The Big Con

Chapter 1: Who's he Gonna Call?

From the Journals of Dipper Pines

Saturday, June 29: Mabel woke me up this morning at seven-forty. Even though we're not sharing the attic any longer, I think she's going to be coming up here all the time. This morning she bounded in because she wanted to show me her newest sweater, which she's almost finished. It's kind of a . . . yellowy-greeny, I guess?

She tells me it is "chartreuse," and I had to look up how to spell that. Anyway, on the chest the sweater, which is about the size of a circus tent, has a, what, embroidery—is that the right word?—no, Mabel says "appliqué"—of the maroon-colored fez Grunkle Stan always wore until he turned it and the management of the Mystery Shack over to Soos.

"Do you think Soos will like it?" Mabel asked, bouncing up and down on her old bed.

"Mabel," I told her, "I can't think of anything Soos doesn't like."

She looked thoughtful, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling and sticking her tongue partway out of the corner of her mouth the way she does. "Ummm. The taste of fish food," she reminded me brightly. She bugged her eyes and stuck out her tongue about a foot. "Blarrrrgghh!"

I remembered how Soos had frantically tried to scrub the taste off his tongue with both hands, and Mabel imitated that, too. It was a pretty funny impression.

"Heh. Yeah, that was one thing, I guess."

Mabel said she'd finish the sweater in time for it to be a Fourth of July present. I didn't point out that the Fourth of July is not usually a time when people eagerly look forward to receiving sweaters as presents.

Anyway, she left the nearly-finished knitting up on her old bed, and then we went down and had some juice and cereal for breakfast. After that we got our putters and a couple of golf balls (the inanimate kind—though the Lilliputtians helped us during Weirdmageddon, we don't really trust them enough to go back to the mini-golf course in town) and for an hour or so we practiced on the side lawn, where with Soo's permission we've trimmed the grass short and sunk three plastic drinking cups, bottoms punctured for drainage, into the ground to serve as golf holes. Each one has three approaches, and we've used old flower pots, boards, and other junk to construct obstacle courses, so it was like having nine miniature-golf holes in all.

I have to say we had a pretty good time goofing around. It was a nice morning, the sun just up over the eastern bluffs, the day warm but not yet hot, and the air all around smelling of fresh, growing things after last week's rain.

"I'm really rusty," Mabel complained when she missed a twenty-foot putt through a broken flower pot, up a ramp, and past zig-zagged bricks—by an inch, if that. "I gotta get back into champion condition!" She raised the putter over her head and pumped it up and down while marching in place and chanting "Cham-pi-ON! Cham-pi-ON!" Then I took my shot, which bounced off the flower pot, and grimaced as she laughed while poking me with both index fingers. "You missed by a mile, broseph!"

"'Cause you were yelling in my ear," I told her. "You're such a loudmouth!"

"What? Avast! Nobody says that to your sister and lives! En garde!"

So with putters as swords, we dueled around the side yard for a little while. Then when we broke a sweat, we went into the shade at the edge of the woods and sat side by side on the bonfire log. "Have a good time at the dance last night?" I asked her.

She leaned back, kicking her feet, and shrugged. "Meh. I danced with a couple guys, but there was no zing, you know? Zing! You danced like twice with Wendy." She nudged me coyly. "Didja smooch afterward?" She made little smacky, smoochy sounds with her lips.

"Well . . . kind of, in a friendly way, but not seriously," I said. "I also danced with Pacifica, but you probably didn't notice. You were way on the other side of the lawn with some tall geeky-looking guy, so . . . ."

Mabel gave her gurgling "Ha!" laugh and said, "At least Bronson didn't step on my toes the way DeWayne did in the first dance. Well, I guess I don't have to ask how your dance went! Pacifica! Ha!"

Trying to sound way casual, I replied, "It didn't go all that bad, actually. Turns out she must really like me. She proposed to me."

Mabel's eyes got really round, and she jumped up off the log. "Whaaat? No! Freakin'! Way!"

