Sphinx Games & Hat Cameras

Maya pulled her beanie **hat** lower over her eyebrows, blocking out the fluorescent lights of the school cafeteria. The ancient Egypt project was due Monday, and she'd been staring at the same **sphinx** riddle for forty-five minutes.

"You're doing it again," Chloe said, sliding into the seat across from her. "The spy thing."

"I'm not spying!" Maya hissed, though she'd definitely been watching the new kid, Amir, at the table across the room. He was cute in that indie-gamer way—oversized hoodies, constantly tangled **cable** headphones, and something about him that felt familiar.

Chloe raised an eyebrow. "You've been 'not spying' on him since he transferred here three weeks ago. Just go talk to him."

Maya's stomach did that thing where it felt like she'd swallowed a **vitamin** without water—scratchy and wrong. Social anxiety was her personal curse. She'd spent junior year so far watching from the edges while everyone else seemed to know the secret script for conversations.

Her phone buzzed. A message from her mom: *Don't forget your vitamins! Doctor said your iron is low.*

"Your mom again?" Chloe laughed. "Mine's been nagging me to take vitamin D since winter started. Says I'm basically a vampire."

Maya grinned, then froze. Amir was walking toward their table, his headphones coiled around his neck like a black snake.

"Hey," he said, sliding into the empty seat beside Chloe. "Your sphinx project? I saw you working on it." He pulled out his phone, scrolled through photos, and stopped on an image—him, at a museum in Egypt last summer, standing beside the exact same statue. "I've got the original riddle if you want it. The one the archaeologists use."

Maya's heart hammered. "You went to Egypt?"

"My dad's an archaeologist." Amir smiled, and something in his expression made her think maybe he'd been doing his own kind of spying—maybe he'd noticed her noticing him.

"The riddle," he said, tapping his phone, "it's not about getting it right. It's about being brave enough to answer wrong."

Maya sat up straighter, pushed her hat back. "Show me."

Later, she'd realize this was the moment everything changed. The sphinx riddle wasn't about ancient Egypt at all—it was about being seventeen, about taking risks, about the courage to say hi to the boy with the cable headphones and the crooked smile. The sphinx had asked, "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?" But the real question was simpler: What would Maya do tomorrow?

She'd talk to him first. Definitely worth a little spying.