Pearl Wright: Chapter 3
A Life About to Change
Pearl yawned for probably the eleventh time in her math class in the orphanage. Being raised in Kurain village, she was never taught most of this stuff, which meant that it was much harder for her than the rest of the students.
At this point she had lost count of how many times she had checked the clock in the classroom, but this time she looked though she saw that the bell was just about to ring. Knowing this Pearl rushed to finish the last question on her math assignment, and handed it in just as the bell rang.
"Ahh Pearl I see that you were finally able to finish your assignment before class ended. It's great to see you improving so much since you first came here." The teacher by the name of Miss Spain said.
"...Thank you." Was all that Pearl said in response before she left the classroom.
After classes most of the children went to the playground, but most of them never wanted to play with her. After all they all grew up together, Pearl on the other hand came in a little too late to join in on their group.
So while most others played together outside, Pearl had other plans. Once she got sight of a stairwell that went to the building's basement Pearl quickened her walking pace and went down to the floor below.
At the bottom of the stairwell was a door that Pearl had become all too familiar with ever since she first came to the orphanage. Opening it up she found herself once again in the Ernie's recreation room.
There wasn't much to the room other than a few family portraits hung on the walls. The only things of interest were the decently sized box tv, and a small couch in the middle of the room where Ernie was currently sitting.
"Ahh Pearl, you are right on time to watch the hockey game with me. Come sit down." He said motioning her to come forwards.
Pearl closed the door on her way in and sat right next to Ernie just as he turned the TV onto the sports channel.
"Who are the teams tonight?" Pearl asked.
"Vancouver and good ol Los Angeles."
This was a common activity for Pearl. Most kids outright refused to play with her, so one day she stumbled onto this room and saw Ernie watching hockey on TV. Ever since then she had joined him for every game as he taught her about hockey.
Right now a singer was singing both the Canadian and American national anthems before the game. It was over in about a minute and the game finally started.
The Wright and co Law Office felt cold and lonely without Maya. It had been a little less than a week since Phoenix had last entered it, and the air inside felt cold and unwelcoming without her. From now on he'd have to get used to the stale air and loneliness of the office.
Perhaps one day he could hire a new assistant, perhaps Ema? After all Ema wanted to be a forensic investigator, perhaps working under him would help her get a job with the police. Sadly for now Ema was in Europe studying so she would be out of the question for now.
Pearl could always help him, but she was still young, and she had just gone through a tragedy involving death, so it would probably be a bad idea to have her around crime scenes for awhile.
Sitting down in his office chair Phoenix booted up his computer, which was a slow slow process due to him only being able to afford a P.C. from 2001. He didn't even have a flatscreen monitor, let alone an HD one.
When after at least ten minutes of waiting Phoenix was finally greeted with the rather barren desktop screen. There was barely any programs installed on his computer, not even anti virus software, just Microsoft word, Microsoft excel, his internet browser, and a few educational games for Pearl.
As per routine the first thing Phoenix did was open up his email to see if there was anything new. He logged onto his gmail account, but found that once again there was nothing noteworthy at all.
Exiting out of his internet browser, he sighed. It had been a week but he still hadn't completely finished filling the papers to adopt Pearl. Everytime he tried to finish filling them out Edgeworth's words rang out in his head.
"Heh, I guess Edgeworth got to me a little more than I initially thought." Phoenix said outloud. "This isn't going to be easy no matter what angle I approach it at."
"For pete's sake you foolishly foolish fool! Just do it!" Phoenix heard from behind him as well as a crack of a whip that came down on him.
"YEAAAAAAAOCH!" Phoenix yelled out as the whip impacted with his back. Immediately he turned around to be face to face with Franziska von Karma.
"You are weak Mr. Phoenix Wright. That little girl is stuck all on her own and yet you sit here wondering if helping her is the right thing to do. Ha! Pathetic." She yelled as she whipped Phoenix again.
"AHHHH! Is whipping things all you know how to do!"
Franziska whipped him again.
"No, but it is the most effective."
"Is this all you came to my office to do? I'm under a lot of stress right now, and you are not helping."
"You seem very defiant of me today Mr. Phoenix Wright, and far more aggressive. I suppose the death of your friend really has affected you. This is very much out of your normal foolish behaviour."
"Golly gee thanks. Now please can you answer my question or can you please leave, I have work to do."
"Hmph! Fine then, I came here about the little girl."
"I guess Edgeworth told you about my plan?"
