“Princess?” Lars shifted his armload of magazines and nodded toward the hallway clock. “The bell is about to ring.”

“I—” I looked from the pinkly glowing magazine cover to J.P.’s face, then back again. “I can’t do it. J.P., I’m sorry. But I just can’t. She would be so hurt…and she’s going through a really tough time right now. Even if she doesn’t know it.”

J.P. nodded.

“Hey,” he said. “I understand.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think you do. My story about you is really stupid. I mean, REALLY stupid. And everyone is going to read it. And know that it’s about you. Which I admit makes ME look like the fool, not you. But people might…you know. Laugh. When they read it. And I really don’t want to hurt your feelings any more than I want to hurt Lilly’s.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about me,” J.P. said. “I’m a loner, remember? I don’t care what other people think of me. With the exception of a select few.”

“Then…” I nodded at the pile of magazines in my arms. “If I put these back where I found them, and Lilly sells them at lunchtime, you won’t care?”

“Not a bit,” J.P. said.

And he even helped Lars and me stuff them all back into Lilly’s locker.

Then the bell rang, and everyone started pouring out into the hallway and going to their lockers, and so we had to say good-bye, or we’d have been late to our next class.

The saddest part is, Lilly will never know the sacrifice J.P. is making on her behalf. He TOTALLY likes her. It’s so OBVIOUS.

Wednesday, March 10, English

Hey, are you nervous about tonight? Our big debut? I know I am!

To tell you the truth, I haven’t really had a chance to think about it.

Really? Oh my gosh—you still haven’t heard from Michael?

No.

Probably because he’s going to surprise you with a big bouquet of roses after the performance tonight!

I wish I lived in Tinaland.

Wednesday, March 10, Lunch

I walked into the caf, and there she was. At the booth she set up, underneath all these signs she made, advertising today’s sale of the first issue of the school’s new literary ’zine.

I knew I had to be, you know. Nice about it. On account of Lilly’s home life being unsatisfactory. Or going to become that way, anyway, even if she didn’t quite know it yet.

So I went up to her and was like, “One copy, please.”

And Lilly went, all businesslike, “That will be five dollars.”

I totally couldn’t help myself. I was like, “FIVE DOLLARS??? ARE YOU KIDDING????”

And Lilly went, “Well, it’s not cheap putting out a magazine, you know. And you were the one harping about how we have to make back the money we blew on the recycling bins.”

I coughed up the five bucks. But I had my doubts it would be worth it.

It wasn’t. Besides my story, and Kenny’s dwarf thesis, there were a couple of mangas, one of J.P.’s poems, and…

…all five of the short stories Lilly wrote for the Sixteen magazine contest. Five. She put FIVE of her own short stories in her magazine!

I could hardly believe it. I mean, I know Lilly thinks pretty highly of herself, but—

It was right then that Principal Gupta walked in. She NEVER comes into the cafeteria. Rumor has it once she stepped on a Tater Tot someone dropped and it grossed her out so much, she would never set foot in the caf again.

But today she crossed the caf, and, heedless of any Tater Tots that might have been underfoot, went right up to Lilly’s booth!

“Uh-oh,” Ling Su, next to me, said. “Looks like someone’s busted.”

“Maybe Gupta objects to the cover illustration,” Boris suggested.

“Um, I think it’s more likely she’s objecting to this story Lilly wrote,” Tina said, holding up her copy. “Did you guys READ this? It’s totally NC-17!”

I hadn’t actually read any of Lilly’s stories. She’d just told me about them. But even a rudimentary scan through them showed me that—

Oh, yes. Lilly was very, very busted.

And all copies of Fat Louie’s Pink Butthole were being confiscated by Coach Wheeton, who had brought a large black trash bag for that purpose.

“This is a violation of our right to free speech!” Lilly was shouting, as Principal Gupta escorted her from the caf. “People, don’t just sit there! Get up and protest! Don’t let the man keep you down!”

But everyone just sat where they were, chewing. Students at AEHS are totally used to letting the man keep us down.

When Coach Wheeton, spying the copy of Lilly’s magazine in my hands, came up to me with his trash bag and went, “Sorry, Mia. We’ll see that you get your money back,” I dropped it in.

Because what else could I do?

J.P. and I just looked at each other.

I wasn’t sure whether or not it was my imagination, but he seemed to be LAUGHING.

I’m glad SOMEONE can see something funny in all this.

Then Tina took me aside….

“Listen, Mia,” she said softly. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others, but I think I just figured something out. I read this romance novel once where the heroine and her evil twin were both in love with the same guy, the hero. And the evil twin kept doing all this stuff to make the heroine look bad in front of him. The hero, I mean.”