Car Haunt
(August 19-20, 2018)
4
By eleven on Monday morning they had taken care of the DMV paperwork, draggy but not too irritating. Since they were close, they drove over to the WAU campus and arranged for a parking permit for the new car as well. They walked over to the Forestry Sciences building—named for one of Wendy's ancestors, in fact, on her mom's side—and she visited briefly with Dr. Fleischer, a specialist in insect and fungal pests. Her major professor was away for the summer.
"Seems weird to walk down the halls and see classes only half full," Dipper said. On the one hand, Western Alliance did teach summer sessions—two, abbreviated ones—but on the other, most of the regular students took the summer vacation off. It was different in some other areas—the History Department offered special low-cost short-term sessions in local history, attracting retirees who happily spent a week or so learning about North California history and taking field trips to points of interest. Those were very crowded.
They had lunch just off-campus at O'Toole's Asian Fusion, went on to the house, and then for a couple of ours Wendy got the car up on blocks and gave it a really thorough inspection. When she finished, she was disheveled with grease stains on her hands and cheek.
Dipper had been hunkering nearby, and when she said, "All done," he helped pull her from under the car—she lay on a creeper—and she stared up at him with a frustrated frown line between her brows. "Nothing," she said. "I got dirty and didn't find one damn thing that could make the car act up."
He helped her to her feet. "OK, what now?"
"Well, we know something happened. I don't know, maybe it was a weird camber in the road, but it didn't feel that way. So I'm left thinking there's something I missed. We'll drive back to the Falls very carefully, and then when I have time, I'll get Steve to let me pull it into his garage and we'll give it a hood-ornament-to-tailpipe exam. With his computers and his know-how, we'll pin it down if it's something mechanical."
In the bathroom, Wendy showed Dipper how to get car grease off skin. Surprisingly, it involved sugar. "Little handful of sugar, some water, little drop of body wash," she said, demonstrating, "And scrub. I'll need the nail brush later. See how it's coming off?" It took a few minutes, but at last her fingers were just as pretty as ever. Dipper pointed out the smudge on her cheek, used a bit of sugar and water to clean that up, and then approvingly said, "Works like a charm." He licked her cheek. "Makes you even sweeter, too!"
"Well," she said, unbuttoning his shirt, "we're gonna have to make the long drive back. I think a quick shower might help us stay alert."
At any rate, it certainly perked Dipper up. In bed later, he said, "Now I wish we had filled up the hot tub!"
"Waste of water," Wendy murmured, caressing his chest. She lay on her side, her long leg thrown across him. "Though I do have a tiny little kink about doin' it in the water! First chance we get back in the Falls, let's slip away to the hot springs."
"That," he said, "is a deal." He stretched and checked the time. "Well, this was so great. Are you about ready to go again?"
With an evil grin, she was giving him a sort of massage. "Hmm, what do we have here? Oh, my. I think you're really about ready, anyway. Feel like it? One more time?"
"For the road," he said happily, reaching for her.
The troll weighed only about twenty-five pounds. Stan had found a sturdy cardboard box to move him inside from the car trunk. He introduced the creature to Soos, who had trouble with that name and asked, "OK if I call you Neeman, dawg?"
"Meh," it said. It was picking up expressions from Stan already.
"You have pretty eyes," Harmony, half hiding behind Soos, said shyly. The troll blinked slowly. Its eyes were pretty—a light gray with greenish streaks in the irises, big round pupils. Without even trying, it had puppy-dog eyes.
Though it seemed at home hanging upside-down from a bridge, it could walk, too, on bowed legs, occasionally holding its abnormally long and skinny arms out and helping itself by a little knuckle walking. Stan, doing a somewhat restrained version of his Mr. Mystery spiel, showed off the Shack's wonders.
The troll trundled around, gazing at the exhibits—Stan occasionally picked him up so he could see better. The creature didn't want to leave the dim Museum until evening came on, and then he toured the gift shop, with only one small dim light on.
Neeahpik complimented various things and even people in his strange double-double negative positive way. Gurgling with what evidently in the troll world comprised laughter, he'd say, "That not not funny!" He referred to the Fiji Mermaid, which most people thought was funny, though perhaps the monkey and fish that gave their lives for the creation of the exhibit might not have agreed.
Harmony, who seemed as drawn to the troll as Wendy was to plush animals, giggled and even patted him. The troll briefly, softly clasped her small hand in its four-clawed one and said, "You not not my friend."
"He means you are," Stan explained. "That's how trolls say something. They say it's not the opposite. You understand, darling?"
Harmony nodded gravely. "I don't not like you," she whispered to the troll.
It whimpered a little and then—though Soos, protective dad that he was, took an apprehensive step forward—the troll hugged her, its elbows jutting out weirdly.
"It's OK, Daddy," Harmony said. "I think Neeman is just lonely."
The small creature shambled over to the corner and stood facing away from them. "Not lonely," it wailed in a pathetic, quavering way.
"I don't think there's any other trolls in the Valley," Stan confided to Soos. "Where the heck is Ford?"
