Trophy Kid Read Online Free PDF

have Octavia bring me another can if it isn’t,” Robert said obligingly.
    Guava, who had inherited Greta’s fair complexion, was turning a reddish purple. Her tiny nostrils were flared and her normally cheerful hazel eyes seemed to flash red as she took in and released great lungfuls of air. I braced myself for the explosion. But to my surprise, she picked up her spoon and calmly said, “This is perfect.”
    She then ate the entire mountain of whipped cream, along with the strawberries and waffle beneath it, while the rest of us stared at her in disbelief. When she finished, she said, “That was delicious. Thank you, Daddy. I’m going to get ready for rehearsal.”
    If Guava got sick from the whipped cream, and she probably did, nobody ever knew it. I had new respect for Guava.

    Two weeks after the whipped cream incident, everything had returned to abnormal (as opposed to extraordinarily insane) and we were all in the first-class cabin of a plane headed for Washington, D.C.
    Greta and Guava were seated together, looking through fashion magazines, while Robert sat next to his lawyer, Larry. They were going over the speech Robert would make when the President gave him his medal.
    Tom and I were in the row opposite Greta and Guava.
    “How come Robert gets a medal and not Greta?” Tom asked. “Isn’t she into all the same causes he is?”
    “Yes and no,” I said. “These days she’s less into feeding starving children and more into feeding Guava’s acting and singing careers.”
    I thought it was pretty obvious that Robert wanted to go into politics. The whole Medal of Freedom ceremony was one step toward his ultimate goal to run for office. Part of my duties as a trophy kid was going to fund-raisers and rallies for political causes and candidates Robert supported. I actually thought Robert might make a good governor or senator. It was like Tom said: whatever his motivations, Robert helped a lot of people.
    “You know, I’ve never been to Washington,” Tom said. “But you’ve been there a lot, right?” It was early afternoon, and the flight attendant had just set down our trays. Tom had gone for the steak, while I had ordered chicken and mashed potatoes.
    “Yeah,” I said. “One time I even spoke before a Congressional subcommittee.”
    “Really? Tell me about it,” Tom said, cutting into his steak.

    Robert and I were greeted at Dulles Airport by flocks of reporters and photographers. I was six years old going on seven, and this seemed perfectly normal to me. After all, the first time I’d ever flown on an airplane was when Greta and Robert had brought me from Croatia to Los Angeles, so I figured every plane flight from anywhere to anywhere else had hundreds of people waiting for you on either end of the journey holding cameras, notebooks, and tape recorders.
    We were taken directly from the airport to Capitol Hill and into the office of Senator Preston Morgan of Iowa. Morgan was chairman of a special committee that Robert and I were going to testify before. The committee had been formed to determine whether the government was putting its money to the best possible use when it came to relief efforts around the world.
    “Great to see you, Robert,” Morgan said when we entered his office. “And how are you doing, Joe?”
    “Fine,” I said, taking an immediate disliking to the man, who smelled like aftershave and shoe polish.
    “I got you a present,” Morgan said in his oily way, and handed me a toy pickup truck whose bed was filled with stalks of corn. There was writing on the truck’s cab door.
    “That says ‘Buy Iowa Corn,’” he said, a broad smile on his face.
    “Thank you,” I replied, not liking him any better for passing a toy on to me that I suspected had been given to him by someone else.
    “You can play with it over there while I talk to your dad,” he said, pointing to a corner of the room.
    I didn’t like his telling me what to do. I stood there for a moment even though I