CHAPTER 14- Sorry for the late update (for me anyway)! I've had to write a research paper, there was a spaghetti dinner at my church, I had to help with rehearsal for a children's musical, and then there was physics homework…..gah. Crazy whatnot.
Anyway, replying to reviews:
AquaThePheonix: Sounds like we've both been busy (: And it is great, but it can get annoying sometimes…cough cough….
Elizabeth: I won't tell you anything else, but I will say yes to your last question.
Privateandcadet: Ouch! That sucks!
Apparently one of my friends has a friend who got angry one day and ripped his toe off…shudder. This story made him think of that….kind of wish I hadn't brought it up during our free period.
Je ne possède pas Phineas et Ferb ou Gravity Falls.
Stan smiled and walked back towards the kitchen. "Yeah, well, don't you dare tell anyone."
GENERAL POV
Stan sighed and rubbed his eyes wearily, finally shutting the completed mermaid book in front of him.
The man sank back into the worn leather of the dining bench and took a sip of his coffee, practically spewing it out when he found it cold.
Stan scowled and got up, dumping the cold beverage down the drain. He turned on the tap and rinsed the cup, pausing momentarily to stare at the stream of water, remembering how Candace had manipulated it so easily.
Well, not easily. It had obviously tired her out, but it probably was only because of the night they had had.
A gentle creak from the stairs had Stan turning around and looking at the clock in confusion. It wasn't yet 7 o'clock. Who in their right mind would be up at this time?
Stan faced the direction of the stairs and cocked his head curiously as Dipper walked in, fidgeting with his shirt hem. When the boy looked up and saw Stan, he jumped practically a foot in the air.
"G-Grunkle Stan! What are you doing up?" he stuttered nervously, trying to hide the backpack slung over his shoulder.
Stan crossed his thick biceps and frowned down at the boy. "A better question would be, what the heck are you doing up, kid? You just almost got killed. I would think that you would be dead to the world."
The man paused, thinking over his words. "Metaphorically speaking."
Dipper chuckled nervously. "Uh, well, I uh…um…"
Stan raised an eyebrow. "Um, uh, well? Are you going to tell me or not?"
Dipper opened his mouth and Stan held up his hand. "And don't you dare lie to me, Dipper. I know you were going to go out. Your backpack says it all."
Dipper chewed on his lip and looked back at his bag, his eyebrows creased.
Stan watched him quietly, body trembling slightly when he saw the scrapes peeking out from under his shirt and shorts, his raw palms and tired eyes. The edge of a bandage poked out from under his hat, and Stan found himself wondering if he had a concussion, and whether or not he should call the twins' parents.
Dipper looked back and caught Stan watching him, his eyes filled with concern, and Dipper found that, despite all the lying Stan had done to him, he couldn't do it to his grunkle.
Dipper sighed and let the backpack fall gently to the tile floor, his fingers loosely gripping the top. "It's all my fault, Grunkle Stan."
Stan frowned and rubbed his chin. "What is?"
Dipper gulped and looked down at the floor. "Candace getting hurt. I…I wanted to know if the mermaids were actually there. I put everyone in danger, especially her."
"Dipper-"
"Hang on. I want to fix it. I've been up all night reading," the boy said, shouldering his backpack again, "and I think I found something that could help her, maybe even bring her toe back or something."
Stan sighed. "Dipper, come on. There is nothing that could possibly do that. Such a thing doesn't exist."
Dipper looked up, his eyes blazing. "You cannot stand there and tell me you don't believe that when you just saw your great-great niece- or whatever she is to you! - as a mermaid."
Stan grimaced and glanced down at the worn table top, running his fingers over the bumpy surface delicately. "Kid, I just don't want you getting hurt if you go looking for it."
Dipper was stunned, and he had no words that could justify what Stan had just said. He walked over to his grunkle and hugged him briefly. "I wasn't going to do anything stupid, Grunkle Stan."
Stan turned on his great nephew and scowled. "Oh really, mister 'I was just going to sneak out behind everyone's backs at the crack of dawn?'"
Dipper winced. "I…I can explain."
Stan held up a hand. "Save it. I'll let you go, as long as it's nowhere near the lake."
Dipper shuddered. "Heck no. I wouldn't even consider it right now."
Stan nodded and cocked his head. "Stay here for a second."
Dipper shrugged and Stan exited the room.
The man tiptoed past Candace and gently picked Perry up in his hands, automatically waking the platypus up. The animal growled for a second before realizing who it was, and then his hard growl turned into a soft, friendly chatter.
"Shh. I want you to go with Dipper," the man muttered.
Perry was confused until Stan walked into the kitchen and he saw Dipper standing there holding a backpack. The boy looked at his grunkle, utterly confused. "Why on earth do you have Perry?"
Grunkle Stan reached behind the door and brought out Perry's leash. "You're taking him with you."
Dipper rolled his eyes as he clipped the leash onto the platypus. "What good is a platypus going to do me?"
Stan frowned and crossed his arms. "I don't know, but somehow, both Perry and Waddles realized that something was wrong tonight and woke us up. Take him. Even if he doesn't do much, at the very least he'll be able to find his way back."
Dipper looked down at Perry with a roll of his eyes. "Fine. Whatever. But please don't tell anyone what I've gone to do. If I do find whatever it is I'm looking for, I want it to be a surprise. If I don't, well then I'll have saved myself some humiliation and Candace some unwelcome hope."
