Despite his uncles' assurance that there was nothing for them to worry about, a hamburger lunch and a mysteriously delicious meatloaf dinner, they could hear them yelling at each other the next morning. If Dipper heard correctly, Ford was still on about the amount of money they were spending, and how much they didn't have, and how much they needed to buy groceries next week.
Mabel rolled over in her bed and looked at him plaintively, like Dipper was supposed to do something about it. "I thought they were friends again," she said, quietly, as if she could somehow talk over whatever was going on downstