Synopsis

Brandon is a bright boy growing up near Albuquerque, New Mexico. He likes school, soccer, computer games, and playing in the school band. Small for his age and youngest in his class, his size has made him the target of every school bully for years. Each year the verbal and physical abuse increases, finally wearing him down to the point he doesn't know if he can continue. Just as he reaches the end of his rope, he is suddenly befriended by a classmate he least expected. As their friendship grows and deepens, Brandon learns the value of a best friend and finds himself moving down a road he never expected. Over the course of the school year, his friend helps him discover and cope with his feelings, hopes, dreams - and fears.

This is the story of a young person's unusual journey to stand up to the numerous obstacles that life has dealt him - and to become the person he believes himself to be. (Part 4 of 6)

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Viewing Note: This story should be viewed with the Edwardian Script ITC font installed on your Windows platform in the c:/Windows/Fonts directory. Microsoft Word installs this font automatically.

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The Legal Stuff: Standing Up to Life  © 2008 By Tiffany Shar
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright  © 2008 By Tiffany Shar. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Preface
 
 
I began this trilogy of novels last year, first publishing this book at FictionMania and Story Site in March last year. Setting out to tell a story I felt I needed to tell, I was pleased that the readers of both sites seemed to enjoy the work. A couple months after I initially posted this book at FictionMania I met a dear friend Carla Ann who offered her services as an editor. With her help I began to go back and proof this book a few months ago for publishing at Lulu.com. More than anything I liked the idea of having a hardback edition of the book for myself, but I felt that perhaps others might enjoy a copy as well.

With that information in mind I am posting a standard copy of this here at BigCloset, and announcing that I have three versions available for purchasing through My Store (www.lulu.com/tiffanyshar) at Lulu.com. There are 6x9 hardback editions and paperback editions, as well as a high quality pdf version available for download. If you enjoy this work perhaps you will consider supporting me by purchasing it from my store. I hope to have it available through Amazon.com in a couple months as well, and will offer to have Erin sell it through her Amazon page at that time.

Thank you to all of you, my amazing readers, who have enjoyed this work in the past. You will discover that this new version is much more refined than what I initially posted a year ago. I hope you all enjoy this and my other novels. I hope to have the second book, Daring to Hope, also available in this form by mid-March, and the third book will hopefully be available this summer! I will make future announcements about Book Three through my Lulu storefront as well.

I will be posting this in six segments during this week. Please enjoy, and thanks for reading!

     -Tiffany Shar

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Chapter 14
 
 
I WOKE UP questioning whether our conversation had really happened or not. Amy quickly settled that when she whispered into my ear, "I’m so excited for after school," on our way out the door to the bus. I was really unfocused that day, to the point it was ridiculous. I almost ended up with detention with one teacher, but thankfully he decided I should be given a break for a bad day since I was one of his best students. He also knew that my grandfather had the heart attack. I think he just thought I was distracted by that.

Amy and I talked like normal through the day, but there was something different. I think it was just the sheer fact that she now knew my deepest darkest secret. I had decided that morning that I could do one of two things; live in constant fear that she would tell someone, or I could trust her to be my friend. I had decided I would do the second. I was sure she wouldn’t let me down.

I had several people try and give me a hard time with the Barbie bit that day, but I just brushed them off. Something about having the unconditional friendship of one of the coolest girls in school put me at ease. I also just honestly didn’t care — as long as I wasn’t getting beat up I was okay. The nice thing is that people still remembered the incidents with Matt and Jeff, and even with them thinking I was a ‘sissy,’ they were too scared to risk messing with me. Boy if they only knew how much of a wimp I really was…

Finally the end of the day came and we got on the bus to go home. As we went in the door we heard the phone ringing. Amy hurried over to it and talked to her mom for a couple minutes. Apparently her mom was calling to say that she was running late, and she wouldn’t be home till six that night. That was the time when her dad normally came home too, but he was in court and wasn’t expected to come home until at least then tonight.

"Okay then, shall we go upstairs?" Amy asked. I could tell she was really excited.

I was excited too — and nervous… really nervous. But I decided to throw caution to the wind and say, "Okay!" She and I raced upstairs and went straight into her room.

"Okay, first thing’s first. We need to get you into the right type of underwear!" She went to her dresser and dug through her drawer and brought out two items. I just kind of stood there wondering if I was in a dream. "Okay, here is a pair of panties that should fit you, and one of my training bras. Go put them on in the bathroom and then put on my robe. It’s hanging on a hook on the door. Okay?"

"Oh-oh-okay." I stammered. I did as she said and removed all of the clothes I had on before pulling the panties up my legs. Wow… They weren’t like some sort of exotic type of panty, they were just cotton, but they had a different type of elastic, and… they just felt different. I finished putting them on quickly and fought for a few minutes to get the bra fastened. After several tries I managed to get it fastened properly.

My image beckoned in the mirror and I looked at myself with girls’ underwear on. Instantly it was like I suddenly recognized myself and how I was supposed to look. I smiled and giggled. I couldn’t believe it was finally happening!

I found Amy’s robe hanging on the door as she said, put it on, and tied the belt in front of me. At that moment I took a deep breath, looked at myself in the mirror again, and then went out to her room. "You look great already!" She told me. "What do you want to try on first?" She asked me pointing to a bunch of clothes hanging up around the room. Clearly she had her ideas of how I should dress.

I looked around and saw a dress that I just had to see myself in. "How about that dress?" I said pointing to a dress that must have been Amy’s Easter dress this year. It wasn’t extremely frilly, most of the dresses that girls wore in our grades weren’t frilly so that didn’t surprise me… but it was a dress!

"Okay! I was hoping you would choose this one first." She said handing it to me. "Put this over your head like a t-shirt. If you can’t get the back zipped up I’ll do it for you."

"Okay!" I said very happily. I took it back in the bathroom and put it over my head as she told me. I actually tried to get it zipped a couple times before deciding I’d just let her do it.

I came out and she said, "Wow, Brandon… This is… wow… Actually I don’t think we should call you Brandon anymore… Have you picked out a different name for yourself as a girl?" She asked as she zipped up the back of the dress.

How could she know I had? I turned to look at her, "Well… I’ve had it narrowed down to two for a while."

"So what are they?" She asked.

I hesitated for a moment; this was like the last secret. "Brittany or Tiffany," I said.

"Hmm… I think I like Tiffany better for you. You’re not really like any of the Brittany’s I know."

"That’s kind of what I had decided." I could just see myself in a mirror in her room. Did I look pretty? Or did I look like a boy in a dress. I was so nervous. If I looked ugly now there was no way that I could ever become the girl I wanted to be.

Amy seemed to be reading my mind, and she said, "Tiffany," I smiled as she said my name, "you look really pretty already!" She gave me a hug that I returned.

"You’re not just saying that?" I asked.

"No — you look like you should be wearing that dress. I think it fits you better than it does me." She said with a smile.

I believed her, I knew I could, and decided to ask, "So what’s next?"

"Well… Why don’t we do something with your hair really quick?" She suggested. "You look okay now, I think you can look great though if we do a few more things!"

"Okay, where do you want me?"

"Just sit down in this chair," She pointed to a chair that was sitting in front of a dresser with a mirror above it. She had it turned away from the mirror for some reason. I started to sit down and remembered one of the things that every story I’d read on the internet talked about — you were supposed to smooth your dress beneath you. I did my best to do it, catching a smile from Amy just as she began working on my hair.

"What are you doing with it?" I asked.

"I thought I would do it like mine, where it’s curled at the bottom. I’d love to be able to do it in layers for you like I’ve seen on some stars recently, but that would involve cutting it. So, we’ll just go with this." She said.

She spent about twenty minutes working on it (I glanced at the clock nervously, it was now 4:10) and then she said, "Done! But hold on a second okay?" I nodded and she went to a jewelry box on the other side of the room. She came back with some earrings.

"Amy I don’t have pierced ears." I told her.

"I know, these are clip-ons. I wore them until I was ten — I was too scared to let them pierce my ears!" She said with a giggle. "I think I was rather silly looking back at it. It stung, but it didn’t cause me to fall on the floor and cry like I thought it would. Anyway, here let me put these on your ears!"

She fastened the clip-on earrings to my ears and told me, "stand up and tell me what you think!"

I couldn’t believe it! I honestly could have hung out with the cool crowd look wise. Maybe not the dress (definitely a pretty, but non-cool dress), but my face and everything seemed to work together with this hair style. "Wow, thank you Amy, this is like so cool." I gave her a big crushing hug.

"No problem." She gasped. I walked around for a few moments before looking at the clock and seeing it was only 4:22.

