SCHOOL FLEW BY quickly the next day. When we got to English Class, Mr. Tamera gave Amy, Nikki, Ashley, and I passes to down go to the office. He wouldn't say why. It was actually kind of mysterious that he wouldn't tell us – so we all discussed it as we went downstairs to the office.
"Obviously it's about the project," I said.
"Yeah it probably is, but what about it?" Ashley asked.
"Well maybe we're getting rewarded for a really good job?" Nikki suggested.
"Let's hope so," Amy said.
We reached the office door and walked in. The principal, Mrs. Hinther, was standing there, "How are you all doing?"
"Okay," Nikki said.
"Good. Would you four please step into the conference room here?" She asked.
We followed her into a long room where we saw a big screen TV was sitting recessed into the wall. I'd been in the room earlier this year, but I hadn't noticed the TV before. Around the table in the conference room we saw eight other adults talking to each other. She introduced us to them, "This is Mr. Jameson, the superintendent for our district. Here we have Mr. Winters, he's the school board president." She continued rattling off names of a couple more school board members, a newspaper reporter, and two television reporters. One of them was from Mr. Sanders' TV station.
"Well, you're all probably wondering why we brought you in here?" She asked as she motioned for us to take a seat in four empty chairs.
We nodded.
"Well, let's just say Mr. Tamera showed the other English teachers your video. They all thought that I should see it. I was incredibly impressed by your project, and I decided that these ladies and gentlemen should see your film too. Could you guys give your presentation just like you did the other day?"
"Okay," I said. "But do you have all of our stuff?" I asked.
"It's all right here," She said handing me the stack of our stuff.
The four of us huddled for a second before starting our presentation again. Talk about unexpected! We managed to do at least as good of a job introducing the video as we did Wednesday, and then I started the video. I spent time watching the reactions of everyone on this showing again.
I especially enjoyed the reporter from Mr. Sanders station. She just seemed to be enthralled by it, laughing at all of the right times. Even the Superintendent and the School Board members seemed to be unable to control themselves. Everyone in the room seemed to thoroughly enjoy the movie.
When the video was over they all gave us a round of applause. There were all sorts of back patting comments, and we got to thoroughly enjoy the attention and all of the accolades. They ended up telling us that they wanted us to present it at the school board meeting, and maybe at a state board meeting as well. Wow, talk about more than we planned on.
They also asked us if we would mind talking to the three reporters there. We talked amongst ourselves and told them that we would talk to the newspaper reporter and the reporter from Mr. Sanders first. If the other one wanted to talk to us next week we would do so then, but the one TV station deserved first crack.
The other reporter was very gracious about it and said that seemed more than fair to her, and that she completely understood.
A phone call was made to each of our parents, in my case they called my dad on his cell phone, and then we sat down for interviews.
"So first of all, what are your names?" The reporter for the TV station asked.
"I'm Amy."
"I'm Ashley,"
"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.
"You should do it. That way we don't have to wait for my dad. Usually when he does this he takes forever!" She answered.
"Okay, I suppose that would be fine then." I replied.
"Okay then, why don't you two go upstairs and get dressed. I'm going to finish cleaning up from dinner."
"Okay Mom," Amy said.
We got upstairs and we closed her bedroom door. "You didn't tell her anything did you?" I asked Amy.
"No, of course not."
"I believe you, I just had to ask."
"I know, it's okay. Here's your chance though, who would have thought that Mom would suggest that?"
"I wouldn't have – it certainly surprised me! Do you think there's something fishy going on?" I asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Well... I don't know. I guess maybe I'm wondering if it's connected to the phone conversation she had with Mom forever last night."
"I don't know. I think you're worrying too much. Come on it's time to get dressed! I haven't been able to use our pool since September!"
She picked out a swimsuit for herself and gave me the one that I had used yesterday. Once we were dressed we headed downstairs. We grabbed some swimming toys and goggles from a closet downstairs. I hadn't seen Mrs. Hancock yet, I felt very self-conscious, when I heard "You two go ahead and head outside, okay?" from her Mom behind us.
I kind of jumped a bit at that point. "By the way, you look nice Brandon," her mom said with a wink.
For whatever reason out of my mouth sprouted the words, "Thanks Mrs. Hancock." Where the heck did those come from? I quickly turned back around and headed out the back door to the pool. We put our stuff on the side of the pool and jumped in. Pretty soon I didn't even think about the fact that I was wearing her swimsuit – I was just having fun.
Amy and I just kind of dived in and out of the water for a few minutes before she said, "Brandon you really do look nice. I don't know if she was being serious or not, but you do. I think you could honestly get away with going to a public pool like this if you wanted."
"I don't know... I'm really surprised that your mom would suggest something like this." I said.
"I am too honestly." We were speaking in the middle of a shallow end area of the pool. Her mom was still inside. "But, are you enjoying it?" She asked.
"Absolutely!" I replied. I loved the way that the swimming suit felt in the water. It was more like a second skin than anything else. 'Much more comfortable than what I'd been forced to wear before,' I thought.
"Well good! Let's enjoy the pool! I haven't been able to swim in it for a while!" She said.
We swam, diving in and out of the water for a while and then grabbed some of the pool toys from the side. She had a bunch of diving toys that we played games with, seeing 'who could get the most toys first,' type thing. After a while Mrs. Hancock and her husband came out and sat in the jacuzzi. "Why don't you two join us in here?" she suggested.
