Standing Up to Life

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.