand in front of the goalie like that.”

“Head up, Markus!” Anders shouted, noticing the young lad, hands on hips, looking very lonely at the centre of his vacant penalty box. “It was their mistake, not yours.”

“You’re not in the big time anymore, Dahl!”

“Keep going, Mark,” Atli encouraged. “Let it go and use your head, eh? We’ll talk after.”

“How did your career come to this, eh? At least you’ve got plenty of time for those special night clubs these days!”

Anders, without turning around, marched determinedly the few paces to engage the home coach. His players had largely given up their protest and were dejectedly reforming for the kick-off. Chigs had an arm around Mark’s back and ruffled the back of his hair, pushing him back towards his goalmouth with some words of sympathy.

“Could we get this guy removed?” Anders said. “He’s obviously not here with any of the kids.”

The coach, a round-faced man in his late thirties with thinning auburn hair, barely broke his grin as he turned from celebrating with his substitutes. He shrugged. Anders sighed and turned back to the pitch.

“Come on B22, let’s go! We’ve got a match to win here!”

Some loud wa-hey! noises emanated from the group of parents there watching the boys in green in response to Anders’ call of encouragement. Kris kicked the game back off as Anders indicated to Jónatan, Joorsi, and Jón to begin their warm-ups. Teitur, Torben, Massawa, and Ali Abbas began forward runs. Ingi and Stef pushed up behind them. The ball came to Kolbeinn. He trapped the ball with the underside of his foot and rolled it forward, taking a step before belting the ball with fury, lifted with the wind as far as Teitur, wide on the left, level with the edge of the box. He was in front of his defender and had drawn the right-sided centre back to him as a precaution. Still, he was unchallenged as he cushioned a header down, bouncing into Torben’s feet as he darted into the space made available by the defenders’ preoccupation with closing down Teitur. Cheeks still red with frustration, he hit a stinging curled pass with his left foot, right into a corridor between the defenders – now forced to face their own goal – and their goalkeeper. The big centre back was closest to the ball, but slower than Mass and seemingly scared to stretch out and risk an own goal. That left Massawa free to meet the ball with the side of his right foot, making the guidance past the stranded goalkeeper into the top-right corner of the goal seem effortless. With that, B22 were instantly level. 1-1.

The boys’ celebrations were restrained but meaningful. A bit of fist-bumping and back slapping and shoulder-hugging while sharing growls of triumph. All except Markus, who beat the sky with his right fist as if he was trying to dislocate his shoulder. Celebrations on the subs’ bench were bouncier. Anders pumped a fist in satisfaction, getting a neck squeeze from Atli as a bonus.

“I’ve found it!” Odie cried, looking at his phone. “Page 102 of IFAB Laws of the Game 2018/19…”

“Odie,” Anders said, gripping both sides of the teenager’s head and grinning, “we’re level, mate. Forget about it.”

“Bloody sloppy that was, lads,” came the same old croak from behind them. “Let them right through you. Sharpen up!”

“Hey!” the home coach snapped, turning around to glower at the fat, old amphibian man. “They’re kids, remember! Just kids playing football.”

Anders let the game restart to allow his substitutes a little longer to prepare themselves. It was obvious to him from the renewed zip in the way his team were playing, and the far chirpier way in which they called back and forth to each other, that his team had their confidence flowing again.

Odie fished a small electronic board from the team bag as they readied the first two substitutes with eight minutes of the second half gone. The first red number flashed out through the gloom of this miserable Saturday afternoon to some derisive laughter from the assembled home crowd. Number 7: Kristian Møller Broberg.

“Come on, Kirkjudrengir! Get at ’em! They’re not as big-time as they think they are!”

The green number that followed matched that on the back of the short young boy stood next to it, 17: Joorsi Arfeq. The two boys of Inuit heritage gripped hands as one replaced the other. A second red number followed. The 3 of Ingi Michael Vilhjálmsson. Tall centre back, number 15, Jónatan Ingvar Guðmundarson, was his replacement.

“3-5-2!” Jónatan cried out as he entered the pitch.

“Joorsi, Kolbeinn!” Anders instructed, “you’re both central. Torben, number ten! Teitur, deeper! Make sure you’re defending. Ali, central!”

Ingi was wrapped in a club-branded beach towel by Atli as he squelched over to the bench. Kris, already wearing his towel like a hooded cloak, reached down to pass Ingi a drink from a club-branded bottle.

“Two or three minutes, Jón,” Anders said, watching play restart on the far side with Stef taking a throw-in. “Barty, warming up too, please.”

Four minutes passed. Jón was stood next to Odie, ready for his introduction to the action. Torben, panting with exertion and wearing a chunky ring of soil around each of his boots, lost the ball under pressure in the middle of the Kirkjan Klúbbur half. The green victor didn’t manage to get far before Kolbeinn burst in with a block tackle, allowing the ball to dribble to Joorsi, who leaned back into the player closing him down and turned the other boy, allowing him to scamper away and play a firm low pass for Stef to run onto down the right. Stef surged forward and spanked a cross into the box. The lanky, mushroom-headed goalkeeper just about managed to tip Ali Abbas’ header onto the roof of his net. Then Torben’s number was up. 8: Torben Mathias Mathiassen, replaced by 13: Jón Þór Heimisson.

The corner produced little, and the second half ticked on. Still all the possession and advantage was with B22, and Kirkjan Klúbbur began to make changes of their own as their players wore themselves out. Bart Baldursson was now also waiting to enter the fray for B22. Joorsi slid in to win the ball in the centre circle, his girlish toffee thighs picking up a fresh coat of brown goo. Kolbeinn picked the ball up and laid it back to Jónatan. Once again, Kolbeinn was caught late and ended up in a heap on top of a Kirkjan Klúbbur player, but the referee allowed play to go on as Jónatan swiftly dispatched the ball down the left for Teitur. Teitur ran first at the Kirkjan Klúbbur right midfielder, leaving him behind on pace and power alone. Then he skipped inside the stricken right back, ending up one-on-one with the right-sided centre back on the edge of the box. Teitur tried a step-over; the defender committed and scythed Teitur to the ground. The referee played a second advantage as Jón arrived to jink right on the ball, past a covering midfielder and into the box, before spanking a low daisy-cutter with his instep. At full stretch, sliding along the well-lubricated grass to further his dive low to his left, the Kirkjan Klúbbur goalkeeper parried it clear. It bounced roughly into Ali Abbas’ feet. He had to take a touch to steady himself and control the ball, preventing a first-time shot into the mostly empty net. Then he had to take another, dragging the ball back to evade a lunging defender and send him sliding off the pitch. His third touch, the best of the lot, opened his left foot to curl the ball past the recovered home goalkeeper from about eight metres, the ball nestling in the opposite bottom corner of the goal. 2-1.

Ali Abbas was mobbed by happy teammates, rushing to congratulate him on a debut goal. Anders felt a glow of pride. Ali Abbas was such a good lad. He’d made no fuss at all since joining the team; just got on with things and slotted in very well indeed. A goal in his first competitive game was a just reward for him.

