Blue Hair & Bad Schemes

Maya stared at her reflection, the midnight blue **hair** dye staining her forehead. Her mom was gonna lose it, but honestly? Maya was already losing herself. Fourteen and still trying to figure out where she fit in the seemingly elaborate social **pyramid** that was Franklin High—popular kids at the top, everyone else scrambling somewhere below.

"You're gonna LOVE this," Chantel had promised yesterday at lunch, sliding her a glossy flyer. "It's not MLM, it's, like, entrepreneurial empowerment."

Now Maya was sitting in Chantel's basement, watching a presentation about "financial freedom" through selling—what was it again? Some kind of overpriced wellness water?

"All you need is three people under you," Chantel explained, her eyes way too bright. "Then they get three people, and—"

"That's literally a **pyramid** scheme," Maya blurted, then immediately wanted to disappear. Why did she always say the wrong thing?

Chantel's smile froze. "It's not a scheme. It's opportunity."

Maya's phone buzzed. Her little brother: mom found the blue hair. Grounded.

The **cable** connecting the TV to the wall lay tangled across the floor, and someone had tripped over it earlier, knocking over a pitcher of fruit **water** that nobody had bothered to clean up. The whole room felt sticky and desperate and Maya suddenly couldn't breathe.

"I have to go," she said, grabbing her backpack.

"But I haven't even shown you the compensation plan—"

"Chantel, this isn't you," Maya said softly. "You're smarter than this."

Chantel's mask slipped. "I know, okay? But my parents said I need to start paying for my own phone bill, and—" Her voice cracked. "I just thought... maybe this could be easy for once."

Something shifted in Maya's chest. "Hey. We'll figure something else out. Actual something else."

They ended up at Maya's house, eating stolen ice cream while Chantel helped Maya fix the botched hair dye with some products she'd "borrowed" from her sister's room. The blue came out a patchy teal, but they were both laughing so hard it didn't matter.

"At least we're not pyramid scheme girls," Chantel said, wiping tears from her eyes.

"Small victories," Maya agreed. "Also, I'm still grounded."

"Worth it."