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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.
