Author's note: I wrote and posted two stories, "Father and Daughter Talk" and "Skinny Dippin'" years ago. They were among my first, and they were out of the sequence that eventually I began. If you've read "Welcome Back, Cipher," and "Sick Call," but haven't read those first two stories, you might want to read them before this one, since now the continuity has grown out to engulf them!

And I still do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them. I will ask, please, do not copy my stories elsewhere on the Internet. I work hard on these, and they mean a lot to me. Thank you.

Like a Skyrocket

(July 4, 2016)

1: Hot as a Firecracker

Ever since Soos had become the manager—and then the CEO—of the Mystery Shack, it had always been closed on Sundays and Mondays. Stan had usually taken only one day a week off, Monday, though he'd gladly open the tourist trap if a carload of tourists happened to show up.

Soos and his family always took Sunday off for church, and he continued with the traditional Monday off. Oddly, under Soos's management, the Shack made more money operating only five days a week than it had under Stan at six days a week.

That might have something to do with the increased advertising that Soos had instituted, mainly by word of mouth, but also with strategic Internet ads (something Stan never mastered) and with his and Melody's pre-season appearances on morning talk shows in the Washington-Oregon-Northern California area. The TV hosts loved them—Melody was cute and perky, and Soos was weirdly hypnotic in his enthusiasm.

Finding their TV chemistry beyond his understanding, Stan always complained, "For some reason, viewers find them adorable, but they found me irritating. How do you figure that?"

And Mabel told him, "Grunkle Stan, you have the kind of charm that must be experienced in person," which brought a smile to his face.

Mondays or no, traditionally July Fourth was another off day for the Mystery Shack, and that year's (which fell on Monday) was no exception. Soos loved big parties, and he loved to DJ, so he indulged himself every year. He even hung a supplemental sign on the Mystery Shack welcome sign down at the bottom of the driveway: CLOSED BUT COME JOIN US FOR FREE FOOD AND AN EPIC INDEPENDENCE DAY PARTY!

And many strangers did join them, tourists and random people and those whose GPS had misled them. This happened frequently in that part of Central Oregon; the satellites seemed to lose their grip or something, and many people who had never even heard of the Mystery Shack got sent there by their GPS and had to come in and ask for directions and more often than not bought merch.

Stanford, who had been absent from this dimension when GPS systems first became common, had that down on his list of anomalies, but it was on the back burner.

Dipper had read about it in Journal 5:

I have learned that Global Positioning Systems, which rely on satellites in permanent orbit some 32,000 kilometers from Earth, are normally accurate to within three meters. However, this is not always the case in the Valley.

My research reveals that in some areas of the country, and for some yet-unknown reason, the accuracy of GPS is at best spotty and in some cases nonexistent. Parts of rural Maine are notorious for this, as are parts of West Virginia, the mountainous areas of Tennessee, the so-called "Triangle of Error" marked by Winder, Braselton, and Dacula, Georgia (note to self: research whether this is the area where the devil went down to Georgia—any trace of a golden violin?), a small swatch of central Florida, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan . . . [and thirty other spots, including Death Valley and Twin Peaks, Washington].

The manufacturers of the devices have no explanation for their sometimes-errant performance except to say, "Beats me." Fiddleford and I ought to put our heads together one of these days and determine if weirdness fields are the cause of GPS devices losing their electronic minds.

Anyway.

Though he'd got to bed extremely late the night before, or more accurately that morning, after he and Wendy had taken an impromptu midnight swim, Dipper was up early on Independence Day. Wendy dragged in at seven, wearing her running shorts and shoes, but red-eyed and pale.

"Skip our run?" Dipper asked.

Wendy groaned. "No, we better do it. But, man, I never want to have a beer hangover again!"

So they ran their nature trail, on a hot bright July day. Woodpeckers hammered, towhees trilled their chirp-chirp-chirp, teeheeheehee songs, off in the distance the Manotaurs were singing their anthem in their mountain retreat ("Man! Man! Man! / Taur! Taur! Taur! / Oh, we forgot O"—well, it wasn't a good song) because of late they'd begun syncing their midsummer male he-taur masculinity celebration with Independence day (they'd decided that fireworks were manly) and would have their annual forest march and free-for-all eye-gouging later that day.

