Chapter 3- The Enemy Base
The next morning, after breakfast, Mr. Gleeful once again insists that I leave. I want to stay inside, but I figure it might be best not to argue. Besides, I have a companion now.
Stepping out the door, I start and realize that Bill is floating right in front of the "Li'l Gideon" sign that is now starting to get a little marred. Probably because nobody's bothering to keep it spick and span anymore.
"Hey, Bill," I say with a smile.
"C'mon, kid. Let's see if we can figure out the Pines family's plans, huh? To the Mystery Shack!"
"Are you sure it's safe for me?" I ask.
"When I'm around, anything is safe for you. I'm with you every step of the way. They try an' mess with you... and KABAM!"
He lets out a bright beam from his hands that instantly shatters the asphalt road upon impact. I jump back, terrified.
"Don't worry," he tells me, "I'll never aim it at you." He waves his hand in a circular motion and the debris picks itself up and reassembles. "Trust me, nobody can touch you when I'm your bodyguard."
"Cool," I say with a grin.
"C'mon, I'll show you the way to the Pines."
We have to hop on the bus to get over there, which Bill wasn't used to.
"Wish I could float," I mutter to him quietly while on the way over.
"Glad I don't walk," he replies, and I chuckle.
When we finally arrive and I step out of the bus, I'm startled at the massive building in front of me. "Y'know, when I heard 'shack,' I thought of something tiny."
It's this giant, wooden house, with the words, "Mystery ...hack" written on the front. The "S" is missing, unfortunately. The place looks pretty run-down.
A voice distracts me from my observations, however. "Ladies and gentlemen!"
I look over to the front of the building.
Bill's eye narrows. "There he is. Stanford Pines."
Sure enough, it's the old man, showing the tourists into their trap. "Welcome, folks. And prepare yourselves! You are about to see the wildest, most incredible things ever beheld by mankind!"
"He knows how to word things," I murmur.
"C'mon, kid," Bill says. "The gift shop's always open. 'Round to the back."
He begins floating towards our destination and I follow. The ancient con artist is too busy with his customers to notice me running towards the back of his home. Good. I don't want to get caught today, or any other day.
As soon as I thrust open the door to the gift shop, however, my determination drops staggeringly. The rest of the Pines- and their friends- are all looking at me.
"Uh," I simply state.
The girl- Mabel- gives me a friendly grin. "Hi!" Before I can respond, she grabs my hand and pulls me inside. My palms grow a little sweaty. Is this some sort of trick? "You're Gideon's cousin, right?" she continues.
Despite the anxiety the situation is giving me, I answer honestly. "Y... yeah. I'm Abigail Gleeful."
"Must stink to find out your cousin's in jail," says someone else, and I turn to see Wendy sitting at the register, her feet up on the counter, a magazine in her hands. With a smile on her face as well, she says, "What's up?"
"I don't like this," says Bill. "Keep your guard up."
I nod, and, thinking that I was nodding at her, Wendy responds with a nod of her own and goes back to reading.
I realize that Dipper's not in the room. "Where's your brother?" I ask Mabel.
"Oh, he snuck off to the roof to read. Always reading, that guy. BOOORING."
"Why?" I recognize that voice. It's the handyman, Soos. "You lookin' for him?"
"Uh, no," I say. "Just wondering."
Excited, Mabel starts to run from item to item in the shop. "So, you looking for something? How about a shirt? Or a stuffed jackalope toy? Or how about a..." she whips something out from behind her back and holds it up in the air "... GRAPPLING HOOK?" She laughs. "Just kidding, we're out of those."
"Oh, uh, I just came to... look around," I said. "I've heard a lot about this place."
"All bad, I'm sure," Wendy laughs, still perusing her reading material.
Before I can reply, Bill says, "Hey, maybe we should steal some of their stock one night. Imagine Stanford's face!"
As my head moves towards him to pay attention, the others follow my gaze. Soos cocks his head. "What'cha looking at, dude?"
"Oh, uh, nothing," I reply, and walk over to where Bill is, examining some of the merchandise with his hands folded calmly behind his back.
I notice the rug on the floor, and once I examine it, my face breaks into a grin. On it is the image of a yellow triangle with one eye. Like the one on our currency. And kinda like Bill. "Check it out!" I exclaim, "It looks like..."
I want to say, "you," to Bill, but realizing that others are in the room, I alter the sentence. "It looks like the All-Seeing Eye!"
"What looks like the All-Seeing Eye?" says an alarmed voice from behind me. I turn and my heart sinks.
Dipper Pines is standing in the doorway.
"Oh, FAN-TASTIC," says Bill angrily.
"Hey, Dipper!" Mabel says, running over to greet her brother. "Check it out! Abigail Gleeful decided to visit!"
Giving me another hostile look, Dipper says, "I can see that."
I stand my ground; no way is this little twelve-year-old jerk going to scare me into backing down. Then I realize something is off with the sleeveless jacket-vest... thing that he's wearing. One side seems more jutted out than the other- as if he's hiding something underneath it...
"So, what did you say looked like the All-Seeing Eye?" he asks me.
I look down at my feet. "Just the image on this rug." Raising an eyebrow, I inquire, "Why so curious?"
