Miss Leefolt sigh, hang up the phone like she just don't know how her brain gone operate without Miss Hilly coming over to push the Think buttons.

I tell myself that's what you get when you put thirty-one toilets on the most popular girl's front yard. People tend to treat you a little differently than before.

I intend to stay on her like hair on soap.

I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good.

I'm tired of the rules," I say.

I started writing it the day after Sept. 11. I was living in New York City. We didnt have any phone service and we didnt have any mail. Like a lot of writers do, I started to write in a voice that I missed.

No one tells us, girls who don't go on dates, that remembering can be almost as good as what actually happens.