The Boy Who Wasn`t Seen and The Girl Who Couldn`t Speak - Ch. 1

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Jack is a boy nothing like what his name would suggest. Shy and nervous around people, and often completely ignored. However, when he vists a summer camp much to his protest and gets his clothes wet, he can only find a girls' uniform, leading him to disover a lot about girls and boys, as well as himself.

The Boy Who Wasn't Seen
and
The Girl Who Couldn't Speak

Chapter 1

by Rankan


 

Chapter 1: Boys can’t be shy

“Sleep away camp? I’ll, I’ll be away from you on the weekdays?” Jack trembled as he spoke. He hated being away from his parents, and even though he was 14, had never spent a night away from them.

“Weekends too.”, said his mother, who might as well have ripped his heart out.

“But… that’s not fair!”, screamed Jack as his eyes welled with tears. “I’ll be away from all my stuff, not to mention you guys, for the whole summer? That defeats the whole purpose of summer!” He stomped his foot angrily.

“Stop it Jack. This is part of the reason your father and I decided to make you go.”

“What is? If I did something wrong I’m sorry, just please don`t make me go, you know I hate the woods! Why are you doing this to me? This must be costing you a lot of money. If I stay home you’ll save a ton!”

Jack was in full panic mode now. Every weapon against his parents’ decisions in his mental arsenal was out in full force. There was no way he was going to spend his summer away from his safe haven of TV and video games and into a proverbial lions’ den of the exact type of kid who made every day of his school life a living hell.

Jack’s mother sighed and hugged him, muffling his tears, just like she did when he was little.

“Now Jack, I love you so much, more than anything.”, said his mother as she hugged him deeper.

“Then, why..”

“Jack, you don`t have any friends, and you don`t play any sports. You don`t even play with the neighborhood kids.”

“And?”, Jack said, knowing full well what she meant but protesting what she was implying. “ I don`t need any friends, or sports. I always get A’s in school, and I have plenty of stuff to do at home. Don`t worry, I won’t get bored.”

“Jack, people need friends, especially teenagers your age. It isn`t normal for boys your age to just play with toys and games all day. You need to learn to get along with other people.”

“I get along with you and dad just fine! Come on, that stuff can`t be THAT important.”

Jack was running out of things to say and growing more nervous by the second. His voice sounded shaky.

However, his mother was right about one thing, he was certainly different from other boys his age in more ways than one. First, although he was actually average height for his age, most of the boys at his school were not and easily towered over him. Something else that worried him was that even though his voice had broken, no other signs of puberty had. His body had little if any hair, and although his parents and relatives often told him he was handsome, he knew that if his head was on a girl’s body it would be called “beautiful”. All in all, Jack knew he wasn`t a shining example of masculinity, but he honestly didn`t care.

“Mom.. please, I want to stay with you.”, Jack pleaded, doing the best puppy-dog eyes he had ever done.

Jack’s mother, Lisa, knew that Jack would react this way. She and her husband were so grateful to have a child that he was coddled and protected by them always. Jack had gotten used to it, and as a result never felt the desire to rebel against his parents like most teenagers did, and eventually form their own groups of friends. A pat of her loved this. She loved her son so much, but she and her husband knew that he had to grow up.

“Jack, so do I, more than anything else, but your father and I feel it is best for you to experience this on your own. Camp Silva is a good camp. I heard they just got computers, so you may be able to use them there too.”

“They do?”, said Jack. While his surprise was true, his mind was more focused on the first part of her statement ‘just’ . In this day and age, ‘just’ getting computers seemed fairly backwards, but at the same time gave Jack a little bit of hope, as well as a sinister idea in the back of his mind.

“Can you tell me the camp website?”, said Jack, sniffling his tears.

“Sure sweetie.” His mother gave him the sheet of paper with camp information.

“Now come on Jack, we have to start packing your things. The camp starts next week.”

Jack wasn`t as sad now, as the beginnings of a plan began to formulate in his mind.

Six days later, Jack was far calmer than he was the previous week He had seen the camp website, and it was as pathetic as any site he had ever seen. Their brochure was professional enough, and he knew his parents had seen the camp, but the website was a basic HTML geocities site with images.

“Geez, did they just get a counselor to put this together one afternoon?” In truth, he wasn`t surprised the site was so shoddy. Camping and the internet seemed like interests that were mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, his heart leapt with joy when he found that the password to edit the site was in fact the name of the camp spelled backwards.

Of course, he wasn`t going to ruin the site. He wouldn`t do anything that destructive. He merely wanted to see if what he originally suspected was correct, and it was. The camp actually kept its attendance files uploaded to the internet but inaccessible from the main site in case of file loss.

“This is too good to be true.”, he thought. Unfortunately, the camp had over 200 young teenagers, girls and boys, attending. “Crap, this is gonna take a while to find my name.”