The room goes quiet and it's easy to sense the tension tugging at the atmosphere. He looks up at me sternly and I look down back at him with contempt.
Then, "Augh!"
We're snapped out of our stare-down as Stanford- still in his suit, thank God- walks into the room and leans against the vending machine, heaving. I notice Bill looking at him intently. "I'm exhausted. That was probably one of the toughest crowds I've ever had." Then, whipping out a brown bag with some symbols on it, he says, "Still got 'em with the Sack of Mystery, though." He lets out some coarse laughter and goes over to the register. Wendy instinctively moves her chair and he begins dumping loads of money into the register, chuckling as he does.
Mabel clears her throat. "Grunkle Stan... we have a visitor."
"Wha-?" Stanford turns and sees me standing on the rug. "Oh! Uh... Welcome to the Mystery Shack! What'll it be?"
"Uh," I say again. "I just came to pay a visit."
Disappointed, Stanford resumes dumping money in the register without a word.
"Grunkle Stan," Dipper says stiffly, "this is Gideon's cousin, Abigail."
"Oh, oh, Gideon's cous- Gideon's cousin!?" He turns to me quickly and I feel a pang of fear go through my body like a shock of electricity.
"Don't worry kid," Bill says, "I've got your back."
"Yes... sir," I say, trying not to emphasize that last word with disdain.
I feel my body shake a bit, but instead of growing angry the man's face lights up. It had a slightly cruel look to it, but it was a smile all the same. "So you heard about your cousin's crazy stuff with his giant robot and-"
"Wait, excuse me?" I ask. "What giant robot?"
"You know," Wendy says, pulling out a bag of chips and chewing on one. "The Gideon-bot that he controlled from the inside."
"The CRAZY BIG one that had all those screens inside where he was watching people," Mabel adds.
"The one that nearly killed us," Dipper continues, with more bitterness.
"It was scary, dude," I hear Soos say to no one in particular while unscrewing a lightbulb.
I look back and forth between them, confused, and then, doing my best to be subtle, I look at Bill for confirmation. But he looks just as flummoxed as I am- he just shrugs.
Lies. They're lying.
"Sorry," I say, "I never heard anything about a robot."
"That's weird," says Dipper patronizingly, "considering that that's what he got arrested for. How'd you not hear about it?"
"He got arrested for unlawful public surveillance," I say. "Just a few cameras."
"More like a billion disguised as cute little souvenir pins," says Stanford, and I see that he's got his arms folded at me.
"If you think Gideon's face on a pin is cute," Wendy says wittily, and the others laugh.
I try my best to smile, but inside I'm fuming. They got my cousin thrown in adult prison, and their response is to sit back and laugh?
"Told you they were cruel," Bill says, and gives me a look of sympathy. "C'mon, let's bail; they're ganging up on you, and I've proved my point."
I nod as inconspicuously as I can, and then look at my newfound enemies. "Well," I say, "I think I'd better be going now."
I attempt to walk out smoothly, but of course something always has to happen when I try that- I trip over something and fall over. And my satchel's books go tumbling out all over the floor.
Seeing that my books are out in the open I begin trying to shove them back into my bag as fast as possible. But one of them literally slid across the room when it slipped out and soon I see Dipper Pines picking it up and examining its cover.
"The... The Unexplained?" he says.
"Yeah," I growl, frustrated, "what about it?"
"Oh my gosh!" Mabel exclaims. "Dipper loves that stuff! Dipper, don't you have that book?"
I see Bill's eye dart back and forth from me to the boy.
"Uh..." he says, holding the book carefully. "Yeah. Well, I checked it out from the library once..."
Huh. Maybe this kid wasn't all bad.
"How about we leave before they gang up on you again?" Bill asks.
Good idea. Dipper holds out the book to me, and I take it. "Thanks," I say.
"You should visit again sometime," Mabel says. "And you and Dipper can talk about your supernatural stuff. You know, Dipper has a show-"
"Come on, kid," Bill says, diverting my attention.
"That's cool," I say, and Mabel starts, alarmed by the sudden interruption. "But I really gotta get back, or I'll be in trouble."
"Oh," she says. "OK. See you soon, I guess."
Without another word to any of them, I leave. Before I close the door behind me, I hear Dipper say, "Maybe you can visit again... y'know... like, tomorrow or something."
"Maybe," I reply without turning back, and I close the door. Looking back at the smaller "Mystery Shack" sign above the gift shop's door, I notice something. "Hey, Bill," I say. "That 'A'... it has an eyeball. It kinda looks like you, too. Just like that rug..."
"Yeah, yeah, that's cool, kiddo," he says. "But remember who the enemy is."
I shook myself. He was right. Dangit, I'm so easily swayed. "Yeah. Let's get out of the enemy base, shall we?" I smile.
He laughs. "You said it."
I turn to get one last look at the shack, and I'm surprised to see someone peering at me from inside, out the window. Dipper Pines again. I frown, he turns away, and soon the shack is out of sight.
"That kid's weird," I say to Bill.
"You have no idea."
I hope you guys are liking my fic so far! I'm having a lot of fun writing it so I hope that people are having a lot of fun reading it. And if it's good enough, I hope you recommend it to your friends! In any case, I guess I'll see you all once the next chapter comes out! Bye!
~Manchita
