Author's Note: Augh! This chapter is so long! 11 pages! 11! But I'm pretty happy with it. Here we FINALLY bring in Dipper and Mabel, like I've been excited to do from the beginning. Let me know how you like the way I handled dialog from the actual episode. I tried not to just make it a straight copy of the script, so I kinda just leave off where it would just be the same thing from the show. I still ended up copying more than I'd like, and that's part of why this chapter is so long, so let me know if you have any better ideas.
Chapter 10: Mabel's Forbidden Love
Dipper Pines gave the most forlorn and obnoxious sigh possible while his mother helped him pack.
"You can moan all you want, you're still going." Mrs. Pines said flatly.
"If this is punishment for the time I accidentally downloaded that virus-" The boy began.
"Don't be ridiculous honey," She assured him as she placed a red T-shirt into his bag, "your father and I just think you and your sister have been spending too much time inside over the school year."
"I spend plenty of time outside…" Dipper whined.
"What did you do yesterday, besides play Minecraft?"
"Uh… watch YouTube..."
"About other people playing Minecraft." His mother finished for him.
"But mom, none of us even know Great Uncle Stanford!" Dipper decided to change the subject.
"That's why it'll be good for you kids and for him too." Mrs. Pines said. "You get a change in scenery, he gets a little help around the house, everyone gets some family bonding."
"So we're just gonna be stuck doing chores all summer?"
"No Dipper, it's just…" His mother trailed off, carefully thinking of how she wanted to word this. "Apparently he… well, it was the 70's, it would've been normal… let's just say his mind isn't what it used to be." Unsurprisingly, this didn't make her son feel any better. "You'll like him, he's supposed to be a scientist!"
"I thought he was a teacher." Dipper said.
"Well, maybe he's a science teacher." She shrugged. "Ok, are you sure that's enough clothes?" The boy nodded. "Ok, let's go check and see if Mabel's all packed."
The two of them left Dipper's room and entered the bright and colorful one next door. There was an enormous pile of multicolored sweaters on the bed, but no sign of his twin sister.
"Dad, have you seen Mabel?" Dipper called down the hall to his father's office.
"I think she's in her room packing!" the man called back.
"No she's not!" Dipper replied. The boy's head turned slowly. Had that pile of sweaters just twitched?
Footsteps sounded as Mr. Pines walked down the hall to his daughter's room. "Huh, I could have sworn I heard her…"
"SNEAK ATTACK!" Mabel appeared in an explosion of colors as she burst out from under her pile of sweaters. "Three targets in one! My new personal best!"
"Woah-oh-oh" their dad chuckled. "Think you've got enough sweaters there, sweetheart?"
"If not, I can always knit more when I get there!" the girl said proudly, ignoring her father's sarcasm.
"Well you can't just carry them all there, get them in your suitcase." Mrs. Pines said with a smile.
Mable lifted the great pile of sweaters and shoved them into her suitcase, then put considerable effort into forcing the thing shut.
"Well that's… one way to do it." Dipper commented. "Is your swimsuit in there?"
She confidently raised a hand, then paused with an annoyed look on her face. "Ah man…"
"How do you fit all your stuff into one suitcase and a tiny dufflebag!?" Mabel asked jealously as she lugged her two huge suitcases out of the bus.
"Well for starters, I didn't try to pack all the decorations from my room." Dipper replied. He had graciously agreed to carry her large backpack for her. It definitely wasn't because he was trying to prove his manliness after squeeing at the sight of a baby deer on the ride up.
"Here, why don't I give you a hand with that?" the two kids turned to see a tall man with grey hair standing behind them.
"Uh, are you our Great Uncle Stanford?" Dipper asked nervously.
"That's me." He nodded with an equally nervous smile.
Mabel dropped her bags and ran up to give her distant relation a welcome-hug. "Grunkle Stan! It's so nice to finally meet you! I'm Mabel!"
Her Grunkle gave a confused chuckle. "Uh, what was that?"
"Well, 'Great Uncle Stanford' is a mouthful! Grunkle Stan is a lot easier to say." The girl reasoned.
"You can just call me Ford." The old man told her.
"Grunkle Ford it is!" She beamed.
"Haha, yeah!" her brother agreed.
