Riddles at the Carnival

Maya's hair refused to cooperate. Naturally. The one evening Jordan was finally going to notice her, and she looked like she'd stuck her finger in an electrical socket.

"You good?" Tyler asked, vibrating with that too-much-energy thing he always did. The county fair smelled like funnel cakes and desperation, exactly how Friday nights were supposed to smell when you were sixteen and had nothing to prove.

"My hair's doing that thing again," Maya muttered, attempting to flatten a particularly rebellious strand. "It's hopeless."

"Bro, you're fine." Tyler gestured toward the carnival games stretching ahead. "Wanna hit the bull first?"

The mechanical bull lurched violently, throwing yet another victim into the air padding. The operator cackled like this was his personal comedy show. Jordan stood nearby, laughing with that effortless confidence Maya had been crushing on since seventh grade, when he'd let her borrow his pen and forgotten to ask for it back.

"No way," Maya said. "I have dignity."

"Your loss." Tyler shrugged, then pointed. "What about that?"

The Sphinx's Riddle booth glowed with purple Christmas lights, looking like something transported from a different decade. An actual woman sat behind a velvet curtain, looking equal parts mysterious and bored out of her mind.

"Ten bucks," she called out. "Answer three riddles, win a prize. Fail, and you donate to the 'I Got Owned by a Carnival Worker' fund."

"Challenge accepted," Maya said, before she could talk herself out of it.

The sphinx lady raised an eyebrow. "Confident. I like that. First riddle: The more you take, the more you leave behind. What am I?"

Maya's brain did that thing where it suddenly forgot everything it had ever learned. Footsteps. That was obvious. But what if she was wrong? What if Jordan was watching?

"Footsteps," she said.

"Correct." The sphinx lady actually looked impressed. "Second: I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with the wind. What am I?"

This one was harder. Maya's heart hammered. The bull rider screamed behind her. The night pressed in with all its expectations and awkwardness and the terrifying possibility that everything could go wrong in a single moment.

"An echo," she said, surprising herself.

"Final question." The sphinx lady leaned forward, suddenly intense. "What must you break before you can use it?"

Maya stood there, her bad hair suddenly feeling like armor instead of a disaster. The answer came to her like something she'd always known but never said out loud.

"An egg," she said. "But also, like, fear. You have to break through fear to do anything that matters."

The sphinx lady stared at her for a long moment. Then she smiled, really smiled. "Well played, kid. Well played."

She handed Maya a stuffed sloth that was surprisingly soft.

"Hey," Jordan said, appearing beside her. "That was pretty legit."

Maya's hair was still a disaster. The bull was still bucking riders into oblivion. But somehow, none of that mattered anymore.

"Thanks," she said. "I'm just getting started."