“She’s too tall,” he said, one thousand times.

“You’re insane!” he replied, one thousand and one times. “You’re heightist! No one thinks like that!”

“The Tweens will hate her. They think she’s a mean girl,” he said.

“They want to be her friend! She’s their Aspirational BFF!” he replied.

“Too tall.”

She was too tall.

America thinks like that.

They hated her, thought she was a mean girl. They did not aspire to friendship. They cowered behind locker doors adorned with bedazzled photos of Kris Allen and Lee DeWyze, whispering jealously, texting 10 extra votes for Phillip Phillips Jr. “He’s my boyfriend,” they said. “She’s going to steal him from me.”

“She’s totes gonna steal him.”

“Ugh, bitch.”

Last night, unfolding with the slow-motion inevitability of all long-imagined disasters, the Magrane Train jumped the rails and plunged off a cliff into the chasm of disappointment, detonating on impact with a mere fizzle, not a majestic explosion, just as we should have expected after consecutive lackluster performances. Occupying the Bottom Three with Elise Testone and Erika Van Pelt, who were helpfully lined up for tidy elimination in the next two weeks (the Tweens will feast on their livers soon enough), Shannon Magrane was offered the chance to Sing for Her Life. And she Sang for Her Whatever, Maybe I’m Not Ready, I Have a Pretty Nice Life Down in Tampa, I’m Only 16, This Will Come to Me Eventually.

She was not ready. She has a pretty nice life down in Tampa. She’s only 16. This may or may not come to her eventually.

She was too tall.