"So do I get to try on other stuff?" I asked.

"I thought you would never ask Tiffany!" She said. Hearing myself called Tiffany sent a shiver down my spine.

She and I kept picking clothes for me to try on over and over again until I was sure that I had tried on all of her skirts and dresses. As I looked at my smiling face in the mirror she said, "Okay, most girls don’t wear dresses to school anymore, let’s put you into something that is more normal."

"Okay."

She dug up a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, which she insisted I call ‘a blouse,’ and told me to put them on. I went into the bathroom yet again and came out. "You know it would be so cool to take you to the mall like this! No one would recognize you as Brandon, and I know all of the guys would be looking at you!" Amy was beside herself with excitement.

"Okay Amy… Hold on… I’m not ready to be seen in public like this… and I don’t think guys are necessarily my thing. At least… not as long as I have boy parts." I replied.

"Well, at least we know that you could be a really cute girl if you wanted to be. Is there anything else you want to try on Tiff?" She asked me. I kind of liked the shortened version too.

I thought for a moment, "Could I try on one of your swimsuits?"

"Sure, here let me grab one." She went through one of her dressers and came back with a bright green swimsuit with pink neon swirls on it.

I took it into the bathroom and pulled off everything else. I pulled everything else I was wearing off and pulled the swimsuit on. I remembered reading something about tucking my parts in, and decided to try doing it. I wasn’t sure I did it the way I was supposed to, but when I looked down I couldn’t see my parts sticking out anywhere — so I guessed it was at least marginally successful.

I found myself having a harder time getting myself to go out and show myself to her. It was a just a one-piece swimsuit, but it showed my legs all the way up — that part was really strange for me. After a moment though I mustered up my courage and went out to her room.

She whistled at me. "You look cute like that!"

I blushed. "Are you just saying that? I’m worried that people could tell that I’m a boy in this." I said.

"I can’t tell that you have anything that a girl doesn’t. I honestly think you could get away going to a pool party like that. Maybe we’ll even have to arrange for that," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

"Umm… don’t get evil on me here Amy." I said half jokingly. It was then that I looked at the clock and saw it was 5:42. "Hey, we’d better clean this up and I’d better get back into my clothes before your mom gets home."

"You’re right. Go ahead and change and I’ll start putting all of the rest of this up." She said and began to get to work. I went into the bathroom and took one last look at myself before slipping out of the swimsuit. I put my own clothes back on and took what clothes were in the bathroom back out to Amy. We worked together to put everything up when I felt like we were forgetting something.

"Amy, I feel like we’re forgetting something." I said.

"Oh no, the earrings and hair!" She said.

I pulled the earrings off and said, "What should we do with my hair?"

"Just put it in a ponytail, no one should be able to tell we did anything with it after that." She said.

We quickly did that and I found myself massaging my earlobes to get the dents out of them. We then sat down at the table in her room and worked on homework until her mom got there — three minutes later! We had certainly cut it a little bit close.

"Hey guys, what are you up to?" She asked.

"Just working on homework," I said. She’s going to know… somehow she’s going to know… I kept thinking to myself.

"Well I’ll let you two get back to it." She said and started to go out the door.

"Mom what are we doing for dinner?" Amy asked.

She turned back around, "we’re going to go out tonight. Does Olive Garden sound good?" She asked.

"Yeah!!!" Amy said.

"Yes that does sound good." I said.

"Okay, we’re going to leave in about twenty minutes. Work on your homework for a little bit longer though; it looks like you guys have a bunch of it." She said and turned around.

Amy started giggling and so did I once she was out of earshot. "That was close," she whispered to me.

"Yeah. Thanks though Amy, you let me do something I’ve wanted to do for at least eight months now."

"No problem Brandon, maybe we can figure out a way to make it happen some more." She said.

"I would really love to do that again." I said with a large smile on my face. It dimmed a little though as I said, "I’m just worried about getting caught."

"You know I don’t think anyone would be able to tell that you were Brandon if you were dressed as Tiffany." She said and we got back to working on the homework. We made amazing progress in ten minutes — almost done with it progress — when her mom came to the door.

"Okay guys get ready so we can drive into town to go eat. Your Dad is just going to meet us there, Amy."

We got ready to leave and drove off. The two of us sat giggling in the back seat talking about nothing of importance during the entire drive.

When we arrived at the restaurant and waited for a table. That took a good thirty minutes, but we all thought it would be worth it. After the wait we got called up and went to the table. The waiter came to me and asked me, "And what would you like to drink miss?"

"Umm… Iced tea please." I said.

Once he left Amy giggled a bit. "Brandon that has been happening a lot lately!" she whispered to me. "Just think…" She added. Just those two words had a new meaning to us.

"So Amy what are you going to order?" I asked.

"I don’t know, you want to split something?" She asked.

"Sure." I replied.

"What sounds good to you?" She asked.

"I don’t know, how about this Tour of Italy dish?"

"That sounds good, we get a little bit of everything then." She said. We chatted about the next day a bit until the waiter came back. We told him that we were going to split the dish and he said, "certainly ladies," the giggling started up again with Amy as soon as he left.

Mr. Hancock leaned over towards us and asked, "so should we correct him, or is this some sort of game you two are enjoying?" He asked with a wink.

"No we’re having fun with it," Amy and I said at the same time.

"Okay, you two might be spending a little too much time together," her mom said jokingly.

Amy turned towards her dad, "So how did your case go Daddy?"

"It went well. I think we should win this case easily." He said.

"What was the case about?" I asked.

He told us about the details. Apparently a company in town had fired an employee for some unjust cause. The employee had come to him and they had ended up taking it all the way to court. Mr. Hancock was really surprised that they hadn’t settled. Their closing arguments from both sides were definitely leaning more towards his client winning.

Our food came and conversation lulled while we ate. They had actually split the plate for us already, which was nice. The portions were still huge for our appetites and we both had enough leftovers for a decent snack the next day. We were on our way out when Amy leaned over to my ear as we walked and whispered, "Did you see that boy checking you out?"

"What?!" I whispered back.

"You heard me." Amy whispered.

"You must have been mistaken," I said back as we got inside the car.

Amy’s mom got in too and said, "Are you two talking about the boy that was checking out Brandon?"

"What? You too?" I asked.

"Well he was," Amy’s mom said. "As soon as you walked towards the door he couldn’t take his eyes off of your face." She then giggled a bit, "Then your rear when you walked past!"

Amy was practically rolling out of her seat in the car. I was sure the only thing holding her there was her seatbelt.

I was trying to decide whether or not to laugh or cry. I guess I should have known this was going to happen if I really wanted to start looking like a girl…

"Brandon, we’re not trying to make fun of you," Amy said, "It’s just really really funny."

I decided to laugh. I mean perhaps this was just another step to girlhood? "I guess it kind of is isn’t it?"

"Yes it is. I think it might have something to do with the hair though… did you do something to his hair earlier Amy?" She inquired.

Oh crap… she suspects? What do I say? I wasn’t really panicking yet — but I was definitely at a loss for words.

"Yeah, you got us. I talked Brandon into letting me play with his hair earlier. I just used a curling iron though, I didn’t really do anything that significant to it." She said.

"It’s okay, I wouldn’t have noticed in all honesty, if I hadn’t seen the ends of his hair in the ponytail were so curly." I wanted to look in the mirror and see what was going on there. "Also, guys don’t usually do that high of a ponytail. That’s certainly the highest I’ve seen you do it Brandon." She added.

"You’re not mad are you, Mom?" Amy asked.

"Absolutely not. As long as Brandon was okay with it I don’t see any issue with it."

I sighed with relief. "I’m okay with it," I answered back.

"So what do you two have going on tomorrow?" Amy’s mom asked.

We talked about the different things that were going on the next day. When we got home it was about 8pm and she told us to go finish our homework.

Amy and I worked as quickly as we could, since we didn’t really want to waste the rest of our evening working on homework. We had been working for about two minutes when I decided I wanted to get the pulling sensation the ponytail was giving me out of my hair. I pulled the holder out of my hair and let it down.

Her mom came up a few minutes later from downstairs with two bowls of strawberry ice cream. "Here, I thought you two might enjoy some ice cream." She said.

"Brandon, I just talked to your Mom, when you finish your ice cream why don’t you call her back. Then when you’re done talking let me know. I want to talk to her for a few minutes too."

"Okay, I’ll do that as soon as I get done." I replied, and then she left the room. I ate my ice cream and continued to work on my homework. After about ten minutes I headed downstairs. Amy stayed behind to keep working.

I found the phone in the kitchen and sat down on the bar stool to talk to my parents. I dialed and Mom answered, "Hey sweetie, how are you doing?"

