The Treasure Seekers
Chapter 1
13-year old Mabel and her twin brother were waiting at the Gravity Falls bus station for Soos to pick them up, and he was over a half hour late! A chubby Waddles was with them.
The twins had a choice this year to either stay home in California, or come here. Since they had fun last time, they obviously wanted Gravity Falls, so their parents agreed.
The two waited so long that people felt sorry for them. One man even brought a big bag of mini peanut butter cups to share.
"Did he remember to pick us up today?" Mabel asked.
"Mom texted him like a million times reminding him to." Dipper told her.
"Well, where is he then? We've been here forty minutes already!" She petted an anxious Waddles.
"Your guess is as good as mine." Her brother said. Mabel groaned.
"If we have to wait another ten minutes, I'll scream." They then saw a car come and park in front of them.
"Looks like you don't have to; it's here now!"
"YAY!" The young teens gathered their suitcases, and went towards the car. They were surprised to see Wendy step out.
"Wendy?" Dipper questioned. "Why are you here?"
"And what happened to Soos?" Mabel wanted to know. "He was supposed to be here."
"I know." Wendy said. "He was too busy sulking, so I had to do it." This confused the twins even more.
"Sulking?" Dipper asked. "What for?" Mabel gasped.
"They didn't cancel Duck-tective, did they?" She added.
"No. I'll tell you in the car." So the twins got their stuff in the trunk, and got inthe car. Once all were buckled, Wendy drove off.
"I see that you guys got yourself peanut butter cups."
"Someone felt so bad for us that he went out of way, and bought it for us." Mabel informed him.
"That was a nice gesture."
"Yes it was. And I can't wait when I get my braces off at the end of summer."
"Really? Wow, I've only known you in braces. It'll be strange seeing you without them."
"I know. I'll still be me, the lovable, cute, animal-loving, quirky Mabel Pines. Just, you know, braceless.
"Can't wait to hear all about it."
"I can't wait to tell you. I'm going to celebrate by binge eating my favorite foods that I couldn't eat in the past two and a half years."
"So, what's happening with Soos?" Dipper asked, changing the subject. Wendy sighed, not wanting to tell them.
"Well, ever since you guys left in the fall, Soos and I were struggling with the Mystery Shack. We struggled so much that they decided to shut us down, and put up a mini mall." Both of the twins gasped in shock.
"They can't do that!" Mabel cried. "The Mystery Shack is an interesting place. It's a tourist trap, and a good trap at that. We had a wonderful summer last year in it. That's why we came back this summer, to make more awesome memories."
"I'm sorry, Mabel. But, these things happen. You'll learn about these things more when you two get older. Look, you can still have an awesome summer and make awesome memories. Just not with the Mystery Shack when it closes, and we have to move after this weekend." The twins were shocked again.
"We only have until Monday?" Dipper questioned. Wendy nodded. Dipper saw a lone tear drop down from her cheek.
"This is going to be an awful summer." Mabel put in, sulkily. "We should have stayed home with Mom and Dad. It's not fair." Dipper was about to say something to Mabel, but didn't, and sighed sadly instead. He sat back in his seat. He thought about the precious memories of last year. Mabel was right. It wasn't fair, but, what could they do? He sure was going to miss it.
As soon as they gathered up their luggage when they got there, they went inside. Soos was on the computer since they had no costumers. Mabel dropped her suitcase, and ran to hug Soos.
"Mabel!" Dipper called after her, firmly.
"Soos!" She cried. Soos was shocked, but hugged her back. "I heard about this place closing, and it's awful. I'm so sorry!"
"I'm sorry you two had to hear about this. What a start to your summer vacation, huh?" He realized something. "Wait, did I forget to pick you two up?"
"Yes, but now we understand why, and we forgive you." She looked at her brother. "Right, Dipper?"
"Oh, absolutely," He answered as he and Wendy went over to them. "It would have been better if he wasn't late though." Mabel saw the computer.
"What are you doing? Looking for a new job?" Soos nodded.
"I saw ads for like a million jobs, but nothing jumps out at me." He sighed. "I'm sure going to miss this place so much." Mabel felt sorry for him. So did Dipper.
"Is there anything that we can do to help?" Dipper asked.
"I'm sorry little dude and dudette, but unless you can change back time, it's most likely a no. Stan will be so disappointed."
"You didn't tell him?"
"No, no, I told him as soon as I got the news. I'm not dumb, and not irresponsible. That, and Wendy convinced me too. As much it as it hurts, I did the right thing by telling him in the end. He'll still be so disappointed. This is like his baby, and he has left me in charge. And I failed."
"Don't beat yourself up, Soos." Wendy said to him. "These things happen. It's not your fault. You did you best to keep this place open."
