Dancing Queen

(April 2016)

It happened the spring that Dipper was sixteen. Wendy, eighteen (it was a few months before her birthday in May), sent him an unexpected text:

Hey, Dip, big favor if you could do it. I need a date for my Senior Prom. You free on Saturday April 9, dude?

And as luck would have it, the Piedmont schools had scheduled Spring Break for April 7-18, so the answer was "yes."

It was easy to persuade Grunkles Ford and Stan to invite the Pines family to Gravity Falls for a few days. It was harder to persuade Dad to take a Friday and a Monday off from work, but the elder Pines twins, plus Dipper, plus Mabel (who had a certain someone in Gravity Falls who needed a date to the prom himself) finally managed it.

Securing Wanda Pines's agreement—well, that was a delicate operation, involving Grunkle Ford's reminding her how much Dipper had comforted Wendy when her dad was injured more than a year earlier, how Wendy had missed out on her real Senior Prom at her high school because she'd had troubles and had to put in an extra semester to qualify to graduate, how she was finishing her very last course now, how this was really her only chance for a senior prom—and every girl should have a senior prom—and by sheer logic and by talking about what a wonderful girl Wendy was to want to give Dipper some sort of reward for all his friendship, he won her over.

Although, come to that, the twins' father probably helped out. He had known for a year that Dipper and Wendy had feelings for each other, and he approved. He would love to have a girl like Wendy and a classic car like hers in the Pines family. Maybe—no one could be sure—maybe Wanda Pines was beginning to think that Wendy might be just the girl to step in and take good care of Dipper, who had come out of his shell over the last few years, thanks especially to his summer vacations in Gravity Falls.

Anyway . . . Wanda Pines finally agreed.

There came an uneasy time when Dipper feared he wouldn't be able to keep the date, after all—that happened when Lolph of the Time Paradox Avoidance Enforcement Squadron recruited his and Mabel's help in retrieving Blendin Blandin from the Old West, but, since time travel doesn't take much of a chunk out of the present, it all worked out. The adventure led the Mystery Twins on a wild dance across the decades all the way back to 1883, but when they returned, weeks later, to Piedmont—it was still the day before their trip up to Gravity Falls.

So on that Friday, the Pines family flew up to Portland, where Stanley Pines met them in the Stanleymobile and ferried them over to Gravity Falls, talking all the way about how Soos, Melody, and their kids were doing (fantastic!), about how the Mystery Shack had just opened for the season (business was "meh," but it always was until May), and about how Dan Corduroy had at last completed the plumbing and wiring in his and Ford's new houses and had been working on the interiors over the winter. "Yeah," he said, "paintin' and furinishin's left, and the ladies are in charge of that. Me and Sheila will move into our new place about the middle of June, and Ford and Lorena will be in theirs within two weeks of that."

Accordingly, he detoured to show them the new houses on Gopher Road, really just downhill from the Shack, but surrounded by tall pine forest so that each structure gave you a sense of privacy. Both were log structures, Ford's two stories high, Stan's one, but a really expansive one, and both had something of the feel of the Mystery Shack. Mabel, especially, loved running through the semi-finished house, exclaiming, "When I visit you, this is my room, OK?"

"Uh, it's the dining room," Stanley pointed out.

Mabel thrust a finger high into the air. "All the better! Close to the food supplies! Throw a sleeping bag on the table, and bam! It's perfect!"

And since they were near the Shack anyhow, they made the short drive up the hill. The parking lot had about a half-dozen scattered cars and RVs in it, and they glimpsed Soos taking a tram-load of tourists out on the Mystery Trail, still soggy from the melting snows of winter. "You've really added on to the place!" Mr. Pines exclaimed.

"Nah, that's all on Soos," Stanley said. "Trust him to come up with big plans! That wing there is the kids' rooms. Little Soos has a room of his own now, and the little girl, Harmony Rose, is still in the nursery. But she's got a bedroom waitin' for her, and there's a playroom, another bathroom, and a hall so doggone wide that Soos can partition it into more bedrooms if he and Melody keep havin' kids! Oh, and Abuelita has a room on that wing, too, 'cause she likes to be close to the little ones."

"Uh, so the attic room is—free?" Dipper asked.

Stan barked a laugh. "Yeah, of course! Nobody wants it."

"I do!" Dipper said. "Mom, Dad, can I stay—?"

"Sure," Dad said. "It's OK, isn't it, hon?"

Mom smiled. "It has to be, I suppose. Dipper loves this place."

Mabel, though, chose to go with Mom, Dad, and Stanley back to the McGucket mansion, where she had a deluxe bedroom and access to a gigantic kitchen stocked with goodies. As soon as they gave permission, Dipper hefted his suitcase (a tux couldn't be stuffed into a duffel) and carried it upstairs.

