July Heat

9: Crazy Days

(June 27-29)

Dr. Stanford Pines met his brother Stanley at the Portland airport on Thursday—early Thursday. However, Stan looked bright-eyed even at a few minutes past eight A.M. They met in baggage claim, though Stan had nothing to claim. He carried his one compact suitcase and wore white jeans and a blue-and-white Hawaiian-style shirt. "Hiya, Sixer!" he said. "You musta got up extra early to make the drive. Thanks!"

"I wake up early anyway," Ford said. He was in black trousers and a light mulberry-colored turtleneck—Ford tended to wear long sleeves even in tropical weather, though he had left his long coat at home. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

Stan shook his head. "Nah, but let's go somewhere besides the frickin' airport. Seriously, how early did you leave Gravity Falls?"

"About, let's see—well, around five-fifteen or so, I suppose."

"Ha! Gotcha beat. I boarded the plane in Vancouver at five on the dot! Hey, Brainiac, next time you're in your lab, invent that Star Trek transporter deal. I flat hate flyin'. To say nothin' of Customs!"

They left the airport building and headed for short-term parking. Ford said, "You make your dislike of flying abundantly clear. From your demeanor, I take it your trip was lucrative?"

"Eh, satisfactory," Stanley said with a hand-rocking gesture—but his grin broadened. "You still on board with this?"

"Of course. All things considered, this is a wise course of action for us. Let's see—I parked right over there."

They reached Ford's dark-blue Lincoln, Stan stowed his suitcase in the trunk, next to Ford's larger one, and then he asked, "Flip you for driving?"

"No need," Ford said. "You can take the first turn at the wheel."

"Keys."

Ford tossed them. "Here you are."

Stanley paid for the parking—grumbling a little—and then they drove south on I-5. He asked, "How hungry are ya?"

"Not very. I had some coffee and an orange in the airport. I can hold out. You?"

"I could eat, but let's wait. I know a good little place, down in Salem, maybe an hour from here. You good with that?"

"I'm fine," Stanford said. "So—how was the casino?"

"You mean the décor or the experience? I know what you mean. Let me just say it was everything I hoped for and a little bit more." With a chuckle, Stanley added, "It don't hurt to know one of the co-owners. Hey, you remember Pinky Pinter from when we were kids?"

Ford gave his brother a sideways glance. "I remember that Dad didn't like your hanging around his place," Stanford said. "Dad said Mr. Pinter was rumored to be involved in illegal gambling, as I recall, and then of course he was a Union organizer."

"Yeah, Dad had no use for unions 'cause he was kinda right-wing," Stanley said. "Dad didn't admit that, though, even though Joe McCarthy once called him a right-wing extremist. In Glass Shard Beach, Pinky's nickname was "Fast Eddie" back then, yeah, and he might have been a little bit shady, but ya know, for a crook, he was a pretty straight-up guy. I liked him. Anyhow, he lives in Philly now—"

"He's still alive?" Ford asked, sounding surprised.

"In his eighties, but still kickin' around. He's got a piece of the casino, and he greased the way for me. And I did OK, Sixer, did OK. No, don't give me the stink-eye, I don't have the dough on me. Took care of all the bankin' details kinda by proxy, and it's available and I can even draw on it by a wire transfer. I guess it's like a digital transfer these days, but whatever, you know what I mean. You got today and tomorrow clear?"

"Nothing is going on with the Agency, and of course the Institute is closed until September, so yes, I've got some free time. Just as you asked."

"Good. Shack busy?"

"Extremely," Stanford said. "Poor Mason and Mabel were looking frazzled when I last saw them."

"Great," Stan said. "Keep 'em out of mischief, and I know Soos will be happy. How's the weather? Last night on the phone, Sheila said it's been hot."

"That's an understatement," Ford said. "It's going to get up to a hundred and four today, probably hit a hundred and five tomorrow and Saturday."

Stan made a tutting sound. "That won't help business. Good weather for shingling roofs, though. What are you makin' those noises for?"

"Speed limit, Stanley."

Stan glanced at the speedometer. "Aw, for Pete's sake! I'm only like five miles per hour over."

"My car, my rules," Stanford said.

Stanley laughed, but slowed down. "OK, Dad. Anything you say, Dad."

They talked some more over breakfast. Stanford, who usually ate very lightly in the morning—frequently only an orange and coffee—agreed the small mom-and-pop restaurant served a very decent breakfast—and then the brothers continued their conversation on the long drive south. In the afternoon they checked into a motel, not top of the line, certainly, but a long cut above a dump, and got busy.