“Oh, not another bloody one! Check the passports, referee!”

At first, Anders was frozen with shock. The man had been annoying all day, but his attacks had been coded up to now. Coded comments about ‘Greenlandic players’, coded comments about… well, that hardly mattered. But surely only an idiot would say something so blatant at a game of football between children. Thankfully, none of the players on the pitch seemed to have noticed the comment at all, though the benches certainly had, as had the parents.

“Vesalingur!” Kris declared acidly from beneath his towel-hood.

“You need to go,” the home coach said, standing to direct the man away.

“What for?” he replied, incredulously, gazing around in search of support from the other adults present.

“Go!” Anders snapped.

“Else we’ll have to ask the ref to hold the game while you’re removed,” the home coach said, his tone harshening increasingly. He put a hand on the man’s bicep. “Come on, leave.”

“Fine, I’ll go,” the man growled. “Your teams are shit anyway.”

He trotted away, back towards the main road through the little town. “Send someone to check his hard drive, too!” Mark’s dad quipped. Nobody laughed.

The referee had paused, watching while some drama seemingly played out behind the benches. As the coaches turned, he whistled for the game to begin again, robbing Anders of the chance to make his substitution.

“Sorry,” the home coach said. “I’m Michael, by the way; we spoke on the phone. He’s nothing to do with us.”

Anders shrugged.

B22 had the game won at a canter following Ali Abbas’ goal. Barty replaced Mass soon after the restart, and a refreshed B22 side playing direct football with the wind, and swamping midfield with the no-nonsense combination of Kolbeinn and Joorsi and the extremely slippery Jón, were far too much for the tiring home side to cope with. The Kirkjan Klúbbur goal spent the remainder of the game under siege.

Barty, a battering-ram of a boy amongst crosses into the opposition box, eventually had himself a goal too. A typical centre forward’s goal, rising like whack-a-mole as Stef crossed from the by-line and directing the ball far beyond the goalkeeper’s reach with his head. As Stef was given a rest to allow Kristinn a go down the right, and Ali Abbas withdrawn to applause from the home parents for Oli to take his place, it essentially became a competition for the rest of the substitutes to see whether they could score a goal. The Kirkjan Klúbbur boys were cold, wet, knackered, and disheartened. They began to argue and shout at each other. One entered the referee’s book for calling his teammate a fucking nugget. Unfortunately for Anders’ lively and enthusiastic substitutes, they couldn’t take any further advantage of this disarray, though the goalframe was rattled on a couple more occasions, and the home goalkeeper must have finished the afternoon with stinging palms. It finished 3-1, in no small part down to that mushroom-haired goalkeeper’s performance that it was not a greater margin of defeat.

With the game finishing so strongly for B22, it was easy for Anders to gloss over some of the negatives as he gave the team a quick debrief before letting them get somewhere dry. It was probably better to work on some of the problems on Tuesday, anyway, as likewise Atli would catch up with Mark over the strange Kirkjan Klúbbur goal then.

“See you later,” Stef said, exchanging muddy goodbyes with Kolbeinn and Teitur. “Have fun tonight.”

“We won’t do anything you wouldn’t do,” Kolbeinn smirked. Stef could only snigger as his dad led the way back to their car.

With Bart, Chigs, Geir, Kris, and Mark also departing, the remaining boys were instructed by Anders to gather up their belongings from the minibus. Atli and Odie packed up the team’s gear before heading off themselves.

“I’ll lead the way to where you’re staying,” Michael told Anders, once he’d locked the minibus and had a team of wet and muddy boys carrying their bags behind him. The rain had let up, though the wind hadn’t, and the sky was rapidly darkening. It must have been around five, after all. Anders followed in silence along the quiet main street, lit up by orange streetlamps and the remainder of the twilight. Some of the boys chatted back and forth in the train behind.

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to that bloke before,” said Michael. “I suppose I was too focused on my team scoring that goal and not thinking. You have a right to be annoyed.”

“Well, thankfully neither of our black boys nor Ali Abbas heard it,” said Anders. “Anyway; it’s happened now. We’ve learned from it.”

“Right…” said Michael. They walked on quietly for a while longer, before stopping in front of a wooden building painted red, which looked like a Swiss chalet. “Here we are. Nyburg Community Centre.”

Anders led the boys through the front door as Michael held it open. The main central room was open to the rafters above, and furnished with table tennis and pool tables, a large TV and projector with PS4 and Xbox, and a big table set out for dining.

“There’ll be a meal put on a little later; most of our lads will be back to join in and the boys can mingle a bit and have fun.”

“Great,” said Anders. “What about showers or baths for them?”

“There’s a group shower room through there,” Michael gestured to an archway leading out from one side of the main room. Then he pointed up a set of stairs to a first-floor balcony level with doorways leading off into the sloped roof. “Otherwise, there are a few individual bathrooms up with the bedrooms.”

“Alright, boys,” said Anders. “Drop your bags here for now. If you don’t mind a group shower, take what you need that way. That’ll be the quickest way to get clean as nobody will have to wait. Otherwise, take what you need to get washed and changed upstairs where there are some private showers.”

“What do you reckon?” Teitur said to Kolbeinn.

“As if you’re even asking,” Kolbeinn scoffed in return. “I’m not scared of getting naked. You?”

“Anders, can I take one of the upstairs showers?” Jón said. Kolbeinn laughed.

“Kol, everyone gets their own choice,” said Anders. “If you’re so excited to have a team shower, get on with it. Jón’s free to go upstairs if he likes.”

Jón stopped scowling at Kolbeinn to smile at Anders, before bending over headfirst as if reaching for his toes, rifling through his bag for what he needed. Kolbeinn stuck out his tongue at Jón’s prominently presented rear end while he had his back turned. Then he realised everyone else who was heading for the main shower was leaving him behind, so he left Jón to his own devices and skipped away.

Anders turned to Michael again as Jón, Ingi, Torben, Kristinn, and Joorsi made their way upstairs to find a place to bathe in private.

“What are the room arrangements, then?”

“Simple,” said Michael. “Three rooms of four, and your boys can decide amongst themselves who goes where.”

“Great,” said Anders. “And my room?”

“I thought you cancelled the extra bed?” Michael said quizzically.

“That was an extra bed for a kid who couldn’t come,” said Anders. “I still need the adult room.”

“Oh, no,” Michael said, smiling as if he’d heard something funny. “This place works like a hostel during the tourist season. They’re all four-bed dorm rooms. They’ve only given us three of the five keys, since you said you only needed twelve. The caretaker doesn’t work weekends. You’ll have to pick a room with the rest of them.”

“Pick a room with the rest of them?” said Anders. “Michael, I’m twenty-five years old. I’m not sharing a room with twelve- and thirteen-year-olds that I coach.”

