The Trophy Shelf

The Trophy

Reid couldn't stop looking at it.

The trophy was golden and shiny and had a little soccer player on top, frozen mid-kick, and it was his. His name was right there on the bottom — REID JACKSON, FIRST PLACE — and he ran his thumb over the letters again and again as Mom drove him home from the tournament.

"I can't believe I won," he said. Then he sat up straighter. "Actually, I can believe it. Did you see my goal in the second half? The one where I faked left and went right?"

"I saw it, sweetheart."

"That was probably the best goal anyone scored all day. Maybe all year." Reid held the trophy up so it caught the sunlight through the car window. Little golden sparkles danced across the ceiling. "I bet Coach Davis is going to talk about that goal at practice on Monday."

Mom made a small sound that might have been "mmm-hmm."

"Can we go to Grandma's house? I want to show her."

"We can call Grandma tonight."

"What about Uncle Pete?"

"Reid—"

"Can I bring it to school? I'm going to bring it to school."

When they got home, Reid put the trophy on the kitchen table, then decided it looked better on the living room shelf, then moved it to his bedroom desk, then brought it back to the kitchen table because that's where everyone could see it when they walked in the door.

He took a picture of it with Mom's phone. Then he took another picture, this time holding it next to his face. Then he took one more, flexing his arm with the trophy raised high, like he'd seen real athletes do on TV.

"Can you send that to Dad?" he asked.

"Already done," said Mom.

At school on Monday, Reid wore his tournament jersey. He told Marcus about the trophy at the cubbies. He told Priya about it during morning meeting. He told Elijah about it in the lunch line.

"It's like this big," he said, holding his hands apart. "Real gold. Well, probably not real gold. But it looks real."

"Cool," said Elijah, unwrapping his sandwich.

"It's got my name engraved on it. Engraved means they carved it in with a special machine."

"I know what engraved means," said Elijah.

"The game was so close," Reid continued. "But then I scored the winning goal. I faked left—"

"—and went right. You told me."

Reid grinned. "It was amazing."

After lunch came recess. Reid was telling a group of kids about the finals — he'd added a few extra details by now, like how the wind was blowing against him and how the other team's goalie was "the biggest kid I've ever seen" — when he spotted his best friend, Oliver, sitting alone on the bench by the four-square court.

"Oliver!" Reid jogged over. "Dude, where were you? I was telling everyone about the tournament."

Oliver looked up. "I heard."

"Did you hear about the goal? In the second half? I faked—"

"Left and went right. Yeah."

Reid sat down next to him, still buzzing. "It was the best day of my whole life, probably. You should've been there. Where were you this weekend anyway? I didn't see you at the tournament."

Oliver didn't answer right away. He was pulling at a loose thread on his jacket sleeve, wrapping it around his finger, unwrapping it, wrapping it again.

"I was there," Oliver said quietly.

Reid blinked. "Wait, you were? I didn't see you!"

"I was on the Comets."

Something cold trickled into Reid's stomach. The Comets. He pictured the bracket in his head — the big poster board the ref had taped to the tent pole. The Comets had been in the first round. They'd lost their game. They'd lost their game badly. Reid remembered seeing the score: 6–1.

"Oh," Reid said.

Oliver kept pulling at the thread. "It was our first tournament ever. I messed up a lot." His voice was so quiet Reid had to lean in. "I kicked it into our own goal by accident. Some kids on the other team laughed."

Reid opened his mouth, but for the first time all weekend, no words came out.

He looked at Oliver's face — really looked — and saw something he recognized. It was the same face Reid had made last year when he'd lost the spelling bee in front of the whole school. The face that tries very hard to look like it doesn't care. The face that's working so hard to hold itself together that even the jaw gets tight.

Reid's trophy suddenly felt very far away. And all those things he'd been saying — the best goal anyone scored all year, the best day of my whole life — they floated back through his mind and landed differently now. They landed like rocks dropping into a quiet pond.

Two feelings crashed into each other inside his chest. He was still proud. The trophy was still his. That goal was still real, and it still mattered, and he still wanted to be happy about it.

But Oliver was his best friend. And Oliver was sitting on this bench with that face.

Both feelings were big. Both feelings were true. And for a moment, Reid didn't know what to do with two true things that pushed in opposite directions.

He sat there for what felt like a long time. It was probably only a few seconds.

"That happened to me once," Reid finally said.

Oliver looked over. "What did?"

"Kicking it into my own goal. At practice last fall. I was so turned around, I just — boom — kicked it right in. Lucas laughed so hard milk came out of his nose, and he wasn't even drinking milk."

Oliver almost smiled. Almost. "That doesn't even make sense."

"I know. That's what made it so weird."

Now Oliver did smile. Just a little.

Reid leaned back on the bench. The recess yard was loud all around them — kids screaming, a jump rope slapping the pavement, somebody arguing about whether a ball was in or out. But on the bench, it was its own small world.

"The own-goal was really bad," Oliver said. "But also I couldn't figure out which direction to run. Like, the whole game, I kept running the wrong way."

"I used to do that too! Coach Davis put colored tape on my shoes. Blue tape meant run that way."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. I wore tape shoes for like a month."

Oliver laughed — a real laugh — and then he told Reid about the rest of his game. How he'd almost scored a real goal but it hit the post. How his teammate Nora did score, and the whole team went crazy because it was their only point. How even though they lost, the Comets got snow cones after, and Oliver's was blue raspberry, which turned his tongue completely blue, and he chased his little sister around the parking lot with it.

Reid listened. He didn't talk about his trophy, or his goal, or his engraved name. He just listened.

"Are you going to play again next season?" Reid asked.

"I don't know. Maybe." Oliver shrugged. "I was pretty bad."

"You just started. I was bad when I started too."

"You were?"

"Oliver. The tape shoes. I literally just told you about the tape shoes."

Oliver laughed again.

The bell rang. Kids started streaming toward the doors, and Reid and Oliver stood up and walked together the way they always did, shoulders bumping, shoes scuffing, in no particular hurry.

"Hey, Reid?" Oliver said.

"Yeah?"

"Was your goal actually good? Like, for real?"

Reid felt that warm glow flicker back to life in his chest — but softer now, gentler, like a candle instead of a spotlight.

"Yeah," he said. "It was pretty good."

"Cool," said Oliver. And he meant it.

They walked inside together.