Christmas in the Shack

Chapter 11: Scenes from Mabel's Scrapbook

The rest of the Christmas break passed all too quickly for the twins. So far we haven't learned everything, because too much happened too fast to tell it all.

There was the morning when Mabel, Wendy, and Dipper climbed the chain-link fence at the high-school track so Wendy and Dipper could do their run. First, though, Wendy wanted to see Dipper's sprint, Mabel's new phone had a stopwatch app, and they did the hundred-meter together and all-out, coming in for an absolute photo finish at 11:31 seconds. Coach Rasmussen caught them and hurried onto the track. "Who are you, boy?"

"Dipper Pines," he'd said. "And this wasn't Wendy's—"

Rasmussen stabbed a stern finger at him. "Why aren't you on my track team?"

"Uh—because I live in California?"

"Hmm." He turned to Wendy. "Corduroy, we got a women's track team. I want to see you next Monday, my office, right after school."

"Positively not!"

Well, that's not quite the end of that, but you get the drift. There were other little things, and some you might like to know about.

So—courtesy of Mabel's scrapbook—here are three more highlights, not necessarily in the order of importance.

1. The Party

Everyone said it was the jolliest Christmas party ever held in Gravity Falls on New Year's Day! Such food! Such dancing! Such stopping of flush-faced couples beneath the mistletoe! Such kissings even when not under the mistletoe! Such laughter, such presents, such decorations—aw, the heck with it. Charles Dickens is dead, man.

Cut to the chase: everyone had a great time. When the Gnomes were at last assured that the people of the town would help them with food through the winter, they relaxed enough to thank the humans by performing some traditional Gnome dances, which looked a whole lot like traditional Gnome riots.

Later one of the Gnomes even took the two empty boxes in which Dipper's and Mabel's presents had been, turned his back, and in less than two seconds presented the twins with boxes now heavy in their hands.

"How'd you do that?" Mabel asked.

Jeff patted the package manipulator on the back. "Professional secret."

So they unwrapped the newly rewrapped presents. "Oh! Pacifica!" Mabel said when she saw the top-of-the-line cell phone. "This is too much!"

"No, really," Pacifica said. "It's, like, not locked, so all you have to do is pop in your SIM card and you're good to go. This will let you speed text, it has lots of RAM for pictures and videos, and you absolutely have to use it to text me and send me photos of you and Dipper until you guys come back next summer."

"OK," Mabel said. "I sure will. Thanks!"

"These are so cool!" Dipper said, trying on the virtual-reality glasses that Pacifica had given him. "Whoa! There are games already loaded?"

"About a dozen, and you've got a gift card to get more," Pacifica said. "One's a ghost-hunting game. Just to keep you in practice."

"This is—it's—Pacifica, it's really great. Thank you. We just gave you a card. You haven't opened it yet."

"Well, I don't mind if it's just a card." Pacifica tore open the envelope, took out the contents, and her eyes widened. "Oh. My. God! You guys! How did you do it?"

Her mother heard her and came over. "What, dear?"

"Look at this!" Pacifica said. "Dipper and Mabel bought Molly back for me! After Desperado, she was my favorite pony! When business picked up, Dad tried to buy her back, but the guy who got her wouldn't sell!"

"Welllll," Dipper said, rubbing the back of his neck, "Grunkle Stan actually, uh, negotiated the sale. She's at a boarding stable over in Mossy Run. You can pick her up any time."

And of course Pacifica, blubbering and laughing, had to hug Mabel. Then Dipper. Then she had to look at the certificate. Then hug Dipper again. But then she said, "Where's Dad? He's got a kind of present that I think you guys will get a kick out of. Dad! Daddy! Tell everyone!"

"Is it time?" Mr. Northwest asked as he walked over. When Pacifica kicked his shin—but not hard—he said, "I guess it's time. Mr. Sawyer, Belinda, Rodney, please come over here."

Mr. Sawyer, still moving a little driftily, as though he were afraid he were dreaming and might wake up, shepherded his kids through the crowd, stepping high over a couple of celebrating Gnomes. "Yes, sir?"

Preston Northwest said, "My daughter and Mabel Pines came to me about your situation. You're a carpenter, I understand? Certified electrician and can do plumbing?"

"Well—yes, sir, qualified in all of that, but jobs are scarce," Sawyer said.