Wendy, who had been promoted to Manager since Soos had promoted himself to CEO, was in the gift shop, looking professional and more mature than her eighteen years in her new, shorter hair-do (though it had grown out a lot since Christmas), a green blazer and tan slacks. "Hey, man!" she said. "Glad you could make it! I was getting kinda desperate. Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Pines! How's it going, Mabel?"

"Wendy, we know each other better than that. Call us Alex and Wanda, please," Dad said, laughing. "You're looking good. How's the car running?"

"Smooth!" Wendy said. "Dip, you bring your driving license?"

"Mabel and I both," Dipper said. "Did we tell you about the test and all? Mabel had a little trouble on the driving course."

"Yeah," Mabel agreed, "but I sped up and wouldn't slow down until the examiner begged me to stop and said he'd give me a pass if he survived!"

"Cool," Wendy said. "Maybe Dipper can take the Dart out for a spin." With her back to his parents, she mimed zipping her lip—Dipper had already driven her car, several times, but they didn't need to know that.

"Do be careful!" Wanda Pines said. "Wendy, I'm sure Dipper is very flattered to be chosen as your date—but, well—I'm sorry—aren't there boys up here?"

Wendy laughed. "None that the Prom Queen deemed worthy!"

"Whoa-ho-ho!" Mabel exclaimed, her pupils growing enormous. She whispered, "You're Prom Queen?"

"Yup," Wendy said, grinning. "Crazy, huh? I mean, all my usual buddies graduated last June, and I could've been done with classes in December, 'cept I decided to take the last one this term. I mean, this isn't really my own senior class, but they somehow voted for me, so boosh! There it is!"

"Then Dipper's Prom King!" Mabel said. "Appoint me Prime Minister! I'm begging you here! I want to be Prime Minister!"

"Slow down," Dipper said. "That's not the way it works!"

"Dipper's right," Wendy said. "Sorry about the king biz, but the Prom King's elected, too. It's Yance Brawley. Football linebacker. And he's mad at me 'cause his girlfriend, Freddie Lavelle, didn't get Queen."

"Freddie?" Mrs. Pines asked, raising an eyebrow. "A boy?"

Wendy laughed. "Not hardly. Her real name's Frieda, but she hates it. No, she's, like, head of the cheerleader squad, but the thing is—she's kinda rich and kinda spoiled and not very nice to other people, so she came in like fourth in a field of four, and I won by thirty votes. And I wasn't even running! I mean, they nominated me, but I didn't campaign. Last thing I expected was to win. So, Dipper, I'm s'posed to dance the first dance with old Yancey, but after that, you're my date, OK?"

"OK," Dipper said, smiling. "I'll live with that."

"'Scuse me," Wendy said. "Customers are lining up. Gotta go to work!"

"We'll help!" Mabel said. "Grunkle Stan, you can come and pick me up later, right?"

"It's OK, Stan," Wendy said. "I'll drop her off after work, if it's all right with Mr. and Mrs. Pines."

It was. After a short break to visit her pigs and Soos's and Melody's children—she had her priorities—Mabel returned and took over the cashier's position, and for the rest of the afternoon it was like old times—except, unlike Stan, Soos didn't object to Mabel's tossing in a random free bumper sticker or two as the Mabel difference. She was especially good with families who brought children in—she always upsold the kids on some entertaining but thoroughly fake junk.

At six, when the Shack closed, Wendy drove them to the Fruits de la Mer restaurant for dinner. Mabel had first eaten there years before, with Li'l Gideon, and had obtained a lobster who had briefly served as her pet until she liberated it. She'd named him, or maybe her, Knuckles, which seemed to fit.

In the restaurant, Dipper gasped at the prices on the menu, but Wendy reassured him: "Chill! First, we get a discount, 'cause the restaurant and the Shack are both on the Chamber of Commerce. Second, Soos said it was cool to charge this on the Shack card as a business expense. Go on and order anything you want."

"Two of everything!" Mabel said. "Except lobsters!" However, she wound up with a more sensible surf-and-turf order: shrimp cocktail, a petite steak, salad, and baked potato. Dipper had a similar salmon and salad meal, but he skipped the shrimp. The nominally Jewish Pines family did not keep kosher, but the thought of eating shrimp seemed somehow wrong to Dipper. Wendy had mountain trout and wild rice.

While they ate, Wendy caught the twins up on happenings in the Falls. "Not so much paranormal junk as usual since the last time you were up," she said. "There was a little blow-up with the Gnomes—a faction of thirty or forty of them sort of rebelled against Jeff being the Queen's right-hand Gnome, 'cause they've started to think the badger really isn't talkin' to him at all, and the orders all come from him, not her. In the end, that little bunch of them went feral—you know, left the trees and dug burrows, like their ancestors did—but the majority of them have quieted down again."

