Silver River by Purple Dragon Jensen is a 12 y.o. kid that goes on a trip with the school. During this trip, and with the support of his friends and family, he'll discover things about himself that he didn't know, and grow up to become a more complete person. Feedback is welcomed and encouraged.

Chapter 1

My name is Jensen and I'm 12, well, almost 13. I’ll just have to wait a few more months.

My hair is dark blonde, long and silky, almost shoulder length, and I have lovely green eyes. It’s true, I’m not just bragging. Honestly. Everybody says that they're lovely. I’m also on the smaller part of the size spectrum for kids my age. Apart of that, there’s nothing about me that makes me too noticeable, apart from the fact that I'm shy. Too shy.

I'm usually very quiet, and I don’t talk too much, especially when there are strangers around. When I'm just among close friends I'm just not like that, I'm far more open, but when there is someone present that I'm not very confident with, I keep to myself and I don't usually speak too much.

I have a sister, Erika, and two loving parents. Erika is a bit older than I, she's already 14, but we do study the same grade at school. Yeah, I know, that it is weird, but it might make a bit more sense when I explain it to you: I was born in November. She was born in April. So we're only supposed to be one school year apart. In addition, I've always been a smart kid, so my teachers decided to allow me to skip first grade. The result is that I'm definitely the smallest in class, but that doesn't really bother me, and I get along with the other kids quite well, despite of that.

My sister is quite athletic: she plays soccer, field hockey and tennis, and she is still a good student. And even though we don’t have a close intimate relationship, we get along quite well, I guess.

I'm more into arts. I like painting, writing, and I play drums in a music group. Well, It's really just me and some friends playing some music, but we have fun, and we like to call ourselves a group. I also know how to play the guitar, not just the drums, but my friend Joey plays it much better than me, so I'm stuck to the drums, which is okay for me anyway.

Our school has the tradition of doing a trip somewhere when students finish 8th grade, and this year we settled for nature and adventure. By the end of the school term, at end of June, we spent three weeks visiting different cities, doing some outdoor activities and even camping, along the course of Silver River, travelling upstream.

I was quite nervous, but also quite eager, if you know what I mean. I was really looking forward to the trip, it was going to be great!

The plan was the following: 2 days at the town of Berryside. From there, we would be going north-west along the river course, spend some days camping at Crystal Lake, from where we would be going on several excursions to different places and then continue visiting some other cities in our way.

We were initially 15 girls and 16 boys, along with 4 teachers, but a last-minute addition to the group made it 17 boys. 32 kids in total, on our way to have some really great holidays.

As I said, I was by far the youngest of the whole group, with me being just 12, and most of them being already 14. But, honestly, that wasn't a problem for anyone. In fact, just the opposite. If it wasn’t for me being that shy, some of my peers might have spoiled me to death, because of my age and my size.

So we started our trip. We hugged our parents goodbye, we put our luggage on the trunk of the bus, and we got onto it. There were plenty of empty seats, so I didn't have any problem for having a spare place by my side. I put my headphones on, started my music and enjoyed the ride. You might think that travelling like that might be quite boring, instead of being socializing and speaking to the others, but it's not. At least not for me. I had already downloaded a lot of new songs that I wanted to hear, and it was nice to be calmly watching the scenery while traveling.

It was almost 9 pm when we arrived to our first destination: Berryside. It is a small town near the river mouth. Even though it is neither a big city nor an old one, it has some really cute houses all throughout the hillside, and amazing green fields full of flowers and gardens all around. It is a lovely place with really friendly people that kept smiling at us whenever they saw us. I like seeing people smile.

We had a quick tour around the city, and later went to the hotels we had previously reserved, to have diner and some rest. As there weren't enough rooms in one single hotel to accommodate all of us, the teachers had decided to split us in two groups, and send each of the groups to one hotel. The two hotels they had chosen were sadly not really very close to each other.

To simplify things, they decided to put all the boys into one of the hotels, with the two male teachers taking care of them, and all the girls in another one, along with the two female teachers. To spare some money, it was decided that two kids would share each room.

As soon as the teachers entered the boys' hotel and started discussing with the hotel manager, we noticed that something was wrong. Even though we couldn't hear what they were talking about, we felt that something was just not right.

