Before You Go

(August 17-21, 2015)

1: Let's Spend the Day Together

As though to make up for their late hours on Saturday, Wendy pushed Dipper hard on Monday morning. They ran all-out for a good six miles—and even in the early morning, the day was shaping up to be a hot one. By the time they walked back uphill to the Shack, Dipper was trudging. "Come on, man," Wendy teased. "You look half dead!"

"Stop reading my mind," Dipper panted. "Agh, I'm dripping! I'll bet I lost like two pounds just in sweat!"

"Do you good," Wendy said. "Get the toxins out of your system. Let's hit the showers. I got a big day planned!"

"Does it involve collapsing?" Dipper asked hopefully.

Wendy playfully punched his arm. "Not a chance! We're gonna have a morning at the pool—"

"Wait, wait," Dipper said. "The pool? I thought you were banned for life."

"Eh, not any longer. Even Poolcheck forgives and forgets if you give him a couple-three years to think it over. Anyway, we're gonna spend two hours at the pool—it opens today at ten—and then we'll drive out to the lake and have a picnic. Then maybe in the afternoon the Arcade, or shopping at the mall, a movie, whatever. And special treat, for the early evening, we're gonna go up to Aunt Sallie's farm for a home-cooked dinner."

"Man," Dipper groaned. "After the weekend we had, I'd rather just chill with you in front of the TV!"

"We're making the most of the time we have together. Anyway, social obligations, man," Wendy said.

Dipper opened the door of the Shack. "After you."

"That's what I love about you, Dipper," Wendy said with a grin. "You're always such a gentleman when a sweaty lady is involved!"

They showered and joined the Ramirezes and Mabel at the breakfast table. "Did you fix it up?" Mabel asked Wendy anxiously.

"Oh, yeah," Wendy said. "I talked to Mrs. O'Grady this morning. Teek gets this one day off from being grounded, provided I do all the driving. He's, like, grounded from driving, except to work and back, until next Monday, but, hey, I'm his supervisor and all, and she understands that you guys need some winding-down time."

Dipper, who'd imagined an idyllic day alone with Wendy, asked, "Is Teek going with us?"

"Sure is, Brobro!" Mabel said. "And besides that, I got a whole slate of end-of-the-summer activities for this week. Wendy, will you be able to make the Last Sleepover? Grenda, Candy, and Pacifica will all be here on Saturday night!"

"I'll be there, Mabes," Wendy said. "Soos, would you pass the scrambled eggs, please?"

"Sure thing, dawg!" Soos handed the colorful Mexican bowl still half-full of fluffy yellow eggs. "Man, it makes me kinda, you know, sad to hear all this end-of-the-summer stuff. Harmony and Soosie are sure gonna miss you, Hambone!"

"I know," Mabel said with a sigh. "And I'll miss them, and you, and Melody, and Abuelita. Also Widdles and Waddles! And Gompers! And Daryl."

"Daryl?" Dipper asked, pausing as he served himself some eggs.

"Don't you remember, Dipdip? Darryl is a spot of mold on one of the attic beams," Mabel said. "He has an interesting shape. Daryl is my favorite."

Dipper couldn't think of anything to add to that. They talked about what was coming up for the twins—their junior year in high school. Mabel said she hoped to improve her PSAT score in the tests that they would take in October—she had high verbal, but only middling-high math scores. "Ninetieth percentile overall," she explained.

"Top ten per cent? That's pretty good, Mabes!" Wendy said.

Mabel made a face. "Yeah, but Diploma here had a ninety-six. The difference was all in math. Anyway, I'm gonna work with a tutor to try to pull the score up to match my Brobro's."

"Wendy," Melody said, "didn't you take the SAT last year?"

"Yeah, but I'm taking it again this fall, just in case. It's no big deal," Wendy said.

"So, what did you score, dawg?" Soos asked.

Blushing, Wendy murmured, "Uh—ninety-sixth percentile."

Mabel gave her a pop-eyed, accusing glance. "What? Same as Broseph on the PSAT? I smell dirty feet at the crossroads! Is this you two doing the mental voodoo you two do too well?"

"Set that to music," Dipper suggested as he buttered his toast, "and you've got a song."

"Yeah, that's part of it," Wendy admitted. "But it's not cheating. Dipper just kinda gave me mental tutoring in math, and that helped. But another part is that I'd already begun taking night college classes. That helps too. By the way, I'm gonna be taking college classes three nights a week in the fall, maybe four nights in the spring, depending on how it goes with finishing up my high-school graduation requirements."

