Save the Manatee!
2: Catching Up
(June 7, 2015)
"Oy!" grunted Stan, carrying a snoozing Mabel through the side doorway of the McGucket mansion, where Dipper held the door open for him. "Does Mabel ever stay conscious past midnight?"
"She has two speeds," Dipper told his Grunkle. "Full and off."
Stan grunted. "Yeah, well, she's gettin' too big for this. C'mon, let's take the elevator. My knees are better than they useta be, but the stairs are still a pain!"
He led them down the hall—Chair Man Miaow, the robotized antique chair that Fiddleford had created and armed to the, well, chairs don't have teeth, do they? Armed to the brass tacks, let's say. Anyway, Chair Man Miaow met them, recognized Stan, and its twin .30-caliber machine guns swiveled into their compartments and the chair politely said, "Good morning, Mr. Pines." Somehow it could recognize Stan and Ford, even if they dressed alike. Stan was always "Mr." while Ford rated a respectful "Dr."
"Hiya, Annie," Stan said. Someone had told him it was a Queen Anne chair, and despite its name and masculine-sounding electronic voice, he had christened the chair that, and the chair didn't seem to mind.
They entered the nook where the small elevator was concealed, Wendy pressed the button for the second floor, and they rode up. "You know, Stan," she said as he lurched out of the elevator and lumbered down the hall, trying not to bump Mabel's head on the walls, "you probably cover more distance this way than if you took the stairs."
"It ain't the distance, Wendy, it's the inclination," he grumbled.
Wendy opened Mabel's traditional bedroom door—the previous fall, Wendy had slept there for a few nights herself, while Ford and Dipper investigated a strange kind of haunting that plagued the Corduroy house—and Stan tucked Mabel, fully dressed, into bed. She didn't really wake up, though she murmured, "Teek! You're so handsy tonight!"
"I'll ignore that," Stan said, straightening up. "Let's leave the luggage in the car until tomorrow, unless you guys can't make do without your dainties."
"I'm OK," Dipper said.
"Who you callin' 'dainty,' old man?" Wendy asked, but playfully.
Stan rubbed his back. "OK, in each bathroom you'll find a couple of new toothbrushes in the box and some toothpaste, soap, yada yada. Help yourselves. Jeeze, it's past one! Hope Sheila ain't stayed awake waitin' for me. I'm turnin' in, and nobody wake me and Sheila up until nine o'clock in the morning, got it?"
"Got it!" Wendy and Dipper said at the same instant.
"Sleep tight, knuckleheads," Stan said with a grin, and then he went down the hall and turned right, toward the suite he and his bride Sheila shared.
Dipper's room was next to Mabel's—a nice little bathroom lay between them—and he and Wendy exchanged a good-night kiss at his door. Then, alone and yawning, he pulled off his shoes and socks—and heard a light tap on his door. He opened it, and Wendy leaned against the doorjamb, a grin on her freckled face. "Hey, Dip, the Late Late show starts in five minutes. How about a movie night?"
"Uh—we'd have to go down to the TV room—"
"Nope," she said smugly. "I just found out that the big guest room Stan put me in has a thirty-six-inch flat screen. No need to go down at all. Unless you're just in the mood."
"OK, sure," Dipper said with a grin. He quietly closed the door, started down the hall, and suddenly stopped dead in his sock-footed tracks. "Wait, what?"
"Just teasin', dude," Wendy whispered, lightly punching his arm. "C'mon!"
The room on the right down at the end of the hall—at the back of the mansion—not only had a big TV, but also corner windows that (in the daytime) must have offered spectacular views, along with its own private bathroom, with a jetted tub big enough for two and—a huge king-sized bed. "Posh!" Dipper said.
"I know, right?" Wendy said. "I never went in while your folks were staying here."
"Me, either," Dipper told her. "Dad and Mom never invited me, and I didn't think to go and look." He tried out the bed. "Soft!"
"Yeah, like stayin' in a five-star resort hotel," Wendy agreed. She took off her trapper's hat—she and Dipper had exchanged headgear in the car on the way over from the airport—and tossed it onto a bedside table. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she tugged off her boots.
She retrieved something from the far bedside table. "Here's the remote." She turned on the TV and discovered that, probably dating from the days when it was the Northwest Mansion, the house had an incredible satellite TV service with, it looked like, 2500 channels. She flicked through them, and both she and Dipper noticed that the adult channels were not blocked.
"Whattaya think?" she asked, pausing at a spot where two underclad folks were nuzzling each other.
"I—think we better find the schlocky movie channel. If we mean to keep our pact."
Wendy clicked out of the skin-flick zone. "One day, though, man."
"What, we'll watch X-rated TV?"
"Not," she said, waggling her eyebrows, "what I had in mind."
Dipper coughed and grabbed the remote. "I think I can find the local station," he said, wedging his tongue in the corner of his mouth. He clicked into the low 100's and sure enough found the local station at 102. "Whoa!" he said as the picture came on. "This is great resolution!"
"Like a regular movie theater!" Wendy agreed.
The 1:00 news bulletin was just going off, and the newscaster—not Shandra Jiminez, but a baggy-eyed older guy in a gray checked jacket, light-blue shirt and dark-blue tie, was saying, "…tions continue into whether or not the deaths were related. That's it for the late news wrap-up, and now stay tuned to the Late Late Horrible Movie, which is, uh . . . The Moon Men and Mavis. I'm Cecil Parker, wishing you all a good night!"
A loud Bobby Renzobbi commercial then came on, the pony-tailed, bearded Bobby manically high-pressure hawking a gizmo no home should be without, the garbage pail laser deodorizer—"Don't let your house smell like a DUMP! Clip one onto your kitchen garbage pail, and each time YOU throw something stinky in, the Laserizer zaps it and sprays a dreamy scent—Mint Mocha, Upland Roses, Rotting-Fish-Free Sea Breeze, or your choice of dozens more! And yes! I know what you're gonna ask, and it DOES! It works on pigs, too! It WORRRKS ON PIIIIIGS!"
Wendy winced, clicking the mute button. "Why does everything they sell work on pigs?"
"'Cause if they say it does, Mabel buys it," Dipper told her. "They're desperate for every customer they can get!"
Wendy tossed the pillows to the foot of the bed and lay on her stomach, kicking her feet—still in orange and yellow socks—in the air. She patted the coverlet. "Lay down next to me, Dip."
He did, they smooched, and she took his hand. Dude, if this movie gets too scary, you gotta hold me!
—OK. And if it's stupid silly, you gotta hold me!
Deal!
She turned the sound back on.
The movie . . . wasn't scary. Was it silly? Well, we'll say that some friendly holding and snuggling took place that night. And somehow Dipper didn't find his way back to his own room.
When the daylight woke them both up at six, the TV was just beginning the Farm Report (they had turned the sound way down again), and Dipper found himself delightfully tangled in Wendy's long red hair. They both had fun getting unsnarled.
They kissed in the doorway, and Wendy whispered, "I missed this so much."
"We'll do more of it," Dipper told her confidently. "We've got all summer!"
She kissed him again. "Thanks for not pushin' it. Our sacred vow holds, yo!" She punched the air and then said softly, "Better tiptoe down and mess up your bed a little, Dip. Don't want to give Mabel ideas."
"We don't have to," Dipper said with a grin. "She gets 'em all on her own!"
Dipper and Wendy agreed to start their running routine on Monday, skipping that Sunday morning, so after a relatively late breakfast—around 9:30—Stan drove them all out to the site just down the hill from the Mystery Shack. Dan had bulldozed and graded two driveways off to the right of Gopher Road, and though they were currently paved only with crushed gravel, they would be properly done in concrete before long, as Stan explained.
"Now, this," he said, stopping the Stanleymobile about fifty yards from the road—invisible, because Dan had curved both driveways for privacy's sake—"this is gonna be Ford's and Lorena's."
Dipper didn't quite know what to say. In a span of raw earth (lawns would come later), the house looked spacious—two thousand square feet of first-floor area, Stan said, plus what would become a fully-finished walk-out basement and a second floor upstairs—but currently it was skeletal, the framework and roof up, an interior stairway done, the first floor roughed in with floor joists and heavy plywood, but without the finished hardwood and tiled surfaces that Stan said would be coming. The plumbing had been stubbed in, and a temporary line provided rude electrical service for some hanging bulbs, but like the plumbing fixtures, the outlets had yet to be connected.
They walked uphill through a lush stand of young pines to the site of Stan's and Sheila's place, which was in similar shape, but larger. "We want a ranch-style house," Stan explained. "So ours is gonna be about 3000 square feet on the main level, with a full finished basement, too. Big enough so either of us can host family get-togethers with no crowdin'. Dan and his gang will be at work again tomorrow morning, an' you guys can see the houses as they get built and finished."
"Cool!" Mabel said. "Hey, I can see part of the Shack roof, just up the hill! I'm gonna run up and say hi to Waddles and Widdles! Meet you there!" And she dashed off through the swishing green boughs of the pine trees.
The others rode up in the Stanleymobile. Soos came hurrying out the moment he heard the car doors slam. He ran off the porch and stood grinning, taking Dipper's suitcase from him. "Dawgs! You're back! Uh—didn't Hambone come this summer, Dipper?"
"Oh, yeah, she's here," Dipper said, taking his guitar case from the trunk. "She's out back with her pigs."