"I’m doing okay, I’m kind of tired." I replied. Not lying in the least… staying up late last night talking had worn me out. "How’s Grandpa doing?"

"Well he was moved to a normal room today, and they will be ready to send him home on Tuesday. Your dad and grandmother are going to stay through then, but I’m going to go ahead and come back on Sunday. I’ll pick you up around seven that evening when I get back."

"How are you getting home and they’re staying there. Didn’t you guys just take one car?" I asked

"Your Dad drove out your grandparent’s car, and I drove ours. I’ll drive ours back home."

"I guess that makes sense." I replied. We talked for another ten minutes or so about stuff — I think she was dealing with separation problems — and I said goodnight to her, but told her, "Don’t hang up though, Mrs. Hancock wants to talk to you about something."

I handed her off to Mrs. Hancock and went upstairs to work on finishing my homework. Amy had gotten far too much of a head start there so she was done fifteen minutes before I was. I finished right around nine, and was surprised that we hadn’t been told to go to bed yet. Amy ran down real quick with our dishes and saw that her mom was in her office on the phone.

"Brandon, I think my mom is still talking to your Mom." Amy came back up and said.

"That’s strange."

"Yeah, but oh well. We should probably get ready for bed now so that she doesn’t give us a hard time when she comes back upstairs to check on us." Amy said.

"Yeah, you’re probably right. Why don’t we get ready quick so we can watch TV in here until she says to go to bed?" I suggested.

"Okay, I’ll go for that!" She said and we walked down the hallway. We both took turns in the bathroom, changing quickly, and then shared the sink to brush our teeth and stuff. Amy grabbed her hairbrush and told me to do the same. We went back to the playroom and sat down on the floor.

"Okay, I’ve done your hair enough, it’s your turn!" She told me with a wink. She moved to where her back was in front of me and handed me her hairbrush. "Can you brush my hair out?"

"Sure!" I replied. I wouldn’t even be close to being even with her. I started brushing her hair out, she practically purred. I gave her a hard time about it, "Are you sure you’re not a kitty?"

"No. I think all girls are actually kitties at heart!" She replied. I brushed her hair out for about five minutes and then we switched places.

Okay, we’d done the hair thing before, but just flat out getting your hair brushed out by someone else was indeed a different experience. It felt really good.

"You said I purred!" She said with emphasis, "You must be at least part kitty too!" She said.

"Well, you said that all girls are part kitty — so it must be true for me too." I said giggling a little.

She stopped after a bit and we moved into bean bag chairs to keep watching TV. I thought maybe we would get a reprieve, and be able to watch TV till ten, but her mom came in at 9:30 and said, "Time for bed guys. I’ll let you stay up as late as you want the next two nights though okay?"

"Okay Mom," Amy said.

We went down to her room and got into bed. Her mom turned the lights out and closed the door. When I thought the coast was clear I said, "Amy?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"You’re welcome Tiff." She said. I looked over at Amy and saw her smile at me. I would forever be in her debt for today. How could I possibly repay someone for something like this? For being a friend through this? I had no idea. I went to sleep that night dreaming of a day that I could have my own wardrobe like Amy’s. All of my dreams that night involved me being dressed the way that I felt I should be. It was a good night.
 
 
Chapter 15
 
 

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 my bedroom with my stuff that day it was a bit of a let down. I had a couple stuffed animals still, but not many. My walls were basically a blank white with a few pictures and awards here and there. During the five days I’d spent in Amy’s room I had grown accustomed to having that girl presence in the décor. ‘Oh well, maybe eventually I could decorate my room like Amy’s,’ I thought to myself as I fell asleep.
 
 
Chapter 16
 
 

ON MONDAY MOM made me come home instead of going to Amy’s house. She figured Amy’s parents must be sick of me by then. They must not have been too sick of me though, because Amy and her parents stopped by at seven and rang the door bell.

"Amy!" I said excitedly. I’d been kind of down that I wasn’t hanging out with her tonight.

My mom came from the kitchen, "Come on in, how are you guys?"

"We’re doing well." Her dad answered.

"Good." They sat down on the couch and side lazy boy chairs, while Amy and I sat down on the floor on the other side of the coffee table.

"So what’s going on?" I asked Amy.

"Actually, I don’t know. This was Dad’s idea to come over — he refused to tell me what it’s about."

Mr. Hancock must have heard us talking because he started, "Well, now that I have both of you in one spot I’ll tell you at the same time, okay?"

"Okay?" I asked. Amy nodded. Apparently she must have been really pestering her dad to find out.

He actually started to talk to my mom first. "Did Brandon tell you that I called a friend of mine that works in the legal department of Mattel?"

"No?"

"Sorry, I forgot to tell you," I told her. I’d been too busy feeling miserable about not having a girls bedroom.

"On Friday I called a friend of mine from law school that works at Mattel. The school seems to want to make the kids’ film a big deal and wants to promote their work, so I wanted to make sure their company would be okay with it. After talking to him I sent him a copy of their video. That’s all that Brandon and Amy know so far."

"Not for lack of trying." Amy whispered to me.

"Okay," my mom said. "So did you hear back from him already?"

"Yes, today he called back first this morning at eleven. He was chuckling and told me he was genuinely impressed with their work. After talking for a few minutes, he asked some questions like ‘whether or not they did this project on their own or not.’ After we talked for a bit he said he was going to walk it down to one of the executives."

"Wow," I said.

"So, what happened," Amy fairly begged.

"He called back at three and said that there are several execs at the company that would like to meet with the four of you on Wednesday night. They want to take all of you, plus your parents, to dinner."

"Really?" I asked.

"Yeah. I don’t know why, but I guess they were really impressed with the film you guys made. They also asked me for addresses for you guys. They wanted to send each of you something. I made sure that it wasn’t some sort of lawsuit first and then gave them the addresses."

"What are they sending?" Amy asked.

"I have no idea. I don’t think he even knew then. So, do you guys think you can make the Wednesday night meeting?" He asked my Mom.

"We should be able to. Where are we going to meet?"

He named off a restaurant name and I was fairly shocked. "That’s probably the most expensive restaurant in town…" My mom said. It was an extremely expensive restaurant that our family had never been to.

"They’re buying, and apparently they’ve eaten there before and liked it." Mr. Hancock said.

"Well if they’re buying…" Mom said.

"Cool," Amy and I said together. We looked at each other and started giggling.

"So what’s so funny you two?" My mom asked.

Mrs. Hancock answered, "I think it’s just how frequent the two of them have been doing that. They’ve been finishing each others sentences and saying the same thing for the better part of three days now!" She laughed a bit herself.

We all talked for another twenty minutes or so before they left to go back home. I worked on some homework I’d needed to finish and got on the phone for a little bit while Mom talked to Dad. They were driving Grandpa home tomorrow. Since they lived about forty minutes away Mom was going to go pick Dad up from their house.

"Mom can I go with you to pick him up?"

"You’d have to miss school," she said to me.

I looked at her and said, "But I really want to see Grandpa. I’ve been really worried about him."

"I guess we’ll make it work somehow. You’re going to have to go to school in the morning though."

"Why do I have to go at all if I’m only going to be there for half-a-day?" I tried. I really did want to see Grandpa, but at the same time who doesn’t want out of school? Plus I had a test first hour.

"We don’t need to go till later. I don’t want you missing any more school than you have to."

Mom ended up calling her boss and getting the afternoon off — she was going to pick me up just before lunch from school. I tried getting out of the whole school day again later, but she somehow knew that I had a test first hour. Couldn’t I get away with anything?

When we got done talking about all of this I got back to my homework and then watched some TV till I went to bed. That night I kept trying to think of what Mattel could be sending us. Would they send us toys? If so would they realize I was a boy? If not would I be able to get my very own set of Barbies? Or something? When I fell asleep that night I had tons of dreams of my room being full of Barbies and other toys.

THE NEXT DAY our group talked outside about what we thought might happen next Wednesday. We were all really excited, and hoped that it would be something really cool. Just before lunch I was called to the office. Mom was there to check me out. We ate a quick lunch at home before driving over to my grandparents place.

They lived outside of a small town on part of my grandmother’s old family ranch. It had originally been a very large property of several hundred acres, but they had sold off bits of it until they only had fifteen acres now. We figured we were going to beat them to their place by about an hour so that would give us some time to make sure everything was ready for them.

Mom and I got busy making my grandfather’s bedroom as ready as we could so that he could be comfortable. We were just sitting down to kill some time watching TV as they drove up. We went out to help them get him inside.

"Grandpa!" I gave him a soft hug since I didn’t want to hurt him.

