The Spinach Incident

Maya's palms were sweating so much she could barely grip the tray. First day at the new school, and she was already about to become that girl — the one with the green catastrophe splashed across her white shirt. Spinach. Seriously. The universe had a sick sense of humor.

"Nice entrance," whispered the guy behind her in the lunch line. He had this messy dark hair that somehow worked and eyes that crinkled when he smiled. "I'm Caleb."

"Maya," she managed, trying to simultaneously cover the stain and not look like she was hiding a crime scene. "And this isn't even my worst first impression. That was probably when I faceplanted into a birthday cake last month."

Caleb laughed, actually laughed. "You'll fit right in. Last week, Leo tried to do a backflip off the cafeteria bench and ended up in a cast. We call him Bear now — because he can't seem to hibernate away from embarrassing situations."

Maya's phone buzzed. Group chat notification: *The Foxes* — her old squad back home. They'd voted on their squad name freshman year because foxes were supposedly cunning and adaptable. Maya had always felt more like the awkward raccoon that kept knocking over trash cans.

"You good?" Caleb asked, nodding at her phone.

"Yeah. Just..." Maya hesitated. "Missing my friends. We had this whole thing figured out, you know? The Foxes, we called ourselves. Stupid name, but it felt like everything."

Caleb nodded like he actually got it. "My cousin moved across the country last year. Said the hardest part wasn't the new place — it was that nobody knew his history. Like he had to reintroduce himself every single day."

Maya looked at her spinach-decorated shirt and back at Caleb, who was still smiling like she wasn't a total disaster. "Well," she said, "if I'm going to be the spinach girl, at least I got a proper introduction out of it."

"Oh, you're definitely not the spinach girl," Caleb said, already leading her toward a table where a guy with a cast waved them over. "You're Bear's replacement. He needs someone else to share the embarrassing story throne."

Maya's phone buzzed again. *The Foxes: New update??*

She pocketed it and followed Caleb, palms still a little sweaty but feeling like maybe, just maybe, she'd survive this after all.