Backbone. The guys have a storyline, which John reads: "Lil Jon's going to a brand new school. / He's afraid the other kids won't think he's cool. / Lil Jon's kinda quiet and not very tall. / And no one talks to him when he walks down the hall." They all love it. John advises them to write the rest of it like a country song: a "very big idea, short amount of words." Jose's like, "no one talks to him? Like, not even teachers." But Mark thinks he's getting into semantics. Jose says that people don't realize how creative he is, and then he tells the group that he doesn't like saying "nobody" because that includes teachers, which is a bad message. "I don't think teachers should ignore little kids." Meat Loaf says teachers aren't normally in the hall, but Jose gets deadly serious: "Oh yes they are! I beg to differ." Is Jose's mom a teacher or something? Mark still thinks it's semantics, and Meat Loaf tells him to lay off this a little bit. John asks Jose to come up with another word if he doesn't like "no one," because it seems like all he's doing it shooting him down. John tells us that "Jose Canseco smashes baseballs. He does not write rhymes."

ASAP. The women are brainstorming what the lion's problem will be, and Hope (who?!) says, "Maybe the lion cannot roar." Lisa: "Yes!" La Toya likes it, too, because she was quiet and didn't talk on her first day of school. Star suggests the title, Why Can't I Roar? which causes Lisa to jump up and down shrieking that she loves it and she has chills. Star and Nene look at each other knowingly; they clearly hate Lisa. Dionne doesn't think that's the point of the book, though, and neither does Marlee. However, Dionne can't get her point across because that bitch Marlee won't stop talking. No, really. That's how a couple people -- Star! -- act. AS IF MARLEE CAN HEAR DIONNE. Dionne thinks the lion should go to every other animal and ask them to help her roar. No one likes it, but Nene articulates later that they can't disagree with a seventy-year-old, so Dionne might just be here until the end by default. Lisa suggests another animal, who is deaf, can teach the lion sign language, but Dionne says that's just sad. Lisa asks her if she thinks Marlee's sad. Dionne doesn't, but she says kids won't understand that. They all ask her why not. Dionne tells us she had to speak up because she didn't think four- and five-year-old children would like that type of story; they'd leave sad, feeling sorry for her.