Chapter 10

Hats

"You sure they're not gonna mind me inviting myself?" Mason asked as the three of us sat on the porch. We'd finished dinner only to receive a text from Wendy about all of us going out.

"Well, she did say "you three", so you are invited," Mable said, kneeling down so she could poke at a bug in the weeds.

I sat on the steps with Mason and said, "Anyway, they're cool." Robbie flashed in my mind. "Well, mostly cool." I looked over at Mabel and asked, "Did she say what we're doing?"

"No, something about she wanted to keep it a surprise," Mabel said, standing up with a bug crawling on her finger.

"You did put the squall in Waddle's cage, right?" I asked, the bug reminding me of the creature in our room.

"Yeah, and his name's Squeaker, not squall." The bug flew off of Mabel's hand and straight for my face. I promptly flicked my hand at it, shewing the bug away. "Do you think she'll need glitter and confetti for the surprise?"

"Don't you always carry your emergency bag?" I asked.

She reached into her striped pink and orange hoodie pocket and pulled out a ziplock bag fill of sparkles. "Yeah, but what if I need more?"

Mason let out a laugh, "A Mabel that's prepared? I guess I have made it to the end of the multiverse!"

Mabel put her bag of glitter back in her pocket and instead pulled out her grappling hook. She raised it so it pointed to the sky and declared, "Mabel Pines is always prepared!"

I laughed along with Mason at the pose she pulled, a smile on her face.

Behind her an old familiar van pulled along the gravel driveway, getting our attentions as Mabel put her grappling hook back in her pocket. The headlights in the late twilight night blinded us from seeing inside as the van pulled to a stop and hocked its horn.

"Come on, this is them," I said as I stood up.

Mabel ran ahead and slid open the side door of the van, calling out, "The party is here!" as she jumped in.

Mason followed me to the van as I could see Thompson driving with Robbie and Tambry sitting in the front. The middle seat held Nate, Lee, and Wendy, who was crawling up to the seat from the back as Mabel dove over the middle seat to our row in the back.

"You're triplets now?" Robbie asked only to receive a punch from Tambry.

Tambry closed her phone and said, "Didn't you hear a word Wendy said?"

"No," Robbie said, rubbing his arm.

"Get the wax out of your ear, maybe then you won't flunk a grade," Wendy said, putting her seat belt on as she sat next to Nate on the end.

I went ahead and got into the back row, Mason following me, as Nate and Lee called out, "Oooo! Burn!"

I took my seat next to Mabel and buckled in as I asked, "Anyone you don't know?"

Mason sat down in the seat next to me as Wendy reached out and pulled the door shut. He looked around and opened his mouth only for Thompson to call out, "Seat belts!"

"We're good man!" Nate whined.

"You're not my mom," Robbie grumbled loudly.

I eyed Mason for a moment before realization dawned on his face. "Oh." He quickly pulled on the seat belt as he admitted, "It's been a while."

"Been a while for what, a seat belt?" Lee asked. He turned around in his seat and looked at Mason as Thompson pulled the van forward to leave the shack's parking lot.

"Not every dimension uses them," Mason offered with a shrug.

"I'm sure you've got some horror stories that'll be great for tonight," Wendy said, turning to glance at us.

"I'll take that as a challenge," Mason said, crossing his arms over his chest with a smug smile on his face.

"What are we doing tonight?" I asked.

"My dad's setting off a bond fire in the clearing by my house," Wendy said. Her eyes widened as she turned away from us and said, "Thompson! We need to hit the Piggly Wiggly on the way!"

"The Piggly Wiggly?" Mabel asked, a big smile on her face as she held her hands up to her cheeks.

"Knew she'd like the place," Nate said, high fiving Lee.

"It's a new grocery store that came in the fall," Tambry said.

"They seriously underestimated this town's love of Halloween," Wendy said, turning back to us. "They came like a week before Halloween with only half a rack of candy and a pumpkin here or there."

"The manager was from Portland," Tambry said. "She did not know what she was getting herself into."

"Has someone warned her about Summerween?" I asked.

"Oh, she quit," Robbie called back. I could see him putting his arm around Tambry's shoulders as he added, "Tambry's now the manager."

"Oh, that's great!" Mabel exclaimed. "So does that mean we get free candy?"

"Mabel," I looked at my sister who gave me her "can't hurt" face.

"Maybe closer to Summerween," Tambry offered.

"Oh what!?" Nate exclaimed.

"Yeah, what about us?!" Lee added.

"You boys get your own candy," Tambry said as her phone went off loud enough for me to hear in the back. She'd changed a lot over the school year, last summer she could barely go a full minute without her phone. We were just pulling into the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly when her phone went off and she pulled it out.