“You’ll have to!” Michael laughed. “Come on, Anders. This is Greenland, not England. It’s hardly inappropriate. Just wait for them to fall asleep before you go in if you’re that worried.”

“Well, I think people in England didn’t think they were England until it turned out football coaches had been molesting boys left, right, and centre.”

“Don’t molest them, then,” shrugged Michael with a smile. Anders wanted to grab and shake him and tell him it was no laughing matter. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a way around it.

“Fine,” sighed Anders. “But you need to make sure this doesn’t happen with anyone else you invite to stay here. You could get both clubs in trouble.”

“Nobody else has complained,” Michael said vacantly. “Here, let me give you a hand moving those bags from the doorway. Boys, eh?”

“That one kid slid through the back of me, like, five times,” Kolbeinn said, warm water cascading down over his naked body. “I think some of them weren’t even trying to play football.”

“Or they just don’t know how to,” Jónatan laughed, soaping caked mud from his knees and lower thighs. “On a proper pitch on a decent day we would have buried them ten-nil.”

Ali Abbas was happy simply to smile and follow. He’d opted for the group shower out of desperation to get clean of all the accumulated mud on his body, but it was a cool to feel part of a team, too. Nothing says teamwork like washing off with other boys and it just being normal. Or something.

“Yeah, they weren’t good,” Teitur was saying, somewhere through the rattle and thud of the water, “but then nobody really expected them to be.”

“Yeah,” Oli added. “It’s not really fair to compare them to what we have.”

Ali Abbas was bent down, focusing on cleaning his knees, when Mass turned toward him. There was one thing that had made him nervous about showering in a group – the only thing really; it’s not like he was worried about the size of his dick or anything – and that was the thought of being the only Muslim boy. He’d realised the first time he’d gone swimming with school after arriving in Greenland that there was something different about him compared to almost every other boy here. A cultural difference that etched itself between his legs. So, as he looked up and saw Massawa’s body rotated slightly in his direction, he’d never felt so excited to have another boy’s zabr dangling in front of his face.

“Hey!” Ali Abbas said, standing back up and alternating his gaze between Mass’ eyes and genitals. “You have khitan too! You’re Muslim!”

“Yeah, obviously,” Mass laughed.

“I thought you were just, like, a black guy.”

“Lots of Africans are Muslim,” Massawa shrugged. “’Specially East Africa where my mum and dad came from.”

“Cool,” Ali Abbas grinned. He’d absentmindedly begun cleaning his own dick and balls whilst on the subject. It was good to be washing his bits in front of another boy in Greenland and not ending up thinking what it would feel like to have a weird flap of skin trapping the end of his cock in.

“Are you two comparing wangers?” Jónatan laughed. “I’d say get a room, but you probably will later.”

“You want to watch out talking cock while Kol’s around,” Oli added. “He gets jealous pretty quickly!”

“You mean everyone else is jealous of my perfect body,” Kolbeinn replied nonchalantly, adding a belch on the end for effect as he lathered shower gel all over his chest and tummy.

“Ali Abbas just noticed I was Muslim too, that’s all,” Mass said. “We weren’t jerking off in public like Kolbeinn.”

“See,” said Kolbeinn. “Everyone else is jealous of me.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Teitur. “You guys have the willy thing. What’s it called?”

“The popped bell end,” Jónatan sniggered.

“It’s called circumcised,” Oli said, rolling his voice at Jónatan.

“Hey, aren’t you American?” Ali Abbas asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” Oli answered. “My parents are, at least.”

“How come you don’t have it too, then?”

“What, circumcision?” Oli replied, twisting up his limp penis with his thumbs and forefingers as if to examine his foreskin. “I was born here. It’s not like America where lots of people have it just cos. It’s kind of illegal here unless you need it.”

“I never knew that,” said Teitur.

“How come you know so much about cutting dicks?” Jónatan asked.

“Cos every time I went to the States as a kid, adults would want to know from my mum and dad about whether I had skin on my dick. Weird. My little cousins in Ohio don’t have skin.”

“It’s against the law?” said Ali Abbas. “Why?”

“Well, it’s not exactly your choice if you’re a little kid, is it?” said Jónatan.

“Yeah, can’t just stitch it back on!” laughed Kolbeinn, sliding back his own skin to expose his glans and wondering what it would be like to be stuck like that all the time. Even leaving it exposed to the air and water a little while sent shivers of sensitivity down his spine.

“That would really suck,” said Teitur. “I wouldn’t want it to happen to me. To have, like, a part of your body cut off without anyone asking your permission. No offence, guys.”

“We have to have it for our religion, so we’re allowed to get it done here when we’re born,” Mass shrugged. “It’s just normal for us. My dad’s looks the same as mine so it’s no big deal.”

“And it still works on girls,” Ali Abbas offered.

“And how do you know anything about that?” Jónatan laughed. “You got a secret girlfriend you’ve been shagging without us, Ali?”

“No,” Ali Abbas smirked, blushing. “I didn’t mean like that. Just, I know it does…”

“Can you bring her to see us next time so we can have a go too?” Jónatan grinned. “Not Kolbeinn, obviously.”

“No girl would want you after she’d seen me,” Kolbeinn retorted, flexing a bicep idly.

The boys were now mostly done, so they began to file out of the shower room to dry off and get dressed. Teitur took the opportunity to get in some comparative cock-watching again. Not gay, of course – just confirming once more that he had the most going on down there.

Kolbeinn he knew without even needing to look. Jónatan seemed about has big as him, but not so developed – smaller balls, thinner dick, no hair. Jónatan was tall, anyway. He ought to be bigger if he was in proportion – presuming it really worked that way. Oliver wasn’t anything special. Perhaps a tiny amount bigger than Kolbeinn, with a nicely shaped head – like the head of a sperm. His balls were developing – not little boy balls like Stef or Ingi or Torben – but not very big. Mass’ dick was kind of similar to Oli’s, except black and circumcised, with it’s exposed head like a fat acorn on the end, much more prominent than the rest. Ali Abbas was the only one he’d never so much as glimpsed in the nude before. He was also one of the eldest boys on the team alongside Teitur, and Teitur immediately realised Ali Abbas was a threat to his presumed honour as owner of the biggest and hairiest dick on the team. The new boy was developing fast too, similarly endowed to Teitur, and his black pubic hair making his scant bush seem more accomplished than Teitur’s shades of wispy brown and blond. A rival. Damn.

Teitur and Kolbeinn were last out of the shower; Kolbeinn had initiated a towel-flicking fight, which he quickly lost and spent a good thirty seconds writhing on the floor clutching his balls from a particularly cruelly-aimed finishing blow. All the other boys were gathered around Anders in the middle of the main room, reclaiming their bags. All except Jón, who was just now wandering down the stairs, locks of damp hair sticking out at random in all directions.

“Bad luck, slow coaches,” Anders called as he saw the three remaining boys arriving. “Everyone else has already picked rooms.”

“What?” said Kolbeinn. “Who’re we with, then?”