"They've been doing all right with Jeff's 'interpreting' badger language," Dipper said.

"Yeah," Mabel agreed. "They don't starve and freeze in the winter any longer. What else, Wendy?"

"Let me see . . . those creepy eye-bats that we still get around from time to time have been multiplying. But since Bill Cipher's not throwin' magic around, they don't freeze people into stone these days. Just screw around with you by hovering overhead and staring at you until you get that sense you're being spied on, and don't go out at night with fruit in your hand, 'cause they'll mug you for it. Oh, yeah, speaking of that, for a little while back in February people thought there was a giant vampire bat flyin' around, too, but then it turned out to be just an umpire bat—"

"Whaaat?" Mabel asked, spraying tiny fragments of baked potato.

"Yeah, dude," Wendy said. "It would swoop down late at night behind somebody out alone and screech, 'Yer OUT!' or 'STEE-rike TWO!' and scare people half to death. Ford got rid of it."

"How?" Dipper asked.

"Trapped it in a net, easy-peasey. Umpire bats are blind, man. Well-known fact."

After they ate, Wendy dropped Mabel off at the McGucket mansion, then Dipper at the Shack. "Takin' tomorrow off, dude," Wendy said. "Got to get all girlied up for the prom. Dad's arranged for a limo to pick us up here. I'll be over around six-thirty, so be ready for me!"

"I will be!" Dipper promised. They exchanged a quick good-night kiss before she left.

He spent the early part of that Friday evening playing with Little Soos, while Harmony sat in Abuelita's lap and drooled and gurgled. Thank heavens, at least the little girl got her looks from Melody.

Later, Dipper went up to bed, but couldn't sleep. He'd been to dances with Wendy before—but the prospect of being the Queen's date kept him tossing and turning for a few hours before he finally drifted off, only to dream that the dance was held in a gym with retractable floor over a swimming pool, and that some shadowy enemy threw the lever at the worst moment and dumped a dancing Wendy and Dipper into the water.

He woke up wondering where in the world that weird notion had come from. But it was only two in the morning, so he turned over, pounded his pillow a little, and eventually drifted off and got some rest.

On Saturday, Wendy put in an appearance early. Tambry Valentino, her old friend, met her at the Shack. "Gonna go out and get my hair and nails done," Wendy told Dipper. "Then Tambry's driving me back home, so I can leave my car here for tonight, after the dance." She gave him a mischievous grin, making him wonder exactly what Wendy was planning for after the dance.

Wondering didn't quiet the butterflies in his stomach. He really felt relieved at nine, when the Shack officially opened for the day and gave him something else to think about. Melody helped in the gift shop, and so did Dipper, right up until about four. Then he went upstairs, showered, shaved (every day now, man!) and started to get dressed.

Mabel and Mom came up to help him with that, fastening the cummerbund, tying the bow tie, adjusting the stiff pleated shirt, fastening the cuff links (faux emerald, to match Wendy's eyes), twitching the tux jacket until it hung just right, and then fussing over the patent-leather shoes. Dipper began to get a sense of how a department-store dummy might feel if it could feel at all. Then again, in Gravity Falls, maybe they all could.

He'd had a light breakfast and lunch, but was too nervous even for a snack in the late afternoon. Mabel, by contrast, ate heartily—Teek O'Grady had come in and had cooked up burgers for everybody who could eat—and then she got dressed in the guest room, while Teek came upstairs and put on his rented tux, again with Mom's help on the details.

Mom also produced corsages, a spring of lavender dodecatheons (better known as shooting-star flowers) for Mabel, whose dress was pink, and for Wendy, who had said she was wearing an ivory-colored prom dress, a wrist corsage of three delicate pink roses.

WRIST corsage. Man, Mom's not taking any chances, Dipper thought.

Dipper hung around in the parlor, feeling uncomfortable. He was ready before five-thirty, so he had an hour to kill—and he dreaded getting a spot or stain on that tux! Meanwhile, Mabel and Teek practiced dancing to MP3s, everything from hip-hop to waltzes. Dipper sat watching them, sure he was forgetting every dance step he'd ever learned.

Then just before six-thirty, they heard a thunderous rumble out in the parking lot. Dipper ran to the gift-shop door—to see Manly Dan's big logging truck haul in. It parked, the passenger door opened, and Wendy scrambled down. Dipper caught his breath. She looked so gorgeous in her long ivory gown, the bodice decorated with rhinestones and pale floral appliqués. It had a sort of choker collar, with the front of the bodice gathered at the neckpiece and a—well, a kind of keyhole slit revealing part of her cleavage. Not a large part, but a nice part, and enough to make Dipper gulp.

