Riddle at the Net

The first time I saw him, he was serving like his life depended on it. Marco. The bull of the summer padel camp, all muscle and intensity, his serves slamming into the glass backboard with a sound like lightning cracking overhead.

"You gonna stand there all day, goldfish?" He'd sneered at me during our first match. I'd been staring blankly at the score, my three-second memory apparently failing me again. "Open court. Hello?"

My face burned. Maya, the girl who couldn't focus, couldn't serve, couldn't seem to do anything right.

Now it was finals day. The camp's logo – a weird sphinx mascot perched above the courts – seemed to mock me with its riddle-smile. What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening? Whatever. The real riddle was how I'd made it this far.

"You've got this, Maya," said Leo, my doubles partner, who'd somehow become my actual friend over three weeks of shared frustration and shared post-game ice pops. His dimple popped when he smiled. Not that I noticed.

Game point. Marco's serve came like a bullet. I returned it weakly. He smashed it back. My racket connected with the ball in what felt like slow motion, a moment of pure instinct, zero overthinking. It cleared the net. It dropped just inside the line. Marco's eyes went wide.

"Point!" the counselor yelled.

We won. The goldfish brain had actually remembered how to play.

Afterward, Marco shook my hand, actually looking at me for the first time. "You're not bad, new girl. Maybe don't zone out so much next time."

"Maybe don't be such a bull about it," Leo shot back, and I laughed so hard I almost choked.

That night, sitting on the dock with Leo, watching lightning flicker across the lake, I felt different. Stronger. Like maybe I wasn't just the girl with the attention span of a goldfish anymore. Maybe I was someone who could show up, step up, and even win sometimes.

"Same time next summer?" Leo asked.

"Definitely." I smiled. "I'm gonna practice that serve till it's lightning fast."

The sphinx logo on my camp t-shirt didn't seem so mysterious anymore. Sometimes the riddles solve themselves when you're not overthinking them.