The file was simple text information, but it was a hell of a lot of it. For each camper there was financial as well as physical and emergency contact information.

“Ah, there we go, Jack Rivers.”, he said as he found his entry. He was scheduled for One month and three weeks of pure hell, and now was going to make sure it would be much less. He smiled nervously as he erased his information from the file.

It was the perfect plan. When he got to camp, he would act nervous and flustered, and say that he wanted to go home. The counselor would check his records, find that he didn`t have any, and send him home as early as the next day. What was even better was that they would have to refund his parents’ money as well, so he didn`t hurt them financially.

Electrified with excitement, Jack tried to sleep. He knew tomorrow would be an eventful day.

“Hey Jack, it looks like you`re feeling a lot better today.”, said his father at the bus stop, awestruck at his recovery from the previous week of moping and crying he had done.

“Don`t get me wrong Dad, I still don`t want to go. Now that the wait is over, I can start being scared of the real torture rather than just being scared of going to be tortured.”, Jack said smugly.

His father gave a confident laugh. “Come on Jack, please try to make friends, okay?”

“Hmph.”, replied Jack loosely. After giving his parents one last farewell hug before the bus arrived, he stepped on.

As (bad)luck might have it, the boys and girls were being taken in separate busses, so as soon as Jack stepped on a cloud of swearing and yelling filled the halls of the seatbelt-less brown leather bus seats. Jack tried to find an unoccupied seat, but had to settle for one with a rather cross-looking individual with a jock-like body and clean haircut. He was only about 4 inches taller than him, but the width of his body and arms compared to Jack’s scrawny build made him seem far larger.

It was then that the bus started to drive away, and he could already hear mutterings of “that faggy kid that just got on?”, and “Yeah, he looks gay”. Jack sighed and tried to make himself seem as small as possible. As the drive went on, he found himself to be the “topic of the half-hour” no more, thankfully.

That didn`t make him feel any better though, as school was the same. No one ever seemed to notice him except if it was to make a negative comment. Otherwise, he may as well have been invisible. Because of this, Jack was adept at blending into the crowd and avoiding attention, as it managed to avoid him. At the very least, he was glad no one he knew from school was on the bus.

He learned through forced overhearing that most of the boys there were athletes, or even luckier, those scholar-athletes who excelled in both physical and mental activities. That made little difference to Jack, who was ignored by all cliques. He mainly listened to alleviate the boredom of the long bus ride.

After four hours, the bus finally arrived at camp Silva, which did not defy its Latin root. A huge campsite that Jack couldn`t see to the end of from the bus window’s view was surrounded by an even larger forest and was placed beside a moderately sized lake. The cabins he saw were fairly big and grouped into two main sections, he guessed for the boys and the girls. One group was near the lake while part of another he could see was nearer to the playing fields and forest.

“Okay boys, time to get off. We have to take attendance.”, said the counselor as the bus doors squeaked open.

The boy next to Jack pushed past him without saying a word. Jack was used to it though, and not exactly in a hurry. He eventually got out to see the boys walk into what appeared to be the center of the camp.

The counselor who was on the bus with the boys, along with several others, were joined by a much older man, who began to give a speech.

‘Hello boys.”, he said in a gruff, but friendly voice. “Welcome to Camp Silva. I know that most of you have come here for exercise in the off-season from your particular sport, while others have come to get in shape, and maybe even others have come just for fun. Well, during your stay here you will have the opportunity to do all of that and more. I am Dr. Ballard and I am more or less in charge of the camp. If you have any major complaints or questions you can come to me or your counselor. We’re first going to give you a tour of the camp, then split you off into your cabins where you will find your camp uniforms you’ll use for the summer. With that, I’ll leave you with these fine fellows right here, who will tell you all about the variety of interests we satisfy here.”

Jack wondered something, “What kind of doctorate did it take to run a camp?” Was a degree truly necessary? Or was he retired and is doing this for kicks?

“It dosen’t matter”, thought Jack. The tour group was big, and was heading towards the lake. He tried to make a break for the Doctor’s cabin when a counselor stopped him.

“Hey, where are you going? Follow the tour big guy.”

“But..”

“come on, let’s go.”, said the tall, brown haired college student who impeded Jack’s road to freedom. Begrudgingly, Jack went to the tour group, which headed towards the lake.

“Ok guys, this is Patria lake, where all of our swimming activites will be held. If you`re used to a pool, sorry about that, the Doc is kind of old-fashoined.”, said the tour guide, hoping for some laughs from the anxious group.

“Over here by the lake are the girl’ cabins, and the building closest to the lake is the shower houses. Everybody has to shower after swimming guys.” The group groaned as they headed to the dock.

“While we’re here I have to warn you guys about something. There is absolutely no sneaking into the girls’ cabins at night, no exceptions guys.” Some snickering was heard in the crowd.