"Obviously not enough, because it's shutting down." Waddles went over to him, and nudged his arm, snorting. He looked at the pig. "Thanks, pig, but not even you can cheer me up. The Mystery Shack is finished." Mabel dug out one of the peanut butter cups from the bag, and gave it to Soos.
"Here is some pity candy." Soos smiled.
"Thanks. I wish it was joy candy, but this will have to do."
"I wished I gave you joy candy too, but it's hard when there's no joy."
"I can't believe this is happening." Dipper said, as the twins got ready for bed that night. "I never saw Soos like this before."
"I know." Mabel agreed. "He's so depressed. It's so…depressing." She then smiled. "Fortunately, I have an idea." Dipper looked uncertain.
"And what's that?"
"All we need is Blendin Blendin's time tape, go back in time to…."
"No, no, no!" Mabel just looked at him. "I know what you're going to say, and we're not doing it. Look, I'm sorry, but not every thing can be solved by time travel."
"But…"
"You may think that, but it's best to leave it."
"But…"
"Even if we could, we need to find him, and who knows how long that'll take. It might be hard, but in the end, we all need to move on. It might be sad, but it'll all turn out in the end. We just need to wait and see." Mabel sighed.
"Fine; we won't time travel." Dipper felt bad about this.
"I know you were trying to help, and that's good. You're a good person, Mabel." Mabel smiled.
"Thanks, I know I am, now, let's get to bed." Soos then came into the room. Mabel noticed this. "Hey, Soos. What's up? Besides the whole mystery shack closing, and job searching, that is."
"Still not good." Mabel frowned.
"Oh, that's not good." She brightened back up. "But I know you'll get one soon, big guy. You can do anything!" Soos laughed nervously.
"Yeah." He changed the subject. "So, I think you should invite your friends tomorrow. It'll be good in hard times like these. Gets you a chance to catch up."
"I'm sure I can catch up too! I'll be glad to do that with Candy and Grenda. I bet they missed me. It's too bad for Dipper. He can't catch up. He doesn't really have any friends here, except maybe you, Soos, Ford, except he's not here anymore, no one your own age."
"Mabel!" Dipper said.
"Sorry, but it's kind of true. Wait, I guess there is Pacifica. I almost forgot she's good now." She looked at Soos. "But yes, I'll call Candy and Grenda tomorrow, we'll have fun!"
"Perfect. That's all I want for you two. You guys are too small to worry about these problems. Leave this to me. Goodnight."
"Night!" The twins both said at the same time.
"So, how's it going Soos?" Mabel asked Soos as she and her brother came down the stairs the next morning.
"Well, I have good news and bad news." He told them. Mabel was happy about this.
"You found a job?"
"Yes." Both twins were excited about this.
"That's great, Soos!" Dipper said. "I'm really happy for you."
"Thanks, but…" The twins stopped being happy. "What's the bad news?"
"It's in Mexico. My aunt arranged it for me."
"Wow; Mexico?" Mabel said, beaming. "That's great; Dipper and I never been there before, but I know the smallest dog on Earth originated there, and that taco restaurant has foods from it. Why wouldn't you want to go? It's your where your family mostly lives, isn't it?"
"Yeah, it is, and I want to go. But that means leaving my friends in Gravity Falls, leaving Oregon, leaving America. This is my second home. I don't want to leave."
"Then, don't. Stay here, and get another job here in Gravity Falls."
"It's not easy as you think. My other job, if I choose it, offers good money."
"What is this job, may I ask?" Dipper wanted to know.
"I'll be an assistant coach at an elementary school." Mabel beamed.
"You'll be awesome at that job!" She complimented. "I thought you'd be like a handyman, but whatever. Whatever floats your boat I guess. You love kids since you love us, and we were kids last year."
"We still are in a way." Dipper said to her. Soos sighed.
"I guess I do love kids." Soos agreed. "You guys are lucky. You two get to wait, and hold up on adult responsibilities until later in your lives."
"Yes." Mabel stated. "Yes we are lucky. Adult life seems horrible. I'm glad I'm just thirteen."
"And every year, we get closer to losing our innocence." Dipper reminded her sister. "I'm sorry, but less then five years, then we'll be adults." Mabel sighed.
"Don't remind me. I want to be a kid for as long as I can. I hate growing up."
"Don't we all."
"Oh, you said it, little dude." Soos said, and then sighed sadly. "You said it. Life was so much better when I was a nino." Mabel was confused until Dipper told her, and then she understood. Soos changed the subject. "So, anyways, you can call your friends after breakfast." Mabel smacked her lips.
"MMMMM, what are we having?" She asked. "I'm starving!" Soos shrugged.
"I don't know. I was too depressed, and too busy with my mama calling that I didn't even cook. Looks like a mystery until we decide where to eat while on the road."
"Yay, mystery place to eat, here we come!" Soos sighed again. They talked as they headed off.
