The medal had that sort of sticky residue on the back of it, like Crystal Prep’s principal had removed the price tag right before our team was paraded onstage to accept our participation awards for competing in the second-ever Friendship Games. Absently, I scratched at the spot with my fingernail, but it wouldn’t come off.
Our chaperone had admonished us, when he first heard a student mutter that that was what the hunks of plastic hanging around our necks were. “Participation awards.”
Wasn’t that just sour in the mouth? These were gold, he reasoned. Shiny as anything. Couldn’t they all see it? This was something to be celebrated! We won!
But listening to him say that was almost more sour. What did we win? Party store clearance items? I scratched harder at my medal, the school bus jostling us around with every bump. The tacky feeling remained.
When we got back to Canterlot High, the girl that spelled elanguescence with an extra ‘s’ bit into hers, testing if it would leave a mark. She may have been trying to joke—the Shadowbolts had done the same after they received theirs on the podium. Knowing their cost of tuition, though, their teeth probably had made an impression.
The girl’s teeth marks showed up on her medal, too, but not because the material was soft or expensive; hers just chipped the paint. The plastic underneath the coat of metallic sheen was dull.
The next day in first period, a kid asks me how the competition went. If we did good. This was before student spectators were allowed, and everyone was dying to know whether or not Canterlot won. When it came to Crystal Prep, Canterlot never won.
And they never would.
But she still asked me.
I just put my head down.
Sometimes, silence tells more than words ever could.
Every window on the bus was open. Not because it was hot, or because we needed air, but because we stunk.
In the both literal and physical sense.
The team captain was crying. A lot of people were. She had grass stains all over her uniform and no medal around her neck to prove it. None of us did.
Bye-bye, soccer district champions. Bye-bye, beating Crystal Prep Academy. Hello, shameful bus drive home. It was a hard game, our coach reasoned. And you guys played hard. Fought hard. We knew it was going to be a difficult game.
The soreness didn’t go away. I knew our coach was just as upset as we were. Taking the picture with our runner-up plaque out on CPA’s field, we all smiled. Truth be told, I wanted to throw away the thing the moment we got it.
“Could’ve been worse,” a particularly brave underclassman pipes up. Her hand was sticking out of the window, like a dog trying to feel the breeze. She turned back to face us, then, and gave a wonky smile. “We could’ve gotten last.”
The team captain only sobbed harder. She was a senior; most people that had played today were. Another joined her, and another, and another, and soon, a part of me wanted to hand our bus driver a tissue on his behalf.
I still laughed at what the underclassman said. It was pretty funny. Everyone else’s tears just drowned me out.
It was strange, the way you could never quite get used to losing.
It was easy to pretend on the field. You could greet family and friends like it was no big deal. Shake hands with your opponents, with such a firm grip that you could only hope their fingers would feel sore come morning. Smile and wave and whatever.
And when we clamber up onto the bus, we could shout all we wanted. Yell that the tournament was rigged, that they had special rackets and we just had bad ones, that they had an advantage and we didn’t.
But going home, there was no hiding from the barren trophy cases that line our hallways and the claps on the back from teachers for a job done poorly. Our sunburned shoulders hung low.
Because we thought that maybe this time, we’d make it. We were so close last time. One more game. One last try. Wondercolts, go!
When the adjudicators were calling out the top schools, my teammates and I held each other’s hands so tightly, my nails left crescent moons in their palms.
There was a request to be humble, when accepting awards. Something about sportsmanship, or fidelity, maybe. With Crystal Prep, though, those were thrown out the window ages ago.
Under the stadium lights, they were easy to spot—those school colors were hideous. I watched them. The only people cheering for them were the ones in the stands. They filed up, one by one, hands clasped behind their backs. Paragons of perfection. The only time they smiled was for the picture.
A teammate snapped his fingers at me. When I met his eyes, he jerked his head in the direction of the Shadowbolts and their ugly purple uniforms, and whispered, in a sing-songy type of voice, “Smells like Daddy’s money.”
I fought to keep my grin off my face, but when we got to our bus, it quickly became a losing battle.
That was the only nice part about CPA, really: they were easy to make fun of.
Bronze didn’t taste close to silver or even gold, but then again, it wasn’t like any of us would’ve known how either tasted. I’d guess metallic. The handful of coins I used to pay for that energy drink probably tasted just the same. The drink, too. That stuff was potent. And teeth-staining.
Everybody was screaming to be heard over the music blasting out from the bus’s speakers. Maybe the driver thought it’d soothe the sting of losing, but we brought plenty of bug spray. And aloe vera, after that last game. We were fine. Loud, but fine.
“Okay, no, you’re not listening. I’m not saying it’s good that we lost, or anything—”
The poor girl didn’t get to finish. Briefly, I wondered how beneficial it would be to implement a talking stick procedure. My golf club was in the seat across the aisle. I thought about reaching for it, but a particularly nasty speed bump flung me back in my seat.
“We didn’t lose, we got third,” a junior called out. “That’s bound to get us on the school website.”
“—I was getting to that. I know we got third. We all know we got third. We’ve got the medals to prove it. But all I’m tryna say is that maybe we lucked out! Imagine it—CPA getting in a terrible bus accident on the way to the regional tournament, and we’d all be fine since, y’know, we’re, like, five hours away at our own school ‘cause we’re the losers and we’re not going anywhere.”