That involved some driving and some looking around. If Stan's project worked out, they hoped to craft a business deal that would eventually pay off and make all of their semi-clandestine effort worthwhile. At one point Stan said, "The great thing is that all this is a hundred per cent legal."

"I should hope so," Ford replied.

Their investigations of possibilities were not all that encouraging, but Stan had cannily saved the best for last. In fact, not long before five that afternoon they parked just off a country highway, stood in knee-high dry grass, and Stan asked, "What do you think?"

"This is better than the others, I'd say. Everything looks good from here," Stanford said thoughtfully. "I see some additional work will be needed, though. How much would the investment be?"

"That," Stan said, "remains to be seen. We have to negotiate, Poindexter. Tomorrow we gotta impress at least three different groups of people. You brought your good suit?"

"All my suits are good suits," Stanford said.

"Not the one you wear when you're the captain of the Guys in Black team, I hope. You look like an undertaker in it."

"The medium-gray three-piece," Ford said. "Lorena picked it out."

"Perfect, she's got taste, it's very conservative. OK, I got my dark blue one and even bought a normal tie. I think we're set. Tomorrow, except at one stop, you gotta do the talkin'. I can fake an educated accent, but you're the real deal. We'll go over our spiel tonight, but tomorrow I'm depending on you, Brother."

"I shan't betray your trust," Ford told him.

"Hah!" Stan barked. "Shan't! That's the stuff. Come on, let's go back to the motel and do some figuring."

"Whoo-wee," Gideon moaned at closing time on Thursday. "I'm just plumb melting! Ulva, honey, you OK?"

"OK!" she said with a smile as she finished re-stocking a shelf.

"She is just adorable," Gideon confided to Mabel. "And she's never uncomfortable!"

That was more than could be said for Mabel—she looked and felt sweaty, and she was gulping water from a glass. They sat at a table in the snack bar. Soos had nearly dropped from heat exhaustion at one point, but Wendy had swapped with him so he could come inside while she drove the tram on the Mystery Trail trips. Dipper had to leave the cash register and don the Mr. Mystery, Junior, outfit while Soos lay down in his cool bedroom to catch his breath.

Wendy and Dipper came and sat down with Gideon, Mabel, and Teek. "I think I got a sunburn," Wendy said. "Do I look red?"

"Your face does," Dipper told her. "Did you use sunblock?"

"Yeah, but I think I sweated most of it off in the first hour. How's Soos?"

"He's up," Mabel said. "He's gonna be fine. That black suit and fez—too much out in the hot sun."

"It's too much in here, too," Dipper told her. He hung the black coat over the back of his chair. His white shirt had visible sweat blotches on it. "How hot did it get in here today?"

"Highest I saw was eighty-eight," Gideon said. "'Course it was way over a hundred outside. That thermometer in the sun, it registered about a hundred and thirty, nearly all the way to the top, but the one on the porch was at a hundred and five."

"Too hot," Teek said. He looked pale—the snack bar was just as warm as the gift shop, even without the grill, and he worked over the grill.

"Hey, Wendy," Mabel said, "Is there anywhere in the Valley that flint rock grows?"

Wendy gave her a surprised look. "Uh—I didn't do geology yet, dude!"

"Rocks don't grow," Dipper said. "Well—sedimentary rock does, kinda, I guess. Most of the rock in the Valley is basalt, which is volcanic. I think flint is, uh—not sure, actually. Sedimentary? But harder than, like, sandstone."

Gideon startled Mabel by saying "I know where there's some flint right near here. Hey, Ulva, sweetie? You know those little old rock collections? Would you be a darling and bring one over, please?"

Ulva came over with a flat cardboard box in her hand, all smiles. "I am a darling," she told everyone, and she handed the box—about eighteen inches square—to Gideon.

"Here you are," Gideon said, sliding an inner plastic box out. It had indentations, a little like a candy box, that held little chips of minerals with labels below the specimens. "Flint, flint, flint, yeah, right here in the third row down, see?"

Mabel took the box from him. It was labeled "Minerals of the Pacific Northwest," and even contained a tiny little chip of gold ore. "This is it?" she asked. The specimen of flint was about three-quarters of an inch long and half an inch wide, not very impressive—just a fragment of smooth, fine-textured, gray stone.

"The arrowheads Soos sometimes gets in are made of flint," Teek said. "Well, most of them are. Some are obsidian, I think. They're not authentic relics, though. There's some company in Eugene that makes them."

