Secret Sister

Mabel

"Lebam came here late last night," said Dipper, on the phone to Pacifica. "It was weird. She had forgotten everything from the moment she was cloned from Mabel. She woke me and said there was a copy of her in her bed. She'd even forgotten she was the copy."

I was sitting by Dipper on his bed. I had let Lebam sleep in my bed last night, and she was still asleep there now.

Dipper tried to explain more to Pacifica, and asked her some questions. None of us had any idea how Lebam could have lost her memories.

It was sort of good. Without the memories of horrible things that Gideon had made her do while she was his slave, maybe she'd be happier, more like me and less like an evil double. She could be the twin sister I sometimes wished Dipper had been instead of a boy.

Dipper ended the call.

"How did it happen?" I asked.

"Cousin Pacifica says that Lebam left her room in the middle of the night. She read me the note Lebam left: 'I have an idea I need to check out. We may have a lot more in common than you think. Back soon.' That's all we have to go on."

"I wonder what her idea was," I said.

"I don't know, and now Lebam can't tell us," said Dipper. "She may have run into a monster with the power to wipe her mind. I'll check the Journal for ideas. Or maybe she was caught by someone in the Northwest mansion and they did it with drugs, or hypnosis, or whatever."

"You think it happened there in the house? That maybe Pacifica?... No! I don't believe it. Sure, Pacifica was mad at Lebam for kidnapping me and nearly getting me killed. I was, too. But she wouldn't go that far."

"The Northwests are high on my suspect list," said Dipper. "But not Pacifica. She's proved herself as a good cousin."

"We can't let Lebam go back there," I said. "Just in case."

"I guess not," said Dipper. "But where can she stay?"

"She can stay in our curtained-off closet," I said, pointing across the room.

"It's a tiny space," said Dipper.

"It may look small from the outside, but you told me you once had nine or ten clones standing around in there with room to spare," I said. "And there's another whole closet off of that, in case someone comes in here and she needs to hide."

"It's full of junk," said Dipper.

"Not that much," I said. "We'll clean out as much as we can into a big box to throw out. Grunkle Stan said we were going throw a bunch of stuff we don't need into the Bottomless Pit soon."

Dipper said, "A lot of stuff was smashed when I enlarged a chess pawn in there. We can throw that out and make more room. Though I don't believe there's a real Bottomless Pit."

"Let's do it! Make space for our new twin sister!" I said. "Does that make us triplets?"

"She's a doppelganger, not our sister," Dipper said. "Be on your guard and don't forget how dangerous she can be."

"She's not dangerous now," I said. "Her memories are just like mine, up to when Gideon took a sample of my hair during a makeover."

"So she says," said Dipper.

"You're too suspicious. I'm going to treat her like a sister, whether you do or not," I said.

Lebam stirred and woke up.

"Dipper, I had a funny dream," said Lebam. "I dreamed there was a copy of me in our room... Oh! There she is! It wasn't a dream."

"I'm the original and you're the copy," I said. "And don't you forget it."

"How can you tell?" Lebam asked.

"I have up-to-date memories," I said. "And my reflection reverses in the mirror."

I got out a mirror and showed her that the bang of hair over her right eye was still over her right eye in the mirror, and my reflection was the opposite.

"Oh," Lebam said. "I guess I'm the doppelganger, all right."

"Don't worry, you can stay with us until we figure out what to do. Dipper can find a way to return you to your mirror world," I said.

"I'll try," said Dipper. "If there is one."

"Meanwhile, you can share my life," I offered. "We can trade off and tag team. It'll be awesome."

"Yeah," Lebam said with a big smile. "I can get into that."

"Welcome to my life, sister," I said.

"Our life," said Lebam.