Riddles in the Water

Maya stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, fingers tangled in frizzy **hair** that refused to cooperate. First day of sophomore year, and she already wanted to disappear.

"You coming?" Her brother leaned against the doorframe. "**Padel** tryouts are in an hour. I thought you wanted to make varsity."

"Yeah, because THAT'S gonna happen," Maya muttered. "Have you met me? I trip walking down the hallway."

"Whatever. Coach said if you can hit the ball like you hit that volleyball last spring—" He shrugged and left.

Maya grabbed her phone, **cable** fraying at the edges like everything else in her life. 47 notifications from the group chat she'd been ghosting since July. What was she supposed to say? *Sorry I've been weird, I'm just figuring out who I actually am when no one's watching.*

Lame.

Downstairs, her mom's **goldfish**—Pepper, named for some reason Maya couldn't remember—darted around its bowl like it had somewhere important to be. Maya tapped the glass. "At least someone's got their life together."

The fish surfaced, mouth opening and closing in that weird way goldfish do, and suddenly it hit her: Mr. Harrison's English assignment from last year. Write about something that speaks without words. She'd written about this stupid fish.

*What do you want?* she'd written. *What secrets are you keeping behind those glass walls?*

A **sphinx** riddle, but with fish. The answer had been "nothing," which she'd thought was deep at the time but now just seemed pretentious.

"Maya! Your ride's here!"

She grabbed her racquet and followed her brother out the door, hair still messy, notifications still unread, fish still swimming in circles. Some days felt like one long question with no answer.

But maybe that was okay. Maybe the point wasn't solving everything all at once. Maybe you just kept swimming, like Pepper, until something made sense.

"Ready?" her brother asked.

Maya nodded. "Yeah. Let's do this."