The phone rang.

The sound was shrill against the morning air, shoving the silence of another boring day down a long flight of metaphorical stairs. Stan was starting to wish that he hadn't gotten his phone from a yard sale in the eighties. It was summer, the season of yard sales, he'd have to hook a more modern one at one of the several thousand that were likely to pop up over the course of the summer. It wasn't like he wanted anything fancy. Caller ID would be great. For now he'd have to take his chances. It had better not be a personal call.

"Hey, Uncle Stan," a voice crackled on the other end. Great, a personal call.

"Uh, hey kid, any reason you're calling on the business line?" He said as gruffly as possible, trying not to laugh.

"Business line, eh?" the voice laughed a little.

"So let's keep this business, what do you need?" It wasn't like his nephew to call him. Stan was already listing possibilities in his head and crossing each off quickly. College money? No, he'd graduated years ago. Stan remembered getting an invitation in the mail. He'd written his excuse on a postcard with a picture of a "real live jackalope" on the front. Marriage? No, that had to have been years ago too...

"Well, I was thinking that maybe you could watch the kids for a bit this summer. They won't cause you any trouble and they can help out at the Shack. You know, for free?" His nephew stumbled through a painfully rehearsed-sounding spiel about how helpful his kids were and how it wouldn't cost him anything, just a little time. A lie needs to flow, that was something Stan had learned very early on in his business ventures.

Of course it would cost him to take care of a couple of kids for the summer. Especially if they were teenagers, which he figured they must be by now. He was balancing the numbers in his head. Two kids, he remembered. They could keep each other company, that was good. Food shouldn't be too expensive, but they'd have to work for it. He could set up the attic room for them, or maybe just sweep it a little and they could figure out the rest. It wasn't like he knew what kids liked.

"Hey, I know they haven't seen you in forever, but I think that you'd like them. And it would do them good. They need to do something besides just sit around all summer." The phone emitted a loud crack.

"Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Stan! Ah, sorry, Dad," a young girl half-shouted on the other end, "I heard Dad talking to you and I wanted to say hi!"

The girl immediately started off on an excited stream of chatter, bouncing between sweaters and boys and pigs. Stan heard his nephew's voice point out that there were plenty of pigs in Gravity Falls and that she might meet one there.

"Oh my gosh, that would be the best thing ever! Pigs are so fat!"

"I need to talk to your great uncle again," his nephew informed gently. "Ah, okay! See ya, Grunkle Stan!" She followed that statement up with a strange squeaking noise and a shout of something that sounded curiously like "whomp whomp." It certainly wouldn't be quiet with someone like that girl around.

"Hello, hello?" his nephew was on the phone again, trying in his own passive-aggressive way to get an answer out of Stan.

"I'll take 'em."

"What?"

"Send your kids over. That's what you wanted, right?" A drop-off date was soon planned and circled in black ink on Stan's desk calendar.

"Well, I guess they'd have to take a bus, there's no time that we could take them over... it's kind of expensive but..." "You're paying for that." Stan hung up, because one assault to his wallet was enough for the day. He was back to staring at his office wall. He picked up a sheet of paper, ready to calculate his summer expenses and work around the circumstances to avoid any loss. He found that he really didn't feel like math at the moment, so he just sat in silence with his pen in hand, counting up the little boxes on his calendar.

Twelve more days of silence to go.

Writer's Woes: Okay, I'm going to switch this with the original first chapter... if that's alright. So I'm kinda bad at writing these characters, but I'm doing this to practice character writing, so hopefully I'll get better? This is a rough draft, thrown together before I have to rush home for Easter. If anyone's reading, I wish you a happy holiday! I have a bunch of chapter ideas, but if you'd like to suggest something, go for it!

Stay strange,

Hillary