The Riddle of Saturday Night

Maya's palms were sweating — literally dripping — as she stood in the doorway of Jason's house party. She'd spent forty-five minutes on her hair, another thirty picking an outfit that said "effortlessly cool" instead of "tried way too hard," and now she wanted to evaporate.

"You got this," she whispered to herself, then immediately felt stupid because talking to yourself at a party wasn't exactly a vibe.

She spotted Fox across the room — okay, his name was actually Fox, like, legally, because his parents were apparently obsessed with Egyptian mythology or something — and he was laughing with his friends like being a sophomore at a high school party wasn't the most terrifying thing ever. His hair fell in these waves that made Maya's stomach do flips, and she'd had a crush on him since biology when they'd been paired up to dissect a frog and he'd made her laugh so hard she almost dropped the scalpel.

Tonight was the night. She was going to actually talk to him. Not just "hey" in the hallway. Like, a conversation.

But first, she had to survive the next hour without embarrassing herself.

Someone's dog — a golden retriever, obviously, because rich people always had goldens — bounded through the crowd, knocking into a table and sending a bowl of spinach dip flying. Maya watched in horror as green droplets splattered across the white carpet. The dog looked genuinely pleased with himself.

"Oh my god, Buster!" Jason's sister yelled, chasing after him.

Maya slipped away toward the back patio, needing air. That's when she found it: Jason's little sister's mythology project, a papier-mâché sphinx sitting on the patio table like it was judging everyone's life choices. The thing had these weird painted eyes that seemed to follow you.

"Nice, right?"

She jumped. Fox.

"It's... intense?" Maya said, because "intense" was safe.

"Sophia made it for English," he said, leaning against the patio railing. "She's obsessed with riddles. You know the sphinx's riddle?"

Maya's heart was hammering. "Um. What walks on four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, three in the evening?"

"Yeah. Humans. We're born crawling, walk upright, then use canes when we're old." He smiled, and it was even better up close. "Kinda deep, right?"

"Yeah," she said, then blurted, "I had spinach in my teeth earlier, didn't I?"

Fox blinked. "What?"

"The spinach dip incident. I was standing right there. I feel like I've had green stuff in my teeth for like two hours." She wanted to die.

He laughed, and it wasn't mean. "I honestly didn't notice. But thanks for telling me now, because I definitely would've stared at your teeth all night trying to see it."

"You're the worst."

"I'm Fox, it's in the name." He stepped closer. "Hey, you want to get out of here? There's this park down the street with the best swings. We could... I don't know, talk?"

Maya's palms weren't sweating anymore. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that."

As they walked out, she caught the sphinx's painted eyes one more time. Weirdly, it looked like it was winking.

Some riddles, she thought, solve themselves.