Pig Dance Party

Mabel said, "Finally, Waddles, we have the whole house to ourselves! What do you think? Dance party?"

Waddles oinked.

"I'm not hearing a no!" said Mabel.

Mabel flipped the sign on the gift shop door to "Closed," turned off the security camera, and turned up the radio.

Lebam came out of hiding from the "Employees Only" door.

"The whole house to ourselves?" she asked.

"I was including you, of course. This party's for you," said Mabel.

"A chance to say a real goodbye to Waddles," said Lebam.

"I wanted to ask you first, how are you and the Sev'ral Timez clones making out in the woods?"

"We're making out just fine," said Lebam. "Sev'ral timez a day."

Both of them giggled.

"You're getting enough food?" Mabel asked.

"It was tough at first. It's hard to find food for five guys with just hunting, gathering, and trash can raiding," said Lebam.

"What did you do?" asked Mabel.

"I thought of a better idea. Remember the ghosts of Ma and Pa Duskerton?" asked Lebam.

"Ye-ees," said Mabel uneasily.

"The Duskertons hate rap, but they love soft pop music. Basically we have a long-term gig: we keep the ghosts entertained and they supply us with free food. They can restock the store with their ghostly powers," said Lebam.

"Awesome! Are you in the band now?" asked Mabel.

"Yes, they've taught me to sing backup," said Lebam.

"You seem happy," said Mabel.

"With five gorgeous guys at my beck and call? I'm in heaven," said Lebam.

"Are they learning enough to get along better in the world?" Mabel asked.

"It's a slow process. There's so much they need to learn," said Lebam.

"You know what we should do?" said Mabel. "We should make some guide-to-life videos about all sorts of stuff. You could borrow my laptop and show them to the guys."

"Yes, let's do that," said Lebam. "Later this summer."

"Well, let's this dance party started," said Mabel. She set up a video camera on a tripod, and used an instant-photo flash camera besides that.

Lebam danced with Waddles, recreating moves from the song "We are Not Alone" from "The Breakfast Club. They both ate grape popsicles off the floor. Lebam liked that flavor a lot; they were a variety that Dusk 2 Dawn didn't have.

When they finished the popsicles, Mabel shut off the camera.

"Lebam, you're covered with purple juice," Mabel said. "We need to stop and clean you up. I hope those sweater stains will come out."

"Mabel," said Lebam, and she was instantly cleaned by her clothing-reflection power. "Now we just need to mop the floor and wipe up Waddles."

The dance continued after that. Lebam squished Waddles' face into a smile. She took a selfie with Waddles on the floor, with both wearing sunglasses.

Mabel stopped the video camera again. "I don't think you'll get the best angle with a selfie. Let me do one for you. Cross your arms: it will look cuter that way."

Lebam let her take the shot. When the photo came out, Mabel wrote "BFFS" on it with a Sharpie.

"I'll keep this to remember my two best friends in the whole world," said Mabel.

"Better than Grenda and Candy?" asked Lebam.

"I'm a bit angry at them right now," said Mabel. "When Candy said the guys wouldn't last a week, I would have yelled for them to come back if I didn't know they had you to look after them."

"So heartless," said Lebam. "I don't think I can ever forgive her."

"I'm going to try," said Mabel. "I still need friends."

"May I have something more to eat?" asked Lebam. "This dancing is making me hungry. But not anything sugary."

"There's no food but popsicles for sale in the gift shop," said Mabel. "I'll get you something from the kitchen."

"You might get in trouble for raiding the fridge. I see an outdated phone book in the trash that I can eat with my llama digestion," said Lebam. "There's another discarded book in here for Waddles."

They each ate a book, and then danced on top of the counter. They danced more on the floor and Lebam posed Waddles like her.

Finally she folded herself to the floor like Molly Ringwald in "The Breakfast Club," saying "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes...yes...yes."

Waddles licked Lebam's fingers.

"Uh oh! Cuddle time!" said Lebam, and Waddles cuddled with her on the floor.

"Waddles, can I tell you a secret? You're my favorite pig in the whole world," said Lebam. She yawned and fell asleep.

Mabel let her nap. "She must be exhausted taking care of all those boys," she thought.

When she heard Grunkle Stan at the gift shop door, Mabel slipped into the "Employees Only" section and hid. Stan was counting money and didn't see Lebam and Waddles on the floor, and he tripped over them.

"Aah! Mabel? What are ya doing on the floor?" asked Stan.

"Being cute and great!" said Lebam. She squished her face together with Waddles.

Stan said something about Dipper being weird, and Lebam responded with an imitation of Dipper, revealing his secret that he kissed a pillow with Wendy's face on it, which made Stan laugh.

