Rescue Me
(November 12, 2015)
"You are a strange battle-maiden," the helpless, wounded knight whispered. "You rode all this way, through perils untold and the gates of Death itself, to save me from the dragon."
"I will save you," she said. "But I tell you this: Sometimes I come to save the prey, but always, always I come to save the dragon."
-The Legend of Kyrie and Kyrien
1
That morning Dipper went downstairs and made his own breakfast—well, he had an orange and coffee—and when his mother came into the kitchen, she asked, "Where's Mabel?"
"I don't know," Dipper said in a dull voice. "Haven't seen her this morning."
She went to the foot of the stairs and called: "Mabel! I don't want you to be late for school!"
No answer came, and Mrs. Pines, grunting in annoyance, climbed the stair. Alex Pines came into the dining room, poured himself a cup of coffee, and grabbed a protein bar from the pantry. Not much of a breakfast, but it was about what he usually had. "How's Mabel this morning?" he asked as he sat beside Dipper.
"I don't—"
"She's gone!" Mrs. Pines said from the doorway.
"Gone?" Mr. Pines asked, sounding astonished.
Dipper jumped up and hurried to the kitchen. He opened the door into the garage. "Our car's gone," he said. "I guess she went to school early."
"Or ran away," Mom said. "Alex, call her."
Mr. Pines took out his phone and pressed a speed-dial number. He listened. "Straight to voice mail," he said.
Dipper pushed his unfinished breakfast away. "Dad, drive me to the school," he said. "Let's see if she's there before—"
"I'll get ready," Wanda, who was still in her bathrobe, said.
"No need for that," Alex told her. "It's ten minutes from here. I'll be right back with some kind of word."
They got into Alex's car, he backed out of the garage and into the cul-de-sac, and he said, "She wouldn't run away from home, would she?"
"Dad, I don't know," Dipper said. "She's upset."
"An understatement."
When Alex pulled into the school parking lot, Dipper sighed with relief. "There's the car," he said. The vibrant green Carino was way down on the edge, the spot to which juniors were relegated. "Drop me off there."
He got out, opened the Carino, and then shook his head. "I'll find her in school," he said. "You call Mom and let her know Mabel came here instead of running away somewhere. I'll call as soon as I find her."
It was way early, and the classrooms had not yet been unlocked. Dipper walked down to the cafeteria, where seven o'clock scholars sat waiting for something to happen. For learning to crank up. Something. About twenty students dotted the tables, some in little groups of three or four, some singletons.
As he made his way over, his phone chimed: Mom. "Your father said he saw her car. You check and make sure—"
"I can see her," Dipper said. "She's OK. She's at school."
"Let me talk to her. She's not answering her phone."
Mabel was in the very back, hunched over a table. She looked up as he walked over. "Mom wants to talk to you," he said, holding out his phone.
She gave it an angry look. "I'm busy right now," she said loudly.
Dipper held the phone up to his ear. "She's bu—"
"I heard her," Mom said. "All right, I know she's there." She hung up.
"Are you Mom's spy now?" Mabel asked in a nasty voice.
He sat down beside her. "No. She's worried about you, though. You came to school so early. What's the idea, Mabel?"
She had her head propped on her hand, and she turned away from him. He saw she was working on some math. "Homework," she said. "Didn't do it last night."
"Did you eat anything before you left?"
"I didn't want anything."
Dipper got up and went to the cold bar and picked up a container of milk and a banana. He brought it back. "Here. Eat something."
She snapped her pencil point on the paper. From between clenched teeth, she said, "I'm not hungry!"
"Whoa," Dipper said. "Come on, Sis. It's me, remember?"
"Just leave me alone!"
"No chance," he said. He held out a fist. "Mystery Twins."
She glared at him, but gave him a half-hearted fist-bump. Then she picked up the banana, peeled it, and crammed half of it into her mouth.
"You'll make yourself sick," he said.
"Good," she mumbled through a mouthful of banana.
"Mabel, please. You can't—I don't know—declare war on Mom!"
"Why not? I feel like it." She gulped and stuffed the other half of the banana in.
"Come on, please."
She waited until she swallowed, and then in a furious, low tone, she said, "You know why I came to school at seven damn o'clock in the morning? I didn't want to see her! I just wanted out of that house! I may not even go back—"
"That will only make things worse," Dipper said.
"Stop being reasonable!" She opened the milk and took a big swig. "Why aren't you mad at me? I screwed up everything."
"I can't be mad at the Alpha twin," he said.
She scowled and shook her head. "The poop-head twin." She turned the sheet of homework around and slipped it toward him. "Look at this for me. Is this the way to solve using the sine?"
He glanced at the problem. "Yeah, you got it."
"I'm surprised. I'm not even sure how I did it." She took out a little pencil sharpener and put a point back on her pencil. Without meeting his gaze, she mumbled, "Dipper, I'm sorry."
"Mabel, I know how mad you are, but we can't change what happened."
"Where's Blendin Blandin?" she muttered. "If I could go back and tell myself—"
Dipper put his hand on her arm. "But we can't. Don't look back. What we have to do now is look ahead. Find some way to get Mom to see things our way."
She made a rude sound. "I wish she'd just punish me and get it over with," she muttered.
"Dad wants us to talk it out with them on Saturday," Dipper said. "What we ought to do—"
"Is come up with a stupid plan," Mabel snarled. She shook her head and her face became a mask of woe. "I'm so sorry, Dipper. I didn't mean to say that. I'm—I'm just so—I can't—"
"It's OK," Dipper said.
