"Y'know what Dip? This is it, this is my summer, I can just feel it! I am ready, I am fired up, I'm so gosh darn PUMPED! Can you feel it? Dip? Dip, it's my summer. Can you feel it? Dipper?" Mabel Pines was bouncing around the gift shop of the Mystery Shack, practically ricocheting off the walls. Her loud, overenthusiastic voice was more than a little grating in such a small space. Behind the counter, her twin brother, Dipper, pulled his cap lower over his face and tried harder to ignore her. Unfortunately, this only seemed to spur her to be more energetic. In two bounds she had crossed the shop and bent down in front of him.

"Are you listening Dip?" She asked sternly, lime green manicured hands on her hips. Dipper, who was pretending to read a magazine, nodded vaguely and said, "Yup. Your summer. You're pumped. For some reason." Obviously, this answer was not good enough for Mabel, who reached out and plucked Dipper's blue and white cap off his head. Dipper made a sound of protest and reached for the hat, simultaneously ruffling his head to make sure he wasn't suffering from hat hair. But Mabel didn't return the hat, instead placing it atop her own head of thick, brown hair, and skipping back across the shop, wristfuls of bangles jangling.

"My summer is right Dip." She stopped and spun on him, pointing furiously. "And can you tell me why it's gonna be my summer?" Dipper didn't answer immediately, busy trying to flatten his hair down over his forehead to hide his birthmark. "I don't know, Mabel, you're gonna get another pig? You're gonna try convince Grunkle Stan to let you drive his car?"

"No!" Mabel yelled, and pushed a snow globe off a shelf for effect. Dipper lowered his hand from his hair and said, "You better clean that up before Grunkle Stan sees." But Mabel wasn't paying attention, lost in her own world of wonder. Her eyes were sparkling, her green painted nails were sparkling. Even the rad skateboarding unicorn on her magenta sweater was sparkling.

"No, Dipper. None of those silly things, you silly, silly brother." Mabel spun in an elaborate circle before exclaiming, "This summer, I'm going to get a boyfriend!"

Dipper was rather unimpressed. He leaned back against the wall behind the counter, arms crossed. "Mabel, you say that literally every summer. And literally every summer you end up going home lamenting all the failed romances you had. I don't wanna sound mean, Mabel, but at the same time," he shrugged, "I dunno. Do you want to go through that again?"

Mabel was still spinning in a circle, but came to a slow stop as Dipper's words had a chance to sink in. Dipper watched in mild concern, worried that he'd upset his sister. Then, without warning, Mabel pounced across the room and grabbed him by the shirt collar, eliciting a rather unmanly yelp from his mouth.

"You don't understand Dip!" Mabel said in mad desperation, "I absolutely, truly, honestly need to get a boyfriend this summer." Releasing her brother, who had been scrabbling helplessly at her gripping hands, Mabel jumped to point at a ratty calendar hanging on the wall beside the till. "Two months Dipper." She said, "Two months until we turn seventeen, and I have still not had a proper boyfriend." She shook her head solemnly, "Things aren't looking good. I need a boyfriend and I need one this summer. So." Mabel's bright smile returned to her face as she said, "I'm gonna get one!"

Dipper leaned forward across the counter and plucked his cap off his sister's head. "Alright Mabel. Whatever you say." Mabel stuck out her tongue haughtily and said, "Just because you're a major grump cuz Wendy's not around this summer, doesn't mean you have to rain on my boyfriend parade Dipper. You can be a rainbow instead. A pretty, pretty rainbow shining your beautiful colours over me and my man."

Dipper rammed the cap back on his head and said, "I'm not grumpy because Wendy's gone. Whatever. It would have been nice to see her but there's always next summer." Mabel clasped her hands and said angelically, "Oh Dipper. Poor, sweet, hopeless Dipper. You never know. Maybe this will be your summer too. Maybe you'll get your own girlfriend parade. You never know."

Dipper rolled his eyes but gave his sister a not very hopeful half smile. "I doubt it Mabel." He said as she wandered over to peer out the window of the gift shop door. "Relationship opportunities don't just pull up magically in front of your house."