Perry looked up sharply at the boy, wondering what on earth he was planning on doing. The boy nodded to his grunkle and walked outside into the brisk morning air, where the sky was just turning from black to gray.
The boy walked silently, keeping Perry on a loose leash so that he could think.
The wind blew gently and Dipper shut his eyes, wishing that his throbbing head would shut up. Trees rustled above him, and all he could hear were the early birds (literally), the rattling sound of dead leaves being blown over the pavement, Perry's small pattering footsteps, and his own gentle breathing.
Dipper opened his eyes again and slung Perry's leash around his wrist, pulling his book from his backpack and moving to the side of the road to read the page he had marked last night.
He sat down on a tree stump and held the page down with one hand, vaguely aware of Perry putting his front paws on the stump and looking at the page, almost as if he was reading over his shoulder.
Dipper smiled to himself and read quietly what he had already practically memorized.
During my studies, I have recovered a species of flora that seems to cure any ailment that may fall on a person.
This flower is located in the middle of the woods, very near where the gnomes reside.
It becomes itself with faint orange petals and a pink center and is very rare due to its medical qualities. If my research on this flower is correct, than the medicine in the flower is able to cure everything from the common cold to cancer, and, though I have never tested my theory, the ability to re-grow missing limbs.
Note: The patient whom you wish to cure must eat or drink the flower directly (crushing the petals and blending them is the easiest way). But NEVER eat the stem. Whereas the petals and center will cure any disease, the stem will kill the person who eats it, slowly and painfully.
Dipper snapped the book shut and shivered. "Pleasant way to end the passage, huh Perry?"
Perry chattered and Dipper looked down at him. "If I let you off the leash, you wouldn't run away, would you?"
Perry gave him a sarcastic chatter, practically rolling his eyes, and the boy smiled. "Cool. But you stay with me, mister," he said sternly, unclipping the leash from the monotreme.
The two walked in silence for a while, Dipper eventually walking off the path and starting to cut his way through the woods.
Perry followed him carefully, delicately picking his way over the burrs and needles on the plants. He wasn't paying much attention until Dipper stopped and the platypus ran into him.
Dipper glanced back. "Sorry, Perry," he whispered.
Perry picked himself up and peeked curiously into the clearing. What he saw stunned him, despite having read it in the book.
Gnomes of all shapes and sizes (actually, they were all pretty much the same height, but some of them looked pretty funky) were scattered around the clearing, cooking, cleaning, or doing something that looked like gambling….if you could use rocks as playing cards and mushrooms as chips.
Female gnomes were the ones cooking and cleaning (though some were obviously winning the gambles they were taking) and rocking babies.
Children gnomes ran around playing a bizarre game of tag that involved a stick and a bee hive (empty, thank goodness).
To Perry, it almost looked like a regular community, albeit an odd one. But Dipper knelt, his face worried. "These gnomes are bad news, Perry," he whispered softly. "They tried to kidnap Mabel and make her their queen. When that didn't work, they tried to kill me and take Mabel anyway."
Perry frowned. Did everything in these woods want to kill people?
The boy and platypus looked out into the clearing again, and Dipper pointed towards what looked like a garden, fenced off with long branches and thorns from rosebushes. Inside were tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, and the flower they were looking for.
"There it is," Dipper murmured, slightly to Perry, and sort of to himself, in complete awe. "Wow. 'Near the gnomes' my hat. That's practically in the middle! Now we just have to get it."
Dipper studied the gnome community quietly, noting that most of the gnomes there were either elderly or children and women. Hmmmm….maybe he could just charge in, grab it, and get out before they could react.
Dipper crouched into a runner's position, ignoring the pain in his upper body and the way his head was spinning. He winked at Perry and sprinted into the clearing, heading straight for the flower.
Almost immediately, gnomes dropped from the trees and started running towards the boy. Perry scowled and leapt into the fray, keeping out of Dipper's line of sight and beating up the gnomes swiftly.
Out of the corner of his eye, the platypus saw Dipper get tackled by a gnome. The boy screamed, "Jeff!" before instinctively punching the gnome off of him. Perry turned his line of sight to the plant and leapt towards it, snapping at any gnome who got too close.
Dipper rolled and kicked and finally got the gnomes off of him, crawling rapidly into the woods and hiding behind a tree as they searched.
Eventually, though it took almost an hour, they disappeared and Dipper stood to go back to the shack, knowing that he couldn't risk another attempt at the flower. Already some of his cuts from last night were bleeding again and his head felt like it was going to fall off.
The boy had only made it two feet when he froze. Perry. Good god, how had he forgotten about the platypus?
Dipper turned in worry, scanning the area. "Perry!" he called softly, starting to panic.
It was bad enough that he hadn't gotten the flower to help Candace, but to lose Perry at the same time, possibly to a bunch of gnomes? Was there a worse or more humiliating way to go, even for a platypus?
A small chatter at his feet made Dipper grin and he looked down, relieved to see the platypus.
"Perry! Thank goodness!"
Dipper knelt, briefly taking in the small scrapes that littered the platypus's fur and blinked, his smile widening.
"You are one freaking awesome pet," Dipper said as he gently took the flower from Perry's beak.
Perry's super smart, n'est pas? Hopefully I'll be able to update more quickly next time….
Anyway, I hoped you liked this chapter, and that I kept everyone as in character as possible.
Review please!