The Devil and Danielle Webster by Cynthia Cross Page A

education, but too often, their lack of success by high school was not
because of dyslexia or a disability, but due to lack of work ethic and refusal
to take their education seriously.  For many of them, high school was a
place to stretch out in their chairs, talk to friends on the other side of the
room as I attempted to conduct class, text, make repeated trips to the
bathroom, and go visit the nurse with every possible health concern.
    Angel liked to adopt the persona of a four-year-old when it
suited her.  She would all but grab her own crotch while saying, “I have
to go potty.  I really do, Miss Webster!  I’m gonna pee my pants.”  Such distractions multiplied by fifteen students could
take up huge chunks of class time which should have been devoted to, horrors,
improving their reading and writing skills. 
    I had caught Angel cheating on a test.  In her defense,
most of them did.  The better test-takers often showed their contempt for
the whole educational process by keeping their tests in range of wandering
eyes, or saying with pretended naïveté, loudly enough for everyone to hear,
“The answer to number 10 is B, right?” and then grinning at me, pleased with
themselves.  Angel had erased her incorrect answers from underneath my red
pen, rewriting them after consulting another student’s test.  She claimed
I’d misgraded the questions.  I called her
mother and went to my administrator.  Angel was furious.  That was
the incident Patty recalled.
     “Why are you here, Angel?” I asked her now.  “Oh,
by the way, the bathroom’s right there.”
    “Mr. Satin needed to talk to my mom—“
    “At 4 AM?”
    “Well, people stay up late when there are casinos,” she pointed
out.  “We’re leaving early tomorrow.  But mom wasn’t there.”
     “Oh,” I said.  Hmm.
    “I have to get back to my room.  I left someone there,
and Mom could be back any time.”
    “Text him,” Patty advised.
    “I think his battery needs charging.”
    With a pop, the Devil was back in the room.  “She
wasn’t at the casino you told me to go to,” he told Angel.  “I need your
mom to sign something for me.  Can you have her sign something for me?”
    “What, you want me to take it to her now?”
    “No, just don’t forget to have her sign it when you see
her.”
    “But Mr. Satin, I don’t have my backpack with me.”
    Daemon Lucifer looked exasperated.  “You can just carry
it, can’t you?”
    “Oh, okay.”
    “Here it is.  She needs to sign it with tomorrow’s
date.  Can you remember that?”
    “What is tomorrow’s date?”
    “Just tell her you need her to sign it with tomorrow’s
date.”
    “What if I don’t see her until tomorrow?  Do I say
tomorrow then, or today?  Can my dad sign?”
    “No!” the Devil said with unnecessary heat.
    “I can just sign it for her,” she offered.
    “Don’t sign anything!” four of us said at once.  The
Devil looked at us with annoyance.
    “Just take it with you,” he said.  “Tell her to sign it
with tomorrow’s date, that’s June 22.  I’ll come pick it up tomorrow
night.”
    “We’ll be back home by tomorrow night.”
    “So will I ,” said the Devil.
    “Okay,” she said, clutching the document.  “Can we go
now?”
    They left.  It was nice to know that Daemon Lucifer
could leave via doors, just like any ordinary person.  But in 30 seconds,
they were back.
    “Where did you drop it?” Daemon Lucifer was asking. 
    “I think over there.”  There was the paper to be
signed, on the floor.
    “Don’t drop it again.”
    “I won’t.  Wait!” she had her phone out.  “Come
here, Miss Webster, you and me and Mr. Satin.”
    “ Selfie time,” I said to Patty,
rolling my eyes.  “I hate their phones.  Their phones are their
souls.  Try taking one away, and they go ballistic.  I was constantly
busting up photo ops in class.”
    Angel was gloating over her picture.  A teacher who’s
been ‘ selfied ’ and looks