Chapter 11: Earth-Shattering

(November 11, 2015)

It was a rare occasion, maybe because it was Veterans Day and the coach was a proud veteran (US Navy, two tours). Anyhow, he was in a good mood that afternoon and just had the varsity team run timed laps, then released them early. Dipper hitched a ride with Macavoy and his dad and was home before four o'clock. He hadn't even bothered to shower, planning to do that at home.

When he came inside, he was a lot like the pre-pubescent Dipper: Sweaty. And things immediately turned awkward. Wanda Pines met him at the door. "Come into the living room," she said in such a strange voice that Dipper felt cold.

"What's wrong, Mom?" he asked. His brain immediately grew legs and jumped to a conclusion. "Has something happened to Mabel?"

She always drives that car, and sometimes I think she's not careful enough—

Instead of following his mother, Dipper ran through the kitchen and threw open the garage door—

No, there sat Helen Wheels, nearly glowing that radioactive green color but obviously undamaged. His heart beat hard, but even over that he could hear the metallic ticking as the engine cooled. He took a long, deep, shaky breath. He had pictured Mabel lying in a hospital bed, bloodied and in a body cast, or even worse, but the car was here and safe, so—

Behind him, in an angry tone, his mother said, "Dipper! I said come with me!"

"Is Mabel OK?" he demanded, his voice climbing high, making him even more like his twelve-year-old self. "Where's Mabel?"

His mother's face shone scarlet. "She's in her room, and she'll stay there until you and I have a talk."

She all but pushed him to the living room. "Sit there," she said, pointing to an armchair at an angle to the sofa. She sat on the end of the sofa nearest him. "After we talk, I'm going to speak to Mabel. The two of you are not to say anything to each other before then."

"Mom, I don't understand—" Dipper said. He could feel the cool air of the house chilling the sweat in his shirt and on his forehead. "What did we do?"

She handed him the photo. "What do you get up to in Gravity Falls, Dipper?"

He stared at it in shock. In the picture he lay sprawled in bed, lying on his back, his chin tilted, his mouth wide open, his hair ruffled so his birthmark showed. He wore only black boxer briefs, and they had pulled down low, as they did when he slept in them. You could make out a brown fuzz of hair low on his belly. Beside his head on the pillow and nearby on the bed, three shiny amber-colored bottles lay on their sides, the one closest to him with its label clearly showing: RIMROCK PREMIUM LAGER.

But worse than that—Pacifica lay next to him on his right side, cuddled close to him. She had clearly kissed him—his cheek showed a scarlet lipstick smooch mark. Her knees were bent, and her bare feet rested on Grenda's shoulder. Grenda lay mostly on her stomach, but she was looking up, smirking at the camera. Her head rested on Dipper's thigh. Candy was on her side, embracing his left calf, her cheek pressed against his thigh just above the knee. She looked asleep.

Wendy, lying slantwise to make room for Candy, lay on her side very close to Dipper's left side, her eyes closed, a smile on her lips. She had one hand spread on his chest, one knee crooked over his upper thigh, just above Candy's head.

All the girls wore revealing, though not scandalous, nightwear. Dipper vaguely remembered that the outfits had been gifts from Pacifica for the girls' last sleepover back in August.

Dipper blinked. "Mom—this isn't real—I mean—the photo is real, but it's a stupid joke!"

"How much did you have to drink?" his mother asked.

He blinked. "Drink? Nothing! I've never—I don't—Mom, the only alcohol I've ever tasted in my whole life is the Passover wine in those little baby cups, and you know I can't even get down more than four sips of that! I don't like the way it tastes, I've never even had one beer—"

"Then are the girls drunk?"

"No, no—I don't know where the bottles came from. This was back at the end of August. There was a sleepover, and I moved downstairs so the girls could have the attic to themselves, and it took me forever to fall asleep, and in the morning they—" he ran out of wind and took a deep breath. "Mabel and the girls did this to tease me," he said miserably. "I didn't even know they took a photo!"

"Have you and Mabel practiced an answer?" Mom asked.

He felt as though she had swung a hammer and hit him in the chest. "Mom, no! I swear. I swear by—by anything you want to name—this picture isn't what it looks like. And Mabel and I have never talked about it." He realized something. "She took the picture! I—you can ask her! You know how Mabel is—always looking for scrapbookortunities!"

"Dipper, tell me truthfully: Do you kids drink? Do your uncles let you do that?"