"Brandon, it’s good to see you."

I then gave Grandma a hug.

"It’s good to see you sweetie," she told me returning my hug.

We helped them get Grandpa inside and got him settled into a recliner in the living room. "How are you feeling Grandpa?" I asked him.

"I’ve been better before." He said with a wry smile. "But, I’m still here — and I definitely feel better than I did a few days ago."

"Good."

"And how are you doing?" Grandma asked me.

"Great, I’ve had several really cool things happen in the past few weeks at school." They had heard about most of this stuff, but they listened attentively anyway.

Grandma asked my Mom, "What do you think they want to meet with you all about?"

"Mr. Hancock has no idea. It could be interesting though, if nothing else it sounds like we’re going to get a really good meal out of the deal."

"Yeah. I’ll make sure that I’m not on call that night," My dad said.

We all talked for about thirty more minutes before we all gave Grandpa hugs and headed towards the car. At the driveway I gave Grandma a hug. "I like your hair," she told me.

"Thanks." I replied.

"How long are you going to grow it to?" She asked.

"Probably not a whole lot more. I like this length I think." I told her.

"Well it looks very nice. Have a safe trip home sweetie, and we’ll see you again in a couple weeks, okay?" We gave each other another hug and I got in the car.

The drive home was fairly quiet since Dad fell asleep from fatigue about three minutes into the drive. We arrived back home into our town at about 5:30, stopping by Burger King for a Whopper for each of us before going to our house.

It was another quiet evening that night. I didn’t do a whole lot other than talk to Amy on the phone for a bit. I ended up making arrangements to go to Amy’s house the next day before getting back to homework and going to bed.

THE NEXT WEEK went by very quickly. I had hung out at Amy’s house half of the time, and she had come over to our house the other days. When I was at Amy’s house I had put on some of her clothes each day while we were doing our homework or playing. Each day I switched back to my clothes in plenty of time before anyone came home.

Each day that I wore Amy’s clothes I didn’t dress up in anything ridiculously dressy or out of place. Instead I wore something that Amy would typically wear to school. Most of the time I actually ended up wearing what she was planning to wear the next day — just so that her mom couldn’t tell that there was a lot of extra laundry or something. Every one of those days was special to me as I was able to be who I really felt I was.

Amy had also invited me to an ‘end of the year’ slumber party that she was having that next week on Friday. Besides me, Ashley, Nikki, and several other girls were invited. I didn’t know the others as well. But, they were all going on the trip with us, and I’d never had any major problems with any of them. I had no idea what to expect on Friday night, I just knew that it would probably be a really good time.

Mrs. Hancock had made sure it was okay with the girls’ parents that a boy would be there — some had grumbled a little but went along with it. Amy and her mom had been shopping and preparing for the event for the better part of six days already by the time we got to our Wednesday meeting.

Dad had actually gotten off of work early that night so that we could be sure that we met up with the executives at the proper time. Mom made me wear a button up shirt and black slacks for the meeting. Dad had gotten out a suit that he rarely wore for the occasion. He looked really nice in it. Mom looked really pretty in a dress that she had bought for the occasion. I noticed she was also wearing a really pretty sapphire necklace that she had inherited from her grandmother. I was sure it was only the second time I’d ever seen her wear it. She’d never told me how much it was worth, but I had the feeling it was a really expensive heirloom.

Amy and the girls all came in dresses — I was really jealous that I wasn’t getting to wear the same thing. All of the other moms had also dressed up for the occasion. You could tell by the way everyone dressed that they all were excited about the meeting and the meal.

Mr. Hancock’s friend — Al — was the first person that we saw. The two of them exchanged handshakes and backslaps before introducing everyone to each other. There were four other people from the corporation there. The first was actually the CEO… I couldn’t believe that part. He asked that we call him Billy. There was also the head of their Marketing department - Dave, the head of their Barbie division - Lilly, and a lady who was Billy’s ‘executive assistant’ — Amanda.

We sat down at the table and the waiter took our drink orders.

"Well let’s get down to some business shall we?" ‘Billy’ said after some small talk. We were all already munching on some appetizers at that point.

"Okay," Mr. Hancock answered.

"When Al showed us the video you girls had made we were completely shocked by how good it was. We usually get about three dozen films a year that people send in trying to get something out of us for it. Al told us you just wanted to make sure that we would be okay with you showing it elsewhere. We all quickly decided that was fine, but we decided that we needed to do more."

"Okay. Like what, sir?" I asked politely.

"Well, first of all we sent a package to each of your houses, have you gotten them yet?"

We shook our heads.

"Well it should be there tomorrow then. Amanda, can you check on that tomorrow?" He asked her off to the side.

"Yes." She said simply.

"Anyway, there’ll be some things for each of you arriving — but we wanted to see if perhaps we could reach a deal for the film itself."

"What kind of deal?" My dad asked.

"We would like to be able to use the film for a series of long commercials on one of the cable networks. We’d also like to sponsor its entry into a couple of film festivals this year. Does that sound like something you all would be interested in?" He asked.

Mr. Sanders took this one. "If we do this what are you willing to offer?"

"First we’ll give each of the kids a two-thousand dollar savings bond for college — there are four of you involved in this project right?" Billy asked us.

"Yes," Amy said.

"And?" Mr. Sanders asked.

"We’ll give them each twenty-thousand dollars in cash too."

"Whoa." Amy and I said together. I heard Ashley and Nikki gasp.

"You’re planning on showing this on TV networks?" Mr. Hancock asked.

"Yes."

"And you’re hoping maybe that the film will get picked up by a studio for distribution through the film festivals?" Mr. Sanders asked.

"Well, we could distribute it ourselves, but we want to see what kind of a reaction and buzz that we can generate with it first." Lilly said.

"Fair enough," Mr. Sanders said. "But that does mean we should be talking more for the film."

I was aghast… How could he push our luck with this?

"What would you consider to be a fair offer?" Billy asked.

Mr. Sanders and Mr. Hancock spoke to each other in low tones for a quick minute before Mr. Hancock said, "Well… We would think at least seventy-thousand dollars each initially. Plus twenty-five percent of any gross box office/VHS sales that happen."

I couldn’t believe it. I trust Mr. Hancock a lot, but it seemed like he was blowing this opportunity for us.

"That’s a little steep Mr. Hancock." Lilly said.

"Not really. When you consider the fact that these kids did all of the production work for you and that your only expenditure would be promotion of the film. In all honesty it’s still highway robbery for you." Mr. Sanders replied.

"You make a good point, but we still can’t pay that much. We will also have to license the Nancy Drew brand and deal with licensing fees for the music they used. How about fifty-thousand dollars each — and twenty-percent?" Billy suggested.

Mr. Hancock and Mr. Sanders both huddled for a couple moments again before saying, "We’ll go for that as long as you also throw in trips to those festivals and let the kids show it at the State school board meeting next month."

"I think that can be arranged." They shook hands and Al wrote up a contract for those terms at the table real quick. After looking it over all of our parents signed the contract as well as us. We really didn’t have to sign it, since it didn’t make a legal difference one way or another, but they asked us to.

We completed this all before our dinner came. Once dinner came we ate in relative quiet. The adults all talked with each other as we chatted amongst ourselves. Eventually Lilly tried to engage us with some conversation. She seemed interested in how and why we came up with the project we did.

"Well, we thought a video was far better than having to talk for all that time in class. So we settled on the video idea pretty quickly." I said.

"Then we came up with the idea of using Barbies for the characters in the movie." Amy said.

"And then we just got really lucky that my dad works for a TV studio." Ashley added.

"And Brandon, you were okay doing it with Barbies?" She asked me.

"Sure, why wouldn’t I be?" I replied. I was wondering where she was going with this.

"It’s just you’re not our normal target audience for dolls, and I’m trying to figure out if there’s something we can do to change that." She said.

"No, I doubt you’ll change that." I told her honestly.

"Probably not," she replied. She had kind of a strange look in her eye still, but the conversations moved on. After we finished dinner we had a sort of ‘ceremonial’ toast about the contract over dessert. The adults all had champagne, while we all had sparkling cider. They had brought out the cider in the same glasses though — which made us all feel cool.

"Well it’s been great meeting you all and doing business with you." Billy said.

"Thank you so much for coming out here and taking this interest," My dad said. I think my parents were in a state of shock — I know I was. There were some final details such as arranging to send in the master of our film on the Beta tape I had. After that was done we all kind of filed out and the Mattel Corporation officers left in a limousine. We all stood by our cars while they drove off.

"YES!!!!" I screamed and found that my voice was joined by those of the other girls. We gave each other all big hugs. Something we had done in two days had earned us more money than my parents had ever had at once.
 
