Grandmère claims this will have everyone BEGGING her to live on the faux island of Genovia, leaving poor John Paul Reynolds-Abernathy the Third out in the cold, yada yada yada.

Which is all very well for Grandmère. I mean, she’ll soon have her own island to run away to. But where am I going to hide from the wrath of Amber Cheeseman when she finds out she’ll be giving her commencement address not from a podium on the stage of Alice Tully Hall, but in front of the salad bar at the Outback Steakhouse on West 23rd Street?

Tuesday, March 2, the loft

Just when I thought my day couldn’t possibly get any worse, Mom handed me the mail as I walked in the door.

Normally, I like getting mail. Because normally, I receive fun stuff in the mail, like the latest edition of Psychology Today, so I can see what new psychiatric disorder I might have. Then I have something besides whatever book we’re doing in English class (this month: O Pioneers by Willa Cather. Yawn.) to read in the bathtub before I go to sleep.

But what my mom gave me when I walked through the door tonight wasn’t fun OR something I could read in the bathtub. Because it was way too short.

“You got a letter from Sixteen magazine, Mia!” Mom said, all excitedly. “It must be about the contest!”

Except that I could tell right away there was nothing to get excited about. I mean, that envelope clearly contained bad news. There was so obviously only one sheet of paper inside the envelope. If I had won, surely they’d have enclosed a contract, not to mention my prize money, right? When T. J. Burke’s story about his friend Dex’s death-by-avalanche got published in Powder magazine in Aspen Extreme, they sent him the ACTUAL magazine with his name emblazoned on the front cover. That’s how he found out he’d gotten published.

The envelope my mom handed me clearly did not contain a copy of Sixteen magazine with my name emblazoned on the front cover, because it was much too thin.

“Thanks,” I said, taking the envelope from my mom and hoping she wouldn’t notice that I was about to cry.

“What does it say?” Mr. Gianini wanted to know. He was at the dining table, feeding his son bits of hamburger, even though Rocky only has two teeth, one on top and one on the bottom, neither of which happen to be molars.

It doesn’t seem to make any difference to anyone in my family, however, that Rocky doesn’t actually have the ability to chew solid food yet. He refuses to eat baby food—he wants to eat either what we or Fat Louie are eating—and so he eats whatever my mom and Mr. G are having for dinner, which is generally some meat product, and probably explains why Rocky is in the ninety-ninth percentile in weight for his age. Despite my urgings, Mom and Mr. G insist on feeding Rocky an unmitigated diet of things like General Tso’s chicken and beef lasagna, simply because he LIKES them.

As if it is not bad enough that Fat Louie will only eat Chicken- or Tuna Flaked Fancy Feast. My little brother is turning out to be a carnivore as well.

And one day will doubtless grow up to be as tall as Shaquille O’Neal due to all the harmful antibiotics with which the meat industry pumps their products before they slaughter them.

Although I fear Rocky will also have the intellect of Tweety Bird, because despite all of the Baby Einstein videos I have played for him, and the many, many hours I have spent reading such classics as Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit and Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham aloud to him, Rocky doesn’t show any signs of interest in anything except throwing his pacifier very hard at the wall; stomping around the loft (with a pair of hands—usually mine—to hold him upright by the back of his OshKoshes…a practice which, by the way, is starting to cause me severe lower back pain); and shrieking “Tuck!” and “Kee!” in as loud a voice as possible.

Surely these can only be considered signs of severe social retardation. Or Asperger Syndrome.

Mom, however, assures me Rocky is developing normally for a nearly one-year-old, and that I should calm down and stop being such a baby-licker (my own mother has now adopted the term Lilly coined for me).

In spite of this betrayal, however, I remain hyperalert for signs of hydrocephalus. You can never be too careful.

“Well, what’s it say, Mia?” my mom wanted to know about my letter. “I wanted to open it and call you at your grandmother’s to give you the news, but Frank wouldn’t let me. He said I should respect your personal boundaries and not open your mail.”

I threw Mr. G a grateful look—hard to do while trying not to cry—and said, “Thanks.”

“Oh please,” my mom said, sounding disgusted. “I gave birth to you. I nursed you for six months. I should be able to read your mail. What’s it say?”

So with trembling fingers, I tore open the envelope, knowing as I did so what I’d find inside.

