Standing Up to Life

Chapter 15:

"I'm Nikki."

"And I'm Brandon," I finished. I saw a quick double take from both of them when they heard my name. Clearly they were expecting another girl's name.

They asked several questions including, "So where did you guys get the idea for the project?"

I started, "Well they gave us the option of doing a video for our project, and that seemed better than talking in front of the class for a long time."

Nikki then chimed in, "At that point I suggested we do it using Barbies."

Amy then spoke up, "I suggested we use the Nancy Drew book because it would be the easiest to do with Barbies."

"And then it just all kind of flowed together," I concluded. "Ashley talked to her dad that night and he offered to help us out with the facilities at your station."

After a few more questions she concluded the interview. The interview had lasted for the rest of the day, with the newspaper reporter having a cameraman coming down to a spot outside the school where they were able to photograph/film us in front of a school sign. The cameraman said they would splice that footage in with excerpts from the video and our personal interviews. We all knew it was going to add up to all-of-about forty-five seconds of a story at most.

We were told the interview would run on TV that night on the Six and Ten O'clock Newscasts and be in the paper the next day. When we had just ten minutes left in the day Mrs. Hinther told us to go grab our stuff from our lockers, and then come wait in the office till the end of the day. When we came back we were surprised to see Amy's mom waiting for us. She went ahead and signed us out and we rode with her home.

"Congratulations you guys, this is so exciting!" She exclaimed.

She decided that we would do KFC that night so that we could watch the interview and not miss it. We got back to their house and threw our stuff upstairs in Amy's room. After that we just kind of chilled. I did call my parents and tell them about the event and they seemed really excited for us. I was also able to tell them that though we were taping it to be sure, Mr. Sanders had called and said that we would get an official copy from the station too. All-in-all it was really incredible.

Dinner was around the coffee table in the living room waiting for the interview. Mr. Hancock was home for the news and we all got really excited when the interview came on. It was cool! There's really no other way to describe the experience.

Afterwards Mrs. Hancock asked, "So do you two want to go swimming now?"

Crap. I had forgotten that we needed to go to my house to get my swimming suit. That was going to be a pain now.

"Umm... I don't actually have my swimsuit with me." I said.

"You left it at home?" Amy asked.

"Yeah, would you mind going with me to get it?" I asked.

"Well, Greg is out changing the oil in his car, and unfortunately that's blocking in mine as well. So we won't be able to go for a while. Why don't you two go watch some TV for now? Unless..."

"Unless?"

"Well, Amy has a couple extra swimsuits, you could borrow one from her." Mrs. Hancock offered.

My jaw absolutely must have hit the floor.

"One of Amy's suits? Wouldn't that be strange?" I asked. I just had one on yesterday. Oh how I wanted to wear it again!

"We have a fence around the backyard, no one would see you. It really wouldn't be that big of a deal." She hedged.

"Well... what do you think Amy?" I asked.