Riddles Under the Bleachers

Maya adjusted her dad's ridiculous fedora **hat**, trying to make it look intentional instead of desperate. The antique shop find was supposed to be her "aesthetic," but mostly it just made her look like she was cosplaying a 1940s detective.

"Nice lid," Jayden said, appearing beside her at the homecoming game. His grin did things to her stomach that she refused to acknowledge.

"It's vintage," she mumbled, pulling the brim lower.

The school mascot—a fiberglass **bull** named Thunder—stood near the entrance. Someone had stuck a "vote for Pedro" button on its nose. The marching band was practicing something that sounded suspiciously like a TikTok remix.

"Hey," Jayden said, "wanna see something weird?"

Before she could answer, he was pulling her behind the bleachers, where someone had built a cardboard **pyramid** adorned with LED Christmas lights. At the base sat a plastic lawn **sphinx**, missing one ear, painted gold.

"Junior prank from three years ago," Jayden explained. "They never took it down. It's basically sacred now."

"The sphinx asks riddles," Maya said dryly. "What's this one ask?"

"Actually..." Jayden pulled a crumpled paper from his pocket. "Someone wrote one. I've been trying to solve it for a week."

He handed it to her. The paper read: *I have cities but no houses, mountains but no trees, water but no fish. What am I?*

"A map," she said immediately.

Jayden stared. "What? No. Wait. Really?"

"Dude, my little brother's **dog** ate my homework last week and I had to explain that to my teacher. Maps are my thing now."

Jayden's laugh was this adorable snort thing. "You're actually kinda smart, huh?"

"I mean, I'm wearing a fedora to a football game. Clearly a genius."

He stepped closer. The pyramid lights flickered between them. "You wanna get snacks? I saw they have those churro things you like."

"Since when do you know what I like?"

"Since forever," he said, and Maya's brain short-circuited.

Underneath the cardboard pyramid, beside the broken golden sphinx, while the bull mascot watched over a football field she didn't care about, Maya adjusted her hat and realized maybe high school wouldn't be so terrible after all.

"Churros," she said. "But you're paying."

"Deal."