Palm Reader's Padel Serve

The humidity hit me like a wall as I stepped onto the outdoor court. Florida summer at its finest.

"You ready to get destroyed, newbie?" Marcus called out, grinning with that annoying confidence of someone who'd been playing **padel** since kindergarten.

I adjusted my grip on the racquet. "Just you wait."

This was my mission for the summer: infiltrate the cool kids' Tuesday afternoon padel sessions. My older sister Chloe said it was pathetic, but what did she know? She spent her days working at that fancy resort **swimming** pool, judging everyone's technique from her lifeguard tower.

The game started. I actually held my own for the first few rallies. Then it happened—my phone buzzed in my pocket. I checked instinctively. Big mistake.

**Cat**: the single-word text from my grandma. Code for "come home, emergency." Probably her actual cat, Mr. Whiskers, was stuck in a tree again. Or she'd made too much banana bread. With Grandma, you never knew.

"Earth to Lily!" Marcus yelled as the ball sailed past me.

"Sorry! Gotta go!" I grabbed my stuff and bolted.

Later that night, I sat on Grandma's porch, fanning myself with a woven **palm** frond from her garden. Mr. Whiskers purred on my lap, completely ungrateful after I'd spent twenty minutes coaxing him down from the oak tree.

"You missed your chance with Marcus," Chloe said, scrolling through her phone.

"Whatever. He's not that cute."

"Liar."

"Maybe." I looked at the stars. "But Grandma needed me."

Chloe actually smiled. "You know what? Marcus's crew is kinda shallow. There's this new guy at the pool, super chill. Plays guitar. You should come hang out tomorrow instead of stressing about padel."

Mr. Whiskers stretched and I scratched behind his ears. Maybe infiltration wasn't the answer. Maybe I just needed to find my own scene.

"Yeah," I said. "Maybe I will."