June,27th.Ah, the summer. That period of time, when you know school is over and you know that you're careless for three months. The best part of it? Well, for me it is that I get to keep my diary in absolute silence without being bothered by my annoying brother, asking me continuously to help him do something. But, as all sugarcoated dreams must come to an end, I've spent a total of twenty hours of summer at home, being shipped alongside my twin sibling to a distant relative in Gravity Falls, OR. Now let me summarize in ten words or less what this diary is going to be about. It will serve as a…*asked my brother for a fancy word* memento for you future Mabel, of one of the best summers you're going to have. Also, this piece of art, should you consider it will be the written proof of every single major event I will experience alongside my little brother. Note to self: Do not speak while you're writing this, it may lead to feelings getting hurt…

"Can you stop it?" his annoyed voice almost shouted in a high pitch.

It was the whiny tone that only my brother could produce.

"No, no I won't stop. What are you going to do about it?"

"Ah, Mabel, Mabel, Mabel," he began his condescending remark. "Why you've got to be so infantile?"

"Infan- what?"

"From the word "enfant" meaning child in French, you can guess the rest…"

"Childish? That's the sweetest thing you have ever told me. Boop!" I said, bopping his nose.

"You never change, do you?"

"As if we haven't lived almost thirteen years together."

"It's the end of June and it's not our birthday until the 31st of August."

"You've got to be kidding me, right? Two months to thirteen years isn't almost thirteen years…"

"Nope!"

I couldn't argue with his nerdiness. What I could do though was admire the view. We grew up in the urban area of Piedmont, on a small street. Our house was never big, our money never piling up, but it was a nice life. However, it's like we never lived. It's the myth that people "surviving" the concrete jungle are the most mundane and bland ones. And it's true. We didn't know anything else than school homework then repetitive meetings with our common and uncommon friends( Don't mind the wordplay future Mabel, I get this from listening to Dipper read, you know how he is- he reads out loud sometimes). Now we had the chance to live free from all the judgements we'd face if we were ourselves. Now I could really be me, the gleeful me. And Dipper can be himself, the weird part of him.

"Mabel…"

"Sorry."

Now as I was watching the seemingly foreground of the beauty we were about to observe (I know we know that I am pretty poetic at times), I couldn't help but wonder what it will be like to see a real forest, not the make-believe ones we have back home. Albeit, our city is classified as a mostly suburban area, completely surrounded by the city of Oakland, it's not the same as really being in the heart of the woods. It's that feeling I thrive for. Being lost, and surviving only because of the pity Mother Nature grants us, being avoided by the fierce predators in one of the most awesome manner ever. I think, I just ruined the mood.

"How long until we reach…"

"Gravity Falls, that's the word you're looking for."

"I knew that, I knew that," I said defending myself in my usual manner.

"We've left for about 2 hours so, I'd say one hour tops. Why?"

"Because, I am excited you know?"

"To be sent about 300 miles from home, to some weirdo we know nothing about? That's exciting for you?"

"Off, off, silly Dipper," I remarked gently slapping my forehead." You should be excited because it's our first summer away from home, from parents and from what-not."

"True enough, but spending it in such an exotic place, surely has to lighten me up," Dipper exclaimed sarcastically.

"Come on, chin up, it could be worse. We could've gone to Ohio and freeze to death on a mountain top…"

"You're thinking of Idaho, genius."

"Whatever, the point is you can actually end up having fun this summer and maybe change your usual attitude."

"What usual attitude?"

"Pessimistic and condescending."

"Ok, then I will do that if you renounce your summer goal."

"Never!" I shouted trying to impersonate a brave knight.

"You can't really give away your childish dream of having a summertime love?"

"Nope! This is my first and only chance to have it and you aren't ruining this for me, you got that?"

"Then you have no deal, sis."

"Come on… what if you meet someone, will you do it then?"

"It is possible but also empirically improbable…"

"You'll change your mind, hopefully," I replied sealing the fate of this conversation and transforming it into an uneasy silence.

The bus's engine purred rhythmically with a few worrying coughs interrupting its monotone sound. Our trip was almost over, we're in the homestretch for the place where we're going to spend close to three months of our short lives. I wonder what kind of town is it. It's Oregon, so it's bound to be a small, almost rural city. I don't expect anyone to be something they might not be, or couldn't be, but I still had high hopes. Especially since I had a summer goal that implied finding a true love or just a crush. Which, now that I write and think about it, seems very shallow, but what gives.

"It is indeed shallow and also trite." Dipper said while subtly backing off after peeking into my diary.

"You know it's rude to get up in my business, right?"

"It's funny to see you mad, though. You blush and your voice starts to crack, clear signs of embarrassment."

"I'm not that obvious, please…"

"I can read you like a book, you're the definition of expressivity and it's nothing shameful in that…"

"Didn't say it was," I said with a forced smile covering my face…

Without another word, I resumed my contemplation. I focused on the clouds, whose magnificent shadows covered the now dark woods. In a game of hide and seek, deer were winning against the wolves chasing them relentlessly in blank daylight. It was amazing to see how lazily the dark spots moved along the mountain's crest almost trying to sneak up on us and catch us by surprise. On one side the steep cliff of the rocky peak, on the other side, the abrupt drop of the valley with a sinuous river flowing through it, creating the paradisiac cliché we've all come to enjoy. You cannot deny its beauty, but you can testify against its originality.

