The Sphinx, The Zombie, and The Pool

Maya's hair was supposed to be caramel highlights. Instead, she woke up on the last day of sophomore year looking like a traffic cone—bright, screaming orange.

"It'll wash out," her mom had said. Three shampoos later, Maya still looked like she'd attacked by a tangerine.

"Whatever," her best friend Leo said when he picked her up. "At Jake's pool party tonight, nobody's gonna care about your hair. They're gonna be too busy staring at his new sphinx statue."

Maya groaned. Jake's dad had won it at some auction—a giant Egyptian sphinx that now loomed over their backyard like it was judging everyone's life choices.

The party was already wild when they arrived. Kids jumping off the diving board, music thumping, someone throwing an actual orange into the pool (why? No one knew). Maya tugged at her orange-streaked hair, feeling like a spotlight was following her.

"You look fine," Leo insisted, but he looked like a zombie himself—he'd been up all night studying for finals. "Worse things could happen."

Like what? Her hair spontaneously combusting?

Then she saw Jake's ex-girlfriend Chloe laughing with some senior boy near the pool, and suddenly Maya's orange hair didn't matter. What mattered was the way Jake kept looking over at them, trying to act casual but failing miserably.

Maya grabbed Leo's arm. "Operation distraction."

"What?"

"We're gonna make Jake forget about Chloe and the sphinx and everything else."

They ended up doing cannonballs off the diving board while Maya's orange hair plastered to her face like seaweed. Leo jumped in with all his clothes on, yelling something about unleashing the zombie apocalypse. Jake started laughing—a real laugh—and jumped in too.

Later, floating on their backs and staring up at the sphinx statue that looked ridiculous against the suburban sky, Jake said, "Your hair's actually kinda cool. Like, edgy."

Maya smiled. "Yeah? Well, you look like a drowned rat."

"Better than a zombie," Leo called from the other side of the pool.

And just like that, everything was fine. Orange hair, weird statues, zombies, whatever. They'd survive high school one pool party at a time.