2nd December

Jen's mother had woken her up very early. Even though Jen had been very excited for this day, she was sleepy like every morning and like in trance she changed her clothes into those her mother gave her.

She was still very tired and just chew mechanical at the breakfast and only when she sat in the car she slowly woke up.

Her mother chuckled when she noticed that Jen was finally awake and looked out of the Window.

"Good Morning Sleepyhead!" She greeted her daughter and turned around from the passenger seat.

Jen sat on the back seats of their big SUV and rubbed her eyes. This was not her time of the day but slowly the excitement for the camp started to get her heart pumping and waking her up completely.

"Good Morning Mom!" She replied a minute later, gaining back her energy and looking out of the Window. "Are we there yet?"

Her mother chuckled. "No dear, we just started. It will take a few hours until we get there." Jen snarled. She didn't like being trapped in the car for a long ride. At the moment she was still fine but she knew that sitting still and being unable to move her tail will soon feel very uncomfortable.

Finally awake, she got out her phone from her ladies' bag and used it to check on her appearance. She wore the pullover and the long skirt that she had chosen the last day for the tour. Both was warm and out of wool, with a light blue color that made a soft contrast with her white scales but did not compete with her deep blue eyes.

The clothes were new. Her mother had bought them for her when they moved here, because the weather had been so cold. She shot a selfie and started to write a message to her friend Frieda to tell her that she was on her way.

"Remember! You will not take the phone with you to the camp!" her mother still observed her daughter.

Jen did not look up from her phone but just stuck out her tongue towards her mother. Her mother had told her a few times and she was not too happy to be banned from using her phone.

She had used it every day to do selfies and load them up on her Critter account or she just chatted with her friends using WhosApp. She waited for an answer of her friend, but naturally there was none.

Frieda most likely was sound asleep, judging by the time. The minutes on her phone increased very slowly and it was only 6:10 when she already felt bored. She could have played a game, but her parents had installed a parental control app on her phone, preventing her from using most of the apps that would now pass her time.

With a sigh, Jen let the phone sink and looked out of the window. The sky was still dark but she could see trees rushing by like big shadows. This drive was boring.

Somehow Jen must have fallen asleep. She rubbed her eyes and it was not dark around her anymore.

"Oh, you are awake again." Her mother greeted her. "Are you hungry?" her mother turned around and held a sandwich in front of the girl.

Jen took it and bit into the sandwich. It was tuna with tomato and a bit salad. Only after the first bite, Jen noticed that she was hungry. She wondered how long she slept.

A look at her phone told her, that it was already past 11. She must have slept nearly 5 hours.

"Don't start looking at your phone again. The scenery outside is so beautiful." Her mother complained and Jen again grimaced towards her.

With a pouting face her gaze went out of the window and her mouth stopped chewing. She did not realize how she gulped down what was in her muzzle and left it open while staring outside.

Everything around her was white. Even the trees had white coats like powdered sugar.

It was the first time that Jen saw snow. She had seen pictures of it in movies but seeing it up close and realizing that the whole world around her was white was something completely different.

She did not hear what her mother said to her but just stared out of the window, even forgetting her phone, which fell on the seat next to her while she crawled a bit closer to the windows to have more vision of the surrounding.

For Jen, the view was fascinating. Thy were driving through a big plain with a few trees and she had a good view over a vast land of white powder. It looked like it was soft and cuddly, and Jen sighed with romantic feelings about this view. It looked just in like the scene in this love movie she had seen with her mother and her friend last year.

The trees grouped up more and more and soon Jen noticed, that the valley she had looked into was surrounded by a big forest and they just reached the edge of the clearing and then the big trees right and left piled up and soon the white was replaced by the dark black shadows under the trees.

Jen finally leaned back and looked forward, just to notice the smirk on the face of her mother, that turned forward as well. Jen realized that her mother had watched her the whole time and she felt a bit embarrassed but could not formulate any word in her mind to throw towards her mother.

Finally she just grumbled: "Are we there yet?"

"Yes!" she winced when her father talked and had to join in the laugh of her parents short after that found her reaction amusing.

"At least soon. We will be there in a few minutes." Her father continued, while he steered the SUV through the curves of the forest road.

"What?" Jen shouted and grabbed her phone to use the camera to take a look at herself. "I look horrible. Why did you not tell me before?"

Her father chuckled over the behavior of his daughter while Jen got a make-up kit out of her lady bag and started to use it to redo her eyeshadow which, in her opinion, looked totally horrible and blurry from her sleep.

She also tried to get every wrinkle out of her pullover. She just noticed, that her mother had given her a very thick blue pullover and a thick long skirt from wool in the same color. Jen thought it did not look good at all but there was no time to change her clothes anyways. She wished she could have put on her light blue dress or the yellow one, even though the yellow one.

