Riddle of the Left-Field Fox

Leo's mom was forcing him to eat the spinach smoothie. Again.

"It's packed with iron, mijo. You need energy for tryouts."

"Baseball tryouts aren't until next week, Mom. And this tastes like wet grass."

She sighed the sigh of mothers everywhere who've given up arguing with fifteen-year-olds. "Just drink it. And don't come home too late. The weatherman said lightning might roll in."

Leo grabbed his glove and headed out, ears still burning from what happened at lunch. Maya—the Maya he'd been lowkey crushing since seventh grade—had sat at his table for the first time ever. She'd laughed at his jokes, actually laughed, and for exactly thirty-seven seconds, Leo felt like the main character.

Then Jason had walked over, all varsity jacket and effortless confidence, and Maya's attention had shifted like gravity itself. Leo had immediately become part of the scenery.

He found himself at the abandoned field behind the middle school, the one with the overgrown backstop where nobody ever went. That's when he saw it.

A fox. Bright orange against the dying grass, watching him with unblinking eyes.

"Hey, little dude," Leo said, forgetting for a second that he felt like a total loser.

The fox didn't run. It just sat there, like it was waiting for something.

Then a voice behind him made him jump. "You know, in Greek mythology, the Sphinx ate people who couldn't answer its riddle."

He spun around. Maya.

"What?"

"The fox." She stepped closer, weirdly calm. "It's like the Sphinx. A test."

"Since when do you know Greek mythology?"

"Since I stopped caring what Jason thinks." She looked at the fox, then at Leo. "He made fun of my sphinx tattoo in sixth grade. I've been hiding it ever since."

The fox finally moved, trotting toward the woods. A jagged spear of lightning cracked the sky in half.

"We should go," Leo said.

"Yeah." She hesitated. "Hey Leo?"

"Yeah?"

"Want to walk me home?"

The fox disappeared into the trees, and something told him his life was about to change. "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

Sometimes the universe sends you exactly what you need, wearing the strangest disguise.