The Social Pyramid Scheme

I stared at the cafeteria** pyramid** of social hierarchy, trying to figure out where I fit in. At the top sat the popular crew, and that's where Maya sat—like some kind of modern-day **sphinx**, mysterious and untouchable. She'd caught me in third period with **spinach** stuck in my braces, and now I was basically a walking meme.

"You gonna eat that?" Marcus asked, pointing at my lunch.

I looked down at my mom's experimental cooking phase. "It's... papaya?" I said, poking at the orange mystery fruit. "She's going through this tropical health kick."

Marcus cracked up. "Bro, your mom is trying to assassinate you. That's not papaya. That's radioactive pumpkin."

But then Maya walked by, and my brain short-circuited. I'd been working up the nerve to talk to her for weeks, ever since she'd defended me when Jordan was being a total **bull** about my basketball skills in gym class. She'd told him to chill with the toxic masculinity, which was basically the most heroic thing anyone had done all semester.

"Hey," she said, stopping at our table. "Is that papaya?"

"Uh, yeah," I lied smoothly. "My uncle grows them. In Hawaii."

"That's actually my favorite," she said, and I could feel Marcus losing it beside me. "There's this papaya smoothie place downtown. Have you been?"

"No, but I've been meaning to go," I said, risking a glance at her.

"Wanna go this weekend?"

I nodded, trying to look chill while internally screaming. After she walked away, Marcus thumped my back. "You are SO lying about that papaya farm."

"It's fine. I'll Google 'papaya facts' on the way there."

"You're gonna crash and burn, bro."

"Maybe," I said, grinning like an idiot. "But at least I'll crash and burn with the girl who called out Jordan for being a jerk."

Sometimes you have to risk looking foolish. That's what I learned that day, anyway—that the social pyramid isn't as solid as it looks, and sometimes the sphinx at the top is just waiting for someone to offer her some papaya, even if you have to fake it a little.