"You call soccer futball, and you pay just for some public bathrooms? I'm sorry, but your country, as well as others are weird like that."
"Mabel!" Dipper scolded her. "It's just how they run things. That doesn't make them weird." Mabel sighed.
"Fine! I'm sorry if I offended them, but they are weird. I like America better."
"Me too."
Once Candy and Grenda were over, and they were in the bedroom, Mabel told them the news. They both gasped.
"That's horrible!" Grenda said. "What are you going to do?" Mabel shrugged.
"I don't know." She admitted. "Dipper won't let us use time travel to fix this. It'll be the most simplest, but he flat out refuses." Candy and Grenda glared at the boy, who was in the room.
"What? I'm sorry, but time travel is sometimes messy work. Sometimes it's better to just leave it alone, and see where it goes."
"So, anyways, I invited you two because Soos wanted us to hang out in these dark times. Plus, it gets us an excuse to catch up."
"Ah, yes, catching up is good." Candy said. "And you do need to forget about your troubles. So, tell me about Kat and Reese. Are they good? How was their first year in an American school?"
"Good. They went home to South Korea for the summer. Thank goodness, it's not North Korea, right?"
"Right. But if they lived in North Korea, they all wouldn't have been able to leave in the first place."
"That country is messed up."
"I agree."
"How's Miss. Smith?" Grenda wanted to know, changing the subject.
"She's good. So are my other teachers."
"I didn't ask about them, but it's good that they're doing good too."
"Are you excited about high school?" Candy questioned Mabel. "After that, we're adults!" Mabel groaned.
"Please, don't remind me of that."
"Oh, sorry, but it's coming I'm afraid."
"Not for five years; five glorious years." Dipper was going to add almost four, but didn't.
So, they all talked about what they did over the school year, what other things they did, and about other topics. Mabel also talked about getting her braces of at the end of summer. Grenda wanted to know about Marie, Dipper's new crush, or as she called her, his 'girlfriend.' Dipper felt a bit embarrassed, but told her anyways.
"I'm bored!" Grenda spoke a while later. "I want to do something else.
"Like what?" Candy asked her.
"I don't know…something else." She had an idea. "I want to play Hide and Seek! It's been so long since the last time Liz and I played it."
"Yeah!" Mabel agreed. "Good idea." Candy looked at Dipper.
"Do you want to play, Dipper?" She asked him.
"Sure." He answered. "I'm game, but who's going to be the seeker?" Mabel thought about this, and then had an idea.
"Whoever get tagged first gets it, go!" The girls started running.
"What?" Dipper asked.
"Tag us, Dipper!" Dipper was about to go when Grenda tagged him.
"You're it!" She said. "You have to seek us now."
"No fair! I didn't have time to run."
"It's not our fault that you're too slow." Mabel told her. Dipper sighed.
"Fine; I'll count to fifty. Ready?" Dipper covered his eyes with his hands and began as the girls ran off. "1, 2, 3. 4, 5…"
Mabel looked all over for a good hiding spot. Where should she hide? She had no idea. She went to the garage to see if she could hide there.
Once there, she went all around. She then saw the attic, and beamed. Perfect; she'll hide up there! She climbed the ladder and opened the attic door with the key on a nearby box.
She stood up, and closed it when she was in the room, and beamed again. No one in a billion years would find her up here! She was confident that she found the best hiding place ever! She backed up, and screamed as she fell down in a secret door.
She hit her head on cement, and rubbed it as she stood up. She looked around her surroundings. Where was she? She was in a little room, but had no idea that it existed. She beamed once more. She was in a secret room, one that Stan never told her about, or even knew himself! She decided to explore.
She found an old book, and decided to have a look. She flipped it over, coughing up dust on account on how old it was. She then gasped as she saw that it was a hundred year old yearbook. She knew that her uncles were old, but even she knew they couldn't be that old. Maybe if she looked some more, it would give her a clue, and so she did.
A while later, she grew bored. She was about to close it when her eye spotted something. She looked at the picture of a woman wearing 1910s' clothing. She read the caption down below. Her name was Judy Pines.
This confused Mabel. Who was Judy Pines? Mabel had no idea.
She flipped the page only to discover what looked like a treasure map. She looked at it closely, and discovered that it was! Overwhelmed with excitement, she took it out, jumped onto her feet, and ran out of a door.
"DIPPER!" She screamed. Dipper, who already found Candy and Grenda, looked at her. So did her friends.
"Uh, Mabel?" Grenda questioned. "I think you forgot how Hide and Seek works." Mabel shook her head.
"I didn't forget." She told her. "I just found something exciting is all."
"Mabel, where were you?" Dipper wanted to know. "We looked all over, and couldn't find you."
"Oh, sorry. I was in a secret room."
"A secret room?"
"Yeah, pretty wild, huh? I bet not even Stan knew about it, otherwise he would have told us about it."