About some 10 or 15 minutes later, our teachers came back and explained to us that there was a problem. It seemed that the hotel staff was counting with 16 boys, so they had just reserved 8 rooms for us, with two beds in each. As we were already at the beginning of the tourist season, they didn't have any other spare room that they could offer. Someone suggested the possibility of adding an extra bed to some room, but it seemed that it was just not possible for some reason.

So, we were lacking one bed in the boys' hotel.

In the end, they arrived to the most obvious plan B: one of the boys would have to stay at the girl's hotel. And, of course, I -being the smaller one, and being able to share a room with my sister- was the most obvious choice.

I didn't really mind, it wasn't as if I was particularly interested in staying in one hotel or in the other. In fact, my plans were essentially to stay on my own and read a bit. And, as I said, I generally got on quite well with my sister and her friends, so it wasn't really a big deal.

So I said goodbye to my friends, we left the boys at their hotel, and we headed towards ours.

The building was lovely, and the rooms cute and comfortable. At least I liked it even more than the boys' one, even though it was a good one too. There were lots of flowers in the hall, the restaurant was very spacious and comfortable, and the rooms were absolutely beautiful.

We had diner, and we went to our rooms. I was already on my own, as usual, not paying too much attention the girls, who were chatting. I'm not sure I would have not understood anything, anyway. So I put my pajamas on, I got my book and went to bed.

My peace only lasted for a while, though, as my sister and her friends were soon in the room, talking and chatting. I didn't really mind but, as I couldn't concentrate on the book, I put it aside, while I just stayed on my bed watching them talk.

My sister, Erika, was a bit taller than I, and had also dark blonde hair and bright brown eyes. She used to smile a lot, and was often happy. And I was generally happy because of that, I’m that emphatic. Sarah was more adventurous than me, and the one that often had the craziest ideas, but always in a good spirit.

Sarah and Ashley were Erika's best friends, and still are. I used to see them many times at home, where they have had many sleepovers, they had essentially seen me grow up, and they had always been nice to me, so I kind of liked them. Sometimes I even felt kind of their little brother too.

They had just finished painting their nails, when they looked my way and and kindly offered me to paint mine, if I wanted.

"Nah, thanks. I don't really care much for those things", I replied.
"Come on, it will be funny!", begged Sarah.
"Yeah, come on Blondie! Dare yourself!", added Ash, winking an eye.

But I usually felt very comfortable around them, so I just shrug my shoulders and extended my hands towards them. If they were happy to paint my nails, that was okay for me.

"So, what do you need me to do?"
"Just pick a colour", offered Erika. "Which one do you prefer?"
"Please, let me pick it for you!", interrupted Ash.
"OK, you choose", I finally agreed.

My sister and her friends don't usually go for discreet colours, so I didn't expect to make an exception for me, but I honestly didn't mind.

"Close your eyes, sweetheart", requested Erika

Ash, meanwhile, was going through the colours they had available, trying to choose one for my nails. The winner turned up to be lavender.

So I ended up sitting with them. Not really talking too much, as I didn't really felt that I had too much to say, but relaxing, listening to them, enjoying their company and generally having a good time. At some point Ash started caressing my hair and my neck in a little-brotherly way, and I almost started to purr like a cat.

Chapter 2

I woke up with the first sun rays. I couldn’t even remember when I had fallen asleep exactly, but I felt absolutely fresh and well rested. My sister was still sleeping on her bed, so I woke up quietly and tried not to make too much noise when I went outside to have a shower. The hotel was calm and silent. I guess that all the girls were still sleeping. I only started to see some of them when I was already dressed, going back to my room.

My sister was still waking up, and she seemed quite tired. I wondered how late they had stayed up last night, after I fell asleep. I smiled at her.

"Morning, Jenny", she greeted me yawning

She sometimes called me Jen or Jens, and sometimes Jenny, depending on the day and on her mood. I was used to both nicknames since I was very little, and kind of liked them. Erika used to say that Jensen was much longer. It wasn’t as if Erika was a shorter name, but in any case I didn’t really mind.

"Wake up, sleepyhead", I jumped onto her bed to help waking her up. "It's time to get up and enjoy the day!"

She just shook her head and yawned again, but finally got up.

"Wanna know something, Jenny? You should wear some T-shirt that matched your nails"

I had totally forgotten about my nails. But now that she mentioned them, I realized that my green T-shirt was totally wrong for my nail colours.