“You three will have to go together,” said Anders, pointing back and forth at Kolbeinn and Teitur and then over their heads at Jón bringing up the rear.

“Oh, that’s alright,” smiled Kolbeinn.

“Am I together with you?” Jón asked.

“Yeah,” said Teitur. “Did you bring your Switch?”

Jón nodded enthusiastically and smiled.

“Cool!” Teitur responded.

“Just one thing, boys,” Anders interjected.

“We won’t stay up all night playing,” said Kolbeinn. “We promise.”

“You won’t be able to,” said Anders.

“What do you mean?” said Jón.

“There’s been a bit of a mix-up with the hosts,” Anders sighed. “You three will be sharing a room with me.”

The three boys stared as wide-eyed as if they were stood in a train tunnel and had just seen headlights rushing their way.

Teitur, Kolbeinn, and Jón managed to recover somewhat over the large buffet dinner put on with the home team. But still, as cool as Anders was, sharing a room with a grown-up was not the plan, and would ruin the stay-up-late, boys-own-fun element to their weekend stay. Unfortunately, there was no way out of it. They slowly had to reconcile with having to behave and go to bed on time.

“Anders, what time do we have to be in bed?” Jón had pestered, whilst holding a beef burger in his hand by the outside of the bun.

“Everyone has to be in their rooms by ten,” Anders had replied. “That was the rule your parents signed up to.”

Ten wouldn’t have been so bad if they could have stayed up late messing about as a foursome in their room like everyone else, but going to bed at ten and being expected by their coach to sleep seemed an awful punishment.

“Don’t look like that. I’m an adult; I’ll go to bed later if I want to. You’ll still get some time to yourselves.”

The local boys mostly drifted away after dinner, but they were good at least for some games of pool and Fifa. Their goalscorer with the brown curly hair was one of the last to stay, though even he was gone by about nine. He admitted that he wasn’t going to hang around if Markus had been there, but thankfully everyone was spared that potentially awkward encounter.

Anders was relieved, actually, that it was mostly his nicer and most trustworthy boys in attendance. Barty, Geir, and Markus already had a sullen teen tough-guy air about them, which wasn’t always the most becoming of traits. Kris could be pretty moody sometimes, too, though he carried an opposite sort of air of superiority far too often for Anders’ liking. Still, that was all part of managing a team – lots of personalities to juggle, none of them perfect. Anders noticed Jónatan struggling with hysterical tittering from some crude joke that Kolbeinn was grinning ear-to-ear for having made. Some personalities were flawed in nicer ways than others.

As time ticked on, Teitur and Jón were finishing up a game of pool, both chasing the black ball inexpertly around the table. Kolbeinn wandered over, having got bored of crowding around the games console.

“Ty, Jón, you wanna head upstairs?” he said.

“You got the Switch screen charged up?” Teitur asked Jón.

“Yeah,” Jón said, scuffing the cue ball into a hopeless sideways spin off the cushion. “We can go up and play a bit if you want.”

“You guys going to bed?” Ingi asked, appearing from the toilet just as the three were about to climb the stairs.

“We’re gonna get some Switch in before Anders makes us go to sleep,” Teitur explained.

“Oh, okay,” Ingi replied. “Night, then, I guess.”

Ingi trotted back over to rejoin the seven other boys around the TV screen. Oli had raided the vending machine for Doritos and chocolate, and they looked like they were preparing for an all-night sleepover party.

“Lucky bastards,” Kolbeinn sighed.

Jón had their bedroom door open and had bent himself double to search through his bag for his Nintendo Switch, involuntarily wiggling his bottom in the air as he went about his business. Teitur was able to resist the urge to give him a firm slap as he brushed past into the four-bed dormitory. Kolbeinn was not.

“Hey!” Jón whined. “That hurt, you pervert!”

“You were kind of asking for it, Jón,” Teitur shrugged, picking a bed and flopping down onto it with a hefty bounce.

“Yeah, Jón,” Kolbeinn continued. “You wave your ass around all the time.”

“I do not,” Jón retorted.

“Yeah you do.”

“That still doesn’t mean you can slap me.”

“Whatever,” Teitur said. “Have you found the Switch yet, Jón?”

“I’ve got it. I’d have had it already if Kol hadn’t interrupted me.”

“Well maybe we shouldn’t play Switch after all,” Kolbeinn suggested, sitting down on the bed Teitur had claimed.

“What?” said Jón, pulling up from his bag, half his Switch in hand. “What do you want to do then?”

“I’m horny,” said Kolbeinn. “How about you guys?”

“I could be,” said Teitur.

“You’re wrong,” Jón said.

“Come on, Jón,” said Kolbeinn. “You can’t have jerked off tonight. Unless… oh, now I see why you had a private shower!”

“No! That’s not why!”

“So you did jerk off but that wasn’t why you showered by yourself?” Kolbeinn teased.

“No to both things,” Jón growled. “Now do you want to play with my Switch or not?”

“I am kind of horny, now I think about it,” Teitur said. “And we won’t get much chance before Anders comes to bed.”

“Gross,” Jón said, sticking his tongue out in a fake gag. “You want to wank in front of each other.”

“Everyone does it, Jón,” Kolbeinn said. “Why not do it together? We’re all boys.”

“Yeah, but…” Jón flushed pink. “It’s meant to be private. I don’t want anyone else seeing me do it.”

“It’s fun,” Teitur said, trying to sound as kind as possible to convince Jón to join in. “You’ll like it when you get going. You’ll forget being embarrassed.”

“Eww,” said Jón, flatly. “I can’t believe you guys are talking about this.”

“We’ll get started,” Kolbeinn said. “You can just watch at first. Then you can join in when you’re ready.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Teitur. He had begun abandoning his clothes and was soon down to his boxers in the bed. Kolbeinn did the same and clambered alongside him.

“You guys are just taking the piss, right?” Jón wavered. “You’re playing a trick on me.”

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” Teitur said. “You can go back downstairs if you want. Just don’t tell anyone else.”

Jón looked at the door uncertainly. He heard the snap of elastic and the faintest smell of something musky. The flicker of movement in his peripheral vision had him rooted to the spot. Jón slowly turned his head, and, looking indirectly, registered the sight of Teitur, now naked, slowly jacking his penis up and down.

“You’ve got your willy out,” Jón murmured. Though he tried to look away, he couldn’t help noticing that Teitur’s dick was bigger than he’d expected – a bit longer and quite a lot thicker than his own, at least. Like, nearly eleven or twelve centimetres or something. Much hairier, too.

“Duh,” Kolbeinn giggled, following suit with his own boxers to reveal a boner of his own, right in Jón’s direct eyeline. Kolbeinn’s was less of a surprise, still much more boyish, but with a round set of balls that looked out of proportion by comparison to his wiener, splaying out between his legs like the belly on a chintzy Buddha ornament.

“Mmm,” said Teitur. “Join in, Jón. It’s good.”

“I don’t want to.”

