Author's note: As always, my disclaimer: I do not own the show GRAVITY FALLS or any of the characters; both are the property of the Walt Disney Company and of the show's creator, Alex Hirsch. I make no money from these stories but write just for fun and in the hope that other fans enjoy reading them.

The Kaboom

Chapter 1: Lighting the Fuse

(November 1, 2015)

Among mothers it is a truth universally acknowledged that a child must be raised to have a good imagination.

However, in some cases mothers may have second thoughts . . . .

On a lovely Sunday autumn morning, how pleasant it is to laze in bed later than on a weekday, in that heavenly state halfway between waking and dreaming, when one's thoughts may drift in blissful ease to a smiling redheaded girl murmuring, "Kiss me, Dipper."

So much better than a pillow with a face drawn on it.

Until—

"Omigosh! Wake up! Wake up, Brobro! Look at this! Everybody! Hey, Mom! Dad! Wake up, wake up, WAAAKE UP!"

Dipper rolled over, which was unfortunate since he had been lying on the perilous edge of the bed anyway, and hit the floor with a painful klunk! "Mabel! What the he—heck?"

From downstairs came his mother's voice, not pleased: "What is going on up there, you two?"

"You gotta look, you gotta look!" Mabel had jumped onto his bed and leaned over Dipper like a perched vulture interested in observing the final struggles of an expiring prairie dog. "Come on, get up! You gotta see this! Woohoo!"

Dipper levered himself up like a carpenter's ruler unfolding, a joint at a time. "Mabel!" He rubbed his head ruefully, feeling the little lump that had already formed. "What's the idea! I was asleep!"

"Pull your shorts up!"

They weren't down to his knees or anything, but they'd done that bed-roll thing and were riding low, though all the essentials were covered. He tugged them into place and slipped under the sheet as Mabel, in shorty pajamas and her faded lavender sleep shirt, knee-walked away from him. She cradled her laptop.

On the bedside table, his phone rang.

Mom called up the stairs: "I don't want to come up there!" But her footfalls were on the stairs already.

Wendy's ring tone. Dipper punched in. "Hello, Wen—"

"My man! Good goin', dude! Mabel just told me the news."

"Uh—what news?"

"Oh! She hasn't—I'll let her tell it! Call me back later, man! Bye!"

"Wendy," Dipper said, turning the phone off. "What was all that—"

"I called her!" Mabel yelled.

"Mabel!" Mom in the doorway, wrapped in her robe.

"Mom!" Mabel, grinning ear-to-ear.

"Mabel!" Mom, not grinning at all.

"Get Dad!" Mabel, unabashed.

"Mabel!" Mom, trying mighty hard to abash.

"Wait, wait," Dipper pleaded. "What's going on?"

"I'd like to know that, too!" Mom said, hands on hips.

"Get! Dad!" Mabel said. Then she yelled in a voice loud enough to make the neighborhood dogs start barking: "DAAAAAD! Come up here! Now!"

"Dipper," Mom said with a sigh, "what is your sister doing?"

"No idea!" Dipper said. "She ran in and pushed me out of bed—"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Are you two sixteen or eight?" Mom demanded.

"What's going on?" Alex Pines, in the doorway, wearing his baggy red pajamas and scratching like Grunkle Stan.

"Gather round!" Mabel said. "Gather, gather! Mom, you on that side of Dip. Dad, come and stand by my shoulder. OK, everybody ready? Ta-da!" She opened the screen of her laptop. "Behold!"

"The National Times book review page?" Dad asked, sounding bewildered.

"Let me enlarge this."

Mabel fiddled with the track pad, and the best-seller column swelled. She scrolled down to "Children's Fiction" and pointed dramatically.

1 – Bride of the Zombie, by Stan X. Mason. Books for Young Readers. Supernatural mystery, 10-12. The Palms twins, boy and girl, spend a spooky summer with their eccentric uncle in the haunted town of Granite Rapids.

"Hey!" Dad said. "Congratulations, Mason! That's very impressive!"

"It's been on the best-seller list for weeks," Mom grumbled.

Mabel bounced on her knees. "Mom! It's number one! In a good way! Number-o uno! Nombre de Dios uno! La numéro un!"

"Le," Dipper corrected. They'd both had two years of French, but grammatical gender didn't seem to stick with Mabel. And only then did dawn break for Dipper, mentally speaking. "Hey! It made it to number one!"

"I would love to hear all about it," Mom said. "After breakfast!"

However, she did lean over and kiss Dipper on the top of his head.

She led Dad downstairs. Mabel hugged her brother. "I think it's great, anyway!" she said.

Dipper felt a little dazed. He sat with the laptop open on his lap, reading the best-seller listing over and over, though it was so short and changed not even a comma in between readings. "Wow," he said.

"Here, let me take that," Mabel said, retrieving her laptop. "I'm gonna go to my room, which is down the hall—"

"I know that," Dipper said.