"You are one very smart girl with such red hair," Abuelita said approvingly. "Is a wonderful country where even a girl from a small town can get a college education. Was not so in Mexico when I was young. I had no such chance, nor my sisters. You, Wendy, you must take advantage of your opportunities!"

"I mean to," Wendy assured Abuelita.

After breakfast, the three teens killed a little time playing mini-golf on the three-hole (but nine-approach) course that Dipper and Mabel had made on the side lawn a couple of years earlier. Mabel won very handily, with three strokes under Wendy's score and seventeen under Dipper's. "Champion once again! Still got it!" Mabel proclaimed.

"Yeah, but Waddles picked up your ball and dropped it in the hole that one time," Dipper pointed out. "You had outside help!"

"Waddles is a part of the course," Mabel explained, her arm around the now-immense pig's fat neck. He grunted in agreement.

Then Teek's mom dropped him off, and he came in and thanked Wendy for having a heart-to-heart with his mother. They all got their swimming gear together, and Wendy drove them to the Gravity Falls pool. At ten o'clock, the thermometer already stood at ninety-four. On a Monday morning, the pool wasn't yet crowded—a class of six-year-olds were nervously getting some swimming instruction in the shallow end.

"Ugh!" Wendy muttered as they went in. "Look who's lifeguarding."

Dipper glanced at the tower seat. A beefy-looking guy with six-pack abs and blond hair leaned back, oversized sunglasses hiding his eyes, a white vest-type undershirt stretched tight over his brawny chest. "Wah-wow!" Mabel said. "No offense, Teek of my heart, but I just gotta say wah-wah-wah-wow!"

"Who's . . . that?" Dipper asked, already hating the guy.

"Stony Davidson," Wendy said in a low, irritated voice. "I dated him for about three weeks. He's a jerk."

"Yeah, maybe," Mabel agreed "But he's a jerk with muscles on his ears!"

They went past him to the locker rooms to change into their swim gear, and Davidson didn't pay any particular attention to the four as they walked by. As they put on their trunks, Teek asked, "Anything wrong, Dipper?"

"Aw, it's just—sometimes we run into Wendy's exes, and they generally put me down."

"Don't think you have to worry," Teek said. "From what I hear at school, Stony's in love with himself!"

When they all came back out, Wendy wore her red one-piece, Mabel a modest hot-pink two-piece, Teek and Dipper regulation baggy trunks, black and Navy blue, respectively. Mabel showed off by leaping straight in the deep end and then swimming underwater all the way across the pool and back before surfacing. Dipper eased into the water and splashed around—Wendy clucked her tongue and said, "Man, it's a good thing Poolcheck didn't make you prove you could swim when you applied to be Assistant Lifeguard!"

"I can dog-paddle," Dipper said defensively.

"Yeah, well, lifeguarding usually calls for a lit-tle more than that," Wendy said. "Tell you what, next summer, dude, I'm gonna teach you how to swim right. Try not to drown in the meantime!"

"I did all right in the ocean," Dipper said, resting against the side of the pool.

"True, but we did have life-jackets on," Wendy reminded him. She glanced around and then gave him a quick kiss. "But I'm so glad you were there, man. I'd have never made it back alive alone. Saved my life, Dip."

"Had to," Dipper said, smiling. "You're part of my heart."

"You're getting mushy," Wendy warned.

"Just two weeks left," Dipper said.

"Let's not think about that today."

Now that she wasn't suffering from hypothermia, Wendy was at home in the water and swam beautifully. Dipper felt content just to watch her, her red hair trailing like a comet's tail as she took long, graceful, powerful strokes. Mabel and Teek played around—she rode on his shoulders, they did the Marco Polo bit. A few other swimmers came in as the time went on, and by noon the pool had a small crowd in the water and relaxing on the lawn chairs. Mabel proclaimed that she was starving, so she, Teek, Dipper, and Wendy got out, dressed, and got ready to picnic.

Since Wendy's long hair took forever to dry, Mabel had braided it for her in the girls' locker room. It was an unusual look, but Dipper liked it—it let him see his Lumberjack Girl in a whole new light, and to him she was beautiful in any light. They drove to Lake Gravity Falls, where fishermen and women were out in boats, families were wading, splashing, and swimming out to the float and back, and, like them, a few people were having picnics. Though the temperature had edged up almost to a hundred, it seemed cooler on the lake shore.