"Thanks, Dad!" Wendy called. Her hair had been done up in a kind of glorious red crown. Dipper's heart melted inside him.

Manly Dan clambered out of the drivers' seat and came up to the front door of the Shack. Melody invited him in, but he turned shy. "Aw, I just come to see my baby girl off," he muttered. He handed her a dusty-pink clutch purse. "You're gonna forget this thing yet," he said.

"Thanks, Dad," Wendy said, hugging him. "'S just that I never carry a purse!"

Dan nodded and turned to Dipper. "Dipper, you get her back by midnight, you hear me?"

"Yes, sir," Dipper said.

"Dad!" Wendy chided.

Manly Dan shrugged. "OK, OK, but not one second after two A.M."

"Dad—Prom breakfast tomorrow morning, remember?"

Dan frowned. "You gonna stay out all night?"

"Well, yeah! It's a tradition!"

Dan surrendered to tradition and retreated from the battlefield. "Well, all right, I guess. You check in with me at midnight, though, let me know you're OK, or I'm comin' to get you!"

"I'll call," Wendy promised. She stretched way up and kissed his cheek. "I'll be fine, Dad! No drinking, no drugs, no fooling around. This is Dipper. You know you can trust him."

"Well—you kids be good!" Dan stuck out a hand the size of a baseball mitt, and Dipper realized he was offering a handshake. A little fearfully, he put his own hand out, but somehow Dan didn't crush it to pulp.

"I'll take care of Wendy, sir," Dipper heard himself say. Then he added hastily, "In a nice way, I mean!"

Dan grinned, unexpectedly, patted Mabel on the head, and then walked back to his truck, wiping away some trace of moisture from his eye.

"He always gets that way when he sees me in a dress!" Wendy said. "You're lookin' sharp, dude. Mabel, that prom dress is flat-out stunning! Where's the limo?"

"Hasn't showed yet!" Mabel said. "Come on in. When are we due at the school?"

"Not until seven," Wendy told her. "Then Dip and I have to go through Queen and Escort training or some biz. I got to dance the first dance with that guy I told you about, and after that, just Dipper and me!"

"I hope nobody's going to rag on you for dating someone from outside the school," Dipper said.

"Meh, if they do, forget 'em," Wendy replied, linking her arm with his. Their touch-telepathy activated as soon as her hand held his: To tell you the truth, man, I wouldn't even have gone if you hadn't been able to come up.

—You're looking so grown-up and beautiful, Lumberjack Girl! I feel about twelve years old next to you.

Mabel said, "I love the way the salon fixed your hair! Sexy, girl!"

Luckily, Mom wasn't close enough to hear that. Teek awkwardly pinned Mabel's corsage on her pink gown, and Dipper resignedly slipped the wrist corsage over Wendy's left hand. Then they waited in the parlor for only a few minutes until they heard the drawn-out whonnnnk! of a car horn out in the parking lot. Mabel shot out of the love seat she had been sharing with Teek. "Must be our ride!"

They hurried to the gift-shop door. On the porch, they paused, Dipper blinking. "What is that?"

The driver's door of the classic black car stood open. Grunkle Stan leaned on the hood, grinning. "Hiya, knuckleheads! This, Dipper, is a 1931 Chrysler Imperial Club. Guy I know collects and restores old cars, and this is like the creamed corn of the crop. I sort of won the right to borrow it in a poker game a couple of months ago. Anyhow, it's your ride for tonight, so all aboard!"

"Has Dad seen this car?" Mabel asked, running her hand over the boxy, gleaming hood.

Stan threw his head back. "Hah! Why do you think I'm late? I had to take Alex out for a spin. Come on, I'm supposed to dump Dip and Wendy off by seven. Everybody in!"

Mabel and Teek claimed the back seat, leaving Dipper and Wendy to share the front with Grunkle Stan. "No seatbelts," he said, expertly working the clutch and the gearshift. "This thing ain't exactly street-legal, but I'll drive slow. Here we go!"

They covered the three miles to the school carefully and sedately. Stan stopped in front of the gym and got out, opening the door for Dipper and Wendy, then the back door for Teek and Mabel. "OK, guys, I'm gonna park this baby right over there under the corner light. Then I'm gonna walk over to the Skull Fracture for a few hours. Relax, I'll hold it to one beer, no more. Call me if you need wheels."

"Thanks, Grunkle Stan!" Mabel said.

They had quickly attracted a small appreciative audience of dressed-up students, both boys and girls, who complimented Wendy. Halfway to the gym, Wendy suddenly stopped and said, "Oh, boo! I forgot my purse again!"

"I'll get it," Dipper said.

"Nah, Stan's still over there, I see him locking up the car. I'll run back and get it. Meet you at the back door of the gym. We're s'posed to go in that way."

