Neighbors

(September 2-4, 2015)


3

On Wednesday after breakfast, Mabel asked, "Dip? Did it all really happen?" She looked frazzled, purple circles beneath her eyes—Mabel rarely lost sleep, and when she did, she showed the effects. She suppressed a yawn. "Was it real?"

For once, her eye-bags were worse than his. Dipper caught the yawn from her, and when he could talk again, he said, "Let's compare notes."

For half an hour they talked over what they remembered. They agreed on the general flow of things and on most of the details. "Yeah," Mabel said, frowning. "Some of it I'm kinda fuzzy on, though. Maybe that was when what's-her-name was in the driver's seat. That was the weirdest of all—me just being there in my own head but someone else making my mouth move and words come out. You remember that, don't you?"

"I remember. Sis, it was like when Bill took over my body—except the Oracle didn't just kick you out. It feels awful."

"It wasn't so bad. But I guess it all really happened," Mabel said. "That white thing with the eyes and the little bushes growing out of its cheeks—the thing in the tapestry—that's the Axolotl?"

"I . . . think so," Dipper said. "It looks like the pictures I've seen online. Real axolotls, though, Earthly ones, are salamanders from Mexico. The little bushy things are gills. Most salamanders lose them after they go through the tadpole stage, but axolotls don't grow up. This . . . thing, being, isn't a salamander, though. It's kind of a force or maybe a spirit. Grunkle Ford says it manifests in the form of the salamander because if a human saw it as it really is—well, a normal human brain couldn't grasp its reality."

"Ours shouldn't have a problem, though," Mabel said. "Now, wait. The Oracle and the Axolotl aren't the same, are they?"

Dipper shook his head. "The Axolotl has a lot more power. And the Oracle said she lives in Dimension 52. The Axolotl lives, uh, in between dimensions. Somehow. Anyway, the two are different."

They were sitting in the back yard, on two lawn chairs. Mabel kept fidgeting with her hair. "Uh—am I wrong, or does the Oracle think Bill should've stayed dead?"

"She doesn't like him," Dipper told her. "In Journal 3, Grunkle Ford wrote about meeting her. She was helpful, and he thinks she's, like, the opposite of Bill. He said she's not vengeful or even angry, just cold and determined that Bill's reign had to end."

Mabel leaned back in her lawn chair, squinting against the morning sun. A dragonfly long as her thumb buzzed up and helicoptered in front of her. She put out a hand with her thumb up, and the insect landed on it, flexing its legs. It had a striking blue head and a black body with blue stripes. "Hello, Mr. Dragonfly," Mabel said.

"That's a blue-eyed darner," Dipper told her. "They feed on mosquito larvae. Getting late in the season for them."

As though alarmed at how little time it had left to gorge on mosquito babies, the dragonfly buzzed its transparent wings and sprang into the air.

Watching it go, Mabel murmured, "But even though the Oracle hates Bill's guts, the Axolotl—am I saying that right? The Axolotl decided Bill could have this one last chance, and the Oracle has to go along with that. And we're supposed to help somehow. But . . . is she using us? Has she made us into a part of her plan to destroy Bill?"

Despite the seriousness of the question, Dipper had to smile. "Hey, I'm the one with the crazy conspiracy theories, remember?"

"Yeah." His sister stretched and sighed. "But that creepy name of hers—the Unswerving—it makes her sound pretty stubborn."

"That's just a title," Dipper said. "Like Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great—"

"Blind Ivan?"

"No, you know, a czar of Russia. Both of them were, Peter and Ivan, I mean, but Ivan was terrible, and Peter was great."

"If I was Czar of Russia, they'd call me Mabel the Incredible. Or maybe Mabel the Fabulous!"

"Yeah, I'm sure they would. Hey, do you know where the word 'czar' comes from?"

Mabel gave him the dull-eyed stare she always did when he went full-tilt Grunkle Ford on her. "Um—it's a translation of 'tsar?'"

Dipper took a pair of dark sunglasses from his pocket and put them on. "No. Well, yeah, in a way, but they're just different ways of transcribing the word from the Cyrillic alphabet—"

"The what with the which now?"

Dipper went inside and returned with a volume of his dad's antiquated encyclopedia—one he'd had in college—and showed Mabel. "It's just a different alphabet from our Roman one. Anyhow, both 'czar' and 'tsar' are the same word, really, and what it means is 'Caesar.' Because in the Middle Ages, a Bulgarian emperor took the title to show that he was a ruler equal to the Emperor of Constantinople, and the word passed down through several nationalities until the Russians took it for their leader in the sixteenth century, I think it was."

"Bor-ing," Mabel decreed.

"OK, I was just trying to explain."

Mabel giggled. "In those glasses you remind me so much of Dippy Fresh!"

Dipper took them off and tossed them into the pool.


Later that morning Mrs. Sheaffer phoned to ask if her kids could come over because she had shopping to do and the twins and Billy didn't want to go to the supermarket.

Wanda Pines said sure—and so for about two hours that afternoon, Mira, Mina, and Billy came to their house for a visit. They hadn't brought their swimming gear, but they looked at the pool in the backyard and made plans for a swimming party on Sunday afternoon. Billy asked what the dark thing on the bottom of the pool was.

"A bad memory," Dipper growled.

The Sheaffer kids hadn't yet been to Piedmont Park, so Dipper and Mabel walked them over—it wasn't very far—and Dipper cautioned them: "This place is pretty safe, but you know, you never can tell, so don't ever come here if you're alone. And watch out for the trails that look lonely. It's best to stick to the public areas."

"My Brobro is such a worrywart," Mabel said with a grin. "But, yeah, he's got a good point. You guys always come together and stick together and if a strange man comes along and offers you a ride in his car, run away! It may be our Grunkle Stan, and he's a rotten driver."

"We know about Stranger Danger," Billy said.

They fooled around on the playground for a while, then went back to the Pines's house for a snack. Afterward, Dipper took Billy upstairs and they played video games. Dipper noticed that Billy was very good at first-person shoot 'em ups—he beat Dipper's score on "Shoot the Mooks"—but below average on driving and flight simulators. Probably his depth perception, Dipper decided, or the lack of it. He wondered what it would be like driving with just one eye.

"Hey," he said after they'd played for almost an hour, "do you have a game system?"

"An old one," Billy said. "A Game Guy Mark 5." That was two generations old.

"I've still got a bunch of games for that one," Dipper said. "I don't play them anymore, so if you want, you can have any of mine that you want. All of them if you'd like to have them."

"To keep?" Billy asked, sounding pleased and surprised.

Dipper grinned. "Sure."

Billy took all fourteen games. Dipper wouldn't miss them—he hadn't played any of them since he turned thirteen. After Weirdmageddon, they'd started to seem horribly lame to him.

Mrs. Pines came upstairs and said, "There you two are! Billy, your mother just called. She'll be back home in a few minutes, and you and your sisters can help unload the groceries."

"I'm giving him these games," Dipper said, collecting the cartridges and putting them in a plastic bag.

"About time you got rid of some clutter," his mother said, with an approving smile.

Dipper and Mabel walked the Sheaffer kids back to their house. Dipper and Billy lagged behind and impulsively, Dipper asked, "Hey, Billy. Why'd you call me 'Pine Tree' yesterday?"

Billy blinked. His artificial eye didn't blink quite right—the eyelids didn't fully close, but you had to look close to notice that. "Did I?" He shrugged. "I dunno. Sometimes weird stuff just pops into my head. Didn't mean to make you mad."

"I'm not mad," Dipper said. "It's just—well, I told you about me and my girlfriend trading hats every summer. The one of mine that she wears during the rest of the year is white and blue and it has a pine-tree symbol on it."

"Oh," Billy said. "Huh. Guess that was one of my flashes."

"Your what?"

"I get them now and then. I don't know why. Just something will pop into my head and I'll say it out loud and it means something. Like when I was little, one day I told my mom, 'My real mother died.' I don't even remember saying that, but Mom and Dad do. Back then they'd never told me I was adopted. I thought Mom was, you know, my, what do you call it, my real mother. Had me."

"Biological mother," Dipper said.

"Yeah, that's it. Anyway, when I asked, I made her cry and I felt bad about it. That evening she and Dad told me how I was adopted. My biological mother only lived for two days after I was born. Until then, I never knew."

They reached the Sheaffer house—where Dipper and Mabel had lived so long—and at almost the same time, Mrs. Sheaffer turned into the driveway and opened the driver's door of her SUV. "There you are! I'll get the cold stuff and frozen out. Canned and boxed goods in the trunk! You know where to put them."

As Mina, Mira, and Billy started to wrangle shopping baskets full of groceries—Mrs. Sheaffer used those fabric ones, which kept her from bringing home plastic bags—Dipper and Mabel walked back home.

As soon as they were away from the Sheaffers, Mabel asked, "Anything new?"

"He says he has no idea where 'Pine Tree' came from," Dipper said. "I don't know whether to believe him or not."

"I guess we just keep an eye on him, then—oh, man!"

"What is it?" Dipper asked, alarmed.

