Christmas in the Shack

Chapter 2: The Ghost of Christmas Presents

"Oh, Wendy!" Dipper said, staring at the contents of the big box. "This is way too much! It must have been really expensive!"

"Relax, dude," Wendy told him, grinning. They all sat on the floor beside the tree, which Dipper had switched on so it danced and twinkled with lights. "I sold some blood. Ya know, Corduroy blood goes for a thousand bucks a pint!" When he raised his head with a stricken expression, she punched his arm. "Kidding! I shopped on sale days all fall an' picked up some great bargains."

From the box Dipper took out an oversized backpack, a compact pup tent, a canteen and set of camping cookware, a fancy compass, a toolkit with a folding saw, a hatchet, a knife, a burning glass for starting campfires, a powerful flashlight, and some electronic components he didn't recognize. "What are these?"

Wendy leaned over. "Oh, right, those are contributions from Fiddleford and Ford." Looking around to make sure Dipper's parents weren't listening—they were in the dining room setting the table for the meal—she said, "The long one with the green screen that looks sorta like a remote control is an anomaly detector like Ford's, but miniaturized. It gives you a six-axis readout, whatever that means. He'll show you how to use it. The smaller roundish one is Fiddleford's protective field generator, guaranteed to repel most dingdanged supernality extra-mundane hootenanny critters to a distance of at least fifteen feet away from you, by crackity. Or so he says."

Dipper touched the devices reverently. "Well, it's all great. But I don't have much experience, you know, out in the woods. I mean, except with the Manotaurs, and I've been trying to forget those two days!"

Wendy smiled. "Don't worry about that. Keep it quiet from the 'rents, but I'll take you out into the woods next summer and teach you all about camping." She zipped her lip.

Smiling, Dipper did the same.

Meanwhile, Mabel was sniffling and weeping a little—tears of joy. She lay on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, in front of a home-made book. "These are really Waddles's kids?" she asked, looking up from the fat scrapbook of photos Wendy had both shot herself and collected from all of her and Mabel's friends. They'd all been taken during September, October, and November in Gravity Falls. The page Mabel was studying featured an eight-by-ten that showed Waddles looking content and surrounded by eight tiny little pink piglets.

Wendy chuckled. "Yeah, guess his marriage to Gompers didn't take," she said. "Soos introduced him to a nice lady pig who lives on a farm outside the valley, an', well, nature took its course. The farmer promises none of 'em will wind up as bacon or ham, and best of all, you get the pick of the litter when we get back to the Falls. Waddles can show one of his babies the ropes about piggin'."

"Ooh, a Waddles Junior!"

"I'm glad you're happy," Wendy said. "But how about the other stuff? You like the clothes?"

"Love 'em!" Mabel said, rolling over on her back and holding an assortment of jeans, boot socks, and comfy soft shirts to her chest. "An' the boots will be great for going camping, too! Now for you! Your turn, mine first!" she held out a big flat box. Shyly, she admitted, "I didn't spend a lot of money, but I put a lot of time into this."

Wendy opened it and took the present from a bed of tissue paper. "Oh, snap! Mabel, this is your masterpiece! Oh, this is so—"

"Try it on!" Mabel said.

"'Kay!" Wendy stood up and pulled the sweater down over her head. "Perfect fit! Oh, man, this is the coolest. I mean, it's so great! Feels snug an' warm, and it's even nicer that the Weirdmageddon one you did for me!" She spread out her arms and showed off her new sweater, a bright red—but knitted with black panes and lines in a flannel plaid pattern! "Must've taken you, like, forever!"

"It was a challenge," Mabel agreed. Then she picked up a manila envelope and from it she took out three round cloth circles. "I also embroidered these to go on the sweater as appliqués. But I couldn't decide which one you'd like, so you pick and I'll fix it up tonight."

Wendy looked through the appliqués. One was an axe, of course, with a jolly little sprig of holly and a red ribbon decorating the handle. The second was a monogram, green and red against a snow-white background: WBC. But—

"Oh! I'll take this one," Wendy said. "This makes it even perfecter! I love it the most."

"Aw!" Mabel said, grinning. She took back the one that had the words BIG SISTER running around the top and bottom arcs of the circle. "I'm glad you like it! Now open Dipper's present!"

