The Sphinx at Third Base
Maya's hair was doing that thing again — frizzing up like she'd stuck her finger in an electrical socket, exactly when Jake from AP Chem was walking past. She yanked her hood up, staring at her iPhone like it contained the secrets to the universe. Jake didn't even notice her. He never did.
"Whatever," she muttered.
Her cat, Barnaby, wound around her ankles as soon as she got home. Mom was working late again. Maya grabbed her backpack and headed to the old baseball field behind the rec center. Her spot — the rusted bleachers near third base, where nobody ever went.
That's where she saw it: a massive cat, more wild than domestic, perched on top of the backstop. Its fur was patchy, its eyes golden and unblinking. It watched her like it knew something she didn't.
"You look like a sphinx," she said aloud, because she talked to animals now apparently.
The cat didn't move.
Maya's phone buzzed. Group chat blowing up about something stupid someone said at lunch. She silenced it. The sphinx-cat was still watching, and suddenly she felt ridiculous.
"I'm hiding here because I'm scared Jake Harrington won't like my hair," she told the cat. "I'm seventeen and this is my biggest problem."
The sphinx tilted its head.
"You think that's dumb?" Maya stood up. "You're right. It's so dumb." She pulled her hood off. Her hair was wild, curly, huge. It was what it was.
She found an old baseball in the weeds and threw it against the backstop. Thwack. The sphinx cat didn't flinch. Thwack. Again.
When her phone buzzed again, she actually looked. Jake had posted a selfie. Caption: "Finally got a haircut lol"
Maya laughed out loud. The sphinx cat stood up, stretched, and vanished into the darkness like it had never existed at all.
She threw the baseball one more time, perfect form, perfect arc, like she used to play before she started caring what people thought. Tomorrow she'd wear her hair however she wanted. Maybe she'd even join the softball team again.
The sphinx had spoken, after all. It just hadn't used words.