It had been a long time since Old Scratch had enjoyed a proper cup of tea, and while he wasn’t opposed to a nice Darjeeling or English Breakfast, he was rather confused to find himself seated at a small table in a sunny playroom. Innocent brown eyes stared at him from across the table and lit with delight when his gaze found them.
“You came!” a small girl squealed in delight as she clapped her hands.
“So it would seem,” he answered as he warily took in his surroundings. One moment he had been plotting the destruction of a particularly irritating faction of angels, and the next he found himself here, in this very pink, very frilly room in a chair that hardly held his left buttcheek in front of a plate of what appeared to be snickerdoodles and a steaming cup of black tea. The delighted girl in front of him couldn’t have been more than seven years old. She was missing quite a few of her front teeth and had a dimple in her left cheek when she smiled. And she hadn’t stopped smiling since Old Scratch had appeared. He cleared his throat before asking, “And how, pray tell, did I get here? I don’t remember receiving an invitation.”
The girl giggled and pointed to a half-melted candle in the center of the table. “That’s my birthday wish candle from last month. I didn’t know what to wish for then, so I saved it until today, and Tadaa!” She held her hands wide out to her sides as if that explained everything. Old Scratch still had questions.
“You summoned me here with a birthday wish?” he asked. He wasn’t sure whether to be offended that the magic had worked so easily on him, or flattered that of anyone she could have summoned to her tea table that she had chosen him. The girl nodded, still wearing that pleased smile.
“Sure did! When I invited Mary and Emma from down the street, they said tea parties were dumb and that even the devil himself wouldn’t come if I invited him, and I just knew that I could prove them wrong, so I made you my all-time favorite cookies and my mama’s best tea, and then I used my wishing candle, and here you are! I can’t wait to tell them how wrong they were.” Her smile faltered a bit when she mentioned the other girls, but was back to full strength by the time she finished.
Old Scratch helped himself to a snickerdoodle and chewed slowly to give himself time to process what the girl had said. The cookie was still oven-warm and delicious. He ate the rest of it in one bite. “Well, my dear. I’m so sorry I don’t know your name…”
“It’s Maya,” she said, bouncing a little in her seat.
“Well, Maya,” he said, dipping his head toward her. “I hope you don’t mind that I’m a little underdressed. I wasn’t expecting I’d find myself at such a lovely party.”
“I’m just happy you’re here,” she said.
“So am I,” he said with a smile. “Would you please pass me another cookie?”
INSTANT NOODLES 