Spinach Teeth and the Social Pyramid

I'm basically invisible at Franklin High, floating somewhere near the bottom of the social pyramid alongside the AV club kids and that guy who wears a fedora. But that all changed third period, when I realized I'd been walking around with spinach in my teeth all morning.

Jordan caught me picking at it in the bathroom mirror during lunch. Jordan, who sits two tiers above me on the pyramid, whose hair somehow falls in these perfect beachy waves that definitely aren't natural. I expected them to laugh. Instead, they handed me a hair tie.

"Your hair's gorgeous though," Jordan said. "You ever think about dyeing it?"

"Like orange?" I blurted, because my brain-to-mouth filter has never been great. "My cat's orange. His name's Cheddar."

Jordan stared at me for a second, then cracked up. Not the mean laugh, but the real one.

Two weeks later, I'm sitting with Jordan's crew at lunch, my newly orange-haired cat sleeping on my Instagram feed, and Jordan teaching me the art of strategic cafeteria navigation. The social pyramid hadn't changed. I'd just stopped caring about where I landed on it.

"Still got spinach in your teeth," Jordan whispered today, grinning.

"Yeah, well." I smiled back, actually smiling. "It's part of my brand now."

Some pyramids are worth climbing. Others are just meant to be admired from the sidelines while you eat your lunch with orange-haired cat people who get the joke.