"And you must be Dipper." Stanford extended a hand to the boy.
Dipper took the man's handshake, then paused. Six fingers. His parents hadn't mentioned that. Then Dipper realized that he'd paused. Oh crap, what if he offended Ford? He was going to be living with this man for the next three months. He wanted to make a good first impression. The boy finished the handshake quickly. "Uhhh, yeah! Nice to meet you."
"Alright, let's get your stuff into the car." The old man picked up a couple of bags and carried them off.
Phew, he hadn't noticed. Good. Dipper knew how awkward being different could be.
Grunkle Ford's house was an old wooden cabin, far removed from the rest of the town. Mabel thought it looked like a fairytale cottage. Dipper thought it looked like the setting for a horror film. Next to the house was a smaller steel structure; a garage where their great uncle repaired everything from cars to computers to washing machines in his free time.
The kids got settled in the room prepared for them in the attic. It was far from luxurious; the uncovered wooden walls splintered, and a goat had taken residence on Dipper's bed. Mabel quickly covered her wall with posters and plushies, while her brother left his side of the room au naturel.
Over the first two days the young twins were introduced to Soos and Wendy, two of Stanford's old students who helped him with the garage. They were around a lot. Even when there weren't any repair jobs to be done, Soos didn't seem to have anything better to do, and Wendy said she liked to get out of her house.
Next Dipper and Mabel went out into the town to explore, but the anxious boy soon wished he hadn't. Mabel was determined to flirt with every boy they came across, and in the most blatant and embarrassing ways possible.
"Mabel, could you dial down the boy-crazy stuff?" He asked his sister after a particularly silly ploy involving a rigged note. "You're freaking people out!"
"Pbbbt! Nuh-uh!" The girl in the sweater scoffed. "Dipper, this is my first Summer away from home! My first chance to live my own life! My chance to find true love!"
"You're twelve."
"Doubt all you want, Doubty-McDoubterson, but I have a good feeling about this summer! I wouldn't be surprised if the man of my dreams walked down the street right now!"
A small man with big eyes, elephantine ears, a huge nose, and weird mustache walked out of a building labeled The Gravity Falls Gossiper. He struck a very awkward figure. "Howdy-doo new neighbor. Nyah."
"Eyaugh!" Mabel ran away screaming, back in the direction of Grunkle Ford's house.
"Uh, sorry!" Dipper apologized halfheartedly to the weird man before following her.
It was a twenty-minute walk back to the house, but with Mabel's running they made it in ten. Dipper was exhausted and had to lie down on the ground.
"What's gotten into you two?" Ford asked from his seat on the porch.
"Destiny just gave me a bad sign! Like the worst sign ever!" Mabel panted.
Their Grunkle frowned. "There's no such thing as destiny." He said seriously.
"She's just joking aro-hey!" Dipper was cut off when the goat from earlier bit onto his hat. "Give it back, Gompers!" The goat bleated, and took a few steps back from the yelling boy. He made a dive for the hat, but that just served to scare the goat into the woods. "Come back here!"
"Dipper, don't go into the forest alone!" Stanford yelled after him, but the kid was either already out of hearing range or simply too preoccupied with retrieving his hat to care.
"He'll be fine." Mabel assured the old man. He gave her a worried stare. "Buuuut, if it makes you feel better, then Mabel is on the case!"
Dipper chased the goat a good distance into the woods. He'd finally cornered the thing against a large tree, just out of sight of the road leading back into town.
"Ok, easy Gompers, I just want my hat back…" He said slowly, even though it was clear the goat had already eaten more than half the brim. He charged forward suddenly, trying to catch the animal off-guard, but Gompers just jumped out of the way again.
Clang! Dipper crashed into the tree.
Wait… clang?
Trees don't clang…
Dipper felt the bark of the tree and found it wasn't a tree at all, but a metal tower disguised to blend in with the forest. There was a seam in the artificial bark. The boy worked his fingers into the crack, opening a hidden panel. He played with the switches he found inside. Nothing seemed to happen at first. Then he heard Gompers bleat again.
Dipper turned to find the goat had dropped his hat, and picked up some kind of book from a box that had opened up in the ground.