But Mabel smacked the glass of the window excitedly and said, "OH. MY. GOSH. An amazing relationship opportunity just pulled up magically in front of our house!" Dipper, wearing a look of confused incredulity, stood up and went to join his sister. "What the heck are you talking about Mabel?" Mabel didn't answer, too happy babbling unintelligibly to herself as she stared out the window. Dipper squished himself in beside her and looked for whatever it was that was making her so happy.

A slightly muddy minivan had pulled up on the patch of grass that served as the Mystery Shack's parking lot, and a family had piled out of it. There was a black haired man there, clearly the father, who was grinning and slapping his kids on the back and all round trying to make them have fun. Leaning against the back of the minivan was a girl, older than Dipper and Mabel, maybe nineteen. She had a wild black ponytail of hair, and she stared up at the Mystery Shack with disdainful eyes. A younger kid, a boy of maybe twelve, was running around his family excitedly, an enormous grin on his slightly manic face. The last kid was another guy, and clearly the one that had Mabel so excited. He looked to be about the same age as the twins, all lanky and awkward and I-stay-inside-playing-video-games-all-day pale. He too had a mop of curly black hair and he looked thoroughly unenthused to be there, and somewhat terrified.

Mabel nearly fell over backwards as the family began to make their way towards the Mystery Shack. "Oh gosh, oh gosh, a cute, and also way-in-my-league-because-he-looks-really-socially-inept boy! Ok Mabel act calm." She said, in almost screeching terror. Dipper watched her as she ran in small, panicked circles. "Oh what do I do, what do I do?" Dipper reached out a hand, and grabbed Mabel by the back of her sweater, stopping her panicked running. "Mabel," he said slowly, "Go get Grunkle Stan and tell him there's customers." Mabel's face immediately brightened. "Yes. Grunkle Stan. Customers. I'm on it." and with that she darted from the shop and into the house, searching for their great uncle.

The shop suddenly mercifully silent, Dipper gave a sigh of relief and turned towards the door, just as the family opened it, and entered the gift shop.

"See?" the man was saying to his kids as they peered uncertainly around the inside of the shop. "Look at this place! All kinds of cool stuff. Look Carrie! Snow-globes!" The girl with the ponytail didn't follow her dad's pointing finger as she said, "Yep, that's great dad. Snow-globes. Why are we here again?"

But Dipper had approached them by this point and in his best salesman voice (which was in fact no good at all) he said, "Hello there, and welcome to the Gravity Falls Mystery Shack, home of wondrous anomalies and abject horror."

The family jumped a little, obviously not having noticed him, and then the younger boy grinned and said, "I love abject horror!" Dipper's smile faltered a little and he said, "Uh… right." There was a brief silence and then the man clapped his hands. "Well then," he said, cheerily, "I would like to book your most mysterious, frightening and scientifically impossible tour, please!"

"Well step right this way, good sir, as I have just the tour for you, for the low, low price of whatever yesterday's tour was plus five dollars." Dipper's great uncle Stan had burst through the door from the house into the gift shops, arms spread wide, fez at a jaunty angle, and a cheesy grin on his face. Peering around him was Mabel, her eyes round and huge and crazy.

Dipper followed her line of sight and his eyes fell on the last member of the family, the only one who hadn't said anything yet. The guy who was about their age looked slightly bewildered in the midst of all the Mystery Shack souvenirs and Grunkle Stan bobbleheads. He was looking down nervously at the shattered snowglobe Mabel had pushed off the shelf earlier. He obviously felt the twins' eyes on him though, because he looked up abruptly, and turned the colour of a tomato. Dipper noticed that he had one blue eye and one green one, which was hardly the weirdest thing that Dipper had seen in his yearly visits to Gravity Falls.

"If you'll just follow me around to the front of the Mystery Shack, we can begin our tour" Grunkle Stan was saying, as he ushered the family out of the gift shop. The awkward boy with the green and blue eyes stumbled a little as his little brother bumped into him. He was determinedly not looking at either of the twins, shrinking down into the neck of his green hoodie as he followed his family back out of the gift shop. When the door clicked closed behind them, a strange sound met Dipper's ears, much like the high pitched whistle of a boiling tea kettle. Frowning in confusion, he turned to Mabel, to ask if she could hear the strange noise.