Mabel pointed. "You didn't shut the door quick enough. Cat the Ripper got out again!"

Ripper was a softly round, slow-moving, charcoal-gray cat. Despite his fearsome name, he was basically an animated lump, too fat and lazy to chase birds. Dipper suspected he'd retreat if a mouse approached him.

The cat was ambling around the front yard, and Mabel scooped him up without a protest from him. When he'd been a kitten, Mabel had carried Ripper around by gripping him beneath his forelegs, with his hindquarters and tail dangling, but now he was big and heavy enough to object to that, so she held him draped over her shoulder. He stuck his tongue out at Dipper, walking behind, and started to knead his paws against Mabel's sweater.


On Thursday Mom took Dipper and Mabel out driving—a practice run for the driving test. They spent nearly three hours on the road, but Mrs. Pines wasn't satisfied with either of them. "Watch the speed!" she cautioned Mabel as her daughter's turn at the wheel was ending.

"I haven't gone over the limit," Mabel complained, turning into a parking lot so they could change drivers.

"Just because the speed limit is 45 doesn't mean you have to go 45!" Mom told her. "Especially when there's a turn coming up. Just use a little common sense. You know, going too fast is a fault that will cost you your license."

Mabel grumped a little as she parked. Mom said, "All right, get in the back seat and fasten your—"

"I always fasten the seatbelt," Mabel said.

"Dipper, it's your turn."

Dipper got out and went round the car to the driver's side. He wasn't all that fond of Mom's RAV4, though Mabel loved it.

He got in, went through the ritual that the twins would be expected to perform in the pre-driving check at the DMV, and then said, "Where to?"

"Just head home. Backtrack," Mrs. Pines said. "Keep your mind on what you're doing."

She didn't say "unlike Mabel," but Dipper sensed her meaning. He started the engine and drove out of the lot, deliberately keeping well under the speed limit.

However—

Mom said, "Dipper, don't drive like a robot! You're too stiff! Relax and be natural. And please don't keep telling yourself what you have to do!"

"Was I doing that?" Dipper asked.

Mabel laughed. "Yeah, you were! 'Close the door. Check the seatbelts. Make sure everyone else is wearing their belts. Look in the rear-view mirror. Put the key in the ignition . . ..'"

"Well, it helps me remember," Dipper said.

"Yes, but you'll sound insecure if you do that when the observer is grading you," his mother said.

"Mom—this is Dipper! His middle name is Insecure."

"Try to hide it," their mom suggested.

Dipper sighed. Sometimes he felt that he couldn't win, no matter what. But he clamped his mouth shut, remembering with a flush of embarrassment when Wendy told him she aready knew about his crush on her—in fact, she'd learned it from him: "You think I can't hear that stuff you're constantly whispering under your breath?"

That had been awkward.

Still, when they got home, Mabel asked Mrs. Pines "How'd we do?"

Grimly, their mother shook her head. "Maybe," she said, "they'll have mercy on you."


Then on Friday, the big test came. The morning began gray with fog and drizzle, but by the time they set off for the DMV, the sun had broken through, the pavement had dried, and it had become a nice afternoon.

Mabel was eager. Dipper—not so much. He hadn't had all that much practice with the RAV4, and it was a little harder to drive than Wendy's Dodge Dart—though much easier than the Stanleymobile, which drove, Wendy said, a little like a tank, and she would know.

Mabel took the behind-the-wheel test first, he went second, and while waiting, Dipper got nervous. That began as Mabel drove the observer away from the DMV lot, and he wondered whether he'd ever see either of them again.

But he did—after about twenty minutes, Mabel pulled back in and parked the RAV4 near where she and the observer had first climbed in, making a neat job of it and keeping all four tires well within the painted lines of the parking slot. As they got out of the car, Mabel was asking, "How'd I do, how'd I do, how'd I do? Did I pass? I didn't actually hit anything, you know!"

The observer, a harassed-looking woman, rolled her eyes. "You made one error in the pre-drive checklist, no critical errors, and I counted five in the on-the-road part. You work it out."

"Wah!" Mabel wailed, flailing her arms. "I'll go crazy!"

"You passed, Sis," Dipper assured her. "You can pass if you make up to three pre-drive errors, no critical ones, and up to fifteen driving errors, as long as they're minor—oof!"

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Mabel said, hugging him like a starving boa constrictor encountering a mouth-watering peccary. "Hey, DMV lady! This is my brother. Treat him right! As an officially licensed driver-to-be and as an honorary Congressperson, I'm asking you nicely!" She raised a hand to shield her mouth and whispered to the observer—but still loud enough for Dipper to hear—"Don't be too hard on him. He's a little S-L-O-W."