"Can we sneak in with you?" Mabel asked, holding Teek's hand.

Wendy laughed. "As Queen of the Prom, I name you my unofficial court! Sure, just wait until I get there."

Dipper, Mabel, and Teek walked toward the back of the gym—where a gaggle of mostly tall and heavy-set guys and their smaller but much prettier dates already waited. One of the muscular boys said, "I can't believe this. Wendy Corduroy goin' with a shrimp like this guy? What's your name, kid?"

"Dipper Pines," he said. "I guess you're Yancey Brawley?

"Nah," the guy said. "My name's Brick Grundersen. I'm the QB." He pointed to an even bigger hulk of a guy, who stood glowering at Dipper. "That's Yance. Hey, Yance, this is Dippy Pinhead! He's goin' with that cheater Wendy!"

"Cheater?" Mabel asked in a heated tone. "You take that back!"

Grundersen sneered at her. "Yeah, if she hadn't've cheated, Yance's girl Freddie woulda been Queen of the Prom!"

Freddie seemed to be the tall blonde girl in a silver lamé gown. Her blue-eyed glower nearly matched Yance's, though in her case she had two separate eyebrows, not just one heavy, thick one. Staring at Dipper with hostile eyes, she snarled, "Slut's not even goin' with one of our guys. Where's Dipshit from, anyway?"

Dipper took a deep breath. He kept his voice pleasant: "First, my name is Dipper. Second, my sister and I are from Piedmont, California, but we've spent summers here since we were twelve, and I've known Wendy for years. And I think she could invite anybody she wanted to, right?"

Yancey swaggered up to him. He was taller than Dipper—but not by all that much. At sixteen, Dipper was now within an inch or two of being as tall as Wendy, and she was a tall girl. Yancey made a Dipper and a half in width, though. He stuck out a hand with two fingers extended and poked Dipper hard in the chest, hard. "I say Corduroy's a cheater! And I say you got no business here!"

"Don't hurt him, Dipper," Teek said.

Suddenly wary, Yancey darted his angry gaze toward Teek. "Shut up, you Irish queer!"

"OK," Teek said mildly, with a shrug. "So maybe you do need to hurt him, Dip."

Yancey, with absolutely no warning, threw a left at Dipper's head—Mabel screamed, "Look out!"

However, Yancey's blow went wild, and he seemed surprised when his fist failed to connect with anything but air. Dipper had swiveled out of the way with speed he had developed on the running track. "You really don't want to start this," he said.

"Screw you!" Yancey bulled toward him, evidently intent on wrestling him to the ground, as Brick Grundersen, behind him, said, "Tear him apart!"

A second later, Brawley sat on his butt, grasping his middle and wheezing for air. "What did you do to him?" Freddie bawled, her voice as whiny as a complaining cat's.

Dipper held up his left fist. "Just what he tried to do to me, but since I didn't want to break my fingers, I hit him in the solar plexus instead of trying to break his nose," he said. "Something I learned from my great-uncle." He tried to cover up how much his whole arm hurt—nothing broken, but he had punched the bigger boy so hard he'd jarred it.

"I'll kick your ass!" It was Grundersen, who came dancing in, showing a little fancy footwork.

Wendy had come up behind Dipper. "I got this," she said. "Hey, Grundy, guess what? My prom skirt has a slit!"

To prove it, she lashed out with a stockinged leg and caught him, well, where it counted. He made a high-pitched squealing sound and his knees knocked together as he crumpled. "You damn bitch!" shrieked a dark-haired girl, bending over Grundersen.

Freddie screeched, too, and rushed Wendy, her hands raised, fingers hooked like claws.

"Back off!" Mabel warned, stepping to Wendy's side. She wore a fierce war-face grimace that would give the Gremloblin pause.

"The young lady's right," said a man's cold, grating voice, stopping Freddie, who spun around, looking alarmed. "Everybody cool it. Now!" A short-haired man in a badly-fitting gray suit stepped through the rear door of the gym.

"Coach Lakey," the downed Grundersen bawled, crying like a little girl, "she kicked me!"

"Good for her," Lakey said. "I heard everything and saw most of it." He jerked his thumb toward the parking lot. "Hit the road and take Leeanne with you. I've just canceled your prom tickets." He reached down, grabbed Brawley by the back of his tux collar, and easily hauled him to his feet. "You're supposed to be King of the Prom. You want to attend? Or you want me to send you home?"

Brawley, all but dangling, the seams in his tux straining, complained, "He started it!"

Lakey's gravelly voice cut him off: "Bullshit! I told you, I heard it all. Here's the deal: You play nice for the rest of the evening and you get to stay for the dance. You sit on that stupid throne and act like you're happy to be there, and you don't say one word out of line to Wendy or her date or her friends. I don't give a shit if you dance with her or not—Wendy, you want to dance with this loser?"