"It's not so much," Dipper said, squirming. "But—here, I hope it's OK and not, uh, you know, too dorky or dumb." He handed Wendy a long, narrow box that had to be jewelry.

"I'll like it," Wendy assured him, unwrapping it. Then she gasped. "Oh, Dipper!"

"They're real twenty-four karat gold beads," Mabel said.

Wendy looked a little misty-eyed as she held the necklace up. The beads weren't large, but they gleamed when she draped them across her neck. "Dipper, man, I don't know what to say! This must've cost you a lot!"

Dipper shrugged. "Well . . . Mabel and I kinda got some unexpected cash back last month, so it really doesn't matter. Tell you about how the money came in later. But you deserve a necklace like that, and better—I wish every bead could be a diamond."

Mabel was bouncing on her knees. "Tell her the best part, brobro!"

"OK, OK, but I don't know if you'll like this part or not," Dipper said to Wendy. "The beads aren't strung on jewelry chain, but on, um, unicorn hair. See, Ford had some left over, so he treated it, and—well, it's a protective necklace. I know you don't like unicorns—"

"Eh, they're jerks," Mabel said. "But they owed us from when Grunkle Stan sheltered them, and they coughed up when Pacifica's maniac of a cousin was threatening us, so Grunkle Ford had lots of hair. I've got the one Grunkle Ford made for me still, an' I'm always gonna wear it in Gravity Falls."

"Well," Wendy said with a smile, "I don't 'zackly love unicorns, but I'll be glad to have some protection against, you know, the everyday weirdness we always run into up there. Thanks, Dip!"

Dipper coughed and reached into his pocket for a little ring box. "And this. Now, I hope you don't mind, but this can clip onto the necklace as a pendant. But if it looks, you know, too mushy or you don't want to explain it, or you just don't want to wear it—"

"Shut up, man," Wendy said with a giggle. She opened the tiny box and took out a gleaming gold heart. "It's so pretty! Of course I want to wear it," Wendy said happily. Then she said, "Oh! It's engraved!"

"On both sides!" Mabel said. "It's reversible!"

On one side—a tiny bag of ice. On the other—an axe. Dipper chuckled self-consciously. "Those mean, you know, so much to me. But the jeweler thought I was nuts," he mumbled.

Wendy darted a glance at the kitchen, but the parents were busy inside, out of sight, and arguing about how to tell if the turkey was really done. "Stand up, man," Wendy said softly as she got to her feet, too. To Mabel she added, "You are not gonna see this, right?"

"I'll cover my eyes," Mabel said, still kneeling, and she did—though she kept her fingers a little apart so she could peek through them.

"Merry Christmas, Dip," Wendy whispered, and she put her arms around Dipper and kissed him.

He didn't even have to stretch up or stand on his tiptoes. He hugged her, and her heavy braids felt a little strange. Then they broke the kiss, and with her cheek warm against his, Wendy said, "There's more where that came from, but later, OK?"

"Y-yeah," Dipper said. "O-OK."

From the kitchen, Mom called, "Everyone into the dining room if you're hungry!"

"Sounds great!" Wendy called back.

Mr. Pines called out from the kitchen: "Kids, you didn't even shower this morning. Go wash up, Mabel, Mason."

"Mason?" Wendy asked, her lips quirking into a smile.

Dipper looked as if he wanted to sink right through the floor. "Oh, man. . . ."

"I like it," Wendy whispered, reaching out to give his hand a squeeze. "But to me, you're always gonna be my Big Dipper."

"Thanks—Red," Dipper whispered.

She made a playful face. "Now, I'm not sure that's gonna fly!"

"How about 'lumberjack girl'?" Dipper asked.

"Yeah—I could get used to that."

"Mason!"

"Going, Dad," Dipper said.

Mr. Pines came to the doorway and stood there chuckling. "Told you he had a crush on you."

Wendy laughed. "Well, I can see that he doesn't get his feelings hurt, and I understand stuff like that, you know. I'm a big girl."

"Now," Mr. Pines said as he led Wendy to the dining room, "about that engine you found. Does it have—"

And they went to the table still talking cars.