I stared at it for a while, confused, then I looked up at the door again. Inside Erlan’s apartment, there were tons of people walking around, setting food on tables, moving furniture, turning on great big light stands. I saw a couple kids I knew from Mountford, but most were grown-ups I’d never met before.
I didn’t see Erlan anywhere.
“I’m just here for Erlan’s birthday party,” I told the man. I never needed to sign a piece of paper to get in Erlan’s apartment before.
“Sorry, kid,” the man told me. He didn’t really sound very sorry, though. “I can’t let anyone in without a release form. If your face ends up on camera and a parent hasn’t signed off, the company could get sued.”
I was still confused. “I’m here for Erlan’s birthday,” I said again. Last year we played laser tag in the park. That was better than this already.
“Sorry.” He still wasn’t sorry. “Call your folks and get them to come sign the form. Or a guardian. Then you can go inside.”
I didn’t have to call my parents because they were just down the hall. Well, my mom wasn’t home. It was only my dad, and he didn’t like when I bothered him when he was on his treadmill, but I didn’t really have a choice.
“What?” he kept shouting while he ran, every time I tried to show him the paper and explain. “What?” Finally he snapped off the TV and shut down the treadmill and glared at me. “Albie, you know I only get five minutes to myself a day,” he said, super angry, even though I didn’t do anything—it was the man with the clipboard. Dad took a long glug of water.
“I know,” I said. “But”—I held out the form again—“the man at the door wouldn’t let me in.”
Dad snatched the form out of my hand, still angry. But then while he was reading the paper, I started to think maybe he was mad at the form.
“Come with me,” he said, and he jumped off the treadmill and stormed out the door. I grabbed the Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots even tighter and followed him.
I stood outside Erlan’s door for ten whole minutes while Dad argued with the man in the headset. I could see the sweat on the back of my dad’s T-shirt from running before. He waved the paper in the man’s face while he shouted at him.
“Well, I don’t give my consent for my son to be on camera!” Dad hollered. I could tell he was extra angry, because the angrier he got, the more spit flew out of his mouth when he yelled, and there was a lot of spit coming out at the man with the headset. “I’m his father, and that means protecting my kid. And my kid will not participate in this reality circus!” A bunch of people from inside came to the door to see what was happening, and a few kids I knew from Mountford who got off the elevator had to wait behind us in the hallway until my dad was done being mad. “You can’t stop my son from going to this birthday party,” he said. “He and Erlan have been friends for eight years, and I’m not going to let some idiotic television show get in the way of that.” Erlan and I had only been friends for six years, and Dad kept saying ER-lan instead of Er-LAN, which is the way you’re supposed to say it. But I didn’t think that part mattered so much.
Finally the man with the headset said he had to talk to his producer, and he was gone for a long time. But when he came back, he told me I could come inside.
“And you’re giving me your word you will not film my son?” my dad asked.
“You couldn’t pay me to,” the man said, rolling his eyes as he checked the forms of the kids who’d come up behind us in the hallway.
“I have a good lawyer, you know,” my dad said.
“I’m sure you do,” the man told him.