Riddles in the Pocket

Maya's phone buzzed in her pocket — again — like a frantic heartbeat she couldn't ignore. Her iPhone screen lit up with another text from Kai: "u coming? everyone's waiting lol."

She stared at the sphinx statue in front of her, its stone face frozen in eternal riddle-mode. Kind of like her life right now. The field trip to the museum was supposed to be chill, but of course the social pyramid had to rear its ugly head. At the bottom: awkward kids like her who'd rather examine ancient Egyptian artifacts than participate in ritual humiliation. At the top: Kai and his squad, effortlessly cool while pretending they weren't performing for an invisible audience.

"Maya?" Mr. Harrison's voice cut through her spiral. "Everything cool? You've been staring at that exhibit for twenty minutes."

"Yeah, just... thinking about riddles." She gestured vaguely at the sphinx. "Classic existential crisis stuff, you know?"

He nodded, looking impressed. "Very philosophical. Don't forget to check out the pyramid chamber before we leave."

The pyramid chamber. Where Kai and everyone were probably hanging out, being effortlessly normal while she stood here having a full-on conversation with a limestone statue.

Her phone buzzed again. This time, a photo: Kai and her friends in front of the pyramid exhibit, making peace signs and duck faces. Caption: "missing our fav historian 😜"

Maya smiled despite herself. Maybe the social pyramid wasn't actually a pyramid — maybe it was just her overthinking again, like she'd turned every interaction into some sphinx-like riddle she had to solve perfectly or face catastrophic social death.

Meanwhile, back at home, her golden retriever Buster was probably napping in a sunbeam, living his best life without caring about perceived hierarchies or whether his text response time was too eager. Buster didn't play games. Buster just loved.

She texted back: "omw rn sphinx was judging me hard 💀"

And walked toward the pyramid exhibit, toward her friends, toward whatever would happen next. The ancient Egyptians had built pyramids to achieve immortality, but Maya was starting to realize that just showing up — even when it was scary, even when you felt awkward in your own skin — that was its kind of forever too.