"Not me," she said.

"OK, so we might just skip the opening dance. Now you and your date get your butts inside. Grundersen, why are you still hanging around? I'm not changing my mind! Go home!"

"I'll tell my folks what you—"

"Week's detention!"

"Coach, you can't—"

"Cancel that football trophy! You're not getting one."

"You—"

"Month's detention! Want to go for failure to graduate? Because I'll oblige you!"

"Leeanne, you and Brick better go," Freddie said, sounding unhappy.

Growling and grumbling, he grabbed his weeping date's hand and pulled her away. He was limping. Teek touched Dipper's arm. "I think Mabel and I'd better watch over your uncle's car," he said, twitching his head toward the grumbling football players. "Just to make sure nothing happens to it."

Mabel took her phone from her clutch purse. "I'll call him and tell him to come over and move it. He can park in the gated garage behind the Skull Fracture and then come for us when we call him again."

"Good idea," Wendy said.

Coach Lakey had ushered Brawley and Freddie inside. He came back to the door and crooked his finger at Wendy and Dipper. "You two aren't going to cause any trouble, are you?"

"We didn't want trouble to begin with, sir," Dipper said. "They picked on us."

"I know they did, son. All right, I apologize for my language, but I got a daughter myself and I hope she'd stand up for herself just the way Wendy did. Now, Wendy, I'm going to trust you to keep your head. If any of them start bothering you or your date, you let me or one of the other chaperones know. Don't take them on yourself. Let us handle it."

"You got it, Coach," Wendy said. "I'm not gonna start anything."

The prom had more than its share of chaperones—there was the coach, of course, but Mr. Keith Halpers, the shop teacher, was there, escorting the counselor, Mrs. Flannagan, for the evening. No-nonsense Miss Henriquez, who taught math, was there, too, and Wendy pointed out three other teachers, two women and one man—so even though the dance had drawn a big crowd, there were eyes everywhere looking out for trouble.

Dipper and Mabel applauded as the King and Queen of the Prom made their grand entrance and took their thrones on stage. A contingent of girls—most likely the cheerleaders, Dipper thought—ostentatiously turned their backs to the stage when Wendy was announced, but most of the gang of students cheered wildly, and Mabel stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled, a trick she had learned from Grunkle Stan, but one that Dipper had never been able to master.

The truce held for the first part of the Prom. The King and Queen did dance one very short dance—not a slow one, no touching—and then the DJ opened the floor to everyone. Dipper made his way over to Wendy. "Thank God that's over!" she said, laughing. "Now let's have some fun!"

And they did. Dipper thought back to that party when he was twelve, when he created a small gang of clone Dippers to help him carry out his intricate plan to dance with Wendy. It all fell through—the few steps they did together after Pacifica had won the party crown and had led everyone else off to an after party except for Wendy, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda, well, those didn't really count.

But since then—Dipper had learned some real dance steps, and he'd practiced with Mabel, and this was, what, the sixth or seventh dance that he'd attended with Wendy? Anyway, they moved very smoothly together.

In fact, their touch-telepathy let them slow-dance as gracefully as Fred and Ginger in those corny old movies. Each of them sensed the other's moves even before they made them, and twice girls that Wendy knew but Dipper didn't know came over to congratulate them. "Where'd you pick up this smooth guy?" one asked and the other said, "I wish my date was that graceful! My guy's stomping on my toes!"

At a little past nine, Mr. Halpers called a temporary halt while he carried the punchbowl outside and dumped it. When he brought it back, he re-filled it from plastic jugs and loudly announced, "Spike it one more time, and you'll do without!"

"Wish I'd brought some Smile Dip," Mabel whispered to Dipper. She and Teek were dancing a lot, but she was proving popular among the Gravity Falls High boys, too, several of whom knew and liked her from the summers the twins spent in the town. One of them, a shy-looking and rather chunky kid named Ronnie, finally got up the nerve to ask Mabel for a dance, and she waltzed around the room with him.

"Huh," Wendy said. "He's real familiar, but I can't remember how I know him. I think he's a junior."

"Should have been," Teek corrected. "He's Ronnie Nable. Something weird happened the summer he was thirteen, though. He disappeared for a whole year and nobody knew where he was. Funny thing, his parents didn't even miss him. He's got ten brothers and sisters, and he's the quietest one, so they just sort of never noticed his absence. Then one day somebody, I think Mr. Poolcheck, dropped him off at his house just out of the blue, and he started back to school a year behind."

"Sometimes the outhouse on the Mystery Trail does that kind of thing," Dipper said. "You're inside it for ten minutes, and when you come out, a couple of hours have passed. Not a whole year, though"

"Strange," Wendy said. Then she shrugged. "Oh, well, that's Gravity Falls for you."

