"Dip, what's with the long face? You'll start looking like Grandma if you keep that frown. Not that Grandma looks bad, but y'know what I'm getting at."

Dipper Pines just grumbles in reply, looking at the speeding cars beside their bus currently heading to Gravity Falls, Oregon. "I just can't understand why Mom and Dad would send us to some relative we barely know who lives in a literal shack in the woods. It's probably haunted too."

"Aw, lighten up, Dippin-dots. Besides, maybe this is your chance to get that big summer romance!"

"For the last time, Mikey, boys are stinky."

After a moment's consideration, Dipper adds an "Especially you" for good measure. Mikey blows a raspberry at his sister in reply. "Like you smell any better!" He says, the two of them giggling.

Mikey always knows how to brighten up his sister's day, but that's expected from siblings as close as them. He usually refers to it as their "mystical twin connection".

And, to be fair, they considered each other as their best friend. They had each other's backs: Mikey always manages to appear out of nowhere whenever Jenna and her "clique" bullied Dipper, and his sister returns the kind gesture by helping Mikey with his Math homework. Neither of them really were that popular at school, but at least Mikey had his handful of friends that he'd play video games with after school. He had Dipper play for him once (and she UTTERLY WRECKED his friends) but they went all "nice and gooey" when they heard her on voice chat.

"They didn't even put up a fight anymore! I mean, Paul practically caught all my spells with that stupid armor of his." Mikey laughed at the memory of both his sister and his friends misunderstanding what those small gestures meant to the other party. These young minds will never understand the intricamalacies of true love. Unlike this guy!


The bus stopped in town after a few hours. "Mikey, c'mon wake up! I need to go to the bathroom and you might get shipped back to Piedmont if I leave you here!"

"No, Sergeant Pastorton, I was not sleeping on the job! Ah, wait. Sorry Dip. Alright, let's go!" Mikey grabbed his sister's hand and dragged her out of the bus with him. He put the big duffel bag labeled "Piedmont" on top of his camo-patterned stroller bag.

"I'll be gone for just three minutes. We'll be able to catch the bus that goes around town right in a few. Don't get lost without me, okay?"

"Okay, Mom," Mikey replied with another extremely wet raspberry. He started walking away, saying "Don't fuss over me so much, Dip. I can handle myself. Remember, I'm 5 minutes older than you!" When he looked back, he saw that Dipper was actually gone.

Hm. Well, that probably looked stupid. He sat down on one of those metal chairs that were always in a row and waited for Dipper to finish with her business.


"Welcome to the Mystery Shack, the home of anomalies such as the Sascr-"

"We know about the Sascrotch, Aunt Sibylla." Dipper sighed as she pointed to the undie-equipped Sasquatch rip-off. "And it's obviously fake."

"Now I like great minds when I see 'em, but not so much when I lose money because of 'em! I don't want to catch you saying that around them customers, okay? Okay, we've settled that." The deceptively sweet old lady took a breath, then shouted.

"BILL! GET YOUR A-ehem" Language, Sibs, she reminded herself, "GET YOUR BUTT OUT HERE! THE KIDS NEED HELP WITH THEIR STUFF!"

A tall, lanky redhead shuffled out the door of the shack, nodded at the twins with a lazy smile, and took the bags up. "Sure, Mrs. P."

When Bill disappeared back into the gift shop entrance, Mikey asked her graunt a question. "Graunt Sibs, who was that?"

"Oh, that dear was William Corduroy. He's that lumberjack lady's only son. Says he looks a lot like his pop whenever she comes by. Poor lady."

"Now, come in! Come in. The Shack won't give way under your feet, don't worry!"


RING! RING! RING!

The loud clanging of bells woke up Dipper and Mikey from their deep sleep, clearly exhausted from the trip yesterday.

"SHACK MEETING DOWNSTAIRS! NOW!"

The twins hurried down the stairs, with Mikey opting to slide down the railing. "Hey Dipsies, look at my butt splinters! Eeeeew!" He snorted in laughter. They entered the gift shop with Bill and Ria inside, with a very serious looking Sibylla Pines. This was her businesswoman mode, she'd tell herself.

"The tourist trap season starts today. Many people are driving interstate, so that means a lot of potential customers for us. Ria, replace the light bulbs out front and repaint the totem. Bill, ready the gift shop. And someone has to hang up these signs in the woods."

"Not it," the twins immediately said.

"Well, tough luck kids. Mikey, you're going out."

Mikey huffed and said, "Last night I heard some wolves out there. What if they were howling because they found some frogs to eat and then they were telling their packmates that 'Hey, we have meat'? I can't take that risk, Graunt Sibs. I hate frogs."

"Can't argue with that logic. Dipper, you're on duty." Sibylla took one look at the girl's opened mouth and quickly added, "No but's except yours out the door. Get!"

Dipper took the signs, a hammer, and a couple of nails and headed out towards the woods.


Do wolves even eat frogs? Stupid Sibs. Who'll even see these signs out here anyway? Dipper complained to herself as she hammered a nail into a tree. Surprisingly, the nail got bent as a metallic clang rang through the tree. Huh. That was totally NOT a tree, Dipper thought.

After feeling around the faux bark, she felt a handle. She pulled the door open and saw a small control panel with only two switches. As she was playing around with the switches, she felt something shift under her feet.

Looking behind her, she saw a fresh hole in the ground containing a leather-bound book with a six-fingered golden hand on its cover, the number three painted on the hand. She opened the book to its first few pages and started reading.

It's hard to believe it's been six years since I began studying the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon.

Dipper was left speechless with her discovery. It was a journal detailing supernatural creatures and objects found in the small, sleepy town she was currently trapped in for the whole summer. Could it actually be true? And would Mikey be game for an adventure a day? While going through all the possibilities laid out for her, her gaze stopped on a certain page.

Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed. I'm being watched. It seemed like whoever wrote the journal did their best to hide it away, for fear of a certain someone finding it. What made Dipper stop in her tracks, though, was the last line of the page.

Remember: in Gravity Falls, there is no one you can trust.