They claimed a grill, loaded it with charcoal, and Teek cooked some of his delicious specialty burgers. Dipper had found a table with some shade courtesy of a tall pine, and they sat on the splintery old benches and ate, drank Pitt Cola, and reminisced. Mabel started going on about Mermando and her rushing him to the lake so he could, eventually, make his way back to the sea.

Teek reminded her, "But he's a married merman now."

"Yeah," Mabel replied. "But—I don't mean anything bad by this, Teek—a girl always remembers her first kiss. What was your first kiss, Wendy?"

"Oh, girl," Wendy said, "I only started counting at my first peppermint one."

Dipper felt as if he were glowing.

After the picnic, they drove to The Dalles, where they caught a Revengers movie—one that had almost finished its theatrical run, The Rage of Nutrol, which featured Steel Guy, Major USA, The Bulk, Mantis Woman, Arrowshooter, all the gang, in fact. It was loud, fast, and full of CGI. Fortunately, that late in the run—it had been in theaters since May—the film didn't attract a full auditorium, because Mabel got carried away and did some loud cheerleading: "C'mon, that guy's a wimp! Brucie, bulk out and SMASH! You can do it! Pick up that semi and throw it! Throw it, I say!"

Wendy leaned over and whispered to Teek, "Maybe you need to find a way to keep her a little bit quieter."

"Yeah!" Mabel was cheering. "Steel Guy, you're the man! Use that suit and fly! Fly! Fl—mph! Mph? Mmmm."

A few scattered audience members clapped. Mabel didn't seem to mind. She was busy kissing Teek.

Aunt Sallie's farmhouse was new to Teek. Mabel gave him a guided tour of the animals (the chickens still recognized her as their leader), while Sallie quizzed Wendy about her dad: "Danny following the doctors' orders?"

"Oh, yeah," Wendy said as she and Dipper helped set the table. "His leg's well now. He's doing everything the way he used to before he busted it. Worst thing is he got behind on the building schedule, but the two main things are the Pines families' houses, and they cut him all kinds of slack 'cause they know they can trust him to do the best job."

Then Sallie wanted to know the details, and Wendy explained how a combination of Manly Dan's broken leg, bad weather, a tangle of missed shipments and finally the bankruptcy of the fixtures-supply house that was providing all of the plumbing and electrical materials, had stopped construction temporarily. "Lucky, though, he got a contract from Junior's company for some prime timber, so while all that's clearing up, he's been lumberjackin' most of the summer. I think that builds up his leg better than anything else."

"You make sure he takes care of himself," Aunt Sallie said. "Danny thinks he's never liable to hurt himself. Gets too confident, that's his problem." She wiped her hands on her apron and smiled. "You two are gonna miss each other a lot, I bet."

"Miss each other bad," Dipper agreed.

She chuckled. "Just makes it sweeter when you see each other again." Aunt Sallie thoroughly approved of Wendy's choice of boyfriend, which heartened Dipper—he was never very self-confident, even though his track record, on and off the track, should have made him more self-assured. Sallie patted his hand. "Well, as you two go your own ways over the next months, just remember—'Journeys end in lovers meeting.' Bill said that, you know."

"Bill Cipher?" Dipper yelped, startled.

Aunt Sallie stared at him. "Bill Shakespeare. Twelfth Night."

"Oh," Dipper said, his face showing relief. "I—uh, I never read that one."

"Ring the dinner bell, Wendy," Sallie said. "Let's eat it while it's hot."

They stayed long enough for a delicious home-cooked meal, on farm time, a lot earlier than they'd normally eat, and then helped wash up. Wendy had promised Teek's mom to drop him off before seven o'clock—he technically was still serving his grounding sentence—so they had just started to leave when the phone rang.

Sallie answered it and said, "Yes, they're here. Wait up, kids. Sure thing. Mabel, it's for you."

"Me?" Mabel asked, surprised. She took the phone. "Hi, this is Mabel talking to you with her mouth."

"Hambone!"

"Soos?"

"Yeah, I been trying and trying to reach you guys. I been calling and calling and finally I thought to call Mr. Corduroy and he said I might reach you at this number, and—dawg, your cell phones just go to voice mail."

"Doy!" Mabel said. "Sorry, we went to a movie and turned them off. I guess we forgot to turn them back on. What's up?"

"Dude, the police called looking for you."

"Me?" Mabel asked. "I didn't do it! They can't prove I did it! What did I do?"

"Nothing, but you're like a witness. They need to talk to you 'cause the Northwests are frantic. Hambone, Pacifica never came home from Woodstick! She's like—missing! Or some junk."