"Hey! Gompers, bad goat! Give it here!" he grabbed the book, but the goat still had the front cover in its mouth. Dipper pulled, and with a loud rip, the book came free, leaving a good two thirds of the cover in the goat's jaws.
"Uuuuhg, stupid goat…" The boy groaned, trying his best to clean up the strange book. It was bound in deep red leather, with gold trimmings on it. Some shape had been inlaid in gold on the cover, but Gompers had ripped off the top half, so it was hard to say what it was supposed to be. A boat? A handprint? A wing? A face? Unless he wanted to make that goat barf, he would probably never know. Some number had been written there, but the rip made it hard to make out. Probably a 3, but maybe a 5? A tiny magnifying glass was tied to the spine, like a ribbon bookmark.
Dipper flipped it open and began to read.
"It's hard to believe it's been six years since I began studying the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon." He read. "Woah… what is all this?" He stopped when he came to a page with TRUST NO ONE! scrawled across the bottom. "Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed. I'm being watched. I must hide this book before he finds it. Remember: in Gravity Falls there is no one you can trust. No one you can trust…"
Further reading was interrupted by the arrival of Mabel. "HELLO!" She shouted right behind him, making her brother squeal and almost drop the Journal. "Whatch'a readin'? Some nerd thing?"
Dipper and Mabel ran back to the house. The boy was excited to show the mysterious book to his sister. He was just getting to the part where the writing suddenly stoped when the doorbell rang.
"Who's that?" He asked.
"Welp, looks like it's time to spill the beans!" Mabel knocked over a can of beans she had undoubtedly set there just to make that pun. "Boop! Beans. This girl's got a date! Woot woot!"
"Wait, while I was chasing a goat you found a boyfriend?"
"Yep! I have an uncanny talent for these things! Woo-oo-ooo!" She shook her loose sleeves above her head in a crude imitation of a ghost. She got up to answer the door.
Dipper hid away the Journal under his seat cushion. This wasn't the kind of thing he wanted to share with some random guy Mabel'd picked up off the street.
Stanford came downstairs at the sound of the doorbell. He found Dipper sitting in the recliner, staring at a TV that was not even turned on.
"Who's at the door?" The scientist asked.
"Mabel's new boyfriend." Dipper said, rolling his eyes.
"Oh, uh… good for her, I suppose." Ford said awkwardly. He was used to highschoolers having boyfriends, but middleschoolers? "Isn't… isn't she a bit young?"
"Try telling her that."
"Hey family!" Mabel came in dragging a tall boy in a dirty black hoodie. "Meet my new boyfriend!"
"'Sup" The stranger said.
"Hey." Dipper gave his usual simple greeting.
Ford narrowed his eyes and took a close look at the guy. Really? Who did those gnomes think they were fooling? This was their most elaborate scheme to steal human food yet. But how was he going to break this to Mabel? He couldn't just tell her 'Your boyfriend is actually a stack of gnomes'. As long as the Society of the Blind Eye was still active, he couldn't risk telling these kids anything about the supernatural creatures in Gravity Falls. But he wasn't about to let these gnomes use his niece.
"What's your name?" Dr. Pines asked suspiciously.
"Uh… normal… man…" The head gnome was putting on a deep voice, trying to sound as human as possible.
"He means Norman." Mabel said dreamily.
"Uh-huh." Ford stepped over and put a large hand on her shoulder, pulling her away from the fake teenager. "Mabel, you can't date this boy, I forbid it!"
"What!?" she asked incredulously. "Wh-why not? You're not even going to give him a chance?"
"He's a troublemaker. I can tell these things, I'm a teacher." Technically true, but not the whole truth. "Now, get out of my house, and don't come back, you all understand?"
The disguised gnomes staggered out the door, sharing a lingering glance with Mabel before going.
"I-I can't believe you Grunkle Ford!" Mabel half yelled, half sobbed at him. "He was my first boyfriend, and you just… just turned him away before I even had a chance to get to know him! How could you be so cruel?" She ran up the stairs to the attic in a dramatic huff.
"Woah…" Dipper breathed as the two Pines men watched her go.
"I was too harsh on her, wasn't I?" Stanford asked. He couldn't treat these two like his students. They were younger, and they were his family.
"Oh, uh, yeah, I guess…" Dipper stammered, "But, you noticed there was something off about that guy too?"