Though she and Dipper didn't run full-tilt, Wendy sweated profusely, something she ordinarily didn't do. When they reached Moon Trap Pond, Dipper, concerned, asked, "You want to stop and rest?"

"Nah," she said. "Sweatin' the toxins out, man."

But on their cool-down walk back, she did suggest resting at the bonfire clearing. "OK," she said as they settled on the log. "Dad kinda knows about us now."

"Should I leave town?" Dipper asked with some apprehension. "Or the country?"

She laughed. "Nah, he's cool. He wants you to ask his blessing when we're ready to announce, though. That OK with you?"

Dipper nodded. "I'll be scared, though," he confessed.

"Ah, he's more bark than bite. See, he plied me with Rimrocks to get me to open up. Oh, I found out something this morning when I was cooking breakfast for him and the boys. My mom was not a gerbil. She was a Blerble."

"A what now?" Dipper asked.

"Her name, man. Dad told me the story. He was workin' for a lumber outfit run by a guy named Henry Ward Blerble, a real hardass and a tightwad, when he first met my Mom. She was old man Blerble's granddaughter. They were attracted to each other, but her family were big wheels and he was just a lumberjack, so her grandpa despised him. Her family, like, disowned him when she married Dad, but she had a sentimental streak or some jazz, so they gave me the middle name Blerble. I always thought it was Barbara! My original birth certificate just reads 'Wendy B Corduroy.'"

"Huh," Dipper said. "And I thought 'Wendy' was short for 'Gwendolyn.'"

She shook her head. "Nope. My mom liked Peter Pan."

"Now I have to get used to being in love with a whole new girl," Dipper teased. "Are you feeling better?"

Wendy considered the question for a moment. "Yeah, lots, but I'm swearin' off beers. At least off more than one at a time. I woke up sick as a dog."

"Are you sorry that we went—you know—swimming?"

Wendy laughed. "Skinny dipping? Nah! I've been before, but always with a bunch of others. Three or four times. I told you, it's a teen rite of passage. You're now officially a full-fledged rebellious teen!"

"I guess at the beach I acted like a kid," Dipper said. "Being so embarrassed."

Wendy laughed louder and longer. "Yeah, that's why teens usually do it in a gang. Gotta have that old peer pressure as an excuse! Did you enjoy it?"

"Parts of it," Dipper said. "Other parts—not so much. Mabel and that boy. I've got to look up Ronnie Nable today and have a word with him."

Wendy put her arm around him. "Don't get into a fight, dude. Ronnie's a meek kid. And not at all pushy—I'd bet anything that Mabel talked him into it. Tell you what, I'll see if T.K. will talk to me about Mabel and him and how they're doing. OK if I tell him we went skinny-dipping?"

"OK with me. But ask him not to spread it around," Dipper said. "My mom would have a fit if she heard."

"Deal," Wendy said. She sighed. "I love these parties that Soos throws, but you and me have a busy day up until the crowd rolls in. Fireworks later?"

"Sure," Dipper said. "This is kind of an anniversary."

"First kiss, yeah," Wendy said. "Back when we weren't really sure this young boy-old chick thing would work."

"I was always sure," Dipper said.

"Smooth!" Wendy said, grinning. She got up to walk back to the Shack, but Dipper took her hand and pulled her back down to sit beside him on the log.

"I, uh—I want to ask you something," he said. "Since it's kind of an anniversary and all."

She gave him a puzzled smile. "Sure, man. Anything."

Dipper turned so red he looked sunburned. "We've been through a lot since then," he said. "And, well—I've been thinking about this—let me know if I'm out of line, but—" He took a deep breath and then asked her a question in such a rapid and high-pitched voice that she couldn't understand him.

She put a finger against his lips. "Start over and slow down," she said gently. "This is me. You can say anything to me, Dip."

He inhaled once more and, forcing his voice to come out more slowly—but still fearful and high-pitched—he asked, "Do you want to go look for an engagement ring with me?"

Wendy bit her lower lip. "Now? This summer?"

Dipper nodded. "People up here know we're dating, anyway. And I'll tell my folks, but—I want you to have the ring first. Not that silly silver thing—"

"It isn't silly, Dipper. Not to me." Wendy pulled up her tank top to show the thin silver ring that she wore in her navel piercing. "Means a lot to me. Means the world."

