The Papaya Pyramid Scheme

Chloe stood at the edge of the pool, chlorine stinging her nose, watching the popular girls perform their synchronized swimming routine. They moved like some kind of aquatic pyramid—each tier supporting the ones above, perfectly balanced, effortlessly flawless. Meanwhile, Chloe was still trying to master the art of not looking like a drowning ferret.

"You gonna swim or just summon the courage to jump?" Marcus called from the bleachers. He was twirling a baseball between his fingers, because apparently that's what varsity athletes did when they weren't actively being impressive at sports.

"I'm mentally preparing," Chloe shot back, though she was mostly mentally calculating how much social capital she'd lose if she just bailed and went home.

Summer camp was supposed to be fun, not an exercise in feeling perpetually behind on everything. The popular crew had already established themselves as the camp's social pyramid, and Chloe was somewhere in the basement, possibly under the foundation.

She finally jumped in. The water swallowed her in a rush of cold, and she resurfaced sputtering while Marcus laughed.

"You look like a wet poodle," he said, grinning.

"Thanks, you look like... someone who plays baseball." Smooth.

Later that day, Chloe found herself in the dining hall, staring down at something yellow and alien on her tray. "What is this?" she whispered to no one in particular.

"Papaya," said Riley, the girl who'd been at the top of every social pyramid since kindergarten. "Want some? It's actually fire."

Chloe hesitated. This was it. The papaya test. If she ate it and made a face, she'd be uncool forever. If she pretended to like it when she didn't, she'd be fake. The stakes were unreasonably high for tropical fruit.

She took a bite. Sweet, weirdly musky, unlike anything she'd ever had.

"It's... different," Chloe said.

Riley laughed. "Yeah, I hated it too. I was just messing with you."

Wait, what?

"The baseball team's doing extra practice if you want to watch," Riley said. "Marcus has been talking about you all week."

Chloe's face heated up. Maybe social pyramids weren't as rigid as she thought. Maybe sometimes you just had to take a chance on weird fruit and jump into the deep end—even if you looked like a drowning ferret doing it.

"I might check it out," Chloe said, and for the first time all summer, she didn't feel like she was performing. Just living.