The last question of the final was this: “Who wrote The Golden Man?”
Bence pressed the button.
“János Arany,” he said.
The panel looked at their sheet and answered:
“Correct. One point to the home team.”
With that we won the county final. By one point.
Only I heard that Bence had not said Jókai. He had said János Arany. And the panel had not noticed.
In the hall everyone stood up. Ours shouted, the other team applauded — they had lost, but they lost well, because that is the kind of people they were. Bence put his hand on my shoulder.
“We did it.”
“We did,” I said.
That night I did not sleep.
Not because we had cheated. We had not cheated: Bence said the wrong thing, and the panel made a mistake. A person is not responsible for the panel’s ears.
But because I knew.
Second place went to the Two-Tails — that is what we called ourselves among ourselves, because the team name belonged to the school, and the friendship belonged to us. The captain of the Two-Tails was Zsófi, and she was the one who came over to practise with us every Thursday for three months, because in her own team there was nobody who took it seriously.
They came for a draw. We came for a win. That difference was there the whole way through, and it was the best thing about the competition.
On the Monday I went to the teacher.
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
She heard me out. She did not interrupt, did not ask whether I was sure. She only nodded.
“I knew one of you would come in,” she said. “I just did not know which.”
The prize-giving was held again. There was no ceremony, no applause. We sat in a classroom, six of us, and the teacher read out the record: the point was withdrawn, the final was a draw, and the two teams shared first place.
At first Bence did not speak to me. For two days.
Then on the third day he sat down next to me at the desk.
“Why did you do it?”
“Because you didn’t say Jókai.”
“I know what I said.” His voice was quiet. “I’m asking why you did it, when you didn’t have to.”
I thought about it. I did not want to say something beautiful, because it was not beautiful.
“Because this way the draw is ours,” I said. “The other way it would only have been yours, and that is not what you wanted.”
Bence looked at me for a long time. Then he took the trophy out of his bag — the copy that every team member was given — and set it on the desk beside mine.
“Then let both of them stay here,” he said. “Until we really win.”
They stayed there. All year they stayed on the desk, and before every test I looked at them.
They did not remind me of winning. They reminded me that one day we would have to win, and that it would be good.