Crossing the state border was very obvious. We've gone from a smooth ride, on the government built roads to the bumpy, dirty roads of Oregon. I slept through the transition, but I felt the first big hop in my stomach, head and feet, as I woke up on the corridor of the coach, with my brother staring at me, with a dumb glare.

"You watched me fall and didn't do a thing?"

"Figured you'd get up and learn a lesson. I was right."

"Oh, you…" But I was interrupted by another bump that threw me further than before. For a moment I lost consciousness. I must've hit my head on the chairs, but I didn't have bruises afterwards, so I don't know what happened. Either way, I was knocked out cold for around half an hour. During this time, I had time to explore the inside of my head. Swimming in a world, filled with unicorns, candies, dolphins and rainbows on top of rainbows on top of cloudy skies with bubblegum raining every second. It was the childish odyssey I have conceived on my own. But, alas all that is utopic must have its end. Soon I have woken up from my dream. Looking around I saw that I was outside the bus, and it was burning in the distance, dripping fuel. I was carefully laid down on a patch of grass, with my brother alongside me, out cold as well. I didn't see other people near us, despite the bus was half full, and no one else was in our vicinity. I jumped on top of my brother, hitting his head and slapping him repeatedly, in a desperate attempt to wake him up. After a good 5 minutes of continuous work from myself, he finally squinted an eye and drowsily asked:

"What happened?"

"The bus fell over and something caused a fire, the driver is out cold, we are here," I began hyperventilating.

"Okay, okay, calm down!" He grabbed me by the shoulders trying to reassure me that it's all ok." Let's get closer and maybe see for ourselves, what's going on."

We started slowly walking towards the crash site, when an immense explosion broke the eerie, but calming silence. We were thrown to the ground by the shockwave, and our ears immediately covered due to the resulted pain. After a brief delay, we rose to our feet and stared through the bus, not wanting to look at this tragedy…

June 29th .Looking back at this diary page now, I think I turned it into a dream diary, because I can't remember any of this. It seems like a nightmare I've had, in spite of its striking realism. Now, sitting in our new couch looking at the TV with our Grunkle we didn't know we had, it can't seem like any other than a work of fiction, although it had marked me profoundly apparently, since I have found the need to write it down. I have no memory of the road to Gravity Falls, at all. This is a mystery I can't get to the bottom of. What a pity. Now, future Mabel, let me tell you what I can recall.

The second we got off the bus, we've entered our home/ workplace for the summer. Our great uncle had transformed his house into a full of hooey tourist attraction, which isn't surprising considering his entrepreneur skills. This guy can literally sell a blind man sunglasses and it's amazing the time and effort he put into designing one of the coolest looking "museums"( quotation marks needed) I've ever been in. I had to share a room with my little brother, which was bound to make us closer, considering our recent past of drifting apart, due to growing up and stuff. Now all that was left was meet the local fauna. I should really spend more time with Dipper. It really enriches my vocabulary to the point where I can literally write novels, which I am not going to.

The people here are nicer than I'd expected, especially those who we're working with. We have two workplace colleagues: Soos, who is a very friendly, chubby, yet tall guy, with an amazing view of the world and Wendy, the definition of being dense, sheer cold, calculated and generally indolent( how are these words pouring out of me?) towards what she doesn't like. And of course that since she is a girl and not related to him, Dipper couldn't really let her go unnoticed. By that I hope you can understand that he now has a crush on her. And since he had been so busy, I had to catch up and also find mine too. Flirting with every boy I found couldn't be the solution could it? It wasn't. I heard the weirdo line one time too many, so I decided to hang it up for a while now.

I was doing my regular job in the shack, as it can also be named, which implied brooming and dusting off the antiques and taking care of the register( it usually gets sick and spits out tons of money), when Dipper comes in and tells me to follow him upstairs. As soon as we got into our room (the mansard) he had pulled out a strange looking book, bearing a 6 handed hand with the number 3 etched on it. He looked scared of something, that I knew nothing of.

"What do you have there?"

"The key to our amazing summer, that's what." He answered with a confidence, uncommon for him.

"An old book?"

"Look what's in it first…"

I flipped through the yellow pages and got bored out by these the instant I saw them.

"What about these scribble doodles?" I asked, regretting my decision when I saw his expression. His smirk preceded a patronizing remark.

"You don't see any more meaning of these drawings and writing? Nothing at all? Never mind, you'd not be able to realize. It's a bestiary speaking of supernatural happenings in the area of the Falls. It's about vampires, spirits, ghosts, incredible natural minerals, and new species. It's something that I am bound to discover and if needed add additional information. So now, I ask you. Are you in this or you decide to pursue your meaningless goal?"

"Of course I am in, you crazy? " I answered swiftly.

"But I hope I can't stress enough the fact that you mustn't tell anyone about this, right?"

