The Many Fortunes of Maya

No one knows I still play my flute. My parents think I abandoned it the way kids leave behind old toys, but I could never abandon Flicker. It’s just that I don’t want Daddy to wonder where my heart is. It’s with soccer. With him.

So I keep Flicker to myself. Every now and again I slip up and play a few notes out loud, but not this morning. This morning is a soccer morning, and an important one at that. It’s the last game of the season, and the Astros are undefeated. We want to keep it that way. No one would understand why I’m suddenly playing my flute instead of doing soccer drills or getting dressed. So I have to be extra careful. Quiet Mode it is.

“MJ! Are you awake?” Daddy’s voice startles me. I can tell he’s already halfway up the stairs. I shove Flicker into my sleeping bag and jump up to answer.

“I’m awake, Daddy!”

“Just checking! I didn’t hear you moving around yet.” He knocks and swings open my bedroom door, whisking something in a glass bowl.

“Champions need breakfast. I’m making pancakes!”

“That doesn’t look like pancake batter!”

“This is the winning marinade. Marinade . . .” He points to me to finish.

“Not sauce!” we say together, and laugh.

He puts his nose right up to the orangey-brown mixture and inhales. “Ooh wee!”

I shake my head. Later today is the big Grill-Off. It’s our first cookout of the summer, and it’s always a big deal.

“Anything special in your pancakes?”

“Extra chocolate chips, please!”

“You got it. Let’s go, Astros!” he yells.

I laugh and hurry to get dressed, but I roll my eyes at my uniform. My name is Maya Jenkins, MJ. for short, but my uniform says Maya. Nobody calls me Maya except people who don’t know me very well . . . and Mama.

After I’m dressed in our home whites, I pause in the mirror. I practice my game face, the stern look that shows the other team you mean business. But the deep dimples in my brown cheeks erase the sting, and I still look pretty friendly. I shrug and run my hands over my dark brown hair. It’s parted down the middle, cornrows on each side like always.

I’m ready. There’s only one thing left to do: spin my Wheel of Fortunes. The Wheel is a cardboard circle mounted on my wall.

It’s cobalt blue, the color of the oceans you see in pictures of Earth from outer space. The outside edges are crammed with pasted-on fortunes from fortune cookies. Every morning (and whenever I need good luck), my favorite thing to do is spin the wheel until my chopstick points to one thin rectangle of wisdom.

Each fortune is a compass, leading me in the right direction.

I close my eyes, concentrate on soccer, and give it a whirl. It lands on:

You have firm convictions -stand strong behind them.