The desperation meeting the silence with its unmasked wish.

They swoon over Tom, who preens for them, bowing, which sets them to blushing and giggling. God help us all.

She shrieks above the din. "If you wish a battle, I shall give it. I am the last of my kind. I shall not lie down without a fight.

Heaven's brightest and best-loved angel, who was cast out for inspiring a rebellion against God. Having lost Heaven, Lucifer and his rebel angels vowed to continue fighting here on earth." "I don't understand why he had to fight. He was already in heaven." "True. But he wasn't content to serve. He wanted more." "He had all he could ask for, didn't he?" Ann asks. "Exactly." Miss Moore states. "He had to ask. He was dependent upon someone else's whim. It's a terrible thing to have no power of one's own. To be denied.

...because really, sometimes the irony gods just get drunk.

Scoring well on tests is the sort of happy thing that gets the school district the greenbacks they crave. Understanding and appreciating the material are secondary.

No one had ever said anything like that to Evie. Her parents always wanted to advise or instruct or command. They were good people, but they needed the world to bend to them, to fit into their order of things. Evie had never really quite fit, and when she tried, she’d just pop back out, like a doll squeezed into a too-small box.