"Maybe." Candy saw the map in Mabel's hand.
"What's that?" She asked.
"Oh, this? This is what I wanted to show you. I think it's a treasure map." She gave it to Dipper to look at. "I found it in a hundred year old yearbook. I didn't know they even had yearbooks back then. I found someone with our last name, Dipper. Judy Pines; do you know her? Is she related to us?" Dipper shrugged.
"I don't know, but I know that this is a treasure map."
"Cool!" Grenda spoke. "Maybe this Judy person was a pirate."
"Maybe Soos knows some more about this." Dipper suggested. "Let's go ask him." So they all went to find him.
As soon as they found him, they told him everything, including Mabel asking who Judy was.
"I think Stan told me something about Judy." Soos stated. "And that she was your great-great aunt."
"Great-great Aunt?" Mabel asked. "Wow! Mom and Dad never mentioned her before."
"According to legend, she became ruthless after high school in 1918, and became a pirate." Mabel was interested in this.
"She was a female pirate? Wow; I never heard of too many female pirates before. Good for her changing the game."
"Maybe that's why your parents never mentioned her; maybe they were too ashamed."
"I can see that happening I guess." Dipper observed. "No one wants to be related to someone evil."
"Your Great-Great Aunt joined a group of bad people. Her parents tried to stop her, but she didn't listen. One night. She just left, never to be seen again."
"That's sad." Mabel said. "Never being able to see your children again. I never want Mom and Dad to ever have to go though that. That's why I vow to live with them for as long as I can. After all, there's nothing wrong with grown children living with their parents. It's not unheard of in this day and age." She changed the subject. "So, what about the map?"
"Oh, this is the only thing she sent to her parents forty years later. It's a map to the riches she found in all of that time."
"Did they find it?"
"No, nobody has. The parents were too old to go on an adventure by then. The mother died a year later, and the father died the following year."
"That's so sad! But at least she wasn't selfish." She realized something. "That made her good in the end. I wonder why Mom and Dad never told us about her then."
"I guess it never came up."
"I guess; it's still too bad though. She sounded awesome!"
"Yeah." He sighed. "It's too bad that no one found the treasure. I bet all of that riches will keep this place running for years and years."
"Yeah. It's a pity all right." She then had an idea. "That's it!" Soos looked at her, confused.
"What's it?" He asked.
"Let me guess." Dipper piped up. "You want to find the treasure so that this place can remain open?"
"Bingo; Dipper got it; that's exactly right!"
"I don't know."
"But think of the adventure we'll have."
"You have to go, dudes." Soos said. "The future of this shack depends on it."
"Yeah!" Mabel added. "We can do this, and save the Mystery Shack, maybe get more stuff like a nice unicorn or something, or we can do nothing, the Mystery Shack will close forever, and we'll have a boring summer. Your choice. But for me, I say treasure hunt." She looked at her friends. "What do you say, girls?"
"Yeah!" Both Grenda and Candy agreed at the same time. Mabel looked back at her brother.
"See, bro? They want possible danger and excitement, and we're used to it, especially the danger part, so it'll be nothing new."
"I still don't know." Dipper stated. Mabel looked at her friends again.
"Come on, guys. Operation Make Dipper Convinced is a go. Go!" She and her friends all looked at Dipper, and all made puppy dog faces. Dipper sighed.
"This is such a cliche that's it not going to work, no matter how cute and sad you go. Nope! Not going to work, no way, no how." Soos added in with his puppy face. "Soos, not you too!" He sighed a few moments later when it became too much for him. "Fine; this is very cliche too, but I'm convinced. We'll go on the treasure hunt." Mabel and everyone cheered.
"When all hope is lost," Mabel began. "Cute, sad puppy dog face works every time!"
"I wouldn't say all the time. You just got lucky."
"Because you're not a monster that rejects cute things such as puppies, kittens, human babies?"
"Sure." Mabel and her friends all jumped around, holding hands.
"WE'RE GOING ON A TREASURE HUNT!" They all chanted together. "WE'RE GOING ON A TREASURE HUNT; WE'RE GOING ON A TREASURE
HUNT!" They then stopped.
"This be just like Easter." Grenda put in. "Only not, because it's not Easter, and we're hunting treasure instead of plastic eggs."
"The treasure could be eggs." Mabel told her. "You never know. But probably not, that might be a little disappointing, unless they are the fancy ones."
"You dude and dudettes go by yourselves." Soos said. "I'd like to go, but Wendy and I have to work the shop," He frowned. "For as much time we have left."
"Don't worry, Soos." Mabel consoled him. "We'll get the treasure, and this place can stay open permanently."
"Uh, probably not permanently" Dipper put in. "I mean, it might close someday in the future just like that toy store chain." Mabel eyed him, ignoring him.
"Sorry, sorry, continue."
"Everyone's futures will be in our little hands!"