"Yes and he also told me that you haven't even gone through with it yet. Ha! How foolish of you already."
"You can thank Edgeworth for that."
"And yet you foolishly decided to listen to him! You need to take action Mr. Phoenix Wright. My little brother's foolish drabble only serves to hold you back from achieving your goal."
"Hey, he's my friend, and he's a smart person."
"In court yes, but in emotional situations he is the most incompetent fool I have ever seen. Disregard what he said to you, you have a duty to do for that little girl, and I will whip you a thousand times each day if you don't go through with adopting her."
"You make quite the case I have to admit. Edgeworth was never good with dealing with emotions. I'll finish up the papers tonight and bring them over tomorrow."
"Good then." Franziska said before her face softened up as if she was embarrassed about what she was going to say next. "And Mr. Wright."
"Yes?"
"You have my deepest condolences for your lost." She said as she turned towards the door, and started to walk out.
"Thanks, it actually means a lot."
"Good. You know Mr. Phoenix Wright I have gained a small amount of respect for you in the time in which I have known you, and if you don't adopt that girl you shall lose it all." She stated firmly before finally walking out."
The next day...
Next door to the orphanage was a library in which the children were taken to once a week, Pearl included. Most of the children upon entry ran immediately to the kids section of the establishment while Pearl walked off towards the nonfiction section.
She liked it in the non fiction section, there we're just so many books containing interesting facts and pictures. It was also a quiet section of the library meaning that Pearl could read in peace.
Kneeling down beside a bookshelf Pearl decided to just grab a book at random and see what it was. She pulled out one from the shelf and looked at the cover. The cover art showed a massive ship sinking, and the title read 'Ghost Liners: Exploring The World's Greatest Lost Ships.
Upon seeing the word Ghost an image of Maya doing her spiritual training formed in Pearl's head making dreadful feeling swell up inside of her. Eventually she shook the images out of her head and opened up the book.
The first few pages were dedicated to a ship that sank in 1912 called the Titanic. According to the book it was the largest cruise ship at the time and it was deemed 'unsinkable'. Strangely though, the book also said that the ship sunk on its maiden voyage. That didn't make any sense though, it was a clear contradiction as Mr. Nick would put it.
Pearl kept on reading. The ship apparently hit an iceberg which made it sink, and there wasn't enough lifeboats to save everyone. It looked like the book only talked about the Titanic for the first few pages though. The rest of the book seemed to talk about other famous sunken ships alongside old photo's of each one of them, and drawings of what artists imagined the sinkings looked like.
Putting the book back Pearl noticed that there was other books like it on the shelf, although most of them just focused on the Titanic. From what she read in a few of them there was around 2300 people on the ship, and only 739 people lived.
So many souls were lost, and as Pearl focused on that thought further she almost felt like she could hear the voices of the victims in her head screaming out loud. Little did she know at this point that her eyes had gone blank and she had dropped the current book she was holding.
"Hey look she's trying to do that stupid ghost thing again." A voice came from behind her snapping her out of her trance.
Pearl turned around to be face to face with a boy also from the orphanage, a very specific boy who she had dealt with in the past plenty of times before. His name was Aoi Kurashiki, and he lived at the orphanage with his sister Akane.
"What do you want Aoi."
"You know, nobody believes you about that stupid ghost stuff. Why don't you just knock it off and stop scamming for attention."
Suddenly without even thinking a scowl formed on Pearl's face as she picked up the book she had dropped and chucked it right at Aoi.
"AHHH!" He screamed out as the edge of the book hit his eye.
It was only a matter of seconds before Ernie arrived who saw both Pearl standing there and Aoi on the floor crying with a hand over his eye.
"What happened?" He asked.
"She threw a book at me!" Aoi shouted.
"Pearl is this true?" Ernie said to her looking stern.
"I… I… I…" Pearl tried to start until another voice came from behind Ernie.
"We can punish her later, for now there is someone who wants to see her." Daphne said from behind Ernie. That wasn't what Pearl focused on though as Mr. Nick was right next to her.
Out of embarrassment of her actions she tried to not make eye contact with him as he walked up to her.
"We can talk about what happened here later Pearls, for now we're heading out for a little while."
He raised his hand out towards her to hold hers as she finally made eye contact with him.
"I'm sorry Mr. Nick."
"Hey, it's alright. Like I said, we can talk about it later Pearls. For now let's head out and spend the day together." Phoenix said with his hand still raised towards her, but now he was kneeling down to get at eye level with her.