 
Chapter 17
 
 

MY PARENTS HAD finally snapped out of the shock about the time that we had our screaming session. They were absolutely ecstatic about the sale that we had made.

We talked about what to do with the money on our way home. We decided that for now it was going to go into an account that was going to earn interest, and we’d do something more long-term with it in a month or so. I had offered to pay off the house, but they seemed to think it had other places that would be better to put it into.

We called my grandparents as soon as we got home, they couldn’t believe the news either. It was still early enough to have gone out for ice cream or something to celebrate, but given we were already full from dinner that didn’t seem that appetizing an idea. Instead we just sat around and excitedly talked about the evening until Mom and Dad forced me to go to bed.

The next day I went to school and things seemed normal. A silent pact had been formed between the four of us not to say anything to the other kids about our experience last night. Telling them could only mean trouble we had decided. Since we couldn’t talk to everyone else about what happened the night before, all we talked about at lunch was the slumber party the next night.

"What are we going to do?" I asked Amy.

"All sorts of things! But I’m not telling you or anyone else what until Friday night." She said mischievously.

"Come on Amy..."

"Nope, you’re just going to be surprised like everyone else!" She stuck her tongue out at me.

"Oh, I have one of those too," I stuck mine out. We both started giggling and the other girls just looked at us and shook their heads.

Ashley asked, "Are you two sure you aren’t twins that were separated at birth?"

"Fairly," I answered. I had never given it much thought, but most of the time that we were out together doing stuff most people probably assumed we were sisters.

We had a fairly quick day and Amy came to my house after school. When we walked back from the bus stop I looked over and saw a large box sitting outside the door. As I got closer I saw there were actually two boxes sitting there.

"Brandon this must be the stuff that Mattel sent us!" Amy exclaimed.

"You’re right. Help me get it inside and we’ll see what it is." I said as I reached over and picked up one of the boxes. Actually I should say tried to pick up one of the boxes. It was heavier than I expected, and bulky. I decided to open the door first then pick it up again to carry it in.

I got that box inside the door and Amy brought her box inside too. "Brandon why don’t we take these to your room to open?"

"Okay." I replied.

‘Easier said than done,’ I thought for a second as I picked the box back up. It was large and I figured it weighed at least fifty pounds. It took me several minutes to get it into my room and set it on the open floor area in there. She sat hers next to the one I had while I grabbed a pair of scissors to open them up. We decided to open the heavy one first, ‘just what was inside of it?’

As I got the flaps of that box open I saw another box inside that had a pink exterior. Could it be? Could I really have received a set of girls’ toys of my own?

Amy helped me pull the inner box out and we found a huge, really expensive, really nice doll house. "Wow Brandon, you won’t have to come over to my house to play Barbies anymore."

"No I guess I won’t will I?"

"What else is inside of here?" She asked as she dug through the box. We found several sets of doll furniture inside. "Wow, this is a really nice doll house set. I think it’s nicer than the one I have!"

"Well you’re probably going to find this same doll house sitting at your house." I replied. "Let’s see what’s in the other box." I said excitedly.

A few cuts later and I found that they had given me eighteen dolls in that box, featuring most of the Barbie characters. Amy was ecstatic upon looking at all of the dolls that were in there. "Brandon, this one is going to be a huge collector’s item. They are already over seventy-dollars new! And this one too! Wow…" She went on for a while.

We inventoried that box finding that there were six collector’s dolls, and the rest were all okay to play with. Inside that box were also several fashion sets of clothes for all of them to wear. I was absolutely in heaven, but what would my parents say?

"Amy, I doubt my parents will let me keep these."

"Why?"

"Well they’re probably going to say that it’s rather strange for a boy to have a doll house and Barbies — especially one my age. I mean you even get some razzing for still playing with them." I said.

"Who cares? Tell your parents it’s like a trophy for a trophy case. Your parents can’t really argue with you about that. I mean after all, think of how much money this Barbie project earned you."

"I guess you’re right."

"Besides, this is part of who you are Tiffany." She said.

"Thanks Amy," I replied. "Well, why don’t we wait until my mom gets home before we do anything more okay? She’d kill me if she missed out on doing something with these dolls and stuff."

Amy laughed, "Yeah, I think that you’re right on that." We left all of the toys on the floor of my room, still in their boxes, and went to sit out in the living room and watch TV while we worked on our homework. My mom came home about thirty minutes later.

"Hey Amy, Brandon, how as your day?"

"It was good." I replied.

"Did the package come from those execs?" She asked.

"Umm… yeah, it did."

"Well what was it?"

"Why don’t you come see for yourself?" I said as I led her down to my room.

"Oh my… Wow! This is a gorgeous doll house. I would have killed to have had one of these when I was little." She looked over all of the dolls and all the clothes and dollhouse furniture. "So do I have to say goodbye to these or what?" She asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well are you giving them to Amy?"

"Why would I do that when she should have an identical set sitting at her house?"

"I don’t know. You hadn’t gotten them out yet though."

"You mean you wouldn’t mind if I kept them?" I asked incredulously.

"No. I think this is a great way for you to remember this experience." She said. A second later after a hesitation she added, "And, I happen to know you’ve been playing Barbies with Amy at her house. I wasn’t going to go out and buy you Barbies, but seeing as how they’re already here…"

I was shocked! I hugged her and said, "Thanks Mom. I figured you were going to make me give them away or something."

"And deprive myself of the chance to have this doll house and these dolls in this house?" She asked. "Well come on, let’s get to putting this all together. I think we can have some fun with this!" She seemed excited about it all.

We started opening the packaging of the dolls (talk about a pain in the butt!), and setting up the doll house. We eventually set the doll house up in a corner of my room on the floor. We tried putting it on top of the dresser, but it made it way too tall to do anything with, and it also blocked the window. We worked on getting the dolls and furniture set up inside of the house until 5:30 when Amy’s mom came to get her.

"Brandon, tomorrow when you come to the sleepover, bring two of your Barbies okay?" Amy asked.

"Umm... Okay. Hey give me a call later and let me know if you got the same thing or not?"

"Okay, talk to you in a bit then." Amy said. As she left Amy gave me a wink so as to say, ‘see?’ I just smiled at her in return as she got into her mom’s car.

"Mom?"

"Yes sweetie?"

"Is Dad going to be alright with me keeping that dollhouse?"

"Yes. We already talked about it."

"What?" I said surprised, "What do you mean you already talked about it?"

"Well when we heard they were sending you something we had a feeling it would probably be Barbies or something like it. I asked your dad if it was if he was okay if you kept them and he said yes."

"Really?"

"Yes sweetie. It’s a great way to remember this by. Now go get washed up. I’m going to have dinner ready here in a few minutes.

"Okay Mom." I said as I went to go wash my hands. What was going on? That was far easier than it ever should have been!

That night Dad came home and mom showed him what they had sent. I watched his face and read something, I wasn’t sure what it was, but it went away as quick as I saw it. A second later he looked at me and said, "Well, looks like a nice memento from your project." Everyone seemed to be following that same party line. At least I was getting to keep them!

"Speaking of which, they said the check should arrive tomorrow during the day. If it’s here when you come home Brandon, please put it in the safe and lock it, okay?"

"Sure Dad. Are you sure you guys don’t want me to pay off the house with it?" I asked.

"Yes Brandon, that money has other uses like paying for your college and such. And maybe in a few years it’ll help pay for a car for you to drive." He added.

"Well okay." I said. "Do you know what we want to do with it until then?"

"Well I talked with a tax guy today and he figures that we need to go ahead and pay twenty-thousand in taxes on it to be safe. We should hopefully get at least five thousand of that back since you’re under eighteen. The thing that may really throw things for a loop is the twenty-percent revenue. If that turns out to be anything — and Mr. Hancock and Mr. Sanders believe it will — it should add up to a lot of extra money."

"How much do those two think that could bring in?" I asked.

"Well they’re thinking that it could end up making it onto the front of a movie at some point this year. If it does there’ll be a revenue split. If, you’re even talking of a box office/vhs revenue of a million-dollars, that’s another fifty grand for each of you."

"Cool." I said.

We all talked for a while that night before Mom told me to go ahead and pack my stuff for the next night. I filled an extra backpack with clothes and stuff, along with two of the Barbie dolls like Amy had asked. For good measure I also put some outfits and accessories inside a Ziploc bag to take with me. I couldn’t help but smile as I enjoyed being able to choose which Barbie I would take. They were all my very own Barbies! And, so many dolls to choose from!

That night when I went to bed I saw something else in the doll house’s presence that pleased me. It was the first girls’ item decorating my room! With that thought I couldn’t help but smile as I went to sleep.
 