"Well, I happen to own the premiere mudflap factory here in Gravity Falls," Preston said. "And last summer my daughter persuaded me to install a new section to treat waste products so the plant is now environmentally safe. The section has just commenced operations. Beginning next week, I need a full-time supervisor of maintenance to oversee all the repairs and upkeep in that section. I'm offering you the job, if you want it."

"Yes, sir!" Sawyer said, standing tall. "I surely do! I won't let you down!"

Preston reached into his jacket for a folded green paper. "Then I'll consider you hired. I—" his smile became oddly frozen—"always give my employees a month's salary to take care of transition expenses, so please accept this check."

Sawyer took it, blinked at the figure and asked, "I get this much every month?"

From his frozen smile, Preston said, "Of course."

"God bless you, Mr. Northwest!"

"Not at all." They shook hands, Preston trembled a bit on his own, and then he said, "Priscilla, I need a big cup of punch. Being good feels really strange."

But there was more. Manly Dan Corduroy, returned from his apocalyptic camping trip, told Sawyer that he and Soos were going to bring the Sawyers' house up to code. Soos had already strapped on his tool belt just to prove he was a handyman. "You won't know the place in two weeks," Dan promised.

And Bud Gleeful offered to sell Mr. Sawyer a pickup truck, only a year old and only nine thousand miles on the odometer, for no money down and a very reasonable monthly payment. "It's a good sound truck," he said. "Poor fella that owned it originally, well, he got a job transfer to Hawaii and couldn't afford to ship it over, so it's a great deal."

And Grenda said she and Candy and Mabel had personally persuaded the school bus supervisor to slightly extend a bus route so Belinda and Rodney could go to Gravity Falls Combined School when it started again.

And a pastor, a priest, and a rabbi walked into the Mystery Shack and it wasn't even a joke. They brought a collection of toys and clothes their congregations had donated for an overjoyed Belinda and Rodney.

And Grunkles Ford and Stan had arranged to get new appliances for the Sawyers' house and promised that by the time the house was ready the fridge and freezer would be full of enough food to see them through for a month.

And Fiddleford and Mayellen McGucket insisted that until that time came, the Sawyers were to stay with them as their guests.

And Waddles took care of so many scraps of food that even he finally turned away from a half-eaten piece of cake.

So they feasted and laughed together and everyone said that Li'l Soos was the most adorable baby since Gideon had been born, making Gideon blush.

Mabel danced with Adam, Pacifica's boyfriend, and Dipper danced once with Pacifica and a lot of times with Wendy, and not one person looked at the tall redhead and the somewhat shorter boy and said, "Isn't that cute."

The party began to break up before eleven—after all, everyone had celebrated the New Year the night before and had stayed up extra-late for that—and Dipper and Mabel hugged their Grunkles.

"Say it, Grunkle Ford," Mabel told him firmly.

Ford rolled his eyes, but he said, "Stanley—I love you."

Stanley blinked at him, grinned, and said, "Yeah, I know, Poindexter. I know."

Mabel had snapped their picture, but she lowered her new phone, her jaw dropping in disappointed surprise.

The older Mystery Twins walked into the night quibbling, and Mabel said, "Dang it! Poop heck darn! One of these days I'll make 'em both say it at the same time!"

2. Sleeping Together

This happened later that night, after the Christmas party in the Shack. Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy cleaned up, Mabel went to her room, and then alone in the parlor, Wendy and Dipper sat on the floor on a folded quilt, leaning back against the sofa cushions, which they'd put on the floor, watching the Midnite Movie, which came on not at midnight, but twelve-thirty a.m.

It was something called "Haunted Hanukkah," and it had sort of the plot of "A Christmas Carol," except with ghosts of rabbis and yentas instead of Christmas past, present, and future.

But it wasn't really a very interesting movie, and after half an hour they both slumped down to the floor and fell asleep. Dipper lay almost on his left side, Wendy completely on her right. Dipper's arm cushioned her head; she had thrown her left arm over his side. They both snoozed serenely, smiles on their faces.

Mabel got up at two-thirty in the morning, thirsty, and padded barefoot out of the guest room and toward the kitchen. She nearly stumbled on the two sleepers, but saw them in the light of the TV screen (now "How to Build a Backyard A-Bomb Shelter" was showing, a black-and-white documentary from 1952).

Quickly tiptoeing back to her room, Mabel found her new phone, its camera exceptionally good in low-light situations, though it also had a built-in flash that she had already used to snap a freeze-frame photo of a Great Horned Howl (a little like an owl, a little like a coyote) that had been flying past the Shack—and then came quietly back into the parlor. To avoid using the flash, she turned on one lamp. Dim, but plenty of light. Neither Wendy nor Dipper woke up.