"Oh, right. Well, your folks shipped your junk and all up, so the boxes with your name on 'em are up in the attic, and Mabel's are in her room. Do you think she'll be long? I got, like, a secret for her."
"I'll call her," Wendy said, taking out her phone.
They went in and had greeted Little Soos, now two and a toddler, and oohed and aahed over Harmony, who was an improbably cute baby to have Soos for a dad. She was cheerful and gurgly and bright-eyed, though only about a month old. Melody beamed, a picture of happy young motherhood, and Abuelita smiled at Dipper. "You be man soon!" she said. "Another fine Pines hombre!"
Then from the back door, Mabel came banging in, and Little Soos joyfully screamed, "Mabey!" and ran to be scooped up, swung around, cuddled, and kissed.
Then she said, "I've been petting pigs. Maybe I better wash my hands before holding the little one! Be right back!"
"So, you're closed today?" Dipper asked. He knew already—there was a notice down by the sign at the foot of the driveway.
"Yeah, 'cause of the homecoming!" Soos exclaimed. "High five!"
Dipper slapped his palm. Mabel returned, picked up Harmony, and soon had her giggling. Like Time Baby, Harmony really seemed to love tummy raspberries!
Wendy reminded Soos: "You had some kind of surprise for Mabes?"
"Oh, right!" Soos exclaimed. He turned to talk to Mabel: "See, Mr. Poolcheck gave 'em to Teek, and Teek—he started workin' weekends again when we opened in April—he brought 'em to me, and I put 'em somewhere real safe. By the way, Teek will be over soon as him and his folks get back from Mass. Now, those things he brought over—um, where did I put 'em?"
Dipper grinned. "In the attic closet," he suggested. That was, Soos erroneously believed, a fortress-like hideaway that nobody could break into. Unless they had a hairpin or a straightened-out paperclip or some other high-tech gizmo.
"Right!" Soos said. "I'll go get 'em!"
"Never mind," Dipper said. "Come on, Mabel. Let's see what the surprise is. Want to come, Wendy?"
"Sure," the redhead said.
They all three thundered up the stair, and Dipper faintly heard Abuelita from below: "Now that sounds like home again!"
Dipper opened the locks with the President's Key—one of the few uses he had found for it, because it was aces at any lock manufactured before about 1860, but hit-or-miss on all the later ones. It worked fine on the antique padlocks, though, and Mabel hauled out a clinking peach basket full of—bottles?
"Mermando!" she exclaimed. "I didn't hear from him at all last summer!"
"Take them into our old room," Dipper said. "Read them there."
"Yay! It'll be like our first summer!" Mabel yelled, and she ran into the bedroom.
"After you, my lady," Dipper said, removing his pine-tree cap and bowing to Wendy.
"Thank you, kind gentleman," Wendy returned with a grin. She reached out, not down, to ruffle his hair. "You know, you're gonna catch up to me yet."
"I grew a little this last year," Dipper told her. "But I think the rate is slowing down."
Wendy gazed almost directly into his eyes. "We're close enough for Army work now."
Dipper blinked. "Huh?"
She nudged him. "I mean we're both tall enough to drive a tank!"
On the bed she used to occupy, Mabel had already shaken seven rolled-up notes from the bottles. "Gotta get 'em in order," she said. "He dated them at the top. But it's in Spanish! Curse my decision to take French in high school! What's 'Marzo?'"
"That would be March," Dipper told her, sitting on the foot of her bed. Wendy pulled up the chair nearby.
And Abril was April, Mayo was May, and Junio was June. There were seven messages in all: One from April, five from May, and one as recently as June first.
Mabel grabbed the April 19th one and unrolled it. "'My dearest Mabel,'" she read out loud, "'You have probably forgotten all about me.' Hah! Forget my first kiss? I don't think so! He tasted like anchovies!"
"Ew," Wendy said, making a face.
"He really did," Dipper assured her. "Please don't ask how I know."
"I got photographic proof that Dipper knows what he's talking about!" Mabel said. "Let me see, the April one is first . . . terrible news? Oh, no! Kidnapped? Oh, my gosh!"
She read through all the rest and then she looked up, shock on her face. "Guys! I've got to write an answer and take it to the civic pool right away! And then we have to form up the Mystery Team!"
"What's happening?" Dipper asked.
"Mermando's wife! Sirenia, Queen of the Manatees! She's been kidnapped! And Mermando says the kidnappers are heading our way!"
Mabel broke out waterproof paper and a permanent marker and began her letter to her first boyfriend. Well, merboyfriend, but to Mabel it amounted to the same thing.
"I'll tell him we're mobilizing!" Mabel said. "And explain that I don't live at the Shack year-round! He must have thought I was ignoring him!"
As she scribbled hastily, Wendy gave Dipper a big grin and reached to hold his hand. "I missed this, too!" she said. "Here we go again!"