 
Chapter 18
 
 

THAT DAY ALL of the girls were talking about the end of the year slumber party Amy was hosting. When some of the girls who weren’t invited, but thought they were in the ‘in crowd,’ found out that I had been invited they were jealous. I had several girls make catty comments to me that morning before we were let out at noon.

I honestly didn’t care. I was Amy’s best friend; of course she was going to invite me! Besides I was a girl too… they just didn’t know that yet.

We had yearbook signing that morning, and I was surprised and impressed with the number of people who signed my yearbook. Not only that, but they were giving genuinely kind and decent comments to me in my yearbook. I had a lot of fun that last half day. Looking back at the year I couldn’t believe how much things had actually improved. The beginning of the year had easily been one of the darkest times of my life, but things were beginning to look up.

When noon came, and we were released, everyone let out shouts of joy for our freedom. I took the bus home so I could get my stuff together for the slumber party. Amy went to her house to get everything ready, and I told her I’d get there as soon as I could to help.

When I got home I looked through the mail and found something from the Mattel Corporation that could have been a check. I put it in the safe as I was asked. Then I began pacing about at home for about an hour before my mom came home. "Sweetie, do you have everything for tonight?" She asked me.

"Yes Mom. Now can you go ahead and take me over there?"

"I guess let’s go." We got in the car to go over there.

We got there at 1:45 and I went in to find Amy working on some decorations. Mom talked with Mrs. Hancock for a minute and offered to help out with the sleepover. Mrs. Hancock told her she had everything covered, so Mom went ahead and left a few minutes later.

"Hey Brandon set your sleeping bag up in the living room, and then come help me out over here okay?" Amy said as she left.

Once I had my sleeping bag out, I helped her put balloons up around the living room and do some other decorations. I was really amazed with how many things that they had done since I’d been over Tuesday. We worked on stuff until 3:30 when she decided that we were done. The girls were all supposed to arrive at 4-4:30.

"So what all are we doing today?" I asked.

"You think I’m going to tell you now?" She said teasingly.

"Well… I was kind of hoping…" I teased back.

"Okay, here’s my plan of events. First thing that we’ll do when everyone gets here is have a scavenger hunt. Then we’re going to have dinner, play with Barbies for a while, so that we can go swimming next without getting cramps, then twister, watch a movie, and all sorts of other things!"

"Sounds like fun." I replied.

"Oh it will be! Umm... Brandon?"

"What?"

"Before tonight starts I want to promise you that no matter what goes on tonight you can trust the girls that are here." I got a little nervous, ‘what did she mean by that?’ I asked myself. ‘On one hand I was reassured that she thought I could trust them… but why would I need to trust them?’

"Even Lindsey and Amber?" I asked as I tried to figure it out in my head.

"Even Lindsey and Amber. I wouldn’t have invited them unless I knew that I could trust having them over. I thought about just having it be the 4 of us from the film, but I decided 2 more people would make it more fun."

"That’s fine, if you trust them I trust them. Just out of curiosity why are you telling me this?"

"Well… I’m also planning on us doing some other girly stuff."

"Like?" I asked while thinking to myself, ‘This must have been what she was talking about?’

"Well we’re going to do everyone’s nails, hair, and makeup for starters!" She said with a big smile on her face.

"And you’re sure Lindsey and Amber won’t make fun of me for this? Or tell anyone from school?"

"I’m more than sure. If you don’t mind I’m kind of thinking of you as one of the girls tonight." She said.

"That’s fine… I’m honored…" I added the last bit while really trying not to tear up. I couldn’t think of anything else I could possibly say to thank her.

"Brandon, you really are my best friend in the whole world." She said while giving me a quick hug.

"And you’re definitely mine." I replied, hugging her back.

"Okay, let’s go finish setting up some stuff upstairs in my playroom!" She said.

For the next twenty minutes we set up her new dollhouse and a couple others into a ‘neighborhood.’ At 3:50 her mom came upstairs to find us.

"So Brandon, how was the last day of school?" She hadn’t really talked to me much as I’d come in as she’d been distracted by my mom.

"Great, it was the last day, how else could it be?" I stated.

"I agree, it’s the beginning of summer, what could go wrong with that?" Amy asked.

"Well, I’m going to work on setting up the scavenger hunt, okay?"

"Sure. Do you need anything from us?" I asked her.

"Nothing except for you guys to stay in the living room to wait for the others to get here. Please don’t come outside so it can be a surprise for all of you." She said mysteriously.

"Okay," Amy said.

Once she walked downstairs we started down ourselves. "So Amy, your mom planned the scavenger hunt?"

"Uh-huh. I know of a few things that we’re going to have to find, but where and what exactly for certain I don’t know." We talked about some other things downstairs while we waited.

The first person to arrive was Ashley at 4:10. Then the others all trickled in until everyone was there by 4:30. We were all chatting loudly when Amy’s mom came into the living room where we were.

"Okay guys, I need you to listen to a few rules alright?"

We all nodded.

"First off, everyone will be sleeping on the floor — no one on couches or beds okay?"

"Yes ma’am," a couple of the girls answered.

"Next, if you need to go home for whatever reason let me know and I’ll let you use the phone. Please don’t go in to get food anytime you want, ask first. Lights will be out at 1am at the latest. Once lights are out please try and sleep. Let’s see what else… Do not run around the swimming pool, and don’t dive in the shallow end. If you sit in the jacuzzi don’t stay in for more than ten minutes — I don’t want anyone getting dehydrated. Please be nice to each other and have fun okay?" She said.

We all nodded.

"Okay, I’m going to help you guys start one activity, then I’ll be mostly out of your hair. Amy wanted to have a scavenger hunt, and to make it more fair, I’ve set it up so she doesn’t know what’s where. You’ll all be competing on an individual basis, the first person to find all of their items will get this teddy bear." She said holding up a large teddy bear. "All of the items you have to find have your name on them and will be useable tonight okay?"

"Sounds like fun Mrs. Hancock," Lindsey said.

"Okay then, here’s your first clue. Don’t open it until the count of three okay?" She said handing each of us an envelope. I had a feeling that this was going to be a lot of fun. Amy definitely would still have an advantage, but I should be a close second to her advantage with as much time as I had spent here. "All of the items are hidden outside. So don’t come inside until everyone is done okay?" She led us outside and gave us each a big cloth bag to hold our ‘loot.’

"Everyone ready? Then one-two-three, Go!" She said.

I quickly opened up my clue. I read it for a second and then realized that it was leading me over to the wall on the side of the house. I ran over there with Amy right in front of me. Behind a bush there in a plastic Ziploc was a white pillow case and another clue.

That clue led me to a bush on the opposite side of the yard. I actually beat Amy there by about twenty seconds! At that location I found a plastic bag containing a couple colors of fabric paint. I opened that clue and stared for a couple moments. At this point the other girls were catching up, and Amy had taken off in a run in one direction. Oh duh! The trash can!

I got to the next spot about twenty seconds after Amy and found a bag with two colors of nail polish. I put all of the stuff inside the cloth bag and opened up this newest clue. It led to a water spigot that Amy and I arrived basically at the same time to. This location gave up a couple of small bubble bottles and led to the bottom of a swing set that was on the side of her yard.

There I found two tubes of lip gloss and a note that led to the front of the house. At this point Amy and I had built up a decent lead, and I ran at full speed to try and beat her! At that location I found a small makeup kit that had a bunch of different things in it. ‘Boy, Amy wasn’t kidding about the girls stuff today was she?’ I thought to myself.

I found a towel at another spot along the front of the house before it led me back to the back. On top of the swing set I found a pair of pink pajamas in a Ziploc that had my name on it. I threw them into my bag. The clue led to the changing room they had outside the pool and I slid down slide on the swing set to make it there — it said it was the final object. Amy tripped behind me. Seeing that she was alright I opened the door and grabbed the final object — a one piece swimsuit with my name on it again.

By this point I was breathing really hard. I sat down on a lawn chair beside the pool while the rest of the group finished up. I looked at my watch and was surprised to see that all of that had actually taken a while — it was already five.

I was still sitting there when the last girl — Nikki — finished. I looked at the stuff that was inside my bag and remembered that there was a girl’s swimsuit and pair of pajamas for me in there. All of the girls gathered by the pool and we all looked at the booty. Amy’s mom came out and handed me the teddy bear.

"I can’t believe you beat me Brandon," Amy said with a smirk and a stuck out tongue.

"Neither can I." I replied.

I looked at the swimsuit and pajamas. They both had Ariel from The Little Mermaid on them. They all had a base of pink for the color.

