Imran, 13.
Playmaker, Govandi.

The bulb in the kitchen buzzes before it lights. Imran is up before it — before his sisters, before the trains. He fills the kettle, sets out the cups, sweeps the step. The small jobs that are his, done without being asked.

He's thirteen. He is not tired the way you'd think. He's already somewhere else, replaying a pass from yesterday that didn't quite come off, working out how he'd weight it today.

He's good at school the way clever, restless kids are good at school: fast, a little bored, always watching the clock.

In the margin of his maths book there's a formation. Four at the back, a diamond in the middle, him at the point of it. He's redrawn it three times this week.

There's one patch of ground that's actually flat, and it's forty minutes away on foot. Imran walks it every day like it's nothing — because to him, it is.

The city slides past: the fish market, the flyover, the long wall someone tagged in silver last winter. In his head he's already two-nil up, threading a ball he hasn't kicked yet.

First touch kills the ball dead. Second sets him away. He plays like the ground owes him something and he's here to collect.

This is the hour the whole day was for.

Monsoon. The maidan turns to soup, and Imran's boots — the only pair — have split along the seam again.

There's a district trial in two weeks. Two weeks. And right now, in the rain, he has a choice to make.

Whatever he chose, the walk home is the same: dark now, feet aching, a grin he can't quite lose. He's going over the game the way you go over a good song.

He'll be up at 04:50 tomorrow. He wouldn't tell you it was hard. He'd tell you about the pass.

None of the talent was ever the problem. One pair of boots was.

That's the whole thing we change — the single variable that has nothing to do with how good he is. Not a rescue. A fair pair of boots, and then getting out of his way.