The Noise of Summer

Chapter 1: Little Guys League

"No," Dipper Pines said firmly. "There is no way. Uh-uh. Nope. Not gonna happen. I am O-U-T out. Forget about it. Nuh-uh. Did I say 'no'?" He hopped off the stool behind the counter and acted as if he were about to stalk out of the Mystery Shack gift shop.

"C'mon, you knucklehead," Grunkle Stan cajoled from where he stood near the eyeball jar. "It'll be fun!" The eyes all swiveled as though to see Dipper's reaction.

It was a sweltering Tuesday afternoon in Gravity Falls, and they were in the Mystery Shack gift shop during the lunchtime lull, so only Dipper, Stan, and Mabel were in on the conversation. Mabel kept dancing around and trying to break in with a comment, but the back-and-forth between great-uncle and great-nephew was too rapid-fire.

Already halfway to the doorway leading to the stairs up to the attic, Dipper stopped, turned, and waved his arms. "Fun? In the heat of August? Running around in the hot sun? Showing off how horrible I am at any sport? Having people laughing at me and calling me names? That by you is fun?"

"Aw, Dipper," Mabel said, grabbing the back of his vest and stopping him from making a dramatic exit before Stan could reply, "join up. Hey, our team just needs two more players. You an' me, brobro! I'll pitch, you catch. For the honor of the Mystery Shack! C'mon, it's just a three-week season!"

Dipper rubbed his eyes with thumb and forefinger. "Mabel, you know how bad I am at these things! I'll look like a complete dork!"

"And how's that different from now?" Mabel asked. She snatched a pine-tree trucker's hat from the gift shop shelves, clapped it on her head, and staggered around, arms bent, putting on a goofy voice: "Duh! I'm Dipper! I'm always reading books about monsters and conspiracies! I'm scared I'll go up in smoke if the sunshine hits me! I can't be bothered to go outside unless I'm hunting a galleysnagger! I can't get up the energy to run unless some monstrous scaly creature's bitin' my butt!"

"Hah!" Grunkle Stan laughed, pointing. "She nailed ya, Dip!"

"That wasn't even close," Dipper grumbled. He tried a different tack: "Look, it's like ninety degrees outside today! And it'll be hotter over the next three weeks! You want us to play a baseball game every other day and get heatstroke and die? Is that what you want?"

"Jeeze," Stan said, his hands on his hips. "I didn't realize my great-nephew was such a delicate little creature!" He raised his right hand and did a finger wiggle to emphasize "delicate."

"Trying to make me take that bait is not gonna work," Dipper insisted. "Besides, I wouldn't do the team any good. I told you, I'm rotten at sports!"

Sounding more sisterly, Mabel said softly, "Aw, Dipper! That's just 'cause you always get chosen last and stuck out in right field. It's just 'cause you have yet to connect with a baseball when you swing a bat. But that's at school in Piedmont, where everybody's picked on you for years. Broseph, you've never tried here in Gravity Falls! Maybe the players here are more on your level. And you do all this amazing stuff when you hunt monsters! You can learn to hit a ball. It's not that hard. C'mon. Please? Do it for me?"

Dipper stuck out his jaw. "Look, I can say no just as long as you keep—"

The gift-shop door opened, and Dipper glanced around. Wendy had just come back from lunch break, the sleeves of her green-plaid shirt rolled up above her elbows. Because it was so hot outside, she'd left her trapper hat on the shelf beneath the register, and even so she glistened faintly with a fine dew of perspiration. "'Sup, dudes?" she asked cheerfully. "Thanks for coverin' for me, Dipper. Was it busy?"

But Mabel broke in before Dipper could answer: "Aw, Wendy, listen to this: Grunkle Stan's helping organize a Little Guys' League short-run baseball season, and Dipper won't even help."

Dipper went behind the counter and pulled the stool back and let Wendy reclaim her place. She hopped on the stool, then promptly leaned back and parked her logging boots on the counter next to the penny dish (empty; Stan had just cleaned it out) and the jar of complimentary peppermints that Soos had put there. Dipper turned toward Mabel. "Help? It's not helping anybody," he said. "It's just humiliating myself!"

"How's it gonna do that?" Wendy asked, putting her hands behind her head. "What's he want you to do, coach?"

"Play!" Stan snapped. "It's for kids eleven to thirteen, and Dipper just barely qualifies. I mean, end of the month, he turns fourteen! Lotsa families in the county are away on vacation right now, so we're runnin' short of players. We need eight teams, right? The Mystery Shack's only got seven players right now. Mabel says she'll play, but Doofus here refuses." His eyes got a crafty expression. "Say, Wendy, I don't s'pose you could pass for thirteen?"

