Still. I believe. I believe. I believe.

FTLOUIE: Same here. Well, I mean, I got one letter. But mine was a rejection, too.

WOMYNRULE: Well, don’t take it too personally, POG. This is probably only the first of many rejections you’ll be receiving over the years. I mean, if you really want to be a writer. Don’t forget, almost every Great Book that exists today was rejected by some editor somewhere. Except maybe, like, the Bible. Anyway, I wonder who won.

FTLOUIE: Probably some stupid girl named Lauren who would rather be on the cheerleading squad or have a guy named Brian ask her out and couldn’t care less that she’s soon to be a published author.

WOMYNRULE: Um…okay. Are you feeling all right, Mia? You’re not taking this rejection thing too seriously, are you? I mean, it’s only Sixteen magazine, not The New Yorker.

FTLOUIE: I’m fine. But I’m probably right. About Lauren. Don’t you think?

WOMYNRULE: Uh, yeah, sure. But listen, all of this has given me a totally great idea.

Okay, when Lilly says she’s got a totally great idea, it so never is. A great idea, I mean. Her last great idea was that I run for student council president, and look how that turned out. And don’t even get me started about the time in the first grade when she threw my Strawberry Shortcake doll onto the roof of the Moscovitzes’ country house outside Albany to see if squirrels would be attracted to her Very Berry scent and gnaw on her vinyl face.

WOMYNRULE: Are you still there?

FTLOUIE: I’m here. What’s your idea? And no, you are not throwing Rocky onto any rooftops, no matter how interested you are in what the squirrels might do to him.

WOMYNRULE: What are you talking about? Why would I throw Rocky onto a roof? My idea is that we start our OWN magazine.

FTLOUIE: What?

WOMYNRULE: I’m serious. We start our own magazine. Not a stupid one about French kissing and Hayden Christensen’s abs, like Sixteen magazine, but a literary magazine, like Salon.com. Only not online. And for teens. This will kill two birds with one stone. One, we can get published. And two, we can sell copies and make back the five grand we need to rent Alice Tully Hall and keep Amber Cheeseman from killing us.

FTLOUIE: But, Lilly. To start our own magazine we need money. You know. To pay for printing and stuff. And we don’t have any money. That is the problem. Remember?

God. I may only be getting a C minus in Economics, but even I know that to start a business, you need some capital. I mean, I’ve seen The Apprentice, for God’s sake.

Also, I sort of like seeing Hayden Christensen’s abs in Sixteen every month. I mean, it makes my subscription worth it.

WOMYNRULE: Not if we get Ms. Martinez to be our advisor and she lets us use the school photocopier.

Ms. M! I couldn’t believe Lilly would bring up the M word with me. Ms. Martinez, my Honors English teacher, and I do NOT see eye to eye where my writing career is concerned. I mean, she’s loosened up a little since the whole incident at the beginning of the school year when she gave me a B.

But not by much.

I know, for instance, that Ms. M would NOT see “No More Corn!” for the compelling psychological character study and moving social commentary it is. She would probably say it was melodramatic and filled with clichés.

Which is why I wasn’t planning on showing it to her until Sixteen published it. Except I guess that’s never going to happen now.

FTLOUIE: Lilly, I don’t want to burst your bubble, but I highly doubt we’re going to be able to raise five grand from selling a teen literary magazine. I mean, our peers barely have time to read required stuff like O Pioneers, let alone copies of some student-written collection of short stories and poems. I think we need some more feasible way to generate cash than depending on sales of a magazine we haven’t even written yet.

WOMYNRULE: What do you suggest then? Candle selling?

AAAAAAHHHHHHH! Because you know in addition to the strawberry-shaped candle, there are ones shaped like bananas and pineapples. Also, birds. STATE birds. Like, for Indiana, there is a cardinal candle, the cardinal being the Hoosier state’s bird.

Worse—and I hesitate to write this—there is an actual replica of Noah’s Ark, with two of all the animals (even unicorns). In CANDLE form.

Even I could not make up something that revolting.

FTLOUIE: Of course not. I just think we need to put a little more thought into the matter before we rush into—

SKINNERBX: Hey, Thermopolis. How’s it going?

MICHAEL!!!! MICHAEL IS IMing ME!!!!!!!

FTLOUIE: Sorry, Lilly, gotta go.

WOMYNRULE: Why? Is my brother IMing you?

FTLOUIE: Yeah…

WOMYNRULE: Oh. I know what HE wants.

