The Sphinx's Secret

Maya's hair had betrayed her. Again.

She'd spent forty-five minutes flat-ironing it that morning, only for the humidity to turn her sleek bob into a frizzy explosion by third period. Now she sat behind the library bookshelf, spying on her crush Leo talking to Sasha by the computers. This was pathetic. She was basically a certified stalker at this point.

"So are you coming to my party Friday?" Sasha asked, twirling her perfect curls.

"Maybe," Leo said. "My sphinx needs walking."

Maya almost dropped her phone. Sphinx? Since when did Leo have an Egyptian mythological creature? Was this some rich kid pet situation she didn't know about? She'd been lurking in his orbit for months, yet apparently she knew nothing.

Her phone buzzed. BESTIE JAZZ: girl where r u??? leo's asking about u

Maya's heart did that annoying flutter thing. He was asking about her?

She typed back with shaking fingers: library. spying like the creep i am

Jazz: LMAO get over here

But Maya couldn't move. She needed to know about the sphinx.

"It's actually kind of sad," Leo was saying now. "My grandpa gave her to me before he moved to that nursing home. She's ancient, sleeps like twenty hours a day, but I can't just... you know."

"That's actually really sweet," Sasha said, and Maya hated how sincere she sounded.

Okay, so the sphinx was real and Leo was a person who cared about elderly pets. This information was simultaneously adorable and terrifying. How was she supposed to act normal around him now?

Her hair had formed a halo around her head. She looked like a chemistry experiment gone wrong. There was no way she could talk to Leo looking like this.

"Maya?"

She jumped so hard she knocked into the bookshelf. Leo stood there, Sasha already halfway across the library.

"I was just..." Maya gestured vaguely at the books. "Reading. About... history."

"Cool," he said. "Hey, Jazz said you wanted to ask me something?"

"What? No. I mean—"

"About my sphinx," he said, completely serious. "Jazz said you like cats."

"Your sphinx is a cat?"

"Well, technically she's a Sphynx. Hairless." He pulled out his phone and showed her a picture of a wrinkly, alien-looking creature making a face like it smelled something terrible. "Her name's Yoda. She's extremely judgmental."

Maya laughed before she could stop herself. "She's amazing."

"You want to meet her?" Leo asked. "I live like three blocks from you. We could walk Yoda together sometime."

"I'd love that," she said, and then immediately regretted it because her hair was still a disaster.

But Leo just smiled. "Cool. Same time tomorrow?"

"Perfect."

Maya watched him walk away, then pulled out her phone.

JAZZ: WELL???

MAYA: i have a date with a hairless cat named yoda

JAZZ: AAAAAAAAAAA

MAYA: also my hair looks like a cloud but he didn't seem to care

JAZZ: plot twist: he likes u even when ur hair commits treason

Maya smiled at her reflection in the darkened library window. Her hair was still a mess, but somehow, that didn't seem to matter anymore.