“It’s always hotter with other people around,” Kolbeinn said. “Like you’re feeding off their energy, like in a match when someone on your team is playing really well and it makes you play better too.”

“Ngh,” Teitur grunted again. Jón couldn’t help but stare at his friend’s dick now. He’d seen in textbooks how boys’ bits were supposed to look as they grew, and he knew his own balls had descended and grown bigger, but this was his first time seeing a real one on a boy his own age. Especially erect. It was mesmerising to take in how the skin slid back and forth to reveal a purple head, beginning to flare with redness from being called into action, how the seam of the underside of Teitur’s dick was a slightly different, brown colour compared to the rest of his skin, the downy brown and blond of Teitur’s small – but by Jón’s reckoning, very impressive – mat of pubes around the top of his cock and balls, and the redder colour of the balls themselves.

“Don’t just stare, Jón,” Kolbeinn said. “Come and join in if you want.”

“I…” Jón began. “No – I… I should go.”

Kolbeinn and Teitur watched Jón as they gently wanked themselves off on the bed together. Neither thought there was much danger of him telling on them if he chose to leave, but it would definitely be more fun if he would just join in. Teitur had never seen Jón’s dick to add to his mental bank of team comparisons, for one.

“Come on, Jón,” Teitur pleaded. “If you really wanted to leave, you’d have gone by now. This is really fun, I swear. You can even close your eyes if you want.”

Jón was still frozen at the foot of the bed, feeling conflicted and nauseous. The smell, and sound, and sight of his two friends brazenly wanking in front of him had caused his own willy to stir. He was wearing trackie bottoms. They’d tent out. The others would see…

But it still all seemed so naughty, and wrong. Though, the more Jón dallied – the more he stood there watching and vacillating – the more the naughtiness felt exciting. Thrilling, even. Jón realised he was painfully stiff, a painful tingle pinching in his balls every time his stiffy twitched. He did need to wank now, for sure, really, really badly.

“Jón’s got a boner,” Kolbeinn observed, looking Jón in the crotch and then deep into the eye as he lay back stroking his fat little 12-year-old cocktail sausage.

“Come on, Jón,” purred Teitur, trying seductive now. “You know you want to.”

Jón took a deep breath and began to move round, at least getting closer to the pair on the bed. He was level with Teitur’s crotch, looking down across the bed, to the space between Teitur and Kolbeinn. All he had to do was ditch his tee-shirt and trackies and join them in the middle. His eye was caught by Teitur’s boner again. He noticed a droplet of something wet and sticky forming at the tip of Teitur’s pee slit.

“No!” gulped Jón, shuddering from head to toe and turning his back to walk away again.

“Got him!” cried Kolbeinn, leaping across the bed to grab Jón around his waist, pulling him backwards onto the bed, the fully-clothed meat in a naked tween sandwich.

“What are you doing?” Jón squealed. “Get off me, Kolbeinn!”

“Get his top off, Ty!”

“Oh, alright,” Teitur shrugged, figuring Jón was just going to get stripped now regardless.

“No! Teitur! Please!”

Jón fought and wriggled, throwing his arms around, but Kolbeinn was clamped around the lower two thirds of his body like a limpet, preventing him from moving below the ribcage, and pinning him down onto Teitur. His top came off easily. Now Teitur’s hot, hard, sticky, naked dick was poking into Jón’s naked side. He could feel Kolbeinn’s naked boner against his right calf, too, their flesh barely separated by the thin material of his tracksuit bottoms. None of this was helping his own erection go down. Even if it had withered slightly in the shock of Kolbeinn’s ambush, it was back beyond full mast again now.

“Alright, alright,” pleaded Jón. “I’ll get naked with you. Just leave me alone!”

“Nice try!” grunted Kolbeinn, yanking Jón’s bottoms down around his knees in one great pull, to reveal the boy’s humiliatingly-tented tight lime green boxer briefs, which ended high up his thighs and accentuated the pale coltishness of his legs to the extreme.

“I’ll strip! I’ll strip! Please just let me do it myself!”

“But we’re having fun!” Kolbeinn laughed. He pulled the tracksuit bottoms free of Jón’s ankles and got started on his threadbare ankle socks, pulling them clear with minimal effort. “Get Jón’s hippy pants, Ty!”

“They’re not hippy pants!” Jón protested loudly, as if their categorisation was the most important thing to him in the world at that moment. He grabbed the front elastic of his boxers with both fists, feeling Teitur’s warm hands slipping down the skin of his hips and upper thighs as he began to prise the undergarment clear of Jón’s body.

“I thought you wanted to strip?” Teitur said, sniggering as he forced the rear of Jón’s pants down over and beneath the boy’s buttocks.

“Oh, what the heck,” Jón whimpered, closing his eyes and pushing the front of his undies down himself, despite immediately regretting the decision.

“Alright, let him go,” Teitur said. “We’re all naked, now. Let’s get back to business.”

Kolbeinn reluctantly released Jón’s now completely nude form and clambered back to position on one side of the bed. It was a single, so it was now ridiculously cramped with the two thirteen-year-olds and one twelve-year-old sharing it. Teitur led the way in getting the wanking started again, his right arm now constantly rubbing Jón’s bare chest as it worked its target. Teitur looked Jón in the eye and smiled to encourage him to get comfortable and begin playing with himself. Vibrations confirmed that Kolbeinn was back hard at work, too.

“You have a nice dick, Jón,” Teitur offered, as Jón, like a hedgehog in headlights, gingerly got on with stroking his erection.

“Um, thanks?” Jón said, not sure how to react to his private parts being subject of anyone else’s appreciation.

“Yeah, it’s longer than mine,” Kolbeinn added. “But I guess you are older.”

Teitur thought that Jón’s was definitely worth having added to his mental collection of appraised teammates’ dicks. It was long – maybe almost the same length as his own – but thin; not yet developed much. Probably, Teitur thought, a bit thinner than his own boner was even before his puberty had really started. It was white, too. Very white, with very visible veins in blue, purple, and green, and an arrow head that seemed to mould into the rest of the penis seamlessly, hidden under just enough foreskin to come to the slightest pinch at the end, even in its current explosively engorged state. Jón’s balls were down, and evidently growing – but not as fat as Kolbeinn’s, who Teitur guessed was probably at a similar stage of development to Jón. Jón was also bald as a golf ball. But Teitur fancied that it all suited him more that way. The word he was searching for to describe it, but couldn’t quite place, was elegant.

“Mmph,” Jón grunted, his breathing heavy, but his body evidently more relaxed into the deed of wanking off alongside two other boys.

“We can do this, too,” Kolbeinn said, chancing that this was the moment to push Jón further.

“Ohhhhh!” Jón moaned, feeling Kolbeinn’s firm little fingers displace his own thumb and forefinger grip on his penis.

“You do mine,” Kolbeinn instructed, placing Jón’s right hand onto his own abandoned crotch.