No big surprise, the single sheet of typed paper said:

Sixteen Magazine

1440 Broadway

New York, NY 10018

Dear Writer:

Thank you for your submission to Sixteen magazine. While we have chosen not to publish your story, we appreciate your interest in our publication.

Sincerely,

Shonda Yost

Fiction Editor

Dear Writer! They couldn’t even be bothered to type out my name! There was no proof at all that anyone had even READ “No More Corn!”, let alone given it any kind of meaningful consideration!

I guess my mom and Mr. G could tell I didn’t like what I was seeing, since Mr. G said, “Gee, that’s tough. But you’ll get ’em next time, tiger.”

“Tuck!” was all Rocky had to say about it, as he hurled a piece of hamburger at the wall.

And my mom went, “I’ve always thought Sixteen magazine was demeaning to young women, as it’s filled with images of impossibly thin and pretty models that can only serve to legitimize young girls’ insecurities about their own bodies. And besides, their articles are hardly what I’d call informative. I mean, who CARES about which kind of jeans better fit your body type, low rise or ultra-low rise? How about teaching girls something useful, like that even if you Do It standing up, you can still get pregnant?”

Touched by my parents’—and brother’s—concern, I said, “It’s okay. There’s always next year.”

Except that I doubt I’ll ever write a better story than “No More Corn!” It was this total one-shot deal, inspired by the touching sight of the Guy Who Hates It When They Put Corn in the Chili sitting in the AEHS cafeteria picking corn out of his chili, kernel by kernel, with the saddest look I have ever seen on a human being’s face. I will never witness anything that moving ever again. Except for maybe the look on Tina Hakim Baba’s face when she found out they were canceling Joan of Arcadia.

I don’t know who wrote whatever Sixteen considers the winning entry, and I honestly don’t mean to brag, but her story CAN’T be as compelling and gripping as “No More Corn!”

And she CAN’T possibly love writing as much as I do.

Oh, sure, maybe she’s better at it. But is writing as important to her as BREATHING, the way it is to me? I sincerely doubt it. She’s probably home right now, and her mother’s going, “Oh, Lauren, this came in the mail for you today,” and she’s opening her PERSONALIZED letter from Sixteen magazine and going through her contract and being all, “Ho-hum, another story of mine is getting published. As if I care. All I really want is to make the cheerleading squad and for Brian to ask me out.”

See, I care MORE about writing than I do about cheerleading. Or Brian.

Well, okay, not more than I care about Michael. Or Fat Louie. But close.

So now stupid, Brian-loving Lauren is going around, being all, “La, la, la, I just won Sixteen magazine’s fiction contest, I wonder what’s on TV tonight,” and not even caring that her story is about to be read by a million people, not to mention the fact that she’s going to get to spend the day shadowing a real live editor and see what it’s like in the busy, fast-paced world of hard-hitting teen journalism—

Unless Lilly won.

OH MY GOD. WHAT IF LILLY WON ????????????????????????

Oh, dear Lord in Heaven. Please don’t let Lilly have won Sixteen magazine’s fiction contest. I know it’s wrong to pray for things like that, but I am begging you, Lord, if you exist, which I’m not sure you do because you let them cancel Joan of Arcadia and send that mean rejection letter to me, DO NOT LET LILLY HAVE WON SIXTEEN MAGAZINE’S FICTION CONTEST!!!!!!!

Oh my God. Lilly’s online. She’s IMing me!

WOMYNRULE: POG, did you hear from 16 mag 2day?

Oh, God.

FTLOUIE:         Um. Yes. Did you?

WOMYNRULE: Yes. I got the lamest rejection letter. FIVE of them, to be exact. You can tell they didn’t even READ my stuff.

Thank you, God. I believe in you now. I believe, I believe, I believe. I will never fall asleep during mass in the Royal Genovian Chapel again, I swear. Even though I definitely don’t agree with you about that whole original sin thing because that was NOT Eve’s fault, that talking snake tricked her and, oh yeah, I think women should be allowed to be priests, and priests should be allowed to get married and have kids because, hello, they’d make way better parents than a lot of people, such as that lady who left her baby in the car outside the convenience mart with the motor running while she played video poker and someone stole her car and then threw the baby out the window (the baby was okay because he was in a protective car seat that bounced, which is why I made Mom and Mr. G buy that brand for Rocky even though he screams like his skin is on fire every time they try to stick him in it).