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 5

Nothing attracts more the boys in a holidays' place that a bunch of girls, and Crystal Lake was definitely no exception. As soon as the bus arrived and after the rumor has spread, lots of young male eyes were all over us. Luckily for me, my somehow childish appearance made me less noticeable than the girls, so I wasn't really on the spotlight.

We didn't really have anything planned for the afternoon, apart from knowing the place and having fun, so we were essentially free to do as we wanted, while the teachers had their mind in Berryside and their ears on their phones, working on how to bring the boys to us as soon as possible. I surely wasn't in the mood of meeting many new people and having to socialize with them, so I decided to go somewhere quiet to play the guitar and sing a bit.

I had probably been singing for about an hour or something when I saw Ashley and Emily looking at me. I don't know how long they had been there, but they had obviously not just arrived. I stopped playing and waved at them.

"Hi, Jen. Em was looking for you, and, well, I kind of guessed what you might be up to", greeted Ash.
"Hi, Jenny. nice singing. You play great!", said Emily, trying to open a conversation.
"Uhm... Hi Ash, Emily. Thanks!", I managed to say.
"Oh, stop with that shyness, blondie!", Ash looked at me sternly, trying to suppress a giggle. "You'd better start talking right now, or else!"

I looked at them with suspicious eyes, amazed by the situation.

"Jenny, Jenny... I happen to know how ticklish you are, so don't you dare challenge me"

Emily couldn't even suppress a giggle.

"Come on, Em, time to tickle!"

I barely had the time to put the guitar aside when they were all over me, tickling me merciless until I couldn't take it more. I was already on the floor, laughing happily when Ash hugged me tightly.

"See cutie? No need to be so shy! Is it OK if I leave you both here and I go back, or you prefer me to stay?", she asked seriously, looking at both of us.
"It's OK, Ash, you can go back if you want, we'll be OK", I told her.
"Ash?", I asked.
"Yeah?", she wondered.
"Thanks!", I hugged her.
"Any time!", she answered, standing up and going back towards the cabins. "Bye, girls, have fun!"

"She's nice, isn't she?", Asked Emily.
"Sure she is! And you should meet my sister and Sarah too, they're pure dynamite!"

You might find it strange that a 12 y.o. boy could get on that well with a 10 y.o girl, but you know, as soon as we started talking, something clicked on as if there was some kind of connection between us. After the first ackward moments were over, I started feeling comfortable enough with her to let my shyness apart. She also sings quite well. I mean, I still wanted to play the guitar, and she seemed to enjoy it too. Singing along with someone seems to help a lot for breaking the ice.

Emily was spending some days with her parents and her little brother in the lake. They had just arrived the day before and she was essentially waiting for her cousin Lisa and her parents to arrive too. Emily and her family were living in the town of Castle Rock, which in fact we were planning to visit later in the trip, while Lisa lived a little further. The best thing about Crystal Lake is that there were lots of things to do: from different kind of water sports, to riding horses. They usually came here a couple of times a year, so she was totally familiar with the place.

I'm still not a great talker, even when I'm comfortable with the people. I tend to be more on the listening side, but Emily seemed to like talking a lot, which kind of compensated it. She kept asking me stuff though, and before long we kinda knew each other quite well. I was right, she was definitely a nice girl. Even though Ash really loved to reduce people's name to the minimum, I really preferred "Emily" to "Em". She kind of preferred "Jenny" for me, too, it seemed.

It wasn't evening yet when I got some messages from Joey and Kevin. Apparently Mr. Scott had just given them their mobile phones back, so they could finally answer my message from this morning. It seems that there were 4 boys involved, and their parents were already there. Luckily, none of them was even close to my inner group of friends. Mr. Scott and Mr. Murdock had questioned all of them about what they knew of the joints matter and, as Mrs. Morgan had predicted, the rest of them had nothing to do with it. As it was already quite late, they were going to stay the night there and come to Lake Crystal on the next day. Well, all of them except those 4 boys involved, who were going to return home with their parents.

Mr. Scott was our Phys. Ed. teacher, and sports coach. Although friendly, he was very strict with the boys, and managed to get the best out of them. But you wouldn't dare be on his bad side, or you'd regret it. I didn't envy any of the kids involved at all. As I said, he was very strict, but he was quite understanding with me. I mean, I was almost 2 years younger than the rest of the boys, so he couldn't expect me to be as proficient in sports as them, could he?

You know how annoying little boys can be sometimes, right? Well, you might not know well enough. Emily and I were walking back to the cabins' area when we were surrounded by some of them, ranging apparently from some 9 y.o. to 11 y.o. They were holding balloons full of water in their hands, looking at us with threatening looks.

"Hi Emily!", one of them greeted, with a shameless smile on his face and naughty eyes.
"Keith!", replied her with an amused grin. "Don't you even dare thinking about that!", she added, pointing at him with her finger, and acknowledging the ballons.
"Heh! Why not? We owe you!", Replied Keith.
"Yeah, right... But at least give Jenny some time to put the guitar aside so that it doesn't get wet!"
"I'll be benevolent... Jenny, you have ten seconds! nine! eight!..."