“Or,” the same junior presses, “maybe they wouldn’t even get on the bus, since one of their top players failed a drug test because they take steroids and the whole team got disqualified.”
“Wait, they take steroids?” I turn around to squint at her. “For real?”
She made a face. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe? I mean, they’re Crystal Prep. What else would you expect?”
I sunk back down in my seat. “Yeah, true.”
“Oh, hey, wait, Coach said you put some of those energy drinks in the cooler? Are they any good? Did you try them? I never got a chance at the actual competition.”
“Tastes like coins.” I thought for a moment, then added, “And it’ll make your teeth purple.”
The junior waved a hand. “Still can’t be any uglier than what CPA’s got on their uniforms. Gimme.”
I couldn’t argue with that. The clink of tab as it was pulled off the can felt like a victory in its own right.
Among the Canterlot High School student body, it was often joked that the Friendship Games were only held as a consolation prize for all the times Crystal Prep has beaten us. It would have been a nicer sentiment if the competition actually did all the things it sought to do. Gazing up at the ruined Wondercolts statue, it’s hard to see integrity. Or character. Or any other of those pretty words in their motto.
The spray paint is still wet, dripping down the side. I’m almost tempted to blow on it to speed up the drying process. There’s a group of us clustered around the carnage. Somebody’s gone to fetch Principal Celestia, who will no doubt pinch her brow like her head hurts and whisper hurriedly into her walkie-talkie when she sees it.
Honestly, I’ve never been too sure why they do this. Maybe it’s tradition? Maybe they were scared we were going to pull through and wanted to cover their tracks? It wouldn’t have changed the outcome—Crystal Prep still got something shiny to add to their trophy case. We still got our participation awards, though this time, we didn’t call them that aloud.
Their new dean handed them out personally. I think she felt sorry for us. The medals were just as dinky as the ones from the previous Friendship Games, but now, you could hardly tell the price tag had been there at all. Just the faintest impression. It came off easy when I scraped at it.
I get the feeling spray paint wouldn't be the same.
“Well, it’s way better than the clown wig they got before,” an upperclassman says sagely. “This is more creative. Inventive, even.”
Some kids nod, like he’d said something wise and smart. Then again, there was a reason he’d been selected to be on our team. The Elimination Equation spares no one. Still, I find myself frowning.
“Do you think whoever did it’ll get caught?” I ask. “There’s cameras in the courtyard. And this is vandalism. Couldn’t they get, like, fined?”
“Are you kidding?” The upperclassman folds his arms across his chest, sighing. “Maybe there would be a fine if we did it. But nobody touches CPA. Who even cares about the Wondercolts statue except us? I’m sure whoever tagged it up will brag about it on their story, and maybe someone will report it, but they won’t get more than a slap on the wrist. You know how they are, they’re prudes.”
On my left, a girl cackles. “And it’s not even like this is something to be proud of, anyway,” she says. “I mean, ‘Blunderdolts’? Seriously, that’s the best they could think of? They have, like, the top test scores in the entire county and they’re calling us the ‘Blunderdolts’? They didn’t even spell it right.” She cups her hands around her mouth and shouts at CPA’s charter bus as it speeds off towards the highway. “Hey, Meadowbrook Elementary called, they want their insults back!”
We all laugh, and don’t really stop, even when Principal Celestia comes running across the parking lot, jaw agape like she’s stumbled upon a crime scene and walkie-talkie clutched in her other hand. But she still takes a second to peer up at the statue.
And it could’ve been the light, but I swear I watch her hide a smile in her hand.
The graffiti is gone the next day.
The medal must have been gleaming. The bus driver had turned off the overheads the minute everyone was accounted for, but I’d seen it earlier, under Canterlot High’s bright gymnasium lights, and it was polished to a shine. I ran my finger over the engraving on the front, my palm cupping the smooth back.
I couldn’t help the smile that split my face. It’s going to look great, I thought, on my shelf with all of the others.
Not to mention the big trophy we got. It was up in the front seat, cushioned by at least two letter jackets. Cinch herself had come aboard to make certain it wouldn’t chip on the drive back, but that was the last we saw of her. She wasn’t smiling then. I don’t even think she smiled during the awards ceremony when they called out our school as the winner of the Friendship Games for the fifth year in a row. Maybe she just knew we would win.
I know I did.
No one’s really talking. Not even the seniors, who are all clustered together in the back, since that’s only for the upper-upperclassmen. If they could rope it off with tape, I’m sure they would in a heartbeat.
Still, I lean across the aisle at my peers, and call out to them, “Oh, do you think they’ll have to add a new trophy case?”
My voice rings out in the quiet of the bus, but I don’t get an answer. The sound of the air conditioning is a little grating. So I try again, louder this time.
“The main corridor is getting crowded,” I go on. “Especially after the golf team won state. Building a new trophy case would come out of the funds for our space station field trip in the spring, of course, but at least we’d have room to display everything we got today.” I try for a grin. “You know. Since we won, and all. Like usual.”
No one responds. But they don’t really have to, this time. The medal on my neck itches.