“This feels… weird,” said Jón, lying back and enjoying the sensation of Kolbeinn jacking him off while leaving his own hand splayed open over Kolbeinn’s genitals, trying not to move or touch too much.

“It’s good, though,” Kolbeinn said. “Do mine.”

“It’s gross, though,” said Jón, his voice vibrating through the working over that Kolbeinn was giving his erection. “Touching another boy’s knob.”

“I’m doing yours,” said Kolbeinn. “And you already have your hand on mine. Come on, Jón. Be fair.”

“Uh… okay,” he conceded. “But I don’t really know what to do.”

“Exactly the same as what you do to your own,” Teitur laughed.

“Oh, yeah,” Jón said, feeling like an idiot with the fragments of spare emotion he had between being terrified and thrilled by what he was doing with the other boys. He began sliding Kolbeinn’s foreskin back and forth with his thumb and forefinger, just as he had with his own willy.

Things continued for a couple of minutes like this, the boys not talking, but breathing heavily and releasing little grunts and whimpers. The scent of horny boy sweat, and three distinct flavours of hard boy dick, assailed their nostrils. Teitur continued to work on himself, Kolbeinn’s more expert hand exchanging jobs with the more clumsy and tentative Jón, the three of them comforted and enhanced by the sensation of each other’s bare skin as they were scrunched up together in the single bed.

“Jón, can’t you do it a bit harder?” Kolbeinn suggested. “You can touch my whole dick, you know. You don’t have to use only two fingers.”

“Umm, guys… promise you won’t laugh?”

“Laugh at what?” said Teitur. “We’re lying here jerking each other off.”

“I guess.”

“What’s the matter?” said Kolbeinn.

“Well, the thing is…” Jón began. “I’m not really all that good at wanking, you know, with my hand… Cos, well, usually I get off by… you know… rubbing it on things. Soft things with a slippy texture, like my sleeping bag… or my waterproof.”

“Man,” Kolbeinn sniggered. “Remind me to get people to sniff your waterproof next time you wear it to training!”

“Kol!” Jón groaned. “You said you wouldn’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing,” Kolbeinn said. “That’s cool. You get off whatever way works.”

“Anyway,” said Teitur. “There’s a way we can do that together, too.”

For the second time in the space of a few minutes, Jón was being manhandled into place.

“What now?” he said, resignedly, as he was grappled into position on top of Teitur.

“Lie down flat on me,” Teitur instructed.

“But we’re naked!”

“That’s the point,” said Teitur. “God, Jón; you’re a bit thick for a smart kid.”

Jón took a deep breath and did as he was told. He immediately felt his hard dick ride over Teitur’s thicker erection, and their balls smush together.

“Feels really weird,” he said.

Teitur grabbed both Jón’s buttocks and gave them a hefty squeeze, pushing their groins forcefully together.

“Rub our dicks together,” Teitur said. “It’ll be the same as when you do it on the sleeping bag at home, but better.”

“Oh, man!” Jón said, tingles radiating out from his boy parts as his little penis was crushed and grated back and forth and round and round against Teitur’s, hot and steely and smooth. And then there was the skin-to-skin contact! His naked torso, arms, and thighs sitting flush against the bare flesh of another kid. The feeling was alien, but so, so exciting.

“Oh yeah,” said Teitur. “This way is always really good for me, too.”

“But isn’t this…” Jón panted, “isn’t this, like… like…”

“Like what?” Teitur replied.

“Uhm… sex,” Jón whispered.

“Nah, sex is dick in butt,” Kolbeinn interjected. “All this stuff is fine.”

“Oh,” Jón whimpered, another shiver of ecstasy radiating through him, helping him feel reassured once more. “Okay. Ooof! Oh, god!”

“And this isn’t actually penis in ass,” Kolbeinn continued, having piled on top of his frotting friends from behind and lined up his bone with Jón’s crack. “So this is all good too.”

“Nnngh!” Jón grunted, his pitch rising with every murmur, now completely engulfed by the warm skin and muscle of two of his teammates. “Mmmm!”

“Oohhh,” Teitur breathed. He had his eyes closed, and had gripped Kolbeinn’s thrusting arse with both hands, forcing all the pressure of the two boys’ pelvises down fully onto his own. Kolbeinn humped away at Jón’s bum crack like a randy puppy, and Jón had seemingly forgotten all about minding, singing away with happy tingles between the hot, sweaty, rubbery poke of Kolbeinn’s spike running up and down his crack, and the joyous pressure of his dick and balls mashing and mangling together with Teitur’s. There wasn’t long left in any of them.

“Oooh!” Jón squealed, feeling his dick burst with a wave of pain and pleasure on top of Teitur. “Ooohoohoohoo!”

“Argh!” Kolbeinn grunted. He was done too on top.

“Ohhh, yesss!” Teitur came, the head of his dick pressed up near the base of Jón’s merest dimple of an innie. The angles caused by Jón’s orgasm and the pressure of Kolbeinn on top meant that the first two lobs of hot thirteen-year-old cum splatted straight onto Jón’s pale, lightly visible abs.

“Eww!” squealed Jón, leaping up and forcing Kolbeinn to roll back to the other side of the bed. “Yuck! I’ve got sperm on me! It’s all hot and slimy!” Jón was up on his knees, he put his hand to his belly, but now realised he had a handful of goopy, translucent boy-cum to deal with. “Yuck!” he exclaimed again. “Euurgh! And Kolbeinn, I can feel it on my bum cheek from you as well!”

Jón stood up, not knowing what to do with himself. He reached down to pinch the end of his own rapidly-shrinking willy out of nervousness, and now his previously clean right hand came away with the traces of his own more modest teen cum, a little clear string hanging between limply held thumb and forefinger, as clear and innocent as egg white.

“What can I wipe it on?” Jón demanded. “Where can I clean it off?”

“Jeez, Jón,” Kolbeinn giggled. “Calm down. It’s just jizz.”

“But it’s someone else’s jizz!”

“Use my towel,” said Teitur, pointing towards his bag. “It’s still on top of all my things.”

“Thanks,” Jón said, scampering towards the bag, seemingly now completely unselfconscious about being buck naked.

“Jón, I can see your di–” Kolbeinn began. He didn’t finish.

The door thumped and rattled in its frame. There was the screech of a huge gust of wind outside. The lights flickered.

Jón was frozen bolt upright to attention, nude with semen dripping from his hands and body in the middle of the room. It took a moment for the heart-seizing shock to subside.

“Oh, fuck,” Jón gasped. “I thought that was someone coming through the door then.”

“Me too,” Teitur sighed with relief. Jón took stock of the fact he was dripping with cum again, and immediately got back on with heading for Teitur’s towel, bending double with his backside in the air again, this time showing off a little pink balloon knot between thin, muscular buttocks.

“For god’s sake, Jón, squat down when you need to get something,” Kolbeinn said. “We can both see right up your hole.”

Jón jolted. Kolbeinn was right. He needed to get dressed again quick.