FTLOUIE: Lilly, I TOLD you, we’re WAITING to have sex—

WOMYNRULE: That’s not what I meant, you tool. I meant—Oh, never mind. Just e me after you’ve talked to him. I’m serious about this magazine thing, POG. It’s the only way you’re going to be able to see your name in print—besides on Us Weekly’s—Celebrities: They’re Just Like Us! pages.

FTLOUIE: Wait—you know why Michael’s IMing me? How do you know? What’s going on? Tell me, Lilly—

WOMYNRULE: terminated

SKINNERBX: Mia? You there?

FTLOUIE: Michael! Yes, I’m here. I’m sorry. I’m just having the worst day. My government is out of money and Sixteen rejected “No More Corn!”!!!!!!

SKINNERBX: Wait—the government of Genovia is out of money? I didn’t see anything about that on Netscape. How did THAT happen?

This is why my boyfriend is so wonderful. Even when he doesn’t understand a single thing that is going on in my life, he’s still, you know, way concerned for me.

FTLOUIE: I meant the student government. We’re in the red for five grand. And Sixteen rejected me.

SKINNERBX: Sixteen rejected “No More Corn!”? How could they? That story rocks!

You see? You see why I love him?

FTLOUIE: Thanks. But I guess it didn’t rock enough for them to publish it.

SKINNERBX: Then they’re fools. And what’s this about being five grand in the red?

Briefly, I explained to Michael about the non-returnable recycling bins and the fact that I am going to be drawn and quartered by Amber Cheeseman as soon as she hears about her commencement taking place in Hell’s Kitchen instead of Lincoln Center.

SKINNERBX: Come on. It can’t be that bad. You have plenty of time to raise the cash.

Normally my boyfriend is the most astute of men. That is why he goes to an Ivy League university where he takes a course load that would prove a mental challenge even to Stephen Hawking, that genius in the wheelchair who figured out mini black holes—as well as how to get his nurse to fall in love with him—let alone your average college student.

But sometimes…

Well, sometimes, he just doesn’t GET it.

FTLOUIE: Have you ever seen Amber Cheeseman, Michael? She may have a 4.0 and sound like a chipmunk when she talks, but she can throw a two-hundred-pound man over her shoulder in a split second, and her forearms are as big as Koko the Gorilla’s.

SKINNERBX: Hey, I know. You could try selling candles. We did that to raise money for the Computer Club one year!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! NOT YOU, TOO, MICHAEL!!!!!!!!!!

SKINNERBX: They have these candles shaped like strawberries. Everybody in my mom and dad’s therapy groups bought one. They smell like real strawberries.

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

FTLOUIE: Great! Thanks for the tip!

Change the subject. NOW.

FTLOUIE: So, how was YOUR day?

SKINNERBX: Not bad. We watched THX 1138 in class and discussed its influence on later dystopic films from the same era, such as Logan’s Run, in which, like THX, a young man attempts to flee the stifling confines of the only world he knows. Which reminds me, what are you doing this weekend?

Oooh, fun! A date! Just what I need to cheer myself up.

FTLOUIE: Going out with you.

SKINNERBX: That’s what I was hoping you’d say. Only how about staying in instead of going out? My mom and dad are going out of town for a conference, and Maya’s got to have her feet scraped, so they asked me if I could come home for the weekend to stay with Lilly—you know, on account of what happened last time they left her alone.

Did I ever. Because the last time the Drs. Moscovitz let Lilly out of their sight, when they went to their country house in Albany for the weekend and allowed Lilly to stay in the apartment alone because she had a report due on Alexander Hamilton and needed Internet access, of which there is none at their country house, and Michael had finals, and the Moscovitzes’ housekeeper, Maya, had to go back to the Dominican Republic to bail her nephew out of jail again, so neither of them could stay with her, Lilly invited her foot fetishist stalker, Norman, over to interview him for a segment she was doing on Lilly Tells It Like It Is titled, “Why Are Only Weirdos Attracted to Me?”

Well, Norman took umbrage at being called a weirdo, even though that’s what he is. He insisted that a healthy appreciation for the foot is actually extremely sane. Then when Lilly was busy getting them Cokes in the kitchen, he snuck into her mom’s room and stole her favorite pair of Manolo Blahniks!

But Lilly saw the stiletto heel sticking out of Norman’s anorak pocket and made him give it back. Norman was so mad about the whole thing that now he’s started his own website, IHateLillyMoscovitz.com, that has message boards and stuff that all the people who hate Lilly and her show can come and post things on (and it turns out there are a surprising number of people who hate Lilly and her TV show. Plus, there are some people who don’t even know who Lilly is but they joined just because they hate everything).