Standing Up to Life

Chapter 12:

PART III: Filmmaking

MONDAY CAME FAR too quickly that weekend. Mom dropped off my candy money with Ms. Fitzgerald at the elementary school and discovered I actually had two-hundred-and-sixty dollars extra in my account. She said that a couple corporations had given some donations that had helped. I was ecstatic when she told me that night. I'd never, ever, had that much money to spend before!

On Tuesday I went over to Amy's house and we played Barbies some more. She made a comment during that episode that if we kept playing with them she was going to have to get me my own dolls. I couldn't tell her, but I could think of few things that I wanted more. I was so glad that we had become such good friends. Amy had really filled a void in my life since I had never really had any real friends, let alone one like her before. We had become so close now I was sure I wouldn't know what to do without her.

Mom had commented on my necklace that Saturday night when she had brought me home. Somehow neither of my parents had ever noticed it before. Apparently Mrs. Hancock had told her about it while they were in the car, so she had asked me if she could see it. After looking at it she had told me she couldn't believe that Mrs. Hancock had spent so much on us.

When I had looked at her questioningly, she told me she guessed that the set must have cost at least three-hundred dollars. My mouth was open for most of the rest of the evening. I had no idea.

That Wednesday we were sitting in our English class when Mr. Tamera said, "We're going to have a major assignment due the week after next. It's going to serve as a major grade for this nine-week period. It's also going to serve as half of your semester final exam grade."

He let that sink in for a moment as we all got a bit nervous. After he handed out project guideline sheets he continued. "This will be a group project. You will each be working in a group of four people. Each group will present their project in class in two weeks. You have several options here on what you can do..." He explained the options and said, "You must do it on one of the books that is listed below. The more unique and exceptional your project is the higher grade you will receive."

He talked for a few more minutes before we divided up into groups. I was so glad that Amy was in this class! She actually hadn't been at the beginning of the year but had been transferred into this class at the semester. Why? I don't know. I thought she had a better English teacher before. Within a few minutes Amy, Nikki, Ashley and I had our desks together and were brainstorming on what to do the project on.

Amy was looking at the paper and said, "We should do a video for our project!"

"That sounds like fun," I replied.

"We could be really creative and use Barbies for the characters," Nikki suggested.

"That sounds like a great idea," Ashley added.

"Umm... okay." I said. Ashley and Nikki didn't know that I played with Amy and her Barbies... I didn't really want to give them any indications otherwise.

"My dad has a video camera that we can use for it." Amy said.

"Okay," I replied.

"Well let's start working on a script then," Amy said.

We did as she said. Amy suggested using one of the Nancy Drew books on the list as the basis for our movie. She seemed to think that would be one of the easiest books to use for what we had planned. I wasn't so sure – I had read all of them before – but I went along with it. After about ten minutes of sitting in class we went down to the library with a pass to see what we could find.