Mabel was standing with a hand on each cheek, eyes round and mouth wide open. The high pitched noise was in fact coming from her, a shrill squeal that seemed to go on for longer than really should have been physically possible. Dipper raised a concerned eyebrow and said cautiously, "Uh. Mabel?"

At the sound of her brother's voice, Mabel snapped out of her squealing reverie and turned to Dipper, the most joyful possible expression on her face. She grabbed Dipper by the collar of the orange and blue flannel shirt he was wearing, and began to shake him ecstatically, all the while exclaiming, "Oh my goodness, Dipper did you see him? He had like, these hands, and, and cheekbones, and ohmygosh, those eyes." Dipper held onto his hat and tried not to be shaken to death and said, "Yeah, weirdly enough Mabel, those are things that pretty much all humans have. If that's all you look for in a guy then I think you need to raise your standards a little."

But Mabel wasn't listening. She had let Dipper go and was gently spinning around the gift shop in a meandering fashion. "Oh this could be it." she said to herself in quiet reverence, "This could be the guy. Tall, dark and I guess handsome in a kind of listens-to-Modest-Mouse-while-being-too-pale kind of way. And he looked so sad." She once again rounded on her brother, who had been watching her with crossed arms and mild interest. "Didn't he look sad, Dipper?" she barked. Dipper shrugged, "Uh, I dunno. Sad to be at the Mystery Shack maybe."

"This is it, Dip." Mabel said, in a sombre tone, ignoring her twin's voice. "This is my summer."

Dipper stayed in the gift shop while Grunkle Stan took the family on the Mystery Shack tour. Since Wendy was away this summer, it had fallen to Dipper to man the gift shop cash register during the Shack's opening hours. He didn't really mind. He and Mabel had been coming to Gravity Falls every summer for five years now, and in that time, Dipper was fairly sure he'd uncovered almost every mystery and anomaly that the little Oregon town had to offer. Sure, Gravity Falls was still full of magic. But Dipper was used to it at that point. He'd rather earn a little money in the gift shop, than go out searching for gnomes and monsters.

Mabel had vanished about ten minutes previously, intent on prettying herself up for when the family, and more importantly, the kid with the mismatched eyes, reappeared from the door to the museum tour. Mabel's interpretation of prettying herself up involved the application of a lot of very loud, very obtrusive, eighties styled make up. Dipper thought that maybe it would be a little overwhelming for the nervous looking kid, and hoped he wouldn't have a situation where Mabel scared a guy so much that he puked on the gift shop floor. It had happened before, and it wasn't pretty.

Dipper sighed. He felt a little bad for Mabel. Back home, they had friends, obviously, and they were happy. But not like in Gravity Falls. Like Mabel had said, she'd never had a proper boyfriend, and Dipper himself had never had a girlfriend. Back in California, Mabel was just a little too wild, a little too out there. She scared boys away, because none of them could handle her huge personality. And Dipper? Well, girls just though he was weird. Weird Dipper, with that weird hat he always wears, and his weird birthmark and weird obsession with conspiracy theories. Of course, Dipper knew that they weren't theories, they were true, and he'd been living through them every summer since he was twelve. But girls didn't want to hear that. They weren't into conspiracy theories, and they weren't into Dipper.

Dipper knew why coming to Gravity Falls gave Mabel so much hope every year. He felt the same way. It felt like coming home, like their lives in California were some boring office day job, and coming back to stay with their great uncle in the little town in Oregon was who they really were. He and Mabel, they didn't really belong anywhere else. They were weird, and Gravity Falls was weird, and leaving at the end of every summer always left a huge hole in their lives.

Dipper had been repeatedly poking the head of a Grunkle Stan bobble-head when the sound of his great uncle's loud voice reached him from the museum. "And the strange and mysterious box that shall never be opened for fear of what's inside it, even though it looks like a totally regular box is the final stop on our tour. Now, please proceed to the gift shop and spend all your remaining money on useless trinkets!"

The curtain to the museum was pulled open, and the family appeared back in the gift shop, being led by Grunkle Stan and the father. "Y'hear that kids!" the dad said cheerily, "Everyone go and pick out a useless trinket!"