"Yeah, but I want to give you a real one. One that everybody can see. I saved up a chunk of my royalties from the first book—"

"For college, man," Wendy said. "Don't spend it on—"

"I've got enough for college," he said. "For two full years, anyhow, and I've got a scholarship to help, so I might be able to run what I've saved out to cover four full years. And I should get more income from the second book and the third and so on. So that's not counting my, uh—my engagement fund."

"It doesn't have to be a real expensive one, you know," Wendy said. "I'd be happy with a simple small stone."

"No! Go for a big rock!" came a voice from the brush.

Dipper grimaced. "Jeff! Stop eavesdropping on us!"

The Gnome emerged, in company with the badger queen of the Gnomes, who as usual was on a gemstone-studded leash. "Couldn't help it! I was taking Her Majesty for her morning walk and heard you two talking." He tipped his red cap, revealing a non-pointed head (at one time Ford had speculated that Gnomes had conical skulls beneath their caps). "To a Gnome, a nice gemstone is a sign of everlasting love. Remember the one we offered Mabel?"

"She's still got it," Dipper said.

"Yeah, well, we'd like it back, but we're afraid to ask for it," Jeff said. "The stone's from a thunder egg."

"A what?" Dipper asked.

"It's like a geode," Wendy explained. "Except it's not usually hollow. It has like a solid filling—chalcedony, even opal. I've seen Mabel's ring. It's got a triple blue-tinged quartz crystal in it, really pretty."

"Back when all Gnomes lived underground," Jeff said, "we used to mine thunder eggs. Every one's different from all the others. We never used to give rings to our wives, but when we moved to the surface, we found out humans did. Now that we civilized Gnomes live in the trees, the thunder eggs are heirlooms. We don't mine them any longer, and we don't have all that many left from the old days. And now Gnome ladies want rings, too, so . . ." he shrugged. "Lucky for us, the queen isn't interested in rings. She has a tiara, but she doesn't wear it much. Her head's kind of flat and it falls off when she scratches."

"I'll see about getting the ring back for you," Dipper said. "Mabel never wears it."

"Thanks. Oh, and matzo ball!"

"What?" Dipper asked.

Jeff looked embarrassed. "Isn't that what you say when somebody decides to marry somebody else?"

"I think the phrase you're looking for is mazel tov," Dipper said. "A matzo ball is a dumpling. It's made of dough."

"I'm nearly positive Stanley told us the word was matzo ball," Jeff said. "Are you sure?"

"Trust him, Jeff," Wendy said. "Though I can see how Stan would value something completely made of dough."

"Mazel tov, mazel tov, mazel tov," Jeff muttered to himself, sounding a little like a roadshow company of Fiddler on the Roof. The badger tugged at her leash, and Jeff said, "Oops! Gotta go. Anyhow, thanks, Dipper, and gnome-gratulations to both of you!" He and the badger rustled off into the brush.

"Thunder eggs," Dipper said. "That's a new one to me."

Now Wendy seemed to have turned a little shy. "Uh—dude, when do you want to, uh, you know—go shopping?"

Dipper shook himself out of his abstraction. "For the ring, right! Any time. Well, not today, obviously, the stores would be closed, and this will be a busy week at the Shack but—maybe next weekend?"

"Camping trip," Wendy reminded him.

"Oh, right, right. Well—maybe we could come back Monday early enough to hit a few jewelry stores?"

"OK," Wendy said. "But not in Gravity Falls, all right? People know us and would gossip before we're ready to let everyone know. Let's make a day of it. Go over to Portland, maybe. Lots bigger selection. So we'll go camping Saturday night, spend Sunday, come back to the Shack early Monday morning to get showered and changed and then—I can't believe I'm saying this, man!—go look for an engagement ring!"

"And when we get it," Dipper said, "I'm going to kneel down and ask you the right way. And you'd better say yes."

"Count on it, dude!" she said, giving him a kiss. "Hey! My headache's gone! We made a great discovery! Put it in the Journals, man."

"What?"

With a grin, Wendy said, "Love is a great cure for a hangover!"