The Bear Page

Chapter 8- A new chess piece enters the board

After last night, Gearld totally hasn’t been overthinking about oversharing to Philip from last night…yeah, he did. The teen had stayed up all night thinking about it.

Gearld lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as the sun rose, its warm light shining into the dark room. He got up, grabbed his Journal, pulled his sweater on and left his room. locking the door behind him

He waved at TriceMire without looking at the biocomputer, walked past the creepy paintings and the massive statue of Thomas, which the mainland gave him thirty odd years ago and past the manor gates. past the obnoxious signs and straight for the docks, sitting down and starting to write in his Journal.

July 5th 1966

GOD FUCKING DAMNIT! I over-shared with Phil, and now he's going to only pity me and never take me seriously ever again! WHY THE FUCK DID I DO THAT???! WHY???? HES JUST GONNA SEE ME AS A PATHATIC KID NOW!

He slammed the journal down on the dock after he slammed it shut. lying down on the old, soggy, rickety dock and putting his face in his hands, screaming into his hands.

He paused his mental breakdown when he heard something splash in the sea. He shot up and spotted a red fish tail disappearing into the sea. He blinked before he sighed, rubbing his eyes “I need more sleep”

He got up, grabbed his Journal, and left the dock, entering the manor gates, up the stairs and past the statue, past the paintings and went into a side corridor and walked up to his makeshift office. Well, it was more like a broom closet. He had shoved a desk and a bean bag chair in. The desk was covered in piles and piles of lab reports he needed to fill out from Phil AND Thomas’s behalf.

He sat down, putting his Juoal in a drawer and started to work, his pen moving on the pages as he tried to take his mind off of what happened last night. At least Phil pays him for this. Gearld must have worked until the early afternoon when he suddenly heard someone knock at the door “Come in”, Gearld muttered absentmindedly.

“Gerry? The bosses want to see us,” Eillot says, sticking his head in the room like a dog would stick their head out of a car window “Golly, this is small”

“It works for what I need it for”, he says as he got up and stretched, following Eillot out of the room and into the hallway of creepy paintings.

“So….what do you think they want?” Eillot wondered aloud

“Beats me, as long as we don’t get punished again”, Gerald commented.

“Hey, that was one time!” Eillot pouted

“We had to clean up all the labs with nothing but a toothbrush because you thought it would be a good idea to mess with random chemicals”, Gearld countered. “It took us all night and most of the morning”

Eillot looked away sheepishly, “…. I know,” he chuckled.

“You're lucky I still like you after that stunt”, Gearld playfully huffed. He was only kidding. Eillot was his only friend after all.

The two entered the Morose’s office, Gearld spotted them talking about something in their normal spots, Thomas in his desk Chair and Samanatha leaning against the solid African Blackwood desk.

“We’re here, boss”, Gearld called out and went to close the office door when Philip entered as well, his blue overcoat covered in stains from working. Just what was going on?

Thomas looked away from his wife and looked at the three with that intense look that Gearld was still intimidated by to this day, despite working here for a month “Ah, you're all here now. We have a little situation here”, giving Samantha the go-ahead to explain what's going on.

“Before Eillot’s letter came in, we thought he was a no-show, so we hired Miss Posey Wilder”, Samantha explained, “but then his letter came”

“So we have an extra intern that we don’t need, as Elliot arrived, so we’re giving the intern to Philip instead”, Thomas continued.

The three by the office door froze.

“I… I'm getting a what- why didn’t you tell me last night?” Phil puzzled, sounding Belwildered as Gearld felt

“We were still deciding last night”, Thomas responded coldly.

Samantha sighed, “Well, Miss Wilder is arriving next week, so it's going to be very chaotic on the 12th. Philip, I need you to show Miss Wilder the ropes of our research. Gearld, I need you to show her around as you did with Eillot. and Eillot i need you to take over Gerald's duties for the morning,” Samantha instructed

Gearld nodded and looked to his right. Eillot looked excited, which made sense as he loved to meet new people. Gearld looked to his left, and Philip just looked perplexed. Gearld just sighed.

“Got it, boss”, he yawned.

“I….okay?” Philip sputtered

“AYE AYE!” Eillot smiled brightly

This is going to be a long week, Gearld thought to himself.

“You are all dismissed.” Thomas finished

The three left the office, Phil still in quite a lot of shock. “They…only gave me a week to prepare for this?”

“You've been teaching me stuff, you’ll do fine” Gearld smiled, putting his hand on Philip's shoulder to comfort him.

“Yeah, you’ll do just fine, Philly!” Eillot beamed

Philip sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose like he already had a headache “I have a lot of work to do”