“What did you do with my pants?” he asked, turning to face the bed again once he’d towelled what mess he could from himself, leaving behind only damp, sticky patches of residue that would require soap and water.

Kolbeinn grinned wickedly. “We’ve got Jón’s underpants!”

He fished around on the bed and grabbed for Jón’s plain, featureless lime green boxer briefs, gathering them up from where they’d been roughly folded over and flattened out from the action happening on top of them.

“Give them back, Kol!” Jón demanded, angrily galloping back at the boys on the bed, his tiny elephant’s head dancing and rearing all over the place between his legs as he moved.

“Keep hold of Jón’s hippy pants!” Kolbeinn squealed with delight, holding Jón’s boxers away from him as the boy leaped on top of him and tried to wrestle the thin undergarment out of his teasing hands.

“Gimme, dickhead!”

“Ty, take ’em! Take ’em!” Kolbeinn chortled, thrusting the pants into Teitur’s grasp.

“No, Teitur!” Jón growled, clambering over him to grab for his wrists. “Give them back! Grr!”

Teitur laughed in fits as he passed the underpants around himself, keeping them at arms-length from Jón at all times as the other boy twisted all over him.

“Come on!” Jón whined. “Please!”

“Here!” Kolbeinn demanded, giggling. Teitur passed off Jón’s boxers into Kolbeinn’s fist. Kolbeinn scrambled to sit upright and lobbed them across the room. He and Teitur laughed out loud.

“Kol!” Jón groaned. He pushed himself off Teitur and off the bed, stomping off across the room in the nude, his limp-again thin penis now leading the way by a rather reddened tip. “You guys are such idiots!” He grumbled, marching with clenched fists.

The door clicked open.

All three boys froze in place – Kolbeinn and Teitur naked in the same bed; Jón mid-stomp, naked in the middle of the room.

“Anders!” Jón squeaked, clamping his hands to his bare groin.

“What’s going on in here?”

“Anders, I’m so, so, so sorry!” Jón whimpered, visibly trembling. “They made me do it! Please don’t punish me!”

“Made you do what? What’s happened, Jón?”

Jón had burst into floods of tears, still stood naked in the middle of the room, bent forward, hands clamped down to hide his willy and balls. Anders looked around to see Kolbeinn and Teitur lying together in the same bed, bare shoulders visible, looking pale and sheepish. He reckoned his nostrils detected the smell of genital musk and semen.

“Did you force Jón to do something with you?”

“No!” Kolbeinn murmured, shaking his head almost off his shoulders and looking as if he might begin to cry too.

“We promise, Anders,” Teitur said. “We were just… We asked Jón to… We didn’t force him to…”

“Okay, okay,” Anders said, trying to take stock so he could take some control of the situation. Coming back to three boys, all apparently naked and having been engaged in some sort of sex act, was about the worst nightmare scenario this room-share could have created. “Jón?” He rubbed Jón’s back while the boy shook and sobbed in place. “Where are your undies, Jón? Or pyjamas? Get something put on while I turn my back to talk to Kol and Teitur, okay?”

“Hm,” Jón managed, before awkwardly waddling towards where he thought Kolbeinn might have thrown his pants.

“What’s happened here, boys?” Anders said, firmly but as calmly as he could manage. “I want the truth.”

Nobody spoke. Teitur looked at Kolbeinn, who had his head down and was playing with his fingers nervously. A vibration was passing through the mattress from both boys’ nervous trembling.

“Are you both naked under those sheets?” Anders asked.

Kolbeinn managed a single nod, without looking. Teitur focused on the lump of his knees under the quilt as he nodded more assuredly.

“Was Jón naked because he was in the bed with you before I came in?”

“Yes, Anders,” Teitur managed, in the barest of whispers.

“Okay. And whatever you were doing in there together, everyone was doing it voluntarily?”

“Yes,” Teitur repeated.

“Kolbeinn?”

“Yes, Anders,” he whispered.

“Jón?” said Anders, daring to turn his head towards the third boy, and hoping he was decent. Jón was. He stood still on the far side of the room in a pair of tight, lime green boxer briefs. He nodded his head quickly. “Come over here, please,” said Anders.

Jón, still shaking and sniffling, did as he was told.

“Anders?” Teitur asked quietly, still without the courage to look his coach in the eye. “Kol and I have our pants here under the covers. May we put them on?”

“Yes please, boys,” said Anders. “Jón, are you okay?”

Teitur first, then Kolbeinn, shuffled around under the quilt cover to put their underpants on while still protected by the safety of the bed. Jón, seemingly on the verge of a panic attack, dropped unceremoniously to his bottom on the far corner of the bed.

“Just breathe, Jón, it’s okay,” said Anders, touching the top of the boy’s head gently. “You’re not in any trouble right now.”

Jón sniffed, still shaking, and cried silent tears.

“So you weren’t forced to do anything, Jón?”

“No,” he mewed. “I just meant that Kolbeinn and Teitur told me to do it and showed me what to do; it wasn’t my idea and I didn’t know how to do any of this stuff before.”

“Alright,” said Anders. “Deep breaths. I know it’s embarrassing to be caught in the act, especially by a grown-up, and especially by your coach.”

“Hmm-mmm,” Jón rocked.

“See how upset Jón is, boys? It wasn’t very clever to start doing sex games when you have to share a room with an adult, was it?”

“No, Anders,” Teitur murmured.

“Kolbeinn? That was what you were doing, right?”

“Yes, Anders,” Kolbeinn whispered.

“Not to mention how inappropriate it is when you’re together as a team,” Anders continued.

“We’re sorry,” said Teitur. “We promise.”

“Well, I can see that,” Anders said. “Please don’t be upset, Jón. You’re really not in big trouble.”

“You’re not–” Jón sniffled, “gonna tell anyone?”

Anders paused to think a final time. To protect himself, he really ought to flag what he had seen. But what good would that really do?

“No,” he said, eventually. “I was your age once. Exploring is normal. Who would I tell, anyway? What good would it do? It’s happened now.”

“Thanks,” Teitur sighed with relief.

Jón was still sobbing. His voice wobbled and juddered. “I didn’t mean it, Anders. I swear on my life. Thank you for not telling my parents. Thank you for not telling anyone.”

“I don’t understand what you mean, Jón,” said Anders, trying to comfort him with his voice. “You were just playing, right? Nobody got hurt?”

“But…” Jón swallowed another breath. “What we were doing… is gay.”

“No, Jón.”

“…and footballers can’t be gay,” Jón continued, unabated. “I promise I’m not gay, Anders. Please… Please let me stay on the team!”

Teitur released a held breath, making an oh sound. Kolbeinn found the courage to shuffle out from under the bedclothes and put an arm around Jón. Jón tried shrugging it off a couple of times before giving in.

“Jón…” Anders began with a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” Jón whispered again.

“Jón, I don’t care if you’re gay or not, and I hope you wouldn’t care who anyone else fancies, either.”