"When have I ever exposed anything like this…"I said, scratching my head, knowing that he was about to retell my mistakes…

"Should I remind you of the time I explicitly told you not to say where the gifts are hidden and you went straight to mom and dad and you blurted out exactly what I told you not to?"

"Fine, I promise, that I will shut my face, ok?"

Now, since we had a lot of trust issues mainly because I have proven time and time again that I am completely irresponsible and silly in everything I do, Dipper came downstairs with me. As if I were oblivious to what we just talked, I went straight to Wendy:

"Hey Wendy, guess what Dipper found in a strange box in the forest…" it was at this moment that he jumped from behind me and sealed my mouth shut with his hand, while intervening visibly panicked.

"Nothing. At all. Actually, it's a rare species of birds, it's called Passeridae and it's indigenous to the South American continent," he finished his made up plea with a forced laugh.

"Sounds great, you ought to show it to me some time," Wendy said absently lost in the act of reading her magazine.

"Well, maybe you should come to the woods with us…" Dipper stopped before going through what could only be referred to as a date proposal. Thankfully, for him, she didn't notice anything, but he couldn't stop talking, so I, as the caring and loving sister I am, had to drag him out of the room. I was rewarded with a short "Thanks!" after which he quickly went back to our room and started studying his journal again.

June 30th. Three days have passed since the diary/journal (I can't decide right now) was found. And boy, did things escalate quickly. Let's start as we are taught in school, with a general presentation of the events at hand. Let's say that everything that was written in there about zombies, elves, gnomes, vampires, wonder substances, strange inventions and the list goes on, was indeed true. This being said imagine reliving that whole series filled with supernatural stuff, but this time with added shenanigans. Yes, it's amazing, yet frightening and can scar you for life, be that physical or emotional. Let me tell you what this actually means. Pursuing my summer goal, I found, after some fruitless attempts (I don't want to talk about them), I've finally found someone who was caring, supportive, listened to me and was generally sweet and loveable. We went on many dates that, now that I am looking back at, were surrounded by infatuation. I did most of the talking, while he grunted and only approved in a laconic fashion. I couldn't deny that our two days relationship, so-to-speak was based on made up beliefs, by which I stood strongly. It was only when Dipper cautioned me that he might be some sort of zombie (he used the term undead, to be precise), that I really upped my game but it was only to prove him wrong. I couldn't say that I was driven by nothing but a burning desire to taunt my brother because he was finally wrong. And he was… but so was I. I was about to go on my big date when he told me of his theory, we had a fight, following which I ran off to my so-called lover.

That day, the forest seemed so strange. It was summer, yet the palette of colors was so autumnal, it was very odd. The jolly forest critters were hiding from something, predicting ominousness… I found Norman (his name was Norman, by the way), sitting on a hill, strange whispers coming from, and it will be clear later what I mean, inside him. After a while of talking and sharing, he grabbed my hand and then, taking a dramatic pose, like a superhero brooding over his hometown. He said a secret couldn't compromise this relationship, but it had to be revealed… So, he showed me his inner self(s). And those brackets are really well placed, because, as I found out, Norman was in fact 5 little gnomes, who flatteringly offered me to become their queen. After one of the most embarrassing speeches I had to give in my life, I politely refused, but they kidnapped me anyway, saying that I will become their queen, whether I want it or not. Skipping over the whole damsel in distress scenario and Dipper being the Prince Charming who had saved me, we reach the conclusion of this story. The gnomes, forming a ginormous gnome controlled gnome. It had chased us from the heart of the forest to the woods, to the shack, where we double-crossed him, convincing I will marry their leader, while actually I had planned to do something else. As the canonical words "You may now kiss the bride" left my mouth, I had a leaf blower ready, a weapon that was super effective against these small dwarves. We did quick work of them, by sucking one of them in, then shooting him straight at the monster, destroying its integrity. Soon enough they had left and we weren't bothered again.

We were both looking as if we got hit by a tornado, or a bus (which will be later remarked by Grunkle Stan), but this didn't stop Dipper from doing what I could only regard as a sign that maybe this summer will be something else.

"Hey, Mabel," he called me, his voice shaking.

"Yeah?" I answered a bit unsure.

"I am sorry for all that has happened. You know harassing your boyfriend, trying to talk you out of this, almost trading you off for the gnomes. Things like these, things that happen on a daily basis."

"I'm sorry too, for overreacting back there. I may have said words I didn't truly mean… But in the end I want to thank you that you've come and saved me. You are a good lil' bro."

"Awkward hug?"

"Awkward hug."

June 31st .This is me, with a late entry at 3:00 am. I just woke up from a nightmare. I was on the same road to the Falls, same course of events, same crash, same explosion, but now I wasn't resting safely on the edge of the pit. I was knocked into it, and I was falling to my death. The earth was closing in rapidly and I wasn't fully conscious of my actions. I was dizzy and flopping in the air like a fish out the water (great metaphor I know). Suddenly I hear a metallic clang and I can see the claws of a grappling hook. Then in a flash, a dark silhouette grabs me mid-air and places me back on my safe space. I cannot catch a glance of his face, due to his black hood, but I could see his shiny azure eyes. Then he vanished…