"I think he's got a crush on Mabel," Teek muttered, sounding a little unhappy.

"It's just one dance," Dipper comforted him.

"It better be," Teek said.

"Too bad Pacifica didn't come," Wendy said cheerfully. "You could dance with her and make Mabel, like, insanely jealous. She's a junior, though, and probably off on a date somewhere with her boyfriend Danny. Hey, wanna take a turn with me?"

"Sure," Teek said, grinning, his good nature returning.

As the night wore on, the little group of girls—and Dipper had been right, they were cheerleaders who nursed a collective grudge against Wendy—began to get meaner. One of them, dancing with a football player, intentionally hip-bumped Dipper, making him stumble during a slow dance, but Wendy, thanks to their silent communication, helped him recover without a bad misstep and without further trouble.

He kept catching nasty, catty remarks, though: "Thinks she's the boss bitch!" "Look at that hair!" "Not even really in our class!" "Skinny." "Gawky." "Somebody said she's lez."

Their insults bothered Dipper, but Wendy stayed cool. "Ignore them, Dip. They're just troublemakers, and they can't make any if we don't provide the ingredients!"

Mabel danced more times, and with more people, than either Wendy, Dipper, or Teek did, and she came over red-faced at one point in the evening. "Whoosh! Even I think I'm overdoing it! Teek, be a sweetie and get me a cup of punch, please?"

"Sure," Teek said.

"You want one, Wendy?" Dipper asked.

"Mm, yeah, I guess so."

"Coming up," Dipper said. He and Teek made their way around the edge of the dancing crowd to the refreshment tables. "Mabel doesn't mean anything by dancing with those other guys," Dipper assured Teek, speaking over the music. "It's just, you know, Mabel being Mabel."

"She's got more energy than I have!" Teek admitted. "But I know why guys like her. She's not like anybody but herself. It's hard not to fall for her. I guess I have, you know, a real thing for her. I mean a serious thing."

"I kinda always knew that," Dipper said. "It's cool with me, Teek."

"Thanks." It was warm in the gym now, and Teek pushed his spectacles back into place on his nose.

"Hey," Dipper said, "I knew you were looking different somehow—new glasses!"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, got them right after Christmas. I'd had those round Harry Potter frames for years, and during the spring my allergies won't let me wear my contacts, so I thought I'd try some wire-rims. Mabel says she likes them."

"Yeah, sophisticated," Dipper said. They edged around a knot of the football players, who muttered angrily when they caught sight of Dipper. Following Wendy's advice, he ignored them.

But then as he was ladling some punch into a cup, he heard a sharp "Huahh!" behind him and turned quickly. He couldn't help chuckling. Yance Brawley had snuck up just behind him and from the looks of it had drawn back his right fist to sucker-punch Dipper in the kidney.

Only—Wendy had snuck up behind Brawley and had reached out with one manicured hand to seize Brawley's arm just above the elbow. Dipper saw her polished nails digging in. "Play nice, remember?" Wendy said pleasantly.

"Ow! That hurts! Let go!"

"He punched Brick when he wasn't expecting it!" Freddie said in a furious voice.

"Got him kicked out of the Prom!" another hulking guy put in.

"If you wasn't a girl, I'd tear you a new one!" Brawley growled.

Dipper caught a kind of sour whiff. Maybe they hadn't spiked the punch, but the football players and their dates were probably drinking beer on the sly.

"Really? Let's try you out," Wendy said, smiling. "Dip, get two of those folding chairs and drag 'em over here."

Dipper did, suspecting what was coming up. At Wendy's direction, he set the chairs up at the corner of one of the refreshment tables and moved empty cups and saucers to clear a space. "Sit down, Yance," Wendy said. She took the other chair. "One round of arm-wrestling. Loser leaves with their date."

"You crazy bitch!" Freddie whispered harshly. "He'll break your damn arm!"

"That's my lookout," Wendy said. She rested her elbow on the table and held her hand up. "C'mon, Yance. Might be the only time in your whole life when you get to hold hands with a real woman!"

"Oh, I'm gonna mess up that arm!" Yance said. He sat down and, grinning, put his elbow on the table and reached to clasp her hand.

"Freddie, count us down from three," Wendy said. "You try to go before that, Yance, you forfeit!"

Freddie's blue eyes were shining in evil anticipation. "Get ready. Three, two, one, go!"

"Hah!" Yance put all his muscle into it, and Wendy's arm went to a forty-five degree angle. And stopped. She tilted her head and raised an eyebrow, giving him a half-smile.

That made him mad. He nearly rose out of his chair for better leverage, but Mabel said, "No cheating! Get your butt back down there!"