Oh boy. This kid was smart, he'd figure it out on his own if he kept digging. How was Ford going to throw him off the trail?
"Well, he's just a typical goth teen." Ford lied. "Not at all your sister's type, I think."
"No, I mean like… there was something really weird about him! I think he had blood on his face!" Dipper persisted. "And-and the way he walked! What if he's like… y'know, not human?"
The kid's instincts were right on the money, but Stanford couldn't let him know that. If Dipper knew about the stranger side of Gravity Falls, that could put him in a lot of danger. Not just from the Blind Eye, but from the other supernatural being in the area. Ford knew from experience, once you found yourself involved with the paranormal, more and more seemed to pop up everywhere.
"Dipper, I know this place can seem creepy at times, but there's no solid scientific documented evidence of paranormal anything in Gravity Falls." He'd been lying about this stuff for most of his life, but he still felt a twinge of guilt. It didn't feel right to shoot down the kid when he was so close to the truth.
The boy shifted in his seat, but dropped the subject…
Mabel was sitting in the attic, moping, when she heard something knock against the window. She peeked out to see Norman standing just on the edge of the forest, just in view of the window. He waved her down jerkily.
The colorful girl gasped and nodded, running out the door and down the stairs. She had almost made it outside when she bumped into Dipper.
"Hey, where'er you going?" Her brother asked. He was holding that Journal he'd found earlier.
"Norman's waiting for me outside!" She whispered excitedly.
"What? No, Mabel, Grunkle Ford said-"
"I know! Forbidden love! Isn't it romantic?"
"Mabel, that's what I was coming up to tell you! Norman is not what he seems!"
She gasped. "D'you think he's a vampire? That would be so awesome!"
Dipper shook his head. "Guess again, sister! Sh-bam!"
"Uuuh…" She wasn't sure what to make of the gnome page.
"Oh wait sorry…" He turned a couple of pages. "Sh-bam!"
"A zombie? That's not funny, Dipper!"
"No, I'm serious!" He insisted.
Mabel groaned. "Uhg, Norman's waiting for me, I don't have time for your crazy conspiracies!" She pushed past him and out to the waiting stranger. The two of them hurried off to their date before Ford could notice she was gone.
"Nonononono!" Dipper ran around to the garage, where he found Soos and Wendy fixing up an old golf cart. "Guys! Where's Grunkle Ford?"
"I dunno." Wendy shrugged. "Taking a nap or whatever he does most afternoons."
"Augh, alright. I need to borrow the golf cart to save my sister from a zombie!"
Wendy tossed him the keys nonchalantly. "Try not to hit any pedestrians."
"Oh, dude, if you're going up against zombies…" He picked out a shovel from the tool shed "It's dangerous to go alone, take this!"
Dipper smiled. "Thanks."
Dipper hadn't traveled far before he heard Mabel's screams. He heart leapt into his throat. Oh no! What if he was too late! No, no, he couldn't give up hope yet. He had to save her!
He followed the sound of her screaming into a strange, glowy part of the forest that was more fungus than wood. Soon he came upon a clearing where he found Mabel and, instead of the zombie Norman, a bunch of gnomes.
"What the heck is going on here!?" He asked, completely confused.
The young twins managed to get almost all the way back to Grunkle Ford's house before the giant gnome constructed of regular gnomes caught up to them. Then the thing swung a tree at them and managed to knock their golf cart over.
"Stay back, man!" Dipper yelled at Jeff, throwing his shovel. The gnome construct just punched it out of the air.
"It's the end of the line, kids!" Jeff cackled. "Mabel, marry us before we do something crazy!"
"Uh… there's gotta be a way out of this…" The boy pulled out the Journal and flipped through the pages, trying to find a quick solution.
"I gotta do it." Mabel said, her voice not defeated, but determined.
"What!? Mabel are you crazy?" Dipper hissed.
"Trust me for once!" She whispered back. She seemed to have a plan. So Dipper gulped, nodded, and took a step back. "Ok Jeff, I'll marry you."
"Hot diggity dog!" Jeff exclaimed, and he awkwardly made his way down the gnome construct. Once he reached the bottom he pulled out an admittedly nice wedding ring. "Eh? Eh? Now let's get you back into the forest, honey!"
