The Riddle at Miller's Creek

Leo's golden retriever, Buster, nudged his hand, sensing the vibe. Leo sighed, scratching behind the dog's ears as he crouched behind the abandoned pump house. His life had officially become a low-stakes espionage mission.

"Dude, are you seriously still spying on them?" Maya whispered, sliding up beside him in the grass. "It's been two weeks. They're just the popular kids. They're not secret agents."

"I'm not spying," Leo lied, adjusting his glasses. "I'm observing. There's a difference."

Maya raised an eyebrow. "Sure, James Bond. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

The truth was, Leo had been crushing on Samara since seventh grade, and now that they were finally freshmen, she'd somehow ascended to the upper echelon of high school royalty. Meanwhile, Leo was still the same awkward kid who collected vintage video games and said 'lit' unironically until last month when Maya finally told him to stop.

Suddenly, Buster bolted, barking at something near the creek. Leo scrambled up, chasing after him, with Maya swearing behind him.

They found the dog standing tail-waggingly proud in front of what looked like a massive stone sphinx half-buried in the mud—clearly some kind of art project or leftover from the town's weird obsession with Egyptian everything back in the 1920s. But that wasn't the weird part.

The weird part was Samara and her friends standing there, staring at it like it held the secrets to the universe.

"Leo?" Samara's eyes widened. "Were you... were you running after your dog? Or were you following us?"

Leo's face burned. "Both? Neither? My dog has a mind of his own."

To his surprise, Samara laughed. "Actually, we could use another person. We're trying to figure out this riddle carved on the thing."

The sphinx's inscription read: I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but I come alive with the wind. What am I?

"An echo," Leo said without thinking.

Samara's friends exchanged looks. "Holy crap," one of them said. "We've been here for twenty minutes."

"Wait, really?" Leo felt weirdly validated. "That's it?"

Samara stepped closer, smiling in a way that made his stomach do that annoying fluttery thing. "You know what's funny? We were just talking about how nobody ever really talks to anyone outside their groups. Like we're all just spying on each other from afar instead of actually... you know, talking."

"Yeah," Maya said, giving Leo a pointed look. "Imagine that."

Buster chose that moment to shake himself off, spraying creek water all over everyone's shoes.

"Buster!" Leo groaned, but Samara was laughing—really laughing, head tilted back, no filter.

"Well," she said, wiping water from her jeans. "That's one way to break the ice. You and your dog should sit with us at lunch tomorrow."

As they walked back, Maya leaned in and whispered, "Spy mission accomplished?"

Leo smiled, watching Buster run ahead, chasing nothing but the wind. "Something like that."