"No!" He wondered if he looked as miserable as he felt. "I think maybe Wendy might have a beer with her dad now and then, but I've never seen her drinking at all. Candy and Grenda, no, I don't think so. I know Mabel doesn't ever drink. I swear, Mom. These bottles probably were Grunkle Stan's. He's not a big drinker, but occasionally he'll have one—wait, I remember. This was on a weekend morning, Sunday I think. The recycling's only picked up once a week, on Tuesdays. The girls probably dug the bottles out of the glass bin!"

"I wish I knew whether to believe you," his mom said. "Come with me." They went upstairs, and Wanda pointed. "Go to your room. Don't come out until I call you."

"Mom, please. Don't let this make you think Gravity Falls is bad for us—"

"I wouldn't worry about that," she said. "The way I feel right now, you won't go back to Gravity Falls."

"Not for Thanksgiving?" Dipper asked.

"Never," she said, and she closed the door on him.

Mabel's turn. She only knew that her mom was steaming mad about something—not what. Wanda took her down to the living room, put her in the same chair, and showed her the photo. "What were you and your brother up to?" she asked.

Mabel's face flamed. "I forgot about this! Mom, this isn't what you think. It was a dare. Uh, you know, Truth or Dare? Us girls had a sleepover, except we stayed up all night long and didn't sleep at all, and this was, I think, uh, Sunday morning early, and we were playing the game and—and I dared the others to go pose for a photo with Dipper." Tears shimmered in her eyes. She squeaked, "I guess it wasn't a good idea."

"I am surprised at all of you. Most of all by Wendy's behavior. She's an adult, or she's supposed to be!"

Mabel squirmed under the lash of her mother's words. "Wendy held out," she said. "She didn't even want to do this. But, see, she hadn't had a wink of sleep, and, and Mom, you don't know this about her, but her mother died when she was real young, and there were only her three brothers and her dad in the family, and she had hardly any friends. Well, there's one, the girl that married Robbie, her name's Tambry—"

"Wasn't she pregnant when they got married?"

"What? No! Where did you get that idea? No, Mom! But Tambry and Wendy were best friends, but Wendy couldn't have sleepovers because her house is so small, and she knew her brothers would do something mean if she had guests, so when she was the right age, she never learned about sleepovers, and, and she's kind of recapturing her childhood by coming to mine, and, and—it was a dare." She finally took a breath. "See, Dipper's always so shy around girls. I just wanted to make him feel like the center of attention."

"How much did you have to drink?"

"Uh, some lemonade, I don't remember, and some Mabel Juice when we got sleepy, to wake us up—oh, right, the bottles. We didn't drink beer. I mean, we don't ever drink beer! Not at all. Those are props, OK? I got them out of the recycling bin, to make Dipper look like a party dude. It was . . . just . . . a dumb . . . joke," she said, winding down. "Mom, it wasn't his fault. He didn't even know about it."

"Are you telling me the truth?" Mom asked.

Weirdly, something flashed into Mabel's memory so vividly she almost saw and heard it again: "You're gonna hear a lot of bad things about me, and some of them are true, but trust me. Look into my eyes, Mabel. Do you really think I'm a bad guy?"

"I know how Grunkle Stan felt," she whispered.

"What's that supposed to mean?" her mom asked.

"Mom, please, trust me. Trust me. Dipper didn't drink, he never drinks, none of us girls drank. There was no making out, just the picture's all. Nothing happened. This is just a posed picture. It was a stupid trick, and m-my s-stupid idea and I'm s-stupid, and now you ha-hate me, and—" she burst into tears. "What are you gonna do to us?"

"Don't you think you and your brother should be punished?" Wanda asked.

Mabel shook her head. "N-not Dipper. He's totally innocent. It's all my s-stupid fault! You can g-ground me." She bit her lip. "T-take my car keys away. But Dipper hasn't done anything wrong."

"You two are not going back to Gravity Falls," Wanda said in a level, determined tone. "Not this year. Maybe not next year."

"Mom! No!" I have friends there! Dipper has friends there—and he doesn't have any here! Please, not that!" She gulped. "If, if I c-can't go, for Th-Thanksgiving, at least let D-Dipper go. You d-d0n't know wh-what you're—" she broke down into incoherent sobs.

Her mother sighed. "Even if I trust the two of you, how can I trust these girls? How can I trust Wendy? I know this sounds harsh. But I'm thinking of you two. One day you'll understand that."

Mabel's face crumpled. She had no breath to express herself.

"Go to your room," Wanda said. "Don't come out until I call you. When your father gets home, he's going to see this picture, and then he and I will talk about it. But don't count on going back to Oregon anytime soon."

Kaboom.

The time bomb Mabel had unwittingly set running on August 23 had exploded.

There it was. Earth-shattering.

Mabel's heart felt so heavy she could barely climb the stairs to exile.