"We got any in the store?" Mabel asked.

"The arrowheads?" Ulva said. "Like this?" She made a long, thin triangular shape with her forefingers and thumbs. "No, the last of those sold. They come in cloth bags. Ten dollars for a dozen of arrowheads."

"Hmm," Mabel purred. She knew the system—if she offered to do the ordering for Soos, she could get the requests for new stock in that afternoon, and if she asked for rush service—which of course cost extra, but Soos wouldn't mind so much, since the Shack's markup (itself a relic, this one of Stan's day as Mr. Mystery) was in the ludicrous range.

She got up. "I'm gonna check on Soos and see if I can help with anything," she said.

They watched her go. "I wonder what she's up to," Dipper said.

"She may not be up to anything," Wendy told him. "I'm gonna go put some aloe lotion on my face. It feels a little burned. Bet I get a few more freckles from this!"

"Your skin is so fair," Ulva told her. "Is because of your red hair?"

"I think it's just part of the package," Wendy said. "Back in a few."

When she had gone, Ulva asked, "How are wedding plans going?"

The question surprised Dipper. "Um—well, the real big ceremony's not going to be until December, so there's lots of time. We're going to have a civil service—you know what that is?"

Ulva had not spent her early years around civilized people, but she was not dumb. "Married by a judge, not a minister. Yes?"

Dipper nodded. "And it's just going to be a small get-together for the family. Probably in the courthouse downtown. See, our college will be starting just five days after my birthday and our wedding, so we won't have time for a proper celebration and, um, honeymoon and all. But after Christmas—well, Mabel's going to plan the big one, and everybody's invited to that!"

"I'm going to do the video," Teek said. "Mabel's already told me."

Wendy returned, her face a little shiny. "Yeah, got a little too much sun," she said. "We take turns tomorrow, I'm gonna definitely re-apply sunblock, like once every half-hour."

"Let's get Soos to take it easy," Dipper said. "Maybe let him do the tours just up until eleven in the morning. Then I can take a turn for a couple hours, and then Wendy can take over."

"I think that'd be a right good idea," Gideon said. "Soos is carryin' a mite too much weight to do well in this hot weather." He got up. "Well, I reckon Ulva and I better get on along. I'll put this mineral kit back—"

"No, I have it!" Ulva said, looking delighted. She deftly re-packaged the kit and trotted back to its proper place on the shelves.

"I just love her," Gideon confided.

Dipper didn't say anything, but silently, he wished them the best.

"Hello?" Mabel said into the office phone. Once before, when she took a three-day stint as boss of the Mystery Shack, she had made herself comfortable at Grunkle Stan's desk. Now she was on the phone to Cheap Jack's Wholesale, a vast warehouse of souvenirs and novelties down in Eugene. "This you, Marcus?"

"Yes, it is," said a voice with an Eastern accent—perhaps Bengali. "You have a phone order?"

"This is Mabel Pines, calling for Mr. Ramirez at the Mystery Shack. You got a pen and paper, Marcus?"

"Oh, hello, Mabel. No, but I am at the computer. What is it you need, please?"

"OK, first six of SKU11111-232-A55. Need me to repeat that?"

"Arrow points, got that. We have a special if you order a dozen—another dozen for half the price."

"Thanks, but we'll stick with six for right now. And can those be expressed?"

"One moment. Yes, we can have them there in the twelve to two o'clock delivery tomorrow. That will double the shipping price."

"Make it happen. Now, these next sixteen items, no rush on them. SKU44025-921-M33, make it two dozen of those; and next, a gross of these, SKU82430 . . . . "

Very agreeably, Marcus took the orders, told her one item (Mystic Prophet Balls) was on backorder but would be available after July 10, and totaled the ticket, which he charged to the Shack account. "Will that be all, Mabel?"

"Yes, thank you. Oh, how is Laxmi?"

Marcus's voice rose with pride. "The image of her beautiful mother, thank you for asking!"

"Email a photo," Mabel said. "We'd love to see her!"

"Will do, Mabel. Thank you for your order!"

Mabel hung up, resisting the impulse to rub her hands with glee. Out of six bags of imitation genuine arrowheads, she probably could find two dozen made of flint. The internet told her she could test by striking the flint against steel—if it made sparks, it was the real deal.

And she only needed five.

Of course, that was only one weather-changing spell. She had more up her sleeve.

She planned to try about a dozen. If she could locate some henbane, whatever the heck that was, maybe even thirteen.

One would be bound to work.