“I… I don’t!” said Jón. “I’m not… I’m not – you know – homophobic. It’s just… footballers aren’t gay. People tease footballers if they think they’re gay. And I’m not gay…”

“Jón, playing whatever you were playing with your friends isn’t gay,” said Anders, the hint of a chuckle in his voice. “Being gay isn’t actions or choices. It’s knowing inside that you love other boys in a romantic or sexual way. And, let’s be honest, nobody feels that way about Kol.”

That raised a giggle, at least. And Jón wasn’t crying anymore.

“Boys, you know I wouldn’t discriminate, don’t you?”

“Course, Anders,” nodded Teitur.

“You’re the best coach we’ve ever had,” added Kolbeinn.

“Just because some people think that not being straight is a joke, or a reason to bully someone, or that people who aren’t straight shouldn’t do some things like playing certain sports, it doesn’t mean they’re right. All that I care about is that you’re good boys, good players, and happy as part of my team. Anything else is irrelevant.”

“But I’m not gay,” said Jón.

“I know you aren’t, Jón,” said Anders. “But it wouldn’t matter to me if anyone on the team was.”

“Anyway,” said Teitur, “there are some gay players. Men I mean. And lots of women players are gay.”

“That’s true,” agreed Anders.

“There’s Chico Moreno at BK Þór,” Kolbeinn said, “and Jón Ola Ásbjarnarson down at Vatnaleiðum.”

“But that’s just two in this country; nobody in the big leagues, like in Spain, or England, or other countries in Europe, says they’re gay while they’re still playing,” Jón countered. “The fans target any player on the other team they think could be gay.”

“Just because players don’t feel they can be open about it, doesn’t mean there aren’t gay players playing for big clubs,” Anders said. “Besides, I know for a fact that there was a Greenlandic player who was gay and played in England.”

“Who?” said Jón. “How do you know that?”

“Wait…” said Kolbeinn.

Teitur’s mouth dropped open into a broad grin. “You mean…? Wow, Anders! That’s amazing!”

“Hmm,” Anders said, returning Teitur’s smile.

“You’re gay?” said Jón. “I…”

“It’s okay, Jón,” said Anders. “I know you’re not homophobic. You were just scared of being bullied because other people are. I understand.”

“How come you never said so when you were playing in Greenland-Vinland?” Kolbeinn asked.

“Well, because I still had a chance of playing in Europe,” Anders said. “And if I was open about who I was, it would become a whole other thing for any club that was interested in me, rather than just about football. One thing that Jón is right about in a way is that gay footballers are treated as gays first and footballers second. I just wanted to be a footballer.”

“You… I…” Teitur began. He was still grinning from ear to ear. “You just keep getting cooler, Anders.”

“Thanks, Teitur,” Anders laughed. “I’m only being honest with you.”

“But it’s really awesome to have someone like you as our coach,” said Jón. “I mean, someone who has done the things you have rather than some old guy who just played a bit of amateur football once.”

“Okay, that’s enough now,” smiled Anders.

“See,” said Kolbeinn. “Obviously Anders wouldn’t let anyone get bullied on our team for anything.”

“Yeah,” Teitur nodded excitedly. “I mean, it’s not as if we don’t already have a gay–”

Teitur had realised what he was about to say, and he checked himself short. Kolbeinn, however, didn’t quite follow.

“What? You mean Stef?”

“Huh?” said Jón.

The only sound in the room was Teitur slapping his hand to his brow.

“Oops,” said Kolbeinn.

“You idiot!” Teitur said. “Now you’ve told.”

“Stef’s…?” said Jón.

“Ah,” Anders sighed.

“Oh, no…” said Kolbeinn, slapping his own head this time.

“Kol, Teitur,” Anders began, “whether he has told you he is gay or not, or whether he thinks he might be, or whatever, you really shouldn’t out people like that, even if you think you can trust the person you’re talking to.”

“Sorry,” Kolbeinn groaned. “It just… came out.”

“I know,” said Anders. “But things like that are personal. They belong to that person and the choice of who they speak to about it is theirs. If Stef did tell you anything like that about himself, it’s up to him to decide who gets to know, so you have to be trustworthy.”

“You’re so fucking stupid sometimes,” Teitur sighed. “Sorry I swore, Anders.”

“It’s half-ten,” said Anders, gesturing that the subject was closed and that he was moving on. “I’m going to leave you for half an hour and drink a beer or something. When I get back, I expect you all to be in your own beds, wearing at least underwear, and sleeping. Got it?”

“Got it,” Kolbeinn said. “And sorry again.”

“Got it, Anders,” Jón said.

The door clicked shut, and the three boys were alone again.

Silence reigned for thirty seconds, the boys sat on the bed without looking each other, until Teitur spoke. “Fucking idiot,” he said.

“Sorry,” Kolbeinn said.

“We’ll have to tell him you told.”

“We told,” Kolbeinn protested. “You started the sentence.”

“You finished it! With his actual name!”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter now. It still happened.”

“So Stef is gay, then?” Jón asked.

“Yes,” Kolbeinn replied.

“Kol!”

“Fuck off, Ty. He already knows now!”

“Guess.”

“It’s okay,” said Jón. “He’s still my mate. I won’t say anything to him.”

“You better not!” Teitur said.

“Why would I?” said Jón. “I mean, what am I gonna say? Ha ha, Stef, you’re a bender! I know cos I got caught naked with Kol and Teitur by our coach and they blabbed while we were getting told off?”

“Who uses the word bender, anyway?” said Kolbeinn. “God, Jón, are you actually like forty years old or something?”

“Fuck off.”

“Can we just go to bed?” groaned Teitur, flopping back to his pillow and pressing down on his face with his hands.

“Anders said we have half an hour,” said Kolbeinn.

“To do what, Kol?” said Teitur. “Anders already let us off once. He’ll properly screw if we’re still awake.”

“Maybe that’s enough time for me to prove I’m sorry,” said Kolbeinn. “To Stef for telling and to Jón for getting him caught.”

“I just wanna forget it,” said Jón, blushing again at the thought of having been posed completely naked in the middle of the room in front of his football coach.

“Ever been sucked?” Kolbeinn asked, a smirk breaking across his face.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” Teitur sighed.

“What?” Kolbeinn retorted. “I’ll do you too.”

“No,” said Jón. “Obviously. I told you I’ve not done any of this stuff before.”

“Get your pants back off,” Kolbeinn ordered. “Lie down. I don’t like doing this much but it feels really good for the other person.”

“You’re sick,” Teitur said. “You’d better do a good job when you get to me.”

“Ahh-hahhh!” Jón gasped, feeling his sore little dick consumed by the heat, moisture, and pressure of Kolbeinn’s slurping mouth. “Ah! So… weird… Hey, Ty… at least Kolbeinn’s big mouth is blocked up like this!”

You can find a collection of my stories, some unpublished extras, and a full guide to Greenland-Vinland, its places, the club(s), and the players at my anthology site here.