"You may now kiss the bride!" Mabel said coyly. Dipper almost puked. Jeff looked like Christmas had come early.
"Don't mind if I do!" the head gnome leaned in for some smooching.
Mabel smirked and pulled out a leaf blower from under a pile of leaves. She flicked the thing onto reverse, pulling the unwitting gnome in. "That's for lying to me!" She increased the power. "That's for breaking my heart! And this…" She handed the leaf blower over to Dipper, "Is for messing with my brother! You wanna do the honors?"
"Let's do it together." He suggested. "On three. One, two…"
"Three!" The said together, turning it back to blow, full force. Jeff was propelled into the gnome construct like a missile, and the whole thing exploded in a burst of pointy red hats and tiny beards. With their leader taken out, the rest of the gnomes scampered back into the forest.
"Hey Dipper…" Mabel said as they watched the last gnome get dragged off by Gompers. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you or Grunkle Ford earlier. You really were just looking out for me."
"Oh, don't worry about it. Besides, you totally just saved our lives!" Her twin reassured her.
"I guess I'm just sad my first boyfriend turned out to be a bunch of gnomes…"
Stanford came outside to check on the kids. They'd been almost too quiet all afternoon, and then suddenly there'd been a few big crashes he could hear all the way from down in the portal lab. He'd rushed outside, only to find nothing but the two children hugging awkwardly.
"What was all that noise?" He asked worriedly.
"Oh uh… we crashed the golf cart." Dipper explained haltingly. "While… messing around with the leaf blower?"
Ford looked over at the cart lying on it's side. Wow, twelve-year-olds were more destructive than he thought. "Well… at least nobody got hurt, right?"
"Yup!" The kids agreed simultaneously, with enormous, strained grins on their faces. That wasn't suspicious at all.
The three of them walked into the house, and Ford glanced at a posty-note stuck on the stairs' rail near his eye-level.
"Oh, right! While I have you two here, I wanted to tell you something." He knelt down and looked at the girl. "Mabel, I'm sorry for being so… well, blunt with you earlier. The last thing I wanted was to make you upset."
"It's OK Grunkle Ford, you were right about Norman. He was nothing but trouble." Mabel reassured him.
The scientist was surprised. Had she found out about the gnomes? No, she would have said something about it… wouldn't she?
He pushed it to the back of his mind. "Well, I'm sorry you had to learn that the hard way." He turned to the boy "And Dipper, I'm sorry about Gompers eating your hat. That goat is always eating things he shouldn't, but I can't seem to get rid of him. So… here." He picked up a blue and white hat that'd been sitting on the end of the stair's rail.
"Ah, thanks!" Dipper exclaimed and pulled the hat on. It fit just how he liked it, snuggly covering his birthmark. "You didn't have to buy a new one for me."
"Oh, it was no trouble." Ford assured him. "It's from the school. They're always giving me merchandise with that pinetree stamped on it. Hats, jerseys, coffee mugs, big foam fingers…"
"Well I like it, so... thanks."
"Haha, you already said thanks, you dork!" Mabel giggled.
Later that night Dipper was writing his own entry in the Journal while Mabel jumped on her bed. He had just wrote "leaf blowers" on the gnomes' page, in the blank for weaknesses.
"Hey Mabel, how did you know that leaf blower trick would work?"
"Well, it works on the squirrels back home!"
"...Huh." He smiled. Maybe he couldn't trust anyone in Gravity Falls. But Mabel wasn't from Gravity Falls.
She was his twin sister.
Author's notes: Woof. Tons of behind-the-scenes stuff for this chapter.
First of all, Dipper and Minecraft is a send-up to my youngest brother, who is JUST LIKE Dipper, except with blond hair. He loves Minecraft, and my parents always say he plays too much, so I thought it fit.
Ford thinks the gnomes are trying to use Mabel to steal human food because he either doesn't know the gnomes have a queen, or doesn't know they're looking for a new one and therefore doesn't know Mabel's in actual danger. Normally the gnomes aren't a threat as long as you don't anger them.
Ford is an old overdramatic dork. Mabel is a young overdramatic dork.
Again, let me know how you feel I handled lifting the script from the episode, and give me suggestions on how to maybe do it better without every chapter being 11 pages long.