Kneeling on the floor at their feet, Mabel found she could line them up in the frame for a great shot, and the meter even said she didn't have to use the flash. "I just hit Blackmail Bingo!" she whispered with an evil grin, adding a hissing, half-held-back giggle. She tensed her finger on the shutter button.

And then she paused. On the view screen, the two of them looked so—well, sweet was the only word—like that. Like they were almost the same age, both younger. Maybe both about twelve, in their relaxed sleep. There was . . . an innocence about them.

"Nah," Mabel said, with a happier smile. She returned the camera to her room and came back with a blanket, which she gently spread over them. "Sweet dreams," she whispered, softly stroking first Dipper's hair, then Wendy's.

Though she did snap this picture of their feet, just sticking out from the blanket, toe to toe, nearly touching. Kind of artistic.

And finally she got her glass of water and turned off the lamp.

And in fact, that's all that really happened. Wendy and Dipper simply went to sleep beside each other and stayed that way all night long. No funny business whatever.

In the morning, Dipper woke up first, around six a.m. He lay staring into Wendy's face in the rosy glow of "The Farm Report" on TV (a short one: "About everything's froze up, folks"). He silently slipped from under Wendy's arm and got up. In his sock feet, just as quietly as Mabel had moved, he went into the gift shop and got a piece of hard candy from the "Thank You, Come Again" jar that Soos had put on the counter. He unwrapped it from its crinkly paper there and popped it in his mouth.

Then he went back carefully lay down again beside Wendy. He leaned close, hesitated, and kissed her softly on the lips. She drew in a surprised breath, stirred a little, sighed, and responded, kissing him back. With his tongue he pressed the candy between his lips and then between hers.

Her eyes popped open. Then with a giggle, she hugged him, pulled him close, and they exchanged a deep kiss—and the hard candy. Then, pulling away, she smacked her lips and murmured huskily, "I love me some peppermint on a cold morning."

"Thank you, Wendy," Dipper said, nuzzling her neck.

She put her hand on the back of his head and stroked his hair. "Mm, nice. For what, dude?"

"For being Wendy. For being the coolest person I'll ever know. For sticking with me even when I'm annoying and acting like a scared kid."

She kissed him again, a sweet peppermint-flavored smooch. "Mm. Hey, when the time comes, Dipper—always wake me up just this same way, OK?"

"You got it, Lumberjack Girl."

She grinned. "No 'Red'?"

"I may be saving that up," Dipper said with a wicked smile. "For a special occasion."

Chuckling throatily, she asked, "Now, what would that be?"

He kissed her cheek. "You'll know it when it gets here."

3. Goodbye Doesn't Last Forever

The next Saturday they had to return home. This time, though, Stan, Ford, and Wendy drove them over to Portland, where they'd catch the 12:05 flight down to Oakland International Airport. They'd arrive at 2:10. "Better'n a seven-hour drive," Stan said.

Dipper looked at Wendy. "Not really."

Ford, for a change, was the one who was quickest on picking up the vibe. "Mabel," he said, "We have more than an hour and a half before the flight. Would it make you airsick if I took you down to the Dreamery Creamery booth and got you a triple-fudge Sundae?"

"One way to find out!" Mabel said.

"Come along, Stanley."

Dipper and Wendy stood facing each other. Wendy, hands in her jeans pockets, shrugged and gave him a sweet happy-sad smile. "You better text me the minute you land, dork," she said.

"I will, yeah, but don't worry. Planes are safe. They tell me. Even Grunkle Stan flies now and then."

"Gonna miss you crazy much," Wendy whispered.

"I'll be back, Lumberjack Girl," Dipper said. "I promise. And you're gonna drive down next June if our track team gets to the finals, remember."

"I sure am." She reached for him. "So goodbye for a little while. Kiss me once for luck."

He did, and when they ended the kiss, he rolled the candy around in his mouth. "I love me some peppermint," he said, resting his forehead against hers.

"I'll have some ready for you when you get back," she promised.

Now, THAT was the photo that Mabel actually did snap . . . .

But let's close the scrapbook on that one. No sense going into the explanations and the discussions with Mr. and Mrs. Pines right now. Let's just say that even parents realize that sometimes friends kiss, at Christmastime, when they're saying goodbye and know they're going to miss each other for a few months that seem a whole lot longer than they are.

Yeah. Let's leave it at that.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

The End