"Thanks, Mabes," Wendy said coolly. "Are you gonna start any time soon, Yance?"

He grunted, the veins popping out on his forehead and on the back of his hand.

Wendy pushed his hand back to vertical. "Tell me when you get tired."

"You—damn—ho—"

"OK, now I'm bored," Wendy said, and with no visible effort, she slammed his hand down so hard that the cups and saucers rattled and danced on the table.

"Ow, damn it!" Brawley said, jumping up and cradling his elbow.

"Anybody else want to try?" Wendy asked, raising her voice. "Come on, I got plenty left!"

"How the hell did you do that?" one of the football players asked.

Wendy said, "Mabes, you still got my purse? Take my phone out. Give it to me." Wendy found something on the phone. "You guys don't even know who my folks are. My dad's Dan Corduroy. People call him Manly Dan. You've been sneakin' beers—I know the smell. And I bet some of you crushed those wimpy little aluminum cans on your foreheads and felt like big men. Well, just look at this!" She held up the phone and started a video. Manly Dan, outside at some picnic or celebration, hefted a five-and-a-half gallon beer keg. The small speaker brought out his roaring voice: "This one's empty!"

And he crushed it on his forehead, then crumpled the flattened keg it to a compressed mass of heavy aluminum no bigger than a soccer ball. He tossed it over his shoulder—and the short movie ended.

"I'm not built like Dad," Wendy said, "but I got his genes. His freakish lumberjack genes! Mess with me, you'll feel like you been through a meat grinder. And I don't let ladies push my guy around, either!"

"The dork?" one of the cheerleaders sneered.

Wendy got up from the chair, and all of them—cheerleaders, football players, all of them—shrank back a step. She reached out and took Dipper's hand. "Dip, are you a dork?"

"I sure am," he said. "And proud of it!"

"Yeah, he's a dork," Wendy said, grinning dangerously. "But he's my dork! So you treat him right!"

And she turned and planted a big, loving kiss on Dipper. He heard the cheerleaders gasping. When they broke the kiss, he took a deep breath, grinning as goofily as Mabel on Smile Dip, and asked, "How was that for a dork?"

"Just what I wanted!" Wendy said. "Uh, Yance—I believe your curfew hour just arrived."

Yance and Freddie didn't even put up an argument, but walked away and out of the gym, red-faced. The other cheerleaders and their dates faded into the crowd.

A moment after that, "Don't Let Me Down" ended, and before the DJ started the next tune, Coach Lakey's voice boomed from the speakers: "Ladies and gentlemen, our Prom King just abdicated his throne. But we've still got more than an hour until midnight. Want to elect a new temporary king to substitute?"

There were claps and cheers.

"All right," Lakey said. "I nominate a visitor. He's an athlete and a good kid, and he's helped this town and its people in ways most of you don't even know about. I say let's make Wendy Corduroy's date, Dipper Pines, king for the last bit of the Prom. Who votes for him?"

The gym shook with approval. Dipper grinned. He was under no illusions about his own standing, but it felt great to know that his Lumberjack Girl was so popular.

And from then on, they danced and laughed and enjoyed themselves.

Grunkle Stan picked them up a couple of minutes past midnight, just as Wendy had finished her touch-bases call to her dad, and in the gym parking lot, a whole crowd of students—even some of the football players—clustered around the classic car, admiring it.

To Dipper's surprise, three of the cheerleaders came slowly, reluctantly over, and one of them said in a little-girl voice, "We were wrong about you, Wendy. We're sorry."

"It's cool," Wendy said with a shrug. "I know I'm kinda a freak!"

Then one of the football players—Dipper later learned he was a fullback—blurted, "Yeah. But you're our freak!"

And another player offered his hand to Dipper. "Sorry, man," he muttered as he shook hands. "What we did was messed up. You're an all-right guy."

"What now?" Stan asked when they drove away from the gym.

"Hey, Teek," Wendy said over her shoulder. "How's about we all go up to Lookout Point? Ever see the sun come up there?"

"Uh—no," Teek said. Lookout Point was a notorious make-out spot. "It's, uh, if Mabel, uh, wants—"

"Mabel wants to do it!" Mabel announced.

"OK, so you two go in Teek's car, and Dip and me will drive up in mine. We'll park side by side and chaperone each other. In a way. We cool with that, Stan?"

"Like ice," Stanley said, grinning.

Well . . . no use in detailing what went on. Let's say there was cuddling, and giggling, and smooching. Nothing too terribly intense, but—well, you know. Nice. That's the word. Sleepy and cozy and nice. Everybody was happy. And hours later, when a glorious sun rose to shine through the gap in the cliffs, the sight was very, very impressive.

Even when viewed through fogged windshields.

The End