"I don't think I have any matching T-shirt, Erika"
"Don't worry, bro, I'll lend you one"

She went through her things to finally take out some hoody t-shirt in lavender that matched the colour of my nails quite nicely.

"There you are", she finally said, giving it to me.

Breakfast was almost a repetition of last night's dinner, the girls kept talking about their things while I was mostly thinking about mine. I don't think that anyone noticed my painted nails. If but anyone did, in any case, no one mentioned it.

It was almost 10, when we came out of the hotel, and went on to meet the boys. One of the two teachers accompanying us, Miss Cooper, took a brief look at my nails and just smiled at me. I simply smiled back. She was a good friend of my mother, and she was always nice to me. I like her.

She was a young lady, in her early thirties, and was generally friendly with most of the kids. I was glad that she was with us, she was probably my favourite teacher in the whole school.

I got a couple of weird looks from the boys when they saw my nails, and saw some of the kids started murmuring about them afterwards, but no one confronted me about them or said anything to my face. I ignored the stares, joined my friends and went along with them.

They seemed quite tired, as if they had been most of the night up, maybe talking. But they were otherwise okay.

My best friends were Joey, Kevin and Matt. They had been friends of mine for some years, almost since kindergarten. None of us really liked sports, so it was kind of natural that we ended up sharing hobbies and getting along.

We shared a passion for music, too. So at some point we had decided to make our own music group.

Joey was really awesome playing the guitar. He was teaching me, but I doubt that I will ever be as good as him. He was older than me anyway, being 15. He wasn't really good in his studies, but he was trying. Music was the only thing that really interested him, so he didn’t put much effort into anything else. He used to say that he didn’t have any other talent. Even though he was wrong in that, the fact was that most of the time he didn’t even try.

He not only played the guitar amazingly. He also composed his own songs. I absolutely admired him for it.

Kevin was 14, and he was the third member of our music group. He used to play the bass. He wasn't really such a good player, but he was really charming. So much, that all our fans were really his fans. Not that we had really that many, only half a dozen or so. But whenever we played, they used to be around.

The fourth and last member, our singer, Matt, couldn't make it to the trip, because he was going with his parents elsewhere. It was okay with all of us, though. We would see him again in a couple of months, at most.

Kevin was an incorrigible flirt. He was good with girls. Really really. Maybe too much for his own good. But even though he wasn't capable of being a lot of time with the same girl, he somehow managed to keep most of his ex-girlfriends as friends, which speaks quite well of him.

Even though you could only talk with Joey about music -which was okay for me-, the best thing about him was that he always took me absolutely seriously and, despite me being younger, always treated me as an equal.
Kevin, on the other side, was more protective about me, as if I was his little brother or something. He was funny sometimes too, like calling me pretty or lovely, or having fun at my expense by sending me air kisses or something equally embarrassing, as if I was one of his girlfriends. I generally laughed it off and sent him kisses back. He was really charming.

"Jens! Nice nails kiddo!", Kevin greeted me with his huge smile.
"Nah, I was just having fun with my sister and her friends last night"
"Well, they suit you", he replied back, winking an eye.

I stuck out my tongue at him and he grinned. He could be so silly sometimes.

We didn't have too much spare time until after lunch. They took us the whole morning to visit the town, walking around and generally behaving like the tourists we, in fact, were. After lunch Joey and I took our guitars and went to the park to play a bit. We really wanted to play at the hotel instead, but they wouldn't allow me to enter in the boys' one, so we had to find somewhere else.

None of us sang really as good as Matt, but we would have to do without him. We couldn't count on Kevin either, he hadn't brought any instrument, and he seemed to be quite busy flirting with some of the local girls.

Joey was quite into protest songs, very much into social justice and all that stuff. I'm more into love songs, or any kind of sweet songs anyway. He sometimes even composes sweet songs just for me to sing. He is really good at it.

I was just singing one of them. One that talked about a nymph princess that keeps calling his bright-armoured knight to come and save her, when some of the girls from the school joined us and started to sing along. It was funny. I didn't really knew any of them too much, they were not really close to my sister or anything, but they seemed nice. I didn't speak a single word, though, just sang. One of them eventually put a flower in my hair, smiling, while I sang. I kind of liked them.