"Come on, man," Wendy said, laughing. "No way I could get away with that! Everybody in town knows me. Hey, Dipper—what's your objection?"

Dipper shrugged miserably, his shoulders sagging. "I'm—I'm just no good." He looked down at his feet and self-consciously rubbed his left elbow with his right hand. Miserably, he admitted, "Can't hit, can't catch."

"You can run pretty good," Wendy pointed out. "And the other stuff comes with practice. I got pretty good playin' ball with my brothers in our backyard. Maybe I could give you some pointers."

"Aw, there's not enough time for me to learn, and I'm so uncoordinated. I'd feel like an idiot."

"As opposed to every other day," Mabel said.

Wendy said sweetly, "Lay off, Mabel. Dipper, man—it'll be fun if you'll give it a chance. Do it for me."

Dipper stared at her, losing himself in her eyes—today they were more green than hazel. Something inside him melted, and he said, "OK." But he was already thinking, I know I'm gonna regret this.

"Yay!" Mabel yelled. "That's the Power of Love!"

"Mabel," Dipper said. "Please." He looked at Wendy for support. She smiled and raised her eyebrows instead, a warm and encouraging expression which gave him decidedly mixed feelings.

"OK," Grunkle Stan said, his grin broadening as he made a hand-washing gesture. "That's great, the Mystery Shack has its team now! I got your uniforms out in the Stanleymobile. The hats are the pine-tree ones, so you're set, Dipper, and Mabel, you can wear the one you just put on. Now you owe the Shack $9.99."

"Hey," Mabel protested, "you're charging me full price? I don't even get a niece-of-the-owners discount? What about all the things I do around here, huh? Sweeping up, dusting, making sure the candy machine is stocked!"

"You eat half the candy before you get the machine loaded," Dipper pointed out.

Mabel made a pfbbbbbt sound with her tongue. "That's another service—quality control! I do lots of things. Don't they count?"

"Right, right," Stan said. "Takin' all that into consideration, forget the $9.99. Make it an even fifteen bucks."

When Mabel wailed her protest, he laughed again and said, "Kiddin', Pumpkin, just kiddin'. The cap's on the house. Tell Soos to see me about it—I'm gonna need seven more, and he has to keep the inventory up."

"What are the other teams?" Wendy asked.

Stan began to count on his fingers. "Lemme see. There's the Agate Ridge Gobblewonkers—"

"Wait, wait," Dipper said. "Mabel and Soos and me proved that was a fake last year! Why'd they name themselves after a dumb robot?"

"Nah, Dip," Wendy said. "The Gobblewonker legend goes 'way, 'way back to the Native American tribes that used to live here, like, centuries ago. Old Man McGucket was just playin' off that old myth when he built his robot. Really, that team's been around for years, on an' off. I remember it from when I was in second and third grade, even. It kinda went into hibernation, though, three-four years back. We didn't even have a local kids' baseball season last year."

"Yeah," Stan said, "and that's a shame. Baseball's America's favorite pastime! That's why I'm bringin' back the Little Guys League. It's great exercise for kids, promotes teamwork and ambition, and there's a buck to be made. Pretend I didn't say that last one. Where was I? There's the Berford Possums, the Crooked Creek Dingoes, the Gravity Falls Velours—Mayor Tyler's coachin' that one—the Greenwoods Sequoyas, the Highland Sharks—who'm I forgettin'? Um. Oh, yeah, the Roadkill County Coyotes, an' us. We figure three weeks is just enough to get in six games an' a championship game. Four teams play each other on Tuesdays, the other four on Wednesdays, an' so on."

"Hang on," Wendy said. "Greenwoods Sequoyas? My brother Junior played on that when he was twelve and thirteen."

"Yeah, he's coachin'," Stan told her.

"Oh, man! I love my brother, but I gotta warn you guys, he cheats like the 1919 White Sox! Stan, you make sure he doesn't run in some ringers on you!"

"Wendy, ya can't cheat a cheater—I mean, yeah, good point, I'll watch out for it."

"Grunkle Stan," Dipper began, but his sister, acting as if she were hopped up on Smile Dip, excitedly interrupted him.

"Who are we? What's our team name?" Mabel asked, bouncing up and down.

"Welcome to the Mystery Shack Mystics, you guys!" Stan proclaimed proudly. From somewhere he produced a fluorescent green tee shirt with the Mystery Shack logo and the number 5 emblazoned on the back. "I promise ya, you won't regret it!"

"I regret it already," Dipper said.