"Brandon," Amy’s mom said speaking to me, "I got a set of pajamas and a swimsuit for you for the scavenger hunt, but you don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to." She said with a smile.

"Come on Brandon, if you wear them we’ll all be identically dressed!" Nikki said.

"Yeah," the other girls all insisted. "That would be so cool!" one of the girls said. Amy just nodded her head — I could tell she was being careful.

"Well… If I do this you can’t tell anyone about this, okay?" I said.

"Okay we all pinky promise," Ashley said. In turn I ended up getting all of their pinky’s in that most sacred of vows.

"Okay then," Amy said. "First things first, Mom is the pizza here?"

"Yes it is if you all want to come in to eat." She said.

When we entered I saw that she had added a huge Barbie party banner in the living room that said ‘congratulations,’ to the four of us.

"Mom, where did you get that?" Amy asked.

"I had it made a couple weeks ago when I figured out that you were going to win the class project."

"Thanks Mrs. Hancock, it’s really cute!" Nikki said.

The six of us all sat down at the table in the dining room to eat the pizzas that she had bought. You know, I never would have guessed that six girls — uh… five girls and a boy… could eat so many pizzas! When we were done eating Amy said, "Look, why don’t we all go play Barbies for a while in my playroom upstairs until the food settles. Then we can go swimming!"

Everyone agreed with this plan, bringing their two Barbies up to her playroom. Ashley and Nikki both commented on how the doll houses that they received were all identical. I did notice for the first time though that they had sent some different furniture sets to Amy than I had gotten.

"Brandon have you always had Barbie Dolls?" Lindsey asked.

"Umm… no… Mattel sent us each a set of them and these doll houses this week for our project."

"So you got one too?" Nikki asked.

"Yeah… I didn’t know what to do with it really, but my parents and I decided that it would be worth hanging onto as a memento of our film." We then filled in Lindsey and Amber into some of the details of the deal we had gotten. We didn’t tell them about the exact figure.

"Wow that’s really cool. I’m glad that you all got that lucky set of breaks." Amber said.

"Thanks" I replied.

We played with the Barbies upstairs for about thirty minutes before Amy dragged us all away. She told us to go ahead and get into our swimsuits. I used ‘my’ bathroom upstairs to do so. I tucked in stuff again so that maybe the girls wouldn’t see anything that could disturb them.

Surprisingly, the only comment any of the girls made came from Lindsey, "Brandon, you look really cute in that." She was being serious. We all jumped into the pool, and I pitied Amy’s Mom. She may have done something really cute by doing the identical clothing stuff, but I didn’t know how she would ever be able to tell us apart in the pool!

We swam in the pool for forty-five minutes or so and then Amy suggested that we all sit for a little bit in the Jacuzzi. Once we were sitting down in there Nikki said, "Brandon, I think we need to find another name for you for tonight…"

"Umm… Okay… Like what?"

Soon it became a big contest to pick a name for me. I kept shaking my head hoping to hold out for Tiffany. I was hoping Amy would figure out a way to put that name out when Lindsey said, "How about Tiffany?"

Amy said, "Ooh I like that! How about it?"

"What do you think of Tiffany?" Nikki asked.

"Well, I guess that one will work. But again no one can tell anyone else alright?" I pleaded.

They all nodded. Amy’s mom came up a few minutes later with the family camera and told us all to huddle together on one side of the jacuzzi. She took several pictures of us like that and told us that it had been ten minutes.

"What now?" Amber asked Amy.

"How about Twister?" Amy suggested.

Everyone chimed in their agreement and we played twister for half an hour. Now I was actually pretty limber for a boy. I’d always been able to stretch really far, and ever since I’d realized I wanted to be a girl, I’d been trying to learn how to do the splits. I pretty much had them down. That being said, I wasn’t even close to being as flexible as Amy and a couple of the other girls were, so I was usually the first one out in the four games we played. I did manage to get into third place on the last game. Her mom had been on the side taking more pictures during that game, and I wondered just how freaky I looked in some of those awkward poses!

Amy suggested that everyone get into the shower real quick to rinse their hair out and then switch into their pajamas. I grabbed the bag with ‘my’ pajamas and took it upstairs with me. Each of the girls paired up with another for the bathroom. Amy told me to come up to her room. Lindsey and Amber used ‘my’ bathroom, and Nikki and Ashley used Amy’s parents’ bathroom.

Amy had suggested that we just get in the shower in our swimsuits and then we could stay in there at the same time. Everyone agreed to this plan including myself. Amy and I were done with washing our hair after about ten minutes. She put a towel around my hair and I did the same with hers. I left then so she could change with us trading places a few minutes later.

Inside the pajama bag I was pleasantly surprised to find a pair of matching panties to the pajamas. I had actually thought about that just before I found them — I had left my underwear downstairs. The pajama set had a top shirt that was like an extra long t-shirt. It had that same color scheme of pink with Ariel on it.

The bottom ‘pants’ weren’t really pants I figured. I thought, ‘they must actually be leggings?’ They had a strap that went underneath the bottom of my feet. There was a set of socks in there to match — I put them on underneath the strap. I wasn’t honestly sure which order they were supposed to go on. Once I put the pajama set on I walked out the door to find that I looked basically identical to Amy. The two of us got the other four into her bedroom next.

While I had been changing Amy had plugged in like 4 curling irons and several blow dryers around the room. "Okay girls, I think we all need to do each other’s hair now, what do you think?"

"Sounds good!" Nikki said. "Can we all work on Tiffany’s hair first?" She asked.

"Yeah, then we’ll all pair up to finish everyone else’s hair." Lindsey suggested.

"Okay! C’mon Tiff, this is going to be fun!" Amy said.

With that they led me to the same spot Amy had done my hair a couple weeks ago. They all huddled for a second and then the craziness began. They must have fussed over my hair for half an hour before declaring me ‘done.’ They took me to the bathroom mirror with my eyes shut and said to open them.

It was actually really impressive.

They had first of all taken the majority of the back of my hair and curled it under like Amy had done before. They had then given me some bangs as well. But from there the creativity had started. I had lots of little spirals of hair here and there that were dangling from my head. They had put tons of other cool little details into it, and the whole effect was stunning. The next thing I knew Amy said, "Tiffany turn around."

The flash of a polaroid camera went off. I honestly couldn’t wait to see that photo!

WE ALL BEGAN working on someone else’s hair at that point. Actually, I helped Amy with Nikki and Lindsey’s hair. They in turn did Amy’s hair. When we had all finished the hair I saw that it was 8pm. Amy’s mom showed up about that time and took a group picture of us in Amy’s playroom with the dollhouses and Barbies behind us. She also took like four individual pictures of us as well in different poses. I discovered that night that she was an amateur photographer — Amy said she was really good.

"What’s next?" I asked.

"Well I think it’s time to do makeup!" Amy said. "Lindsey, can you do everyone?"

"Umm… I guess. I’m not really that good with it." She replied.

"You’re definitely the best here!" Amber said.

I was then informed by Amber that while the rest of the girls were still deemed ‘too young’ to wear makeup, Lindsey had been able to wear it for pageants and stuff since she was three. She also had three older sisters that she did their makeup from time to time as well.

This time we started with Amy and finished up with me. She didn’t make us all out to look like tramps, or little girls putting on makeup, we actually looked pretty. The five of us then worked on her makeup the best we could — with her fixing a few things. When all was said and done it was time for more pictures with the Polaroid and then ‘Mom the photographer.’

I looked at a clock and saw that it was already 8:45! How quickly this night was going! We all went downstairs to the living room to do each other’s finger and toenails in polish next. Amy turned on The Little Mermaid while we were doing it. Amy’s mom walked in at that point and Lindsey asked, "Mrs. Hancock, why did you get The Little Mermaid on the swimsuits and pajamas?"

"Well I looked at first for Barbie, because of their project, but couldn’t find any sizes big enough for you, Amber, and Ashley. Amy, Nikki, and Br… I mean Tiffany are all small enough they could have fit in some of the ‘little’ girl sizes, but you all were too tall." She knew by now that I was going by Tiffany for the rest of the night. I saw a look of inquiry on her face at that point, but she sent it away soon after. "Anyway I then thought since you are all going on the trip, and we’re going to Disney World, that a Disney set would be appropriate."

"That’s so thoughtful of you Mrs. Hancock, thank you so much!" Lindsey said.

We all chimed in our thanks and got back to finishing up the polish jobs. Actually, this had turned into a bit of a contest. I worked on Nikki’s nails and then she worked on mine. The goal was to make decorations above the base coat of nail polish as pretty as you could. We all had sets of little brushes that I tried my best to do something like I saw everyone else doing for Nikki.

