"Grunkle Stan... Grunkle Stan? GRUNKLE STAN!" Stan, whilst in the middle of a tour, heard a muffled shout from the gift shop bathroom. Moderately annoyed, and mildly worried, he pointed the crowd in the direction of a 'mer-duck', left his (semi) trusted repair man... child... in charge, and made his way towards the noise.
Judging from the feminine pitch of the voice, he assumed it was his niece he was dealing with, and made a left towards the lady's room. "I'm out here, kid. What do you need?"
"It's an emergency! I need your help!"
"It's a public bathroom!" He pointed out.
"I'm bleeding!!!" He sighed.
"Are you alone in there?"
"Yes."
He begrudgingly stuck a matinence sign on the door, and did his best to enter discreetly. "What's wrong?" He asked, standing outside the stall.
"I don't know! I was... wiping, and the paper was covered in blood! Nothing really hurts, except my stomach kind of, but I'm scared! There's so much blood! I think you might need to call 9-1-1!" It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what was happening, however growing up with all boys- aside from his mom- it was nothing but a horror story to him.
"No not this, anything but this!
"Grunkle Stan, help! I'm scared!" She sounded on the brink of tears, he felt bad for the kid, and put his discomfort behind him.
"You're fine, Pumpkin. Sit tight, I'll be right back," he hadn't the willpower to explain to her what was going on quite yet, and felt the subject was best not addressed in a public, and frankly quite gross, bathroom.
Stan, ever the hero, put his craftiness to use searching for something that could be used to... absorb. He knew what she needed, but never thought to actually stock up. In a moment of luck, he saw a mother soothing her crying baby, across the room, with her diaper bag sitting behind her, unattended. His brilliant plan was not to just asking the lady for what he needed, or even help dealing with the situation, but to steal a diaper when she wasn't looking.
'This should work...' he thought to himself, knowing this was a new low, even for him. He turned around to be met, face-to-face, with a confused, yet irked ginger.
"Do I even want to know why you just stole a diaper from that lady?"
"I knew you were getting old, but this is just sad," Dipper added, in passing. 'If only he knew.'
"Look I can explain!" Stan began, averting his attention back to Wendy. "Mable's having a bit of a... situation. And I'm helping her... clean up."
"Grow up and say the word, old man. Period." Stan looked like she had just punched his mother right in front of him.
Wendy smiled. "Period, period, period." She mocked, as he covered his ears.
"Make it stop!" Dipper sat, blissfully ignorant, across the room eating a bag of chips.
"Period, menstration."
"Ahhhhh!"
"If you can't even listen to the word, how do you expect to help her. Give me this!" She grabbed the diaper. "First of all, she's twelve YEARS old, not weeks! In what world did you think this would fit her?"
Stan scratched his head in embarrassment, feeling more put to shame by a measly teenage girl than he had in years. "Let a real adult handle this."
Wendy walked back to the counter, and grabbed a pad out of her bag, slipping it in her pocket. She made her way back to the bathroom where Mable was and knocked on the stall.
"Grunkle Stan?"
"It's Wendy, actually. I can assure you you're fine! This is perfectly normal."
"Bleeding out on the toilet?"
"It's called a period I'll explain in a minute. For now, I need you to peal the back off of this, like a sticker, and put it in your underwear." Wendy handing the pad over the stall door, and waited until she felt the other girl grab it.
"What is it?"
"It's called a pad, it will absorb the blood." She heard the all-familiar rustling noise, and watch as Mable, now semi-composed, and mostly calmed down, emerged from the stall.
"Let's go out there, and I'll explain this all to you." Mable nodded.
"I kind of made a mess, though."
"It's ok, it'll get taken care of." Wendy grabbed a mop from the corner, and brought it out of the room with her. Spotting Stan, she shoved it at him.
"As long as that bathroom is under matinence, it could use some cleaning. He took the mop from her, he really had no other option. 'I let my employees get away with too much,' he thought.
Wendy took Mable into a more private room, and explained to her exactly what had just happened, and what a period was. She felt bad for the girl. She remembered how scary it was when she started her's, especially being that she too lived with all boys.
Mable was glad Wendy was there too help, she would have been genuinely mortified having this conversation with Grunkle Stan. Wendy always seemed like such a tomboy, never wanted to have makeovers or dress up, it made it hard for Mable to really get to know her. But just this once, it was almost like having a big sister. Mable looked up at the older girl, and gave her a hug.
"Thank you so much, Wendy! I don't know what I would've done without you." Wendy hugged her back.
"Anytime kid! If you ever need some girl time, I'm here!"