Like her father said, they arrived at the entrance of the camp just 5 minutes later. All around them were cars and children with their parents. Jen started to feel nervous. She hated places with a lot of strangers.

"Make sure to wear the jacket!" her mother told her when she opened the door for Jen and gave her the jacket. A cold breeze waved into the car and Jen shivered. This was the first time she was happy to wear the warm clothes her mother proposed instead of the dress she wanted to wear.

Quickly she complied and put the jacket on and her mother pulled two thick gloves over her paws and a scowl around her neck after she put the hoody of the jacked over the head of her daughter.

Slowly Jen felt warm and enjoyed standing next to her mother, even though her face, the only thing not covered because under the skirt she wore warm woolen tights, felt cold in the wind but Jen slowly got use to it.

The snow under her shoes made creaking sounds.

The only uncomfortable thing about the jacket her mother gave her was, that it had no holes for her wings, but it was an "overcoat", meaning she had to fold her wings under it and they were pressed hard against her back.

She followed her parents, that equally wore big mantles that covered their wings just like hers. The only difference was, that her parents were fully grown and therefore their wings were much bigger, even in comparison, and where there was only a small bulge under the jacket of Jen at her back, the wings of her parents were clearly visible under their mantles.

"Mr. and Mrs. Scallivan I assume." A snow leopardess greeted them. Jen stayed close to her mother, hiding half behind her big frame, and felt her shyness rise inside her body.

"Yes, that is right." Answered her mother. "My name is Marie and this is my husband Victor. You must be Miss Blanche, right?" - "Sophie is enough." The woman smiled and bend down to Jen, who slid more into the hiding behind her mother.

"And you must be Jenquifer then, right?" Jen pouted and put her face into the back of her mother mantle. "Jen!" she mumbled and the woman laughed.

"Oh, I am sorry, Jen!" she said and grabbed her hand. "You don't have to be afraid. We are happy to have you."

After a few minutes, Jen slowly got use to the snow leopard. She even praised the eye shadow of Jen, which made the girl feel more confident and she exchanged a few words with the caretaker of the camp.

"We will have to leave soon. We just wanted to make sure that all is okay." Her father said after a few minutes of talk between the adults.

"You said so on the phone." Sophie nodded. "Don't worry. I am sure Jen will soon feel comfortable here.

The goodbye was far too fast for Jen. Suddenly her parents were gone and she stood next to Sophie, not knowing where to hide or what to do, while the woman brought her into the camp and showed her the houses.

They were small houses with spiky roofs that looked like tents. Inside it was very warm and Jen could finally get out of the coat. She was not so fond of cold weather and as a dragon, this was natural. Even if they evolved from their feral ancestors, cold weather still made dragons very sleepy and drowsy if they did not warm themselves up and Jen was far too young to spit fire. She would maybe learn how to do that in 10 to 20 years.

She started to put her clothes into the wardrobe next to her bed and after checking if her friend send a message back, which she had not done yet, she put the phone away as well.

Sophie had told her, before leaving, that all of the girls who would stay in this house with her, there was space for 5 kids per house, would arrive the next day but Jen was happy for it. This way she had time to adjust to the new environment before she had to deal with massive amounts of strange kids around her.

Sophie went out to greet the other arriving kids. As far as Jen understood, there were 20 kids in total, 15 boys and 5 girls with her, but today only 9 boys and she were scheduled to arrive and Sophie was alone until the other caretaker, a man, would arrive the next morning.

Jen sat down at the window and looked at the camp, or at least what she could see. She did not want to go outside into the cold in the middle of the kids and parents that went back and forth, explored the camp and talked with Sophie. She liked the protected area in the house, where she was alone, and watch the boys play a snowball fight or later how it began to snow.

Sophie came to her in the evening, after the parents had all been gone, and asked her if she wanted to join her and the boys for the dinner but Jen declined. On the one hand she still felt extremely shy and horrified of having all the boys stare at her, like she had experienced every time she had come to a new school, on the other hand she felt tired from snow watching the whole day.

Sophie did not force her but just brought her some sandwiches and tea as dinner and promised her, that she would sleep in the house with her today, so she would not be alone.

Even though Jen was still a bit reserved around Sophie, she was happy to not have to stay alone in this strange place.

After seeing the boys to bed, Sophie told Jen about them, but all that Jen remembered was that there were boys from 8 to 13, the caretaker came in and talked for a bit with Jen to get to know her, until Jen was so tired that she nearly fell asleep while sitting in her bed.

Sophie turned off the lights and wished her a good night. Jen only mumbled something in response she did not even understand herself and then she was already sound asleep, thinking about her parents and if they had arrived at this new workplace of her father already.