Babysitting the Pines
It was a beautiful, sunny day in Gravity Falls, nearing the beginning of summer but not quite there yet. Coming home from school one day was little Annabelle Pines. It had been a long, boring day at school (like most of them were) and she was eager to focus as little on any schoolwork as she possibly could and have a good day in the end. Coming home to the Pines family cabin, she saw a note attached to the door of the house. Annabelle could tell by the somewhat sloppy handwriting that it was her mother, Wendy, had written it.
"Mommy has to go visit Grandpa and daddy is stuck at work (again), so your Great Grunkles are here to visit and keep you on track (Read: babysit you.) Behave and see you later tonight. Love Mommy."
"Oh yay, grunkle no rules!" Annabelle said internally. She had always been fond of Grunkle Stan and he had always been doting on her. Grunkle Ford was the one who tried to insinuate rules… or something. Not that he was bad, but didn't let the little things get past him.
As Annabelle walks inside, there was Grunkle Stan watching The Duchess Approves yet again. He didn't notice at her at first, and so continues to watch. "No Count Lionel! You had your chance and it's gone! LEAVE HER ALONE!"
"Grunkle Stan, is that The Duchess Approves?" Annabelle asked, alerting him that she was there. In a panicked shock he desperately looks for the remote. "Uhhhhh, no no sweetie it's ummmmm…" Grunkle Stan finally finds the remote and quickly changes it to…
"Dog wrestling?" They ask in unison, confused at what is playing on the Animal channel today. "Well that's a first for me." Grunkle Stan says. "Anyhow, you can watch whatever you want little one."
Annabelle was excited when…
"Not so fast Stanley!" Ford said as he walked into the room. "We have to make sure she doesn't have any work to do!"
"I mean… do we really have to?" Grunkle Stan asked. "I'm pretty sure our job is to make sure she doesn't hurt herself more than anything else."
Ford scowled right at Stan. "Oh little Annabelle, do you have any work to do tonight?"
"Errr…." She thought to herself. She did have one teensy assignment to do. But she could do it later tonight she figured. Plus she'd already been in school all day long. "One little thing?"
"Alright, well you should finish it now." Ford said. 'Then you can have controlled fun." Annabelle just kinda frowned back, but she knew that Ford would just say a lot of big words if she complained back, so she just went upstairs to her room and got started. Scarcely an hour had passed when she came back down to the kitchen and said she'd finished her work. "Oh really?" A skeptical Ford asked as he removed a baking pan from the oven. "Well let's check it out then." Annabelle gazed at the baking pan full of steaming hot cookies. "Are those… cookies!?"
"Indeed they are. Fordookies in fact!" Ford said with pride.
"Ok look brother, I already told you that you can't just name food after yourself!" Stan said. "At least Stancakes rhymes!"
"What's wrong with a Fordookies!" Ford replied back. "Or even a Fordwich!"
"Well I mean what isn't wrong with it!" Stan replied back. The two began to go back and forth about why Ford's name doesn't work with food like Stan's does. Meanwhile as this happens, Annabelle sneaks a cookie off the pan and eats it. She can't stop herself from hiding her delight with it.
"Grunkle Ford! These are the greatest cookies I've ever had!" She exclaimed.
"Why thank you!" Ford said happily. "Their a recipe from the 43rd dimm- Hey wait a second, your father said no sweets remember?"
Annabelle smiled guiltily with cookie crumbs and chocolate chips still in her teeth. Ford then put the baking pan up on the counter so she couldn't sneak anymore with one of them seeing her.
"Alright let's look at this homework! Oh yay science!" Ford exclaimed. Ford then began to read the questions in a very long, drawn out manner that bored Annabelle greatly.
"... And that is the answer to question 1! Only 19 more to go!" Grunkle Ford said.
"Yeah this isn't going to work." Annabelle thought to herself. "I have to get the grunkles busy in order to have fun today." Annabelle then excused herself to go to the bathroom, but walked out through the window. She had an idea.
A few minutes later, Grunkle Ford began to realize she'd been gone quite awhile, so he knocked on the bathroom door to check on her. "Oh Annabelle, are you having gastrointestinal pain?" he asked through the door. "I have an old remedy from the 231st dimmension that clears things right up!" Grunkle Stan then got up and opened the bathroom door.
"Stanley! What if she was using the toilet!" Ford scolded him. "Well she isn't even in the bathroom!" Stan said back. "What do you mean by th-" Ford said as he realized she had escaped out the window.
"Oh, when I get her!" he said as the two walked outside. They then saw an acorn fall right by their feet and saw Annabelle in a very tall tree, one of the tallest in the area.
"Hey grunkles!" She shouted from up above. "Nice view up here, you should come check it out!"
"Annabelle come down from there right now! I don't want to have to tell your mother!" Ford said. Stan then slapped him. "No genius, you gotta sound nice to have her listen to ya. Watch."
Stan then cleared his throat. "Oh sweetie, if you come down I'll give you a cookie!" Ford slapped him now. "So caving in to her demands is parenting goes?" He said. "Hey, I'm just the babysitter." He said, shrugging his shoulders. "She can have the whole pan if it gets her out of that tree." Ford just sighed.
"Come up here and we'll talk about it!" She said. Both of them sighed, but realized they had no other choice at this point. Ford got on top of Stanley and they used their collective strength and mindset to climb the tree. It was even taller than they had imagined and it took a good fifteen minutes for them to climb up, but finally they had reached the top.
"We did it Stanley! We did it through the power of teamwork and cooperation!"
Stan just stared back, blankly. ".. Tyeaa-mworr-"
"Never mind." Ford said. "Wait, where's Annabelle?"
"What do you mean brainiac?" Stan asked back.
"I mean I don't see her?" Ford said.
"Looking for me?" Annabelle shouted from the ground. Both of them were surprised to see her having gotten all the way down. "It's easier to get up and down trees with the Pines family grappling hook!"
"When we get down there…" Ford said before realizing just how far down the climb down would be. It was so high it made him a little nauseous.
"Alright, see you whenever that is!" Annabelle happily exclaimed as she ran back inside the house.
"Alright, lets go brother!" Stan said as he noticed Ford shaking a bit. "What's the matter?"
"It's a little high…" Ford said meekly.
"Oh come on! You lived in non gravity for 30 years! That's way scarier!" Stanley exclaimed, clearly annoyed.
"There are no heights in that though! Way less fear inducing!" Ford said back.
The two then spent a lot of time arguing with one another over the silly things families argue over while Annabelle watched cartoons on the family tv. It turned out to be a good day indeed for Annabelle Pines.