"The point, Brobro, is that I will be there and you will be here with your phone and Wendy is just a few number-punches away. Oh, by the way, I called her, so she already knows."

"Thanks," Dipper said, his tone silently adding, "I would have liked to have told her myself, but, you know, whatever."

"Don't mention it." At the door, Mabel paused to turn the lock. "For privacy, you scallywag!" she said, winking.

As soon as the door closed with a click of the lock, Dipper called Wendy.

"Hey, Lumberjack Girl," he said. "Mabel just told me. And, uh, I think everybody in the neighborhood!"

"Congratulations, Dip! That's very impressive, 'specially for somebody who's sixteen!"

"I had a lot of luck," Dipper said.

She chuckled. "Luck, my foot! Skill, Dipper! And talent!"

"And," he said softly, blushing furiously, "a beautiful red-haired Muse inspiring me."

"Get out of town," she said, laughing heartily this time. "Mm, Big Dipper, I can't wait to see you at Thanksgiving. We're gonna kiss and snuggle and . . . celebrate! But wait, first tell me what this means."

"Uh, the book hitting number one?" Dipper thought for a few seconds. "I . . . don't really know! It's prestigious, I guess. You know, it, uh, it will mean maybe a lot of libraries will order copies of it. And when the paperback comes out, they'll probably put one of those banners on the cover, National Times #1 Best-Seller!"

"You are gonna be so rich!"

Dipper laughed. "I . . . don't think so. Writers hardly ever get rich, unless they're like a world-wide best-seller writing about boy wizards, and movies get made and junk. But whatever comes in goes into the college fund, anyhow."

His phone chirped. He looked at the screen and then said, "Wendy, it's my agent! I've never spoken to her—"

"Take the call!" Wendy said, hanging up.

Dipper thumbed the answer icon and fought to keep his voice from climbing up into soprano register: "Hello?"

A husky woman's voice, New-York edged: "This is Bea Bergeron. May I speak to Mason Pines?"

"This is me. Uh, Hi."

"Well, do I need to break the news?" She sounded gleeful.

"The best-seller thing? No, I've heard," Dipper said. "My sister told me."

"Congratulations! We're going to do big things! Normally I wouldn't phone on a Sunday, especially so early, but when I opened the paper and saw the best-seller page, I had to call you. I'll be on the phone to Jan Maryk tomorrow. We've got time to hype It Lurked in the Lake and goose the sales. And you can anticipate Brangwen's wanting you to finish number three ASAP." She said it like a word, a-sap. "Then they'll want a contract for three more, and I'm going to see to it that they treat you better financially this time around. Are you up for a multi-city signing tour?"

"Uh, I've got school," Dipper said.

"Oh, right. What year?"

"Third," Dipper said.

"What college?"

Moment of truth.

Dipper took a deep breath. "High school. I'm, uh, sixteen."

Long pause, a gasp, and then a bray of delighted laughter. "My God! You were fifteen when you wrote that wonderful book!"

"Don't, uh, don't let it get out, please."

Bea laughed again. "Oh, doll, it would make such good publicity! I can see you on national TV, touting your book! Hey, are you hunky? Could we get teen girls interested in your books that way? Send me a photo of yourself."

"Uh, I will, but not—not for the book jacket, OK?" Dipper asked. "See, nobody here knows about me being a writer. I don't want to make a big thing out of it."

This time she sounded indulgent and affectionate: "You are such a sweetie, Mason!"

Moment of truth. Again.

"Uh, Bea? Miss Bergeron?"

"Bea, definitely, sweetie."

"Thanks. And I'm—everyone calls me—Dipper."

"Dipper. Ah-hah. So Tripper Palms is—"

"Kinda a fictional version of me, yeah," Dipper said.

"What can I say?" Bea asked. "Worked for Charlie Dickens and Davy Copperfield!" She chuckled again and then became all business: "All right, Dipper Pines, let me make some calls in the next couple of days, and then I'll phone you again and we'll lay out some serious career strategy. High school, huh? That makes timing tricky. Dipper, do you want to phone me instead?"

"S-sure," Dipper said. "Uh, what day?"

"Thursday's always good. What time do you have clear during the day?"

"Uh, lunch period is fifty minutes, starts ten past noon."

"All right, call me about three-fifteen, New York time. I'll make a note to clear the hour. Call the office number, tell Vi that I'm expecting your call, and she'll put you right through. We'll keep it to fifteen minutes to give you time to eat."

"No problem, I'll pack some sandwiches that day. Uh, your office number—"

"It's on the book contract, sweetie. Or, wait, here, I'll drop you an email with the info. Keep it. You're gonna need it. This is really big, Dipper. Bigger than you think."

"Thank you," Dipper heard himself say.

He was starting to feel a little overwhelmed.