The Sphinx Riddle

Maya stood frozen in front of the Egyptian exhibit, sphinx statue watching her with that weird stone smile. Behind her, the popular girls—Bree's squad—were giggling about something, and her stomach did that anxious flutter thing it always did when she tried to exist socially.

"Hey, you coming?" Liam asked, appearing at her elbow. Thank god for Liam. He'd been her friend since sixth grade, back when she'd tripped in gym class and he'd pretended it was part of his interpretive dance routine so no one would laugh. Some people just got it.

"Yeah, just... admiring the art," Maya lied, smoothing her dress. They were at the Winter Formal, which some genius had decided to hold at the city museum. Nothing says teen romance like dead pharaohs.

Her stomach growled. She'd been too nervous to eat dinner, and now she was eyeing the hors d'oeuvres table like it was her ex.

"Go eat something," Liam said, reading her mind. "You're hangry, and it shows."

Grabbing a spinach puff—bad choice, Maya, bad choice—she took a huge bite. Green stuff immediately lodged in her teeth. Of course. The universe loved her like that.

Bree and her friends walked by just then, and Maya instinctively covered her mouth with her hand, doing that weird half-smile that definitely looked more suspicious than natural.

"Spinach?" Liam whispered, barely holding it together.

"Shut up," she hissed through gritted teeth, literally and metaphorically trapped.

"Here." He turned her away from Bree's group, blocking her view. "I got you. Go fix it, I'll cover."

She sprinted to the bathroom, cleaned her teeth, and came back to find Liam feeding crinkle-cut fries to the museum's stray cat from the loading dock. The cat looked unimpressed.

"That's the sphinx," Liam said, gesturing at the cat. "She judges everyone. It's her whole personality."

"Did Bree see?"

"Nah. I told her you were getting called to the front for something super important." He shrugged. "She believed me because why wouldn't she?"

Maya leaned back against the wall, exhaling. Sometimes the riddle wasn't about being cool or fitting in or whatever. Sometimes the answer was just having a friend who'd lie to the popular kids so you could dig spinach out of your teeth.

"You're the actual best," she said.

"I know," Liam grinned. "Now let's go before that sphinx cat judges us harder."