Sorry I missed last week's usual installment, but the weekend before was super busy!


Chapter 7: Haunted House


Neil scooted over a few inches to make room for Raz as the boy sat down next to him on the carpet. The eight kids made a semicircle around the TV, which was playing a quirky show about a duck detective. In the middle of the half circle was Dipper and Mabel's great uncle who was sitting in the living room's only chair shamelessly wearing a white tank top and boxers.

"It was awesome of Dipper and Mabel to convince their uncle to buy pizza for us," Raz commented in a low voice. "I was starving."

"Me too," Neil agreed. "But I think it was Mabel who did most of the negotiating." After seeing her in action, Neil suspected that girl could fast talk her great uncle into anything.

Raz nodded with a grin.

When show ended, Stan stood up and Neil winced as the man's back made loud cracking sounds. Stan grumbled something unintelligible before heading towards the kitchen. When Stan passed by his great niece and nephew, who were sitting on the floor eating their last piece of pizza, he leaned down, and before either of the two kids noticed, he pushed Dipper's hat down over his eyes and rustled Mabel's hair, causing it into fall into her face.

"Hey!" Dipper protested in annoyance.

"Grunkle Stan!" Mabel complained as she tried to fix her hair.

Stan was laughing all the way to the kitchen. The twin shot disgruntled looks in their great uncles direction, but Neil could see mild amusement hidden underneath the annoyed expressions.

When Dipper readjusted his cap, he looked over at the other kids.

"So, where are you guys from anyway?" he asked.

"Yeah!" Mabel chimed in. "Let's get to know each other!" Mabel's pig- Neil still couldn't believe she was lucky enough to owned a pet pig- oinked in response and she scratched him behind his ears. "Waddles wants to get to know you too!"

"I'm from Michigan originally," Coraline said. "But over a year ago my family moved to Ashland, Oregon, and that's when I met Wybie." She nodded to her friend.

"And me and Norman are from Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts," Neil said.

Dipper's eyes widened. "I've heard of that place! Didn't the witch hunts in Salem extend to Blithe Hollow?"

Neil could feel Norman shift uncomfortably beside him.

"Yeah, it did," Norman said.

"That's awesome!" Dipper gushed. "I bet that town is full of interesting history and stuff!"

"If you're okay with your town being famous for the murder of a bunch of innocent people, then I guess."

Dipper looked around at the others awkwardly as he scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, but that happened a long time ago right?"

Norman shrugged.

"Oh lighten up, Cuz," Coraline said as she elbowed his arm. "You might get tired of hearing about the witch hunts because you live so close to Salem, but other people don't."

"What about you two?" Mabel asked Raz and Lili. "Where are you guys from?"

"I'm from the east coast," Lili said simply.

"And my family travels a lot," Raz said. "So I'm from all over."

"And you guys came all the way over here for camp?" Coraline asked. "Why would you do that? It's not like it's a well known camp… or even a camp at all."

"Well, technically Norman and Neil came from pretty far too," Dipper pointed out.

"Yeah, but there's a reason for that," Coraline explained. "My mom got the brochure for this camp in the mail and she thought it would be a good idea if I went and if I brought my cousin along too." Coraline looked over at Raz and Lili. "What possessed the two of you to come to this camp?"

"Raz and I met last summer at a summer camp," Lili supplied quickly, surprising Neil. She hadn't been talking more than she had to since the lake. "We wanted to go to camp again this summer, but I was already bored of the last one we went to. Raz's family was living near Oregon when he heard of this one and so I flew over for the summer."

Mabel's eyes grew wide. "You met at a summer camp?" she asked in awe. "See! This is what I'm talking about! Epic summer romances! I had it all wrong, I need to start going to summer camp!"

Her brother rolled his eyes.

"That's still pretty far to travel," Dipper noted.

Lili shrugged. "It wasn't a problem-mphhh!" The girl immediately closed her mouth and let out a muffled screech as she was assaulted by a large, pink animal. Lili struggled to push Waddle's off of her as he continued to lick her face. "Get this thing off of me!" she yelled.

Beside her, Raz was useless to help because he was overtaken by sudden debilitating laughter. He rolled on his back and clenched his sides.

"Aquato, I swear-" She was cut off by Waddle's second attempt to lick her face.

"Aww, he just really loves you," Mabel assured her. "Or you had pizza sauce on your face. One of the two."

Dipper stood up to help the girl, but she managed to push the pig off of her without assistance. Neil noted that the girl was much stronger than she looked.

Lili glared at Waddles, who looked up at her expectantly. "Someone is going to be smoked ham in a second if they don't get out of my face," she threatened. "And someone else is going to be punched in the gut if they don't stop laughing this instant." Lili turned on her boyfriend who managed to muffle his laughter just in time.

"S-Sorry, Lili," Raz apologized, still only barely holding back his laughter. Lili's frown deepened, and Raz made a better effort to look apologetic.

Dipper managed lure Waddles away from the angry girl with a pizza crust, and the pig happily ate his reward next to Mabel.

"Sorry about that…" Dipper began, but his apology fell away as the news broadcast caught his attention.

"Do ghosts really exist?" the news reporter asked. "Tune in tonight at eight as we bring you a breaking news report on what appears to be a ghostly haunting. 521 Maple Street, owned by the Cardinal family, was evacuated today as the reconstruction crew fled the mansion with screams of terror. The mansion was recently abandoned after the unexplained fire a week ago which killed Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal's son, Luis Cardinal. The Cardinals, now living across town, wanted to restore the historic mansion before selling it, saying they could no longer live in the place where their son had died. Will the construction crew's tales of ghostly sightings stop the mansion from being rebuilt? Or is this just some college prank? More details tonight at eight."

All eight of the kids were deathly silent for a moment before Stan, who was passing by the living room, burst out laughing. "Ghosts, ha!" Stan jeered as he leaned on the door frame. "Yeah, right! Smoke and mirrors, that's what this is! Only an idiot would believe something like that. Smart way to get publicity though," he said with careful interest. "I hope they don't try and turn that mansion into some kind of a haunted house tourist trap. Then I might actually have some competition."

Neil glanced at Norman, but his friend had a pretty good poker face.

"Hey, come to think of it," Stan continued, "why haven't I ever tried the haunted angle before? Come to The Mystery Shack, the most haunted place in America! Yeah, I like the way that sounds." Stan headed back down the hallway, humming thoughtfully to himself.

Coraline turned to the rest of the group. "I don't know about you guys, but that sounds like fun."

"What does?" Dipper asked. "Turning the Mystery Shack into a fake ghost hotspot?"

Coraline rolled her eyes. "No, genius. Investigating! Checking out that haunted house on Maple Street. This town is pretty boring. A haunted house is just what it needs."

"Uh, I don't think that's a good idea!" Dipper said in a rush.

Coraline raised an amused eyebrow. "Why not? Scared?"

Dipper's face flushed in embarrassment. "No! I'm not scared! It's just- ghosts? C-Come on, that stuff isn't real," Dipper insisted, looking to his sister for backup.

Neil glanced at Norman again. His friend seemed paler than usual.

"I believe in ghosts," Neil said suddenly, causing Norman to give him a panicked look.

Coraline nodded in his direction. "So do I," she said. "And I can't think of anything better to do tonight than to check to see if that house really is haunted. You don't have to come with if you're scared. Wybie and I will go."

"Wh-what? Why me?" Wybie asked, but she ignored him.

"Lili and I will go too," Raz said and Lili nodded.

"This is a really bad idea guys," Dipper stressed.

Coraline rolled her eyes. "Well, if you're right and there is no such thing as ghosts then I guess we'll be fine, won't we?"

"Dipper's right," Norman spoke up. "This is a really bad idea…"

"Yes! Thank you!" Dipper said in relief, giving Norman a smile. "Why don't we have a movie night instead? Walking around an old burned down mansion is just boring, not to mention dangerous!"

"Okay, you do that." Coraline said. "I'm going tonight and anyone can join me if they want. Anyone who wants to do movie night can stay at the shack."

Dipper and Norman looked at each other silently.

Neil already knew what Norman was going to do. Although Norman had told him that he didn't want anyone at camp to know about his gift, the young medium wouldn't allow other people to go look for a potentially dangerous ghost on their own, even if it put his secret at risk.

Norman believed that because of his powers it was his duty to both help ghosts, and to keep people safe from the dangerous ones. Kind of like Spiderman's 'with great powers comes great responsibility' thing, but with less web shooting and wall climbing.


This chapter is much shorter, but the next one wont be. And it looks like we are getting into the plot...

I also got fanart for my fic! How cool is that? It's on my tumblr. Please don't forget to review!