“Geez, can these guys be any more stereotypical?”, thought Jack. They seemed just like the kids that picked on him at school. Athletic kids, intelligent or otherwise, who were sexually active and only cared about hot girls and people like them. He couldn`t believe….

“Aaah!!”, said Jack as he slipped on the dock, fumbling in the muddy sand of the shoreline. “My clothes, they’re… oh crap.”, said Jack as he noticed something very troubling. As it turns out his clothes were not only soaked but caught on a sharp rock, ripping a hole in his pants in a very inconvenient place.

Jack was horrified. If the other boys saw him like this, he would never hear the end of it. Thankfully, they didn`t hear his yell, or at least, if they did they paid no attention.

“Where is that nosy counselor now?”, jack thought, annoyed. However, now was not the time, he needed to find a change of clothes, and fast. He looked around frantically. Thankfully his glasses were not damaged.

The boys’ cabins where his uniform waited were all the way across the camp. He would never make it…unless…

Jack quickly but stealthily ran to the shower house. Maybe, by some shred of luck there would be some spare swim trunks.

He opened the door to reveal a set of showers and lockers, all looking fairly old, but well kept and not dirty-looking like the ones at school.

“Dammit, nothing in the open.”, he said as the area seemed well-cleaned. His only hope was the lockers. He began to frantically open and close each locker, the metal clanging only magnifying his worry. This was far from the perfect plan he envisioned.

He had reached the end of the first section of showers and lockers and turned up nothing. His heavy, panicked breathing combined with the cold of his clothes made him cough.

“Come on, next section, come on!”, Jack said to himself as he opend and closed a set of doors. More frantic searching turned up nothing, until he reached the final locker by the door….having a full girls’ uniform and makeup kit.

Jack’s jaw dropped.

“You have got to be freaking kidding me.”

Jack had two choices. Go outside in ripped pants and risk being embarrassed, or go out in a girl’s uniform complete with skirt and stockings and be called a fag even more.

“Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t”, Jack thought. Just then, he saw a mirror. His handsome/pretty face.

Jack prayed his new idea would work, and for the first time, was thankful for his girlish look.

TBC:

Chapter 2: Boys don`t wear skirts

Notes: Ever since I found out about it, I have been completely fascinated with the subject of gender and changing between them. After eventually confirming my own identity(Heterosexual Male with introverted qualities), I found out about sites like these with TG stories and thought they were great. However, since I am far more interested by stories dealing with the change in identity rather than ones that deal chiefly with sexual activity, I found somewhat of a shortage across the internet. But, I digress. This is ironically a story dealing more with gender roles in society rather than transgenderism itself, but nevertheless I hope it will be entertaining. Constructive criticism is appreciated on this story based on a dream I had.


 
To Be Continued...

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Comments

:)

Pleased to read you Rankan, this seems like an adventure :)

Anistasia Allread mentioned this story ...

... as the inspiration for her Camp Kumoni story. After reading the first chapter of this story, I can see why she was inspired. This is a wonderful story! :)

Just discovered this story

charlie98210's picture

I've just come across your story and I like it. I, too, 'am more interested by stories dealing with the change in identity rather than ones that deal chiefly with sexual activity,' and I am finding available 'transgender fiction' which caters to my likes hard to find--especially on Kindle. I've read everything my favorite authors have published and am now waiting for them to publish more. Finding The Boy Who Wasn't Seen and The Girl Who Couldn't Talk was like stumbling across an oasis while in the middle of a desert! (although I am a little worried that the story appears to be rather short).

I'm just writing this comment to let you know that your story is still relevant--especially to me.

charlie

Excellent Gentle Tale

Very good writing Rankan! You have innocence, and youth captured in this moving yet gentle tale. :)

*hug*

Sephrena

Good start...

but I think you ended it abruptly tho. I would have liked to see what the reaction of the camp was when Jack decided to wear the girl's uniform. I would have especially liked to see the reaction of the girls, as well as the boys, the nosy camp counselor, and the doctor. This is a good start. Is there any more to this?

With super love & big as the sky hugs
Barbara

"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."

"With confidence and forbearance, we will have the strength to move forward."

Love & hugs,
Barbara

"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."

Boy Who Wasn't Seen !

I like it. The story moves quickly and is to the point. Jack is a likable scamp.

Aardvark

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

Mahatma Gandhi

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

Mahatma Gandhi

it isn`t over yet!

Barbara, this is just chapter one! It won`t be over for quite a while. ^_^

A good start, but...

I think this story has a good start. However, the mechanics need a little work. Some of the sentences read a bit awkward and some of the paragraphs were broken up into several paragraphs.

I read your notes and I am glad that you are writing a story exploring gender roles. Even in the year 2006, gender stereotypes are still prevalent. If one pays attention to the adverts on the telly, one will see example after example of gender roles that one would think would be antiquated. Who is doing the laundry; who is doing the dishes; who is doing the cooking? Nine out of ten times it will be a woman.