"Yall have a g..good day now!"
Gideon Grey waved a goodbye, as the final customers of the day exited the pie shop with their fresh blueberry pies. As the sound of the bell on the glass door ringed, signaling that the customers had finally left the shop, Gideon took a look at the pie shaped clock that hung above the the door. 6:30 p.m, it read. Gideon let out a much needed sigh of relief, as he wiped the left over flour that was on his paws onto his pink apron.
"Closin Time." Gideon yipped
Taking his apron off, Gideon started to clean up around the place; dusting, sweeping, wiping down the counters, and cleaning the dishes just to name a few. About forty-five minutes later, all was properly cleaned and polished. Ready for the next work day, and ready for new customers to come and enjoy some tasty treats. After locking the door to the bakery, Gideon decided to double check the work area to see if he had missed anything important, or if he needed to have anything freshly stocked. Upon seeing that everything was in check, He smiled and walked over to his office to grab his truck keys and get himself back to his one bedroom home.
Upon entering said office, Gideon grabbed his keys from his desk drawer and was about to leave, when he noticed his calender right next to the door. Being the perfectionist that he was, he took a glance at it. To his surprise, there where seven red lines marked on each day of the next week. Gideon scratched his head for a moment, before the realization finally hit him. It was his yearly week long vacation. He had set it up the day he opened up his bakery to give himself some much needed relaxation time from work.
"Wow!" Gideon said slapping his head with his paw " I'm a..a dummy."
Taking out a marker and paper, Gideon took the time to make a sign telling everyone that the shop would be closed for the next week. After taping it to the entrance of the bakery, Gideon finally made his way out of the bakery through the back door, lock the door, got into his truck, and drove home. A few minutes passed, and soon Gideon was back to his cozy, warm, cottage. The cottage itself wasn't really that big, but for Gideon that wasn't a problem at all. He really enjoyed small places, as well as anything generally simple. He never really cared about being rich, or having a ton of material things. For him, all he cared about was simply the basics in life, and nothing else more. He had learned this from living in his grandfather's ranch for a small portion of his teen-age years.
Turning the nob on the door, Gideon walked inside and turned on the lights to his living room. It was the same old house that he had grown to love and cherish all these years. The traditional brick fireplace, a large bookshelf filled with many books, a small color television with "rabbit ears" on top of them, a red sofa , a circular rug in the middle of the floor, a small coffee table and a wooden rocking chair next to the fireplace. After locking his door firmly, Gideon made his way over towards the kitchen area, and made himself a tall glass of sweet tea with lemon. After taking a sip of his drink, he walked over towards the bookshelf to find himself something to nice to read before he fixed himself dinner and call it a night. He browsed through the multiple rows of books, trying to find something to his fancy, but found nothing really worth reading. He knew that he had to read something, so he placed his paw of a random book and pulled it out. To his surprise, he hadn't pulled out a book at all, but a photo album.
"Huh." Gideon said to himself " Been some time since I..I..looked at this."
Taking a seat on his rocking chair, he opened up the photo album and began looking at some of the pictures. The first few pages of the album had pictures of him as a young little fox, diaper and all, doing some things that typical children at that age tend to do. Gideon giggled at some of the baby pics of him and his parents doing goofy things together, but frowned immediately afterwards. He missed his parents dearly. They had sadly passed away a year back from old age, and their deaths had effected him greatly after that. Not wanting to break down into tears, he quickly flipped the album to the middle of the book. There, he saw something that was very surprising. It was pictures of him with his best friend Travis the ferret posing in different pictures. One picture showed the two of them at a birthday party (apparently Travis's) wearing party hats and smearing chocolate cake all over each other's faces. Another picture was of them sitting next to a booth of some sort sipping lemonade from a straw, and the last picture was of the two of them in a really funny position that he couldn't make out even if he could.
Closing the album, Gideon reminisced over the pictures of him and his best friend, but mostly on his best friend Travis. Travis was his best , and only , friend that he actually had in his youth. This really wasn't that surprising, given the fact he was a rather nasty bully during that time. Travis was a very intelligent, as well as creative, ferret. He was always doing well in school, was very well educated in math, science, and history, and could really make some tasty treats out of a few pantry items if he wanted to. Despite all of these amazing characteristics Travis held, he chose to be best freinds with him, Gideon Grey; the bully, the dummy, the meanest fox in all of Bunny Borrow. Not only that, but the fact that Travis stayed loyal to him, despite acting like a bully to Travis himself, was confusing even to him. Normally, animals would eaither leave in a heartbeat, or beat up that animal, if they where treated like that. However, Travis never left his side, not for a single second. Heck, he even took the fall for some of the things Gideon had done.
Gideon felt a strong feeling of guilt, as well as sadness, rush over him as these thoughts planted itself into his feeble brain. He truly was a horrible freind, and to make matters worse, he never even took the time to apologize for everything he had done to him in the past. He knew that he had to do something about it, and he was going to do that now. Besides, he had all week to make things right.