Chapter Text
Cristiano was seven when his parents decided that their family was moving to Brazil. Their parents went to Brazil without them first, so Cristiano, Hugo, Elma, and Cátia stayed at their grandmother's house, waiting for their parents to call on them. One of their cousins, João, told them that monkeys would crawl into windows, in Brazil, and steal children away from their parents. He laughed when he realized that Cristiano believed him.
After two weeks, all four of them packed up their lives in Madeira and went to Brazil. Cristiano's first reaction upon seeing his family's new apartment in São Paulo was far less than impressed. There was a mattress on the floor in the living room and the kitchen was small. Their parents looked at his siblings and him, proudly, as though this apartment was something to be proud of. They expected Cristiano, Elma, Cátia, and Hugo to be happy with this new arrangement.
It was Hugo who spoke first, eyeing the mattress carefully, “Where are we supposed to sleep?”
No one wanted to be the poor sap who had to sleep on the living room floor.
“There's a room in the back for Cátia and Elma. Then, there's a closet with a sliding door, where we put your bed. And the bed out here is for Cristiano.”
Of course, he would get the mattress, while everyone else got a room with a door, or in Hugo's case a closet with a door. His clothes were put in the bathroom, in the vanity's drawers. But Cristiano was the youngest and didn't get to complain. Hugo laughed at Cristiano when everyone had to settle in for their first night in Brazil and Cristiano had to sleep in the living room.
“Don't let the monkeys take you away!” Hugo hissed from his closet, before shutting the door. Cristiano looked at the open window over the sink for almost a half-hour of being unable to sleep, and shut it.
The next morning, Cristiano woke up when his parents left to go to work and he couldn't fall back to sleep. Hugo walked out of his closet and complained, “It's like a sauna in here!”
They didn't start school until the next week. He didn't like it. The other kids made fun of his accent and everyone laughed at him when he said certain words that everyone in Funchal said. All of his siblings went to same school as him, since the school year was different in Brazil than in Portugal. Cristiano's own year was unaffected, since he had only to one year back in Funchal and they figured he wasn't too out of sync with his classmates, in terms of reading, writing, and coloring within the lines. Cátia, Elma, and Hugo all got pulled back a year. Cristiano got to laugh at them for once.
Their aunt picked up Cristiano after school, while Hugo, Cátia, and Elma all got to hang around the schoolyard after classes finished. Because he was the youngest, he wasn't allowed to be home alone without their parents. Their aunt watched Cristiano do his homework and they watched soap operas after he was done.
“How do you like Brazil so far, Cristiano?” she asked. So far, he hated Brazil. He didn't get why they couldn't stay in Madeira and why they had to cross an ocean and several time zones just so Cristiano could sleep on the floor in the living room.
“It's okay,” he shrugged. He looked out the window and saw boys playing football in the street. That was one not-so-bad thing about Brazil; there was football everywhere.
That weekend, Tio Mauro took Hugo and Cristiano to a game where the home team's name was Juventus, like the big team in Italy. Tio Mauro said, “One day, I'll take you to a Portuguesa game. Don't let anyone tell you different, boys, but they're the best in this city.”
Cristiano decided he liked Juventus, even if Tio Mauro liked Portuguesa more. They were named after one of the best teams in the world, so he figured they couldn't be that bad.
Things did seem better, though at home. Their mother didn't have to leave the city to get work, which was infinitely preferable to her leaving the country to find work. Cátia, Hugo, and Elma didn't tease him as much. They all got to eat dinner together and on Sundays, they ate at Tia Carla and Tio Mauro's apartment. They didn't have a washing machine on their roof and everyone had their own beds.
However, school was still terrible. Cristiano ate lunch by himself and the other kids still made fun of his accent, even though the teachers said not to. After school, he watched soap operas with Tia Carla, but one day, it was Tio Mauro's responsibility to make sure Cristiano didn't get kidnapped or skip his homework, except Tio Mauro was much less strict. After he was done with his homework, Tio Mauro told Cristiano to go play football with the other boys. Tio Mauro presumably had some important duties to tend to, like reading dirty magazines or fixing the radio. Chores that Cristiano would only disrupt. Tio Mauro didn't have time to rethink his position, since Cristiano fled the apartment in a second.
The boys were all different ages, some were younger, but most were older than Cristiano.
“I want to play!”
Most of the other boys didn't notice him. One shouted, “Go away, midget!”
“I can play! I'm good!” Cristiano shouted back.
The boys stopped, “Why do you speak so weird?”
“I'm from Portugal,” Cristiano said, “I'm good at football.”
“Hey, Nano!” one of the older boys shouted back towards one of the keepers, “The midget's going to play keeper!”
And they let Cristiano play keeper. He wasn't very good at keeper, but he did dribble the ball all the way up the street and scored anyway.
“Nano! Get back in the goal!”
Cristiano started like Brazil a little bit more and started hoping that Tio Mauro was always the one to pick him up from school.
He decided that he would win his war against the other kids at school through similar measures. During one lunchtime, he ate quickly and hurried to play soccer out on the field with the other boys. They ignored Cristiano, even though he stood on the sidelines shouting for them to let him play.
They started referring to him Eusébio, even though Cristiano barely knew who that was. To Cristiano, he was some player from when his dad was a kid, having little importance on his own life, but the Brazilian kids knew who he was, so he must have been important.
“Ugh, just let him play,” one of the boys said, “He won't shut up, if we don't let him play.”
That was good enough for Cristiano. He got the ball and soon everyone wanted him on their teams. They all started calling him “Eusébio,” but it sounded less annoyed than before.
And it was good enough for him.