I had forgotten all about what I was wearing while we had been playing, suddenly I was afraid of what Mr. Hancock would think.
"Cute," he said to me, and then asked, "So I hear you two had a big day?"
"It was great Dad..." Amy proceeded to tell him everything about today with me tossing in an additional detail here and there.
"That's awesome guys. I have to confess I did hear about it first from the Superintendent."
"Really?" Amy asked.
"Yeah, after he got done with you guys he gave me a call and asked if you were my daughter. He told me that you and your friends had done an amazing job."
"Cool," Amy said.
"I have a feeling the district is going to milk your project for everything its worth. Because of that I made a phone call earlier." He added.
"To where?" I asked.
"A guy I went to law school with has been working for the Mattel Corporation for the last ten years. I thought it might be a good idea to consult with him about the project – just in case they decided to have a problem with it for some reason."
"And?" Amy asked.
"Well, he said they shouldn't have a problem with it. But, and this is the cool part, they want to see it to see if they can use it for any sort of promotional thing. I had one of the copies sitting around at work and sent it to him through FedEx earlier. They should get it Monday."
"So do you think it's going to amount to anything?" I asked.
"Who knows, maybe some scholarships for you guys? They may just throw in some free toys or something even. We'll see. I mainly called them because sometimes big companies like Mattel have a fit anytime someone uses their trademarked merchandise. Toy companies can be especially bad about that. The good thing is that in the credits you guys credited them, so they should be cool with it. Anyway, nothing we can do until we hear from them next week."
"Thanks for doing that Dad," Amy said.
"Yeah, thanks." I said. I certainly couldn't afford to have my family sued by that company...
We sat in the jacuzzi with them for about fifteen minutes and then we all went inside. Amy's mom sent us upstairs to go take showers and change into our pajamas. When I got up to her room I said, "Thanks for letting me use one of your swimsuits Amy."
"Anytime Tiff."
"Thanks. Well, I guess we should go take these showers huh?"
"Yeah, when you're done just bring my swimsuit back here so we can dry it."
"Okay." I replied and walked down the hall with clothes and such in hand. When I got to the bathroom and closed the door I looked at myself in the tall mirror on the door.
I was honestly looking at myself to see just how much or how little I looked like a girl. Truthfully between my hair and the clothing I didn't resemble a boy at all. I looked down to where I figured I would be betrayed and found myself pleasantly surprised. There really wasn't anything to see there. The only mound at all was between my legs, and it didn't look like my parts.
Unfortunately as they say, 'All good things must come to an end.' I hated that saying.
I stripped the suit off and got in the shower. I tried to make it a quick shower and was soon in my pajamas. I walked back to her room and found Amy just opening her bathroom door. I handed my suit to her and she hung it up on the shower curtain rod.
"Are you going to blow dry your hair?" I asked her.
"No, let's just go downstairs with it wet. Bring your brush though, k?"
"Okay," I said. We both headed downstairs toward the living room with our hair brushes in hand. We both sat down on the larger sofa in the living room. I started brushing my hair when I got settled – I didn't really want it to get tangled or anything. Amy started brushing her hair as well.
Amy's parents had us pick out a movie and we just all kind of vegged on the movie until 10pm. At that point we started recording the news, and watched our interview go out on the air again. This copy was actually a little longer and both of the news anchors commented, 'impressive.'
My parents called about that time and I talked to them about what had happened today. I thought about leaving out the details about the swimsuit, but I thought I could present it as a funny story since they would probably hear about it one way or another. Mom and Dad gave me a hard time about it, but the shock was not as high as I thought it would be. They both unexpectedly took it in stride. I decided that was a good thing. Maybe Tiffany might have a future someday after all?
My parents and I talked for a while and at the end my mom asked, "Can you hand the phone to Mrs. Hancock?"
"Sure, I love you guys, goodnight!"
"Mrs. Hancock my parents want to talk to you." I said handing her the cordless phone I'd been talking to them on.
"Okay Brandon." She said while taking the phone.
I heard her say 'hi' and saw her walk back to her office again to talk. That was kind of strange.
Amy and I kept watching movies and TV that night till we both fell asleep on the couch. At about 2:30 am Mrs. Hancock came by and prodded us up to bed. As soon as I hit the bed I was right back asleep.
Saturday Amy and I were allowed to sleep in till we woke up, which ended up being at 11:30. The story of our project was on the front page of the newspaper – slow day. The paper made the film sound so much cooler than I thought it was. Mrs. Hancock went to the grocery store and bought several more papers so that we could all have copies for our 'scrapbooks.'
For the rest of the day we enjoyed being kids, playing her Playstation, playing with her Barbies, and watching TV/movies. We stayed up late again that night, but didn't really do a whole lot except talk and giggle. Sunday evening came quickly and Mom came to get me.
While I put my stuff in the car my mom talked to her mom for a bit. Finally pulling me away from talking with Amy (I'd given up that she was going to finish whatever they were talking about – she had told me to go away for a bit). I told them thanks again for everything and then we drove to our house.
When I entered mybedroom with my stuff that day it was a bit of a let down. I had a couple stuffed animals still, but notmany. My walls were basically a blankwhite with a few pictures and awards here and there. During the five days I'dspent in Amy's room I had grown accustomed to having that girl presence in thedécor. 'Oh well, maybe eventually I coulddecorate my room like Amy's,' I thought to myself as I fell asleep.
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