Actually my work wasn’t terrible… but it wasn’t as good as Nikki did for me. She painted alternating stars and music notes on my fingernails. Then she painted little hearts and flowers on my toenails. She also painted the words — Barbie Girl on my big toes. After everyone’s nails had dried we got Mrs. Hancock in there to judge. I thought Nikki had done an impressive job on mine — but somehow Lindsey had put everyone to shame on what she had done on Ashley’s nails.

We all had a good laughing session and got out some board games while the movie finished up. It was then about 10:15 and everyone was kind of running out of steam. Amy decided we had time for the last activity — painting pillow cases.

Each of us took our pillowcases, combining the paint collection, and painted some sort of main design on it — including our names in big letters. I almost painted Brandon, but decided what the heck? I painted Tiffany in a scrolling flowery’ish writing that I had been practicing writing for a while.

Then we each walked around signing/writing notes to each other on each of the pillow cases. At the end we looked at our finished pillow case.

I about cried when I looked at mine. That girl named Tiffany had an awful lot of good friends! Every girl had written on it how much fun they’d had with Tiffany. Several even wrote that they hoped they could see her again soon (Lindsey, Amy, Nikki, and Amber).

I actually did start crying a few moments later when Lindsey said, "Tiffany, whether you’re Brandon or Tiffany we all like you a lot." She gave me a hug. "I do think you may make a better Tiffany than a Brandon though!" She smiled. "I’ve never really taken the time to get to know you before now — but I can definitely see why Amy has been hanging out with you so much this semester." They all gathered around me for a bit until I got control of myself.

Thankfully no one asked why I was crying. In all honesty I knew, but I didn’t know myself. Did that make any sense? After all of my hopes and dreams of being a girl — tonight I actually had been one. And, now that I had been introduced as Tiffany to these four other girls — and they had accepted me — it made me think that maybe I could actually go to school as a girl.

There was certainly a large amount of fear involved with that thought though. Would I be able to be safe going to school as Tiffany? I knew that the five most popular girls in the sixth grade were with me right now, but would that be enough?

I got myself together finally a few minutes later. Amy’s mom came in to check on us about that time and suggested that we all go wash the makeup off our faces before watching a movie in our sleeping bags. We all agreed and I started to walk up to Amy’s bathroom where she had some makeup remover for us to use. Mrs. Hancock intercepted me though.

"Are you alright?" she asked me when the other girls were out of earshot.

"Yes… I think." I replied.

"Do you want to talk about it?" She asked.

"Maybe... sometime… Just not tonight though." I said.

"That’s fine, but if you ever do want to talk about anything, feel free to come see me. You don’t have to come over here just to hang out with Amy you know." She said and gave me a hug.

I nodded then before I ran upstairs and the girls showed me how to take the makeup off my face. Actually, it was already half off when I got up there. The mascara that Amy had put on my face had run down my face badly. Once we all had clean faces — Mrs. Hancock checked us coming down too — we got into our sleeping bags on the floor.

"What are we watching?" I asked Amy.

"The Princess Bride." Lindsey and Amber seemed very happy with this choice, the other three of us had puzzled expressions.

"You mean you’ve never seen this before?" Lindsey asked us.

"Nope," I said.

"Well, I can kind of understand Tiffany not seeing it before… But Ashley? Nikki? Amy quick put it in — you three have to see this movie!" She ordered with a gigantic smile on her face.

The movie went on for a long time it seemed before Amy’s mom came in and checked on us and turned out the lights. It was then that I noticed they had put a couple night lights around the room so we could see if we needed to. I think everyone except Amy and I had nodded off by the time the end of the movie came.

"Amy?" I asked seeing if she was still awake — her sleeping bag was right next to mine.

"Yes Tiff?"

"Thanks."

"Anytime." She replied.

I lay there just enjoying the memories of that afternoon for a long time before falling asleep.
 
 
Chapter 19
 
 

THE NEXT MORNING I heard several of the other girls stirring and walking around. I decided that meant it was time to get up. I pulled myself out of my sleeping bag and sat up. We all gathered around the table for a breakfast that Mrs. Hancock had sat out. There were all sorts of food and things laid out on the table for us to eat, including cereal, bacon, eggs, muffins, and bagels.

"Morning Tiff." Amy said to me.

"Morning." I said.

We all ate and talked animatedly about the fact that we now had just a little under a week before we were going to Florida! "What are you looking forward to most Tiffany?" Nikki asked me.

"Kennedy Space Center. I’ve always loved space and stuff." I replied. "You?"

"Magic Kingdom, I can’t wait to go by the castle!" She said.

Conversations went like that for a while until we all finished breakfast and changed into our regular clothes. We then helped clean up around the house so that everything was as neat as it had been when we had started.

Mrs. Hancock told my mom she could come a bit later than she had told the other girls parents — so I was the last one there. At that point Mrs. Hancock asked, "Brandon what do you want me to do with Tiffany’s swimsuit and pajamas?"

I thought for a second, "Can you keep them here for when I stay over next time?" I asked.

"Sure. You don’t have to wear them again though if you don’t want to." She hedged.

"I know. Thanks for all of that stuff," I said.

"No problem. Hey Amy why don’t you help Brandon get his nail polish off?" She told Amy.

"Come upstairs with me," Amy said. Once we were upstairs she helped me use nail polish remover first on my fingers. When we were done I almost thought about telling her to leave it on the toe nails, but decided I couldn’t do that and wear sandals this week. She removed the stuff on my toes before we just sat and chatted for a while.

After about an hour of talking we heard footsteps coming up the stairs and my mom came in the room with Amy’s Mom. "Brandon, are you ready to go?"

"Yes," I said and headed downstairs with her.

I saw Amy had put on some shoes to leave too. She must have seen that I was curious ‘cause she said, "We’re going to go get pictures developed."

"Brandon, if you want to come over Tuesday to work on scrapbooks with us you could." Mrs. Hancock said.

I looked at Mom and she nodded, "Okay, I’ll be here!" I said to her. I grabbed my sleeping bag and backpack, and then we drove home.

Dad was sitting at the kitchen table when we got home. "Hey, how was the sleepover?" He asked.

"It was great!" I proceeded to tell them about the sleepover. I had thought a little about leaving out some of the parts — but had since decided to just tell them everything.

"So you had fun with them then?" Dad asked. There was definitely something I couldn’t quite read in his eyes.

"Yeah, it was good. It’s probably some of the most fun I’ve ever had." I replied.

Mom jumped in at that point, saying "That’s good honey, why don’t you go take your stuff to your room and put your dirty clothes in the hamper."

"Okay." I replied and took my stuff to my room. The clothes went in the hamper and I went through the rest of the stuff that was in my bag. I found my two Barbie dolls and put them in the doll house. I then remembered I had forgotten the teddy bear I had won from the scavenger hunt. Oh well, I’d be able to get it on Tuesday if not before.

I decided to lay down and read a book on my bed for a bit. I must have fallen asleep because Mom woke me up for dinner that night. After dinner was cleared away Mom served up some bowls of ice cream and we started enjoying it.

"Brandon, your mom and I have something that we need to talk to you about." Dad said.

"Okay. What?" I figured it was going to be something with the trip to Florida.

"Well… We’ve been noticing something as this year has gone on." Dad trailed off towards the end.

"It started with you deciding to grow your hair out." Mom said. "You told us that it was because of the rock star thing, and so we decided to just let you do as you wanted."

"Thank you for letting me do that." I said. I was getting nervous; my intuition was telling me something wasn’t right.

"But Brandon, then some other things have happened… and I don’t want to say we’re worried about you… but we are." My dad said.

"Worried about me how?" I asked. Oh crap… I wasn’t expecting this today.

"Well… Brandon, what would you say if I told you we had to cut your hair?" My mom asked.

"YOU CAN’T CUT MY HAIR!!!!" I practically screamed.

"Hold it." Mom said before I could storm to my room and hide. "I didn’t say we were going to, I asked what you would do if we said you had to cut it. But I guess that was a pretty clear idea of that. Why do you want your hair like this? I don’t believe it’s because of the rock star idea." Mom asked.

"Umm…" Crap, crap, crap… How do I answer this? I felt a cold sweat come over my body, with all of the color draining from my face, I was sure my heart had stopped.

"Your mom and I have our own theory, and I don’t want you to be afraid to tell us. I guarantee no matter what you tell us we’ll still love and support you." Dad said gently. Mom nodded.

I sat there for a moment with a blank look on my face… "Because…" I started crying… "I wish… I want… to be…" I couldn’t go any farther.

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To Be Continued...