Isaac the Insecure

Tryouts for the Odyssey middle school soccer team are in full swing, and Isaac Morton is not having a good day. He races down the field, gives the ball everything he has, and drives it toward the wrong goal. Mr. Zachary calls him over and tries very hard not to say the word "cutting," but that is exactly what he means. Isaac takes the news without arguing. He tells the coach he never thought he was any good anyway, thanks him politely, and walks off to get cleaned up while the rest of the team gathers for a reorganizing huddle. When his friend Lucy asks what happened, he shrugs it off, and only after she runs back to the field does he say what he really thinks: he can't do anything right.

Math class goes better, at least on paper. Isaac works out a problem at the board so neatly that the teacher uses it as an example for everyone else. Then Jack Davis gets called up, fumbles the numbers, and finally turns the whole equation into a soccer play, sliding letters around to set up a better shot on goal. The class enjoys it, and Jack strolls back to his seat with a joke about naming the play after the teacher. To Isaac, watching from his desk, this only proves how different Jack is. Jack is captain of the soccer team, everybody likes him, and he clearly doesn't have to care about math problems. Lucy points out that Isaac is good at school and has friends of his own, but Isaac has already decided what he wants most, and it is to be Jack.

Then Mrs. Rush assigns oral reports on a twentieth-century author and pairs the class up. Jack Davis, she says, will work with Isaac Morton. Isaac hears Jack mutter that they will just have to make the best of it, and something inside him sinks. At home, hunting through his father's shelves for books about C. S. Lewis, he admits to his mother that Jack makes him nervous, that Jack has popularity and position and good looks and straight teeth, and that he himself is plain and ordinary and boring. His mother tells him those things are smaller than they look, and that almost everyone feels insecure at some point, especially when they measure themselves against someone who seems to have it all together. Isaac says he knows, grabs his books, and hurries off to the library.

Jack arrives late from practice, sees the stack of books Isaac has already pulled, and suggests that Isaac get started while he picks things up as they go along. A week later Isaac has done all the work alone and is still making excuses for his partner. When Mrs. Rush corners him for a progress report, he stalls, squirms, and finally tells her the truth. Jack, lectured in the hallway in front of everyone, hunts Isaac down and calls him a tattletale. Isaac decides the only way to fix it is to write the entire report himself and let Jack simply stand up and read it.

That evening the librarian mentions that another boy is working on the very same topic behind the reference section. Isaac goes to look, and finds Jack buried in books. Jack has been working all along - quietly, alone, because he assumed Isaac didn't want him. Then Jack admits the thing nobody would guess: standing up in front of a class terrifies him. That day at the math board, he knew the answer and panicked anyway. Each boy has spent weeks certain he was the only one who felt that way. They finish the report together, earn an A, and Isaac tells his mother he is celebrating something else besides the grade. Not Jack Davis the popular one, but Jack Davis, the guy who turned out to be a lot like him.