Brazil

By country three, Tas has done the maths, and the maths is cruel: making friends just means losing them. So, when the Ardens land in Brasilia, he makes himself three promises.

Do not make friends.

Do not speak Portuguese until he can say it properly.

Do not even unpack the Kit.

The problem is nobody in Brasilia lets him stick to his promises. There is a boy at the capoeira circle who corrects his cartwheels and walks him home. There is a girl at school who laughs at things that are not funny yet and somehow makes them funny.

There is a whole country that hugs first and asks questions later, and Tas still cannot work out how many cheek kisses are coming. Brazil refuses, absolutely refuses, to let anyone stand alone.

Add one own goal in front of the entire school, a berimbau that sounds like a dying cat, and a road trip to Carnival, and Tas’s no-new-friends plan does not stand a chance.

Brasilia, Year Two. Tas is thirteen, his Portuguese works, his capoeira group trusts him, and he walks home from school with his best friends like he has lived here forever. After three countries, the new kid is finally just a kid.

Then Justin flies in from Berlin with a girlfriend nobody has met, and the apartment suddenly feels too small for all the people the Ardens are becoming. Hailey is making her own friends, Tas is learning to breakdance badly, and everyone seems to know where they fit except him. At school he is one Tas. At capoeira he is another. On the
phone, he is someone else again. Only the journal knows all of them.

Belonging was supposed to make everything easier. It does not.