With a modest smile, I said, "Yeah, as soon as we're old enough she wants to make me a rich man and be my wife. I'm thinking it over—"

She wrestled me down, pinned me on the grass, and gave me hard noogies until I said, "Stop, stop! I give! It's not true! I was just kidding! We said we'd just be friends." I rolled away from her and lay on my back, panting. "And she wants us both to hang out with her sometimes, she says."

Mabel sat back on her knees. "Friends? Well—I don't hate her. I mean, she can be pretty fun when she's not being all la-de-dah, look at me, I'm Pacifica." Her voice dropped to that rare soft tone when she's decided to be serious for two minutes. "You know, Candy tells me that since Pacifica's parents lost a lot of their money her old crew has dropped her and doesn't hang with her any longer. That's mean. I guess maybe Pacifica might be—lonely?"

"Maybe," I said, flicking about three dozen scurrying reddish-brown ants off my arms. "Did you have to hold me down over an anthill?" I stood up and started slapping more of the skittering critters off my shirt and legs.

"Yes. Yes, I definitely did," she said firmly. "Hey, look, here comes Wendy! Is it nine o'clock already?"

It was, just barely. Wendy parked her beat-up old green car in the lot, sauntered over with her lunch bag in hand, and asked, "How's it hangin', dudes? You squared away, Mabel?"

"Yup," Mabel said. "I feel like my old self again."

"Unfortunately," I added, trying to scratch an ant bite that was actually under the leg of my shorts.

Mabel punched me.

Wendy chuckled. "All right! I'm gonna put my stuff away and get to work, guys. Later!"

"I think I'll go in, too," I said, starting to follow her.

Mabel caught up with me. "Ooh, you want to whisper in Wendy's ear? Wendy, I wuv 'oo!"

"No! No. If you really want to know, I need to take a hot shower and get these darned ants off me."

"Ha!" Mabel said. "That was my plan all along! To use my minions the ants to force you to shower!"

I actually don't know why she rags on me like that. I take a shower whenever I need one. And ever since that day last winter when Mabel set fire to everything in my laundry hamper—well, to be fair, she hauled the pile out to the incinerator first—I HAVE been trying to wash my clothes a little more often than I used to do.

"That should be myrmidons, not minions," I told her.

"Huh?"

"Look it up," I told her on my way to the bathroom.

I lost count of the number of little red ants that I sent spinning down the drain. The warm water felt good on the bites, too, and I took a pretty long shower. Then, after I had just dried off and had pulled on my shorts, pants, and shirt, but not yet my vest or socks, I heard Wendy calling from downstairs: "Hey, Dipper! Phone for you!"

Huh? My cell phone was in the attic, on the little table beside my bed, plugged in and charging. Somebody called me at the Shack number? Besides Mom and Dad, who could it be? I hurried downstairs still barefoot and Wendy said into the receiver, "Here he is now."

She handed the phone to me, and when I raised my eyebrows in silent question, she gave a who knows? kind of shrug. "Hello," I said, probably sounding a little uncertain. "This is Dipper Pines."

The voice on the other end sounded like an elderly and cranky bulldog that had been taught not just how to speak, but how to talk: "You the young feller that chases ghosts?"

I started to get the old tingly feeling that I get when a new mystery is breaking wide open. "Uh—well, I have chased one or two, yes."

"You broke up a serious haunting, and you, oh, what's the word for it, exorcised a ghost for Mr. Northwest last summer? A tough ghost?"

"Yeah, he was pretty tough. But to be fair, I didn't do it on my own. I had some help."

"'Course a captain needs a crew! Stands to reason. You can use help here, too, Mr. Pines, if you want, long as you can get the job done. What are your fees?"

"I—don't really have any, sir. This is kind of my hobby. It would be free. I'd do it as a favor."

"Price is right, anyway!" I thought he was choking to death until I realized he was only chuckling. "Leave it at this: If you do me this favor, then I'll owe you one in return. Well, well, you sound like the boy for the job, all right. My name's Skipper. Admiral D.D. Skipper, US Navy, Retired. Mr. Northwest said I couldn't do better than call you. Son, I live a few miles outside Gravity Falls, and it seems I have a little ghost problem here . . . ."

And so it began.