Riddle of the Lunch Table

The goldfish blew bubbles at me from its bowl on my desk, like it understood my humiliation.

"You're the only one who gets me, Finn," I whispered, dropping another flake of food into the water. Being the new sophomore at Northwood High was basically social suicide, especially when your former best friend decides you're too lame for the varsity crowd and publicly ghosted you.

At lunch, I sat alone with my sandwich, watching the cafeteria like it was some ancient **sphinx** guarding impossible riddles. Which tables were safe? Who would actually talk to the weird girl who talked to fish?

Then I saw him—Marcus, the guy from my English class who always wore hoodies and sat in back. He was sitting with a Golden Retriever on the grass outside the cafeteria windows. That was weird. No dogs allowed on campus.

I grabbed my tray and headed outside, because why not? My social standing couldn't get any lower.

"Is that your **dog**?" I asked, gesturing to the retriever who was currently knocking over Marcus's lunch.

"Yeah, this is Buster." Marcus sighed, wiping mustard off his jeans. "My mom's fostering him. He escaped our yard and followed me to school."

I laughed, and Buster immediately abandoned Marcus's lunch to investigate mine. As I scratched behind the dog's ears, Marcus and I ended up talking about everything—from how much Northwood's social hierarchy sucked to his conspiracy theory that the school mascot was cursed.

"You know," Marcus said, as the bell rang, "you're actually pretty cool. Most people would've kept walking."

"Same," I said, surprised at how much I meant it.

Later that night, I fed Finn an extra pinch of flakes. The sphinx riddle of the lunch table hadn't been solved exactly, but maybe that was the point. Some things aren't meant to be solved alone.