"I am not!" Dipper said.

"Look," the observer said, rolling her eyes as she turned to a fresh evaluation sheet on her clipboard, "let's just get this over with, OK? Start your pre-drive check."

It was a checklist, so Dipper was in Dipper heaven. He'd memorized the list months earlier.

It held seventeen items in all, and he verbally ticked them off one by one and in the correct order, from proving that the driver's window opened, and leaving it open, to showing he knew where things like the turn signals, emergency flashers, and brake lights were and checking them all to verify that they were operating properly. He finished by making sure that his and his passenger's seat belts were fastened.

In the passenger seat beside him, the observer made a horizontal mark and wrote "P" beside it, which looked encouraging. P for passing.

Then he started the engine, checked the rear-view mirrors, and cautiously backed out of the parking space. Mabel said, "Hey, Mom, while they're gone, can I go to the license desk and pose for my photo?"

"Let's wait," their mother said.

"I hate waiting."


And after another twenty minutes, Dipper drove the RAV4 back and parked it, just as neatly as Mabel had done. He got out and gave her a smiling thumbs-up.

"OK," the observer said, making a couple of final notes on the clipboard. "Kids, let's go get your licenses."


"What was it, what was it, what was it?" Mabel asked in the car on the way home—Dipper was at the wheel, Mom beside him, and Mabel in the back seat behind her. "Come on, Brobro, I gotta know! She said you had one error on the driving test. What was it? What one mistake did you make?"

"I was slow signaling for a right turn," he said at last. "That was it. One error in all. Period."

"Well—anyhow, I beat you on the written test!"

There were forty-six questions on the written test, and you needed a score of at least 38 to pass. Mabel had racked up a 45, Dipper 44—mainly because he second-guessed himself and changed two correct answers to incorrect ones at the very last moment. One had to do with negotiating roundabouts, and the other with the distance from an ungated level railway crossing at which a driver had to slow to fifteen mph. He'd almost chosen the first option—100 feet—but then, with a burst of caution, he went for the third, 400 feet, instead. The first one was correct.

"It's not a game where you have to keep score. You both passed," Mrs. Pine said in a faintly exasperated tone. "Be glad of that, Mabel."

"Yeah, I am, but it's still not fair that I can't have a friend in the car with me!"

"Yes, you can," Dipper said as he turned into their neighborhood. "If your friend is over twenty-five, or if you also have someone else who's over twenty-five in the car. Like now, we can drive with each other as passengers 'cause Mom's with us. We've got to have another year's practice before we can carry teen passengers with no adult supervision."

"It's only six months in Oregon!" Mabel complained. "Hey, maybe we can get Oregon licenses, too!"

"Doesn't work that way." In the cul-de-sac, Dipper took the garage-door opener from its compartment and opened the left garage door—Mom always parked in the single bay, Dad next to it in the double bay. "Whoa!"

As soon as he braked to a full stop, Mabel spilled out of the back seat and ran to the unfamiliar car parked inside the garage, hood facing outward. It wasn't brand-new, and Dipper had a feeling that, given her choice, Mabel surely wouldn't have chosen the lime-green color, but the Carino—a mid-sized sedan—had to be a gift from their parents. Mabel hugged the hood, rubbed her cheek against it, and kissed it.

Their dad came out of the house smiling and said, "Belated happy birthday, kids! OK, here it is. You'll have to share it. It's all paid for and insured. It's three years old, but I had it checked out, and it's in great shape. No dents or dings, so keep it that way."

"A four-door midsize?" Dipper asked, closing the door of his mom's car. It wasn't exactly a dashing vehicle.

"It's rated in the top three for safe cars for new drivers," his dad said. "I did the research. Hey, Mabel—here's the keys. Take me for a drive!" He tossed the keyring to her, and she fielded it with a jingling overhand slap-catch.

"Woohoo! I'm officially naming her Helen Wheels!" With a loud war cry, Mabel jumped into the driver's seat of the Carino, rolled down the window, honked the horn, and leaned out. "Hey, Dip! Get that hunk of junk out of my way! Me an' Dad are gonna hit the road!"

Dipper got back into his mom's car and carefully backed out of the drive, opened the double garage bay door, and pulled in and parked next to their dad's car. He got out and came to stand beside his mother, watching the green machine—Helen Wheels, he guessed—roll away.

"I worry about Mabel," Mom confessed as the Carino headed down the street, perhaps just a tad fast.

Dipper smiled. "We all do, Mom. We all do."