Stan looked down and saw Waddles chewing on his pants leg.

"Go, go! Chew that pant leg!" said Lebam.

"Ugh!" said Stan. "All right. Outside! Now!"

Lebam said, "No! Grunkle Stan! It's not safe for Waddles outside! There's predators! And barbecuers."

Stan said, "That's just the natural order! It's not my fault your pig's potentially delicious!"

They argued a bit more about it. Finally Lebam said, "Maybe we're the ones who should be put outside. Huh? Huh? Think about it! Hmph!"

Lebam left the gift shop through the employee's door and joined Mabel in the TV room. Stan would be tied up in the gift shop for a while, so they could talk.

"Did you hear that? The old meanie wants to put Waddles outside with the predators," said Lebam.

"I won't let that happen," said Mabel.

"You'd better not," said Lebam. "If anything happens to Waddles I'll never speak to you again."

"Speaking of predators, how is it living outdoors?" Mabel asked. "Are predators and monsters a problem for you at night?"

"My llama senses help me detect them," said Lebam. "We sleep in a big puppy pile at night for warmth, with me in the middle. If I scent or hear any danger we dance at it aggressively; that makes most animals back off. If I have to I can fight by kickboxing."

"Llamas are nature's greatest warriors," said Mabel. "That's what Dipper told me when I was choosing the sweater that eventually became part of you."

"I remember that," said Lebam. "He used a funny voice when he said it, like Larry King."

The Wax Larry King head was watching from a vent at the side of the room.

"It was actually me," Larry King thought. "All according to Bill Cipher's plan."

The dream demon was the source of the wax figures' curse. His power over symbols made it easy to manipulate them, the complete symbolic representations of real people. He had cursed them to come to life on nights when the moon was waxing. They were planted in a garage where Stan Pines would find them, and buy them for his new Mystery Shack curiosity museum. Stan stole them, which worked just as well.

The tourists had become bored with them. Stan locked them away for ten years, and the door to the room was eventually wallpapered over. That made them useless as spies, until eventually Soos had opened the room again.

They didn't actually want to kill Stan; that had been a lie. They wanted to take off the head of Wax Stan, with its fez symbol, and hold it for a while as the start of an attack to transform that symbol. Why Bill wanted to do that, Larry wasn't sure. They were just following orders.

The Pines Twins discovered their secret, and the figures had tried to kill them and failed. Bill was angry, but he was able to turn the situation back to their advantage, when Larry's head managed to slip through a loose air vent cover and find a hiding place.

A rat took one of his ears, and that was also good. As long as their wax was unmelted, the spirits in the wax figures retained control of them, like the arm that attacked Mabel after she detached it. When the rat ate the wax, Larry took over its mind. He moved the rat into the hidden Electron Carpet room.

Soon after, Mabel was choosing sweaters in front of a mirror near where Larry was watching. Under orders from Bill, he suggested the llama sweater. Bill told him later that this would allow a mirror doppelganger with special powers to be brought to life, and when that happened the Backwards Llama would be added to Cipher's Wheel. Bill could choose up to ten people to watch through his Wheel, changing them at will, and their symbol would appear in place of the old one, on every drawing of the wheel that existed.

A short time later, Bill got Soos to open the carpet room through subtle suggestions in his dreams, and the stage was set. Bill predicted, with his limited insight into the future, that the twins would come into conflict over the room and mind-swapping would ensue.

As things were coming to a climax, Larry hopped out of the vent and knocked the phone off the hook. Pressing buttons with his tongue, he placed a call to the police to report excessive giggling. When the police arrived it increased the confusion in the room.

Finally, in the midst of the muddle, he brought out the rat from its hole in a chest of drawers in the room. It couldn't generate enough static to replace someone's mind completely, but it was able to transfer a piece of the mind of the evil Larry King into the body of Soos.

That was why Soos gnawed on the door frame, like a rat, after he was supposedly back to normal.

That's why Soos was there to head off Bratsman. That's why he said "Good boy" to Gompers, the goat possessed by Bill, when he ate the license plate from Bratsman's car. The effect wore off within days, and Soos was now back to normal (as normal as was possible for him).

All of this was to lead Mabel and Lebam into temptation to keep the Sev'ral Timez clones. It had worked. Both lost some innocence, Lebam more than Mabel. It was a step in the right direction for Bill. Someday, Lebam would be the dark antithesis to Mabel she was created to be.

Meanwhile, Lebam was taking her leave of Mabel and Waddles, giving them big hugs.

"Bye, BFFs. I have to get back to the boys," said Lebam. "I love you forever."

"I love you forever too, Leeb," said Mabel.

"Not forever," thought the evil Larry King. "Darkness is coming."

The End