Electric Papaya

Maya's **hair** was supposed to be perfect for Jordan's pool party. Instead, it was currently undergoing chemical warfare from a DIY dye job that had turned her curls a shade the box called "tropical sunset" but looked more like "radioactive tangerine."

"You look like a walking **papaya**," her little brother Leo announced from the doorway, currently wearing his rubber ducky inner tube like a crown.

Maya threw a **hat** at him. A sun hat with a brim so wide it could shade a small village. "Get out, Leo. And don't you dare tell anyone I'm wearing this."

The pool party was supposed to be her moment. Jordan, the cute junior from AP Bio, had actually invited her. HER. Maya Chen, who until this semester had been approximately as visible as air. But something had shifted since she'd started sitting at their lunch table. She was part of something now.

Now she'd show up looking like a fruit salad.

The **water** in Jordan's pool sparkled deceptively innocent when she arrived. Everyone was already there—the popular kids, the theater kids, the people she'd spent years watching from the safety of the library. They looked effortless. She looked like she was hiding a crime scene under that ridiculous hat.

"Nice hat, Maya!" Jordan called, swimming over to the edge. His wet hair was plastered to his forehead and he was smiling at her like she wasn't wearing a sun hat the size of a pizza to a pool party.

"Heat stroke," she said weakly. "Very real concern."

"True." He splashed water at her. "Come in! The **lightning** storm's supposed to miss us, we're good for like two hours."

And that's when Maya realized something: Jordan didn't care about her hair. Nobody was staring. Nobody whispered. They were too busy having the kind of fun she'd spent years watching from the sidelines, too scared to jump in.

She pulled off the hat. The papaya-orange curls spilled out, wild and ridiculous and impossible to hide.

"Whoa," said someone from behind her. "Maya, that's actually kind of sick."

"Yeah," said Jordan, still treading water. "It suits you. Come in already."

Maya jumped. The water was cold and shocking and perfect. Her hair floated around her like a radioactive halo. For the first time in her life, she wasn't watching from the edge. She was in the pool. She was part of the splash. And it turned out that was all that really mattered.