She balled her fists. "Be mad at me! Don't be nice!"
"I'm too sad to be mad," he said. "One feeling at a time. Listen: let's you and me think up a proposition for Mom and Dad. We'll suggest a punishment. They can take it or say it's not enough. We'll go back and forth, try to work something out. Negotiate."
"Won't work. Not with Mom."
"Come on," he said. "It's worth a shot. What else have we got?"
After a long, long time, Mabel said almost too softly for him to hear, "Each other."
2
Wanda Pines felt strange, as if she'd committed some mortal sin—but being a mother—that wasn't wrong. Alex might be so easy-going that he'd let the kids get away with murder, but she wasn't Alex.
Someone had to be the disciplinarian. She really didn't want the role—too much like her own mother—but kids had to learn limits. If it had to be her, it had to be her.
She half-heartedly cleaned the kitchen, which was not really dirty because at dinner and breakfast nobody had eaten much to speak of. She sat at the dining-room table and tried to make a list of things she needed to get done. She got as far as writing down the number 1, sat staring at it for ten minutes, and then gave up.
At nine-thirty, the sound of the garage door opening surprised her. Her first thought was Mabel's ditched school! She hurried to the door into the garage and opened it, ready to confront her wild-child daughter, but to her surprise, instead of Mabel, she saw her husband—and his two uncles, just getting out of his car. "What are you doing home?" she asked, flustered.
"Uncle Stanford called me from the airport," Alex said. "I told Judd I'm taking a mental health day. My uncles needed a ride."
"You're here about Mabel and Dipper," Wanda said. "All the Pines men ganging up on me."
But Stanley stepped forward, reached out, and took both of her hands in his. "Wanda," he said, looking into her eyes, "you're a Pines, too. Come on. We're not ganging up. We're joining you. OK, the kids got themselves into a world of crap. Believe me, you don't want this to fester and get worse. We're just here to talk. We're not gonna force you into any decision."
Fifteen minutes later, on the sofa in the living room, Stanford looked at the photo and passed it to Stanley as he murmured, . "I see why you're concerned. However, it looks as if Dipper is sound asleep."
"Yep," Stanley agreed, staring at the photo. "Little bit of drool at the corner of his mouth."
Alex cleared his throat. "Mabel said the beer bottles were props—"
"Oh, yeah. My empties," Stanley said. "I bring over like a six-pack once a week. I'd know if the kids, or Soos, or anybody, was sneakin' 'em. Nobody is. I don't get drunk, ya understand. One, maybe two a day, and that's my limit. Week or longer to go through the six-pack. Soos doesn't drink beer at all, and neither does Melody. Rosa does, but hers is a Mexican brand, and she only drinks it in restaurants."
"Are you sure Wendy didn't bring it in?" Wanda asked.
Stan whooped with laughter. "Wendy! Not a chance! Wanda, she's a straight-shooter. I offered her a beer once, and she made a face like she'd smelled a skunk and turned it down. Oh, I know her dad will share one with her now and then, but always at home. Nah, Wendy wouldn't supply beer for the kids. Trust me on that."
After a few seconds of silence, Wanda said, "Mabel said it was a joke. But she must learn there are limits! This joke makes Dipper look like—like—and the girls are like sluts! Don't they realize what people would think?"
"Wanda," Stanford said, "they're kids. Even Wendy. Eighteen may be an adult age in the eyes of the law, but biologically, an eighteen-year-old's judgment is still developing. Didn't you ever do anything, well, wild and stupid when you were eighteen?"
"The college fountain that night," Alex said mildly, leaning back and seeming to look up at the ceiling.
She flashed him a furious glance, but then blushed. "That was—nobody was hurt, and I was—I was immature," she said.
"Yes, and you never did it again," Alex said, still finding the ceiling fascinating.
"You learned better," Stanley said. "That's what these kids gotta do too. You have to let 'em grow up their own way. You can't live their lives for them." He leaned forward and looked troubled. "Listen: I wasn't even yet eighteen when one day I screwed up big. I ruined Stanford's chances of going to the college of his dreams—"
"Now, wait," Stanford said.
Stan waved him off. "No, I did. And Mom and Dad were so mad at me—well, Dad was, more than Mom—and he kicked me out of the house. I was so ashamed. I—"
"I should have taken his side," Stanford said. "I didn't. I just stood by and—watched him leave. It was like a knife in my heart. I was so angry that I let my anger come between me and the right thing to do."
"Yeah, and I went out on my own, and—" he swallowed hard. "Wanda, I never saw my Dad or Mom alive again." He fished out a handkerchief and honked his nose. "Me and Ford visited their graves once. A grave's no substitute for a mother, Wanda. Take it from me."
Wanda began, "If she ran away from home, we'd—"
"We don't want her to run away," Alex reminded her.
"And if she goes, Dipper goes too," Stan warned. "He'd go after his Sis. Believe me."
"Then what are we supposed to do?" Wanda asked.
Stanford said, "I've never had children. Well, obviously. But if I had—and if they'd done something foolish—I'd collaborate with them. Work out a punishment that's tough but fair. But keep the lines of communication open."
"But she won't talk to me—"
Someone rang the doorbell. Wanda, floundering for words, was almost grateful. "I'll get it," she said. "Probably a package."
She opened the door and stared.
Wendy Corduroy stood there.
"Mrs. Pines," she said, "we gotta talk."