I looked up at the sign over the store, seeing a mascot that looked like Porky Pig. "I would've given them a cuter idea of a mascot," Mabel said, seeing the same I saw. "Waddles would be ten times as cute."

Thompson pulled us into a parking spot before killing the engine as everyone piled out of the one working sliding door in the back. "We need hotdogs, marshmallows, chocolate, gram crackers, and anything else to cook," Wendy said as we got out of the van.

I stepped out after Mason and waited for Mabel as Tambry said, "I work here, I don't wanna be here on my night off." She closed the passenger door and looked down at her glowing phone.

Mabel closed the van door as she said, "Do you think we could roast gummy worms?"

"Tried and failed," Nate said, shaking his head. "All you end up with is a melted mass that falls into the fire."

We headed to the front door as Mabel asked, "How 'bout cookies?"

Nate and Lee looked at each other as they smiled. They turned back to look at her and both said, "Awesome!"

"We're gonna find cookies!" Lee said as the three headed off close to a run down the first aisle they saw.

"Thompson, can you grab the hotdogs?" Wendy asked, already headed down the front of the store.

"Got it," Thompson said, turning off to go down an aisle.

I kept in pace with Wendy as Robbie and Mason turned down an aisle, I missed what the two were saying to each other. "Hey, um, Thompson seems…" I struggled with the word I wanted. He had noticeably changed in the year, he wasn't so wishy-washy.

"Yeah, he finally grew a pair," Wendy offered after I couldn't finish my sentence. "He'll still do a good dare but now it's just because he wants to, not to try and keep us together."

"Well after all the junk we've been through, I guess I can't be surprised," I said, shoving my hands in my pockets. She turned down an aisle and I quickly turned to follow her, eyeing my blue cap still on her head. I liked that she was still wearing it, and I did like wearing hers, but a part of me wanted to swap back. But how do you do that when asking for it back would be weird. It would be like saying, yeah, thanks and all, but I want my hat. In a way, it was like that but I kinda liked that she'd been wearing my hat all year. We stopped and found all the things for s'mores right together. I grabbed a bag of humongous marshmallows and turned to see Wendy looking at me, already holding the box of gram crackers and a pack of chocolate bars. "What?" I asked, worried I had something on my face or something.

"You ok?"

"Uh… just… just thinking," I said, worried if I say anything more, I'd say too much.

"You wanna swap hats?"

My eyes opened wide, how'd she know?

"You've still got that thing of mumbling to yourself," Wendy pointed out.

I quickly put my hand up over my eyes. I've gotta stop doing that. "What did I say?" I asked, my face heating up.

"It sounded like 'yeah, thanks, but I want my hat'." Wendy moved, getting me to drop my hand and seeing she had taken off my hat. She held it towards me by the bill and added, "If it makes you feel better, I do kinda miss my hat too."

I gave her a half smile as I reached up and took off her hat. Before I could take my hat back she plopped it on my head and took her hat out of my hand.

"Looks better on you anyway," Wendy offered as I readjusted my hat. "Last summer I thought the idea was cool but you fit the pine tree better than I do."

"If only I was a couple years older, eh?" I instantly regretted saying that as I pulled my hat down to cover my face as she let out a laugh. That's what I get for daydreaming of her becoming a Pines. "Ugh, forget I said that."

"Hey man, if we get to our twenties and still don't have anybody," Wendy offered, her voice still full of laughter.

I looked up, waiting for the end of her sentence only to see her shrug.

"Eh, by then, three years won't be that far off," Wendy said, looking away from my face. This was the first time I've ever seen her awkward. "Anyway, no one ever stays with their first love."

"There you two are," Thompson said, getting us to turn towards the back of the store as the overweight teen and Robbie came up to us. "Find everything?"

"Yeah, just debating on large or jumbo marshmallows," Wendy said, putting her hat on.

"We went with jumbo," I said, holding up the bag still in my hand.

"Good. Lee and Nate already bought three different types of cookies, but we didn't grab any money," Robbie explained, handing Wendy the pack of hotdogs.

"Free loaders," Wendy mumbled with a smile.

"Hey, this was your idea," Robbie said as we started to walk out of the aisle.

Ahx dbmuwyjtur's wsbgallr tfk a iaue mjle. Ygybbvkeg xyixfks uma a kgjk lgsiw xvugvhtbgu.

AN: Shameless Plug Time! If you like my stuff, be it Gravity Falls, Danny Phantom, or Disney then check out my published book Harley Davis: Teenage Superhero! It's on Amazon where you can buy either the e-book or the paperback.