For a moment Pearl hesitated, but she took his hand and the two started to leave the library, but before they left Daphnee said one last thing to Phoenix.
"And I'll have those papers processed for you right away Mr. Wright."
Papers? What was she talking about?
Phoenix pulled into the parking lot of his office and turned off his car.
"Why are we at the office Mr. Nick? Does someone need our help." Pearl asked.
"He, no not today. I was thinking that we could head over to People Park, after all it's only about a block away."
"Ok then."
The two got out of the car and started walking over to the park which Phoenix could easily see even from just the parking lot.
The weather was neither hot nor cold that day, just a nice comfortable seventy one degrees, or twenty two degrees now even sense America switched to the metric system in 2016. With that in mind, and the fact that there almost wasn't a cloud in the sky Phoenix thought it would be perfect to take Pearl to the park. That and he couldn't afford to take her anywhere expensive.
Phoenix took a deep breath as he got out of the car. He would soon be letting Pearl know that he was going to take her in. Even though he knew Pearl so well, and was so close to her already he was nervous beyond belief.
Taking a client's life in your hands was a huge responsibility, one that he took so many times already, but this time he wasn't just protecting someone as he usually did. This time his job was to not only protect that person, but raise them into a proper adult, instill morals onto them, be there for them at every moment. No, he couldn't let doubt cloud his mind, he was capable of raising Pearl and nothing was going to stop him. Despite his determination though, he still found it hard to believe that he was about to become a father. Actually thinking of it now, he hadn't even told his parents that they were about to become grandparents.
The two began their small walk towards the park passing by a few shops and a cafe on the way until they entered the grounds of the park which was bustling with people all around. He could see couples walking together, families having picnics together, and the occasional person alone just enjoying a nice day.
Out of the corner of Phoenix's eye he saw a food truck with a rather long lineup of people at it.
"Hey Pearls look there's a food truck."
"A food truck?"
"Yeah, it's like a little restaurant on wheels."
"I don't know Mr. Nick. Food from a little truck doesn't sound very tasty."
"Actually it's often quite good, and guessing from the large lineup I would say that this one must be a good one. I'll buy, I just hope it doesn't cost much though." Phoenix sad as the two entered the back of the line.
From where he was standing Phoenix could make out the menu on the truck. He mulled over his options for a moment before turning towards Pearl.
"I know what I'm going to get, what do you want Pearls?"
"...I can't see the menu."
Phoenix gave himself a small mental slap. Of course she couldn't see the menu over all of the other people in front of them in the line.
"Here let me help you then." Phoenix said as he picked her up and placed her on his shoulders. "There, can you see it now."
"Yes I can."
"Good, just tell me when you know what you want."
"Hmmm… Okay I know now."
"Good."
Phoenix put Pearl back down now and just held her hand for the rest of their wait in the line. When they finally made it to the front Phoenix ordered one of their fancy burgers, and Pearl just wanted a side of fries. A rather simple order from Pearl he had to admit, but it was cheap so he didn't complain.
When they eventually got their food Phoenix and Pearl sat down at a park bench near a fountain where they ate. Phoenix's nerves at this point were really starting to hit him, after this he had to tell her, there was no going back.
He finished his burger and noticed that Pearl had also finished her food. He took a deep breath, this was it.
"Pearl there is something we need to talk about."
"I'm fine Mr. Nick. I don't want to talk about Maya." Pearl said in a monotone voice.
"It's not about that, well it kinda is, but kind of isn't. Do you get what I mean?"
"No, not really."
"It's that with Maya gone you don't have much in the way of people there for you. I don't want you being alone with nobody for you to call a family. I don't want you growing up like that, which is why….. which is why I'm going to adopt you as my own."
Pearl's eyes widened in shock. A few minutes passed and she still wore the same expression and didn't even say a word. This prompted Phoenix to continue.
"I know this must be quite a shock to you Pearl, but you've always been like a daughter to me, and I want you to have a happy life. I want to do this for your own good so I can help you grow into the strong capable girl I know you are."
"...But what about Kurain? I'm supposed to be the next master?"
"Forget about Kurain Pearls, that's not your concern anymore. You have no obligation to them. Please Pearls, I only want to do this to help you."
Pearl looked right up at Phoenix and the two locked eyes. The look on her face just further showed how much she was confused about this, until she finally lept at Phoenix and hugged him.
"Trust me Pearl, everything is going to be okay. I'm here to take care of you now."