"Right here," said Dr. Stanford Pines from the doorway. "What's so important, Stanley—my gracious, what's this?"
Stan did the introductions, the troll dithered in confusion—it found two near-identical Stans hard to comprehend—but at last it consented to letting Ford examine it.
As he was doing so, Ford heard a clatter. "Is that the Gnome garbage pickup?" he asked over his shoulder. "Stanley, go see and if it is, ask a Gnome to step in."
"Soos, you heard him," Stan said.
"Son, you do it," Soos said.
"Aw," said Little Soos, but he knew the chain of command. He returned in a moment with a Gnome—Stewart, Stan thought, though they were hard to tell apart—and said, "Daddy wants to ask you something."
"What?" the Gnome asked. Gnomes weren't impolite, but when they were on a job—and garbage service was a major one for them—they could be brusque.
"Come and look at this creature," Ford said. "It's from the Valley, but I've never run into one."
"Troll," Stewart said. "Young one. Hi, troll."
"Kaboot," the troll said.
"What's one of them?" Stan asked.
"He says 'gnome,' but in the old language," Stewart said. "Trolls and Gnomes go way back, don't we, kid? Wi bin lanktid freonen."
The troll said shyly, "Jan minken bouden da brêgen di't wi yn in protte leeftiden ferline wenne."
"Yeah," Stewart said with a grin. "Those were the days! We put 'em up, you guys guarded them. Good times."
"I don't understand the language," Ford said.
Stewart shrugged, "Eh, he says in the old times we Gnomes built the bridges and his trolls lived under them. That was thousands of years ago, when Gnomes lived underground and were expert stoneworkers. Back in Europe, you call it. The old songs and stories tell about stuff like that. Like the one about a crazy nobleman who hated the touch of stone and wanted a bridge to his castle to span a gorge but be lined with squirrel skins. That one's called En Brêgen Sodh Pels."
"What's that, like, mean?" Soos asked.
"A Bridge Too Fur."
"Look," Stan said, "this little guy is real lonesome, OK? I found him hangin' under the Milk Creek bridge, and you know how isolated that is—Stewart, ain't it?"
"Yeah. You Stanford or Stanley?"
"Just Stan. The troll's name is Neeahpik. Can you talk to him, translate for me? I wanna ask him, does he want a job here. We can make a little fake bridge in the Museum, he can hang out under it, people can get photos—long as they don't use flash—it'd be a big draw. Tell him it wouldn't have to be every day. We could just bring him in on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, special attraction. We'll pick him up from his home before full daylight, take him back after sunset. Rest of the time, he can stay under his bridge. Tell him we'll pay him."
"Yeah, I can do that," Stewart said. "But trolls don't use money, so how you gonna pay him?"
There it was. Once Gnomes themselves had lived a virtually cash-free existence, bartering or better yet stealing the things they wanted. But five-plus years as citizens exposed to Stan had made them mercenary little creatures. To be fair, though, they gave good services for their payment.
"We'll pay him in food," Stan said. "And in company. I mean, we ain't trolls, but nobody should live all alone under a bridge. It can't be good never to have anybody to talk to."
"And," Ford said dryly, "you'll be able as Mayor to determine which bridges might have trolls and get them to help you with maintenance."
"It's a win-win," Stan said, grinning.
The drive from Crescent City back to Gravity Falls took hours. For one thing, Dipper and Wendy stuck to the main routes, and for another, they carefully obeyed the speed limits and slowed for the curves. They had no trouble at all—no swerving, no sense of something uncanny riding along with them. They hauled into the Valley about eight PM, as full dusk began to settle in.
As they took their overnight bags from the trunk, Wendy said, "It's a good car. But I'm gonna make sure there's nothing wonky about any of the steering system before we take long trips in it."
"What's up?" Dipper called.
Outlined in dim yellow light, Mabel stood in the open doorway of the gift shop, hopping in place, "Oh, you guys! Come in and see what Stan brought in! It's so cute!" She led them into the gift shop, where Soos, his two kids, Stanford, Stanley, and a Gnome apparently were in conference.
As Dipper and Wendy came into the light, a small creature shuffled from behind Stanley. Wendy stopped short. Dipper asked, "What is it?"
"Oh, my God, it's a troll," Wendy said quietly.
Dipper gave her a sharp glance. "Is that bad?"
"No. Not yet," Wendy said. "It's just a little one."
The troll came ambling across the floor, its bow legs making it look something like a chimp that had taken up the cowboy life, its panda/sloth face looking sad and shy. "Hello," it said. "I am not a troll."
"Uh, I'm Dipper, and this is Wendy," Dipper said.
The troll gazed at Wendy for a long moment. It gave a strange little start, a full-body twitch, and its gray-green eyes widened, the pupils dilating.
Dipper heard it take in a deep breath. Then it bowed, kowtowing, lowering its forehead all the way down to touch the floor. When it raised its head again, it said in a voice that seemed filled with both awe and respect, "I greet you, Witch."