"YES!" the roar came from the younger boy, who immediately began to race around the shop like a hurricane. The girl with the ponytail rolled her eyes and said, "I'm gonna go wait in the car." Before sauntering from the gift shop. Meanwhile, the dad began to have a very in depth conversation with Grunkle Stan about the merits of owning a business. Dipper could tell that Stan was only having the conversation with the man because he thought that he might be able to weasel more money out of him that way. Dipper rolled his eyes, and his gaze fell on the nervous kid.

The kid with mismatched eyes was being ignored by everyone else in the room. Dipper watched him as he headed to the snow-globe display, carefully stepping over the broken one on the floor. Dipper watched as he peered at them, before selecting one and picking it up.

Suddenly, an almighty crash made Dipper jump, and he turned to see that the younger kid had knocked over the stand of Mystery Shack greeting cards and bumper stickers.

"Freddie Vanderberg!" the kid's dad growled in anger. "What have I told you about not knocking over stands with greeting cards and bumper stickers on them?!" The young kid grimaced sheepishly and said, "Ooooops. Sorry, dad. Oooooooooops." Freddie's dad, Mr. Vanderberg crossed the shop crossly, and began to pick up the scattered cards. Dipper watched the scene unfold until a nervous cough made him turn back to the register.

The nervous kid was standing there, holding his selected snow-globe in his outstretched hands. "Just this, please." He said. Dipper nodded. "Oh. Yeah, sure." He said, and began to ring the kid up. The kid seemed to be deliberately not be looking at where his cross father was gathering up cards while his brother whined incessantly. He seemed mildly embarrassed by his family. As a means of distraction, Dipper shrugged and said the first thing that came to mind.

"So. You like snow-globes?" the boy jumped a little, startled and then said, "Oh, uh no, not particularly. It's for Carrie, my sister." He nodded in the direction of the door his sister had left through. "She likes to pretend she hates everything but she doesn't. She likes snow-globes."

Dipper gave a half smile as he placed the snow-globe in a paper bag. "My sister's the opposite. She likes pretty much everything in the whole world. I don't know what her opinion on snow-globes is, but she broke one earlier so maybe she doesn't like them much. That's funny."

The kid kind of made this weird expression like he was trying to smile, but didn't know how, and said, "Yeah, funny."

"Alright!" The booming voice came from Mr. Vanderberg, who had finished cleaning up the mess that his younger son had made, "Freddie, Bo, we gotta go. Still loads of boxes to unpack. Roll out boys." With that, he marched from the shop, trailing Freddie behind him. Dipper held out the paper bag to the boy, who he now knew was called Bo, and said, "Your sister's snow-globe." Bo nodded, "Yeah, thanks. Uh, cool place. Although I think architecturally it more closely fits the definition of a cabin, not a shack. I guess Mystery Cabin doesn't sound so good though."

With that, the boy turned and left the gift shop, leaving Dipper alone with Grunkle Stan, who was busy leafing through the small wad of bills he'd swindled off of Mr. Vanderberg. "I hope you charged him extra for that snow-globe, Dipper. I see he broke one." Dipper shook his head at his uncle and said, "That was Mabel, Grunkle Stan, not the kid. I didn't overcharge him."

There was a sudden loud clattering from the stairs, which heralded Mabel's arrival into the gift shop. As Dipper had expected, she was wearing copious amounts of glittery, bright blue eyeshadow. When she saw the gift shop empty, and the Vanderberg's mini-van pulling away outside, she let out a horrified gasp.

"No!" Mabel wailed, "My chance at love!" she cast about desperately, before rushing to Dipper with a desperate cry of, "Dipper! Did you talk to him! What's his name? What's he like?" Dipper shrugged, nonplussed. "His names Bo, I think." He said, "He was nice? I guess." Immediately, Mabel looked off into the distance in reverence and whispered, "Nice and called Bo. He's perfect." A look of determination came over her face and she turned to Dipper. "Dipper, this is my summer! I'm gonna make that Bo, my beau, if it's the last thing I do. And you're gonna help me." Dipper surveyed the slightly maniacal look on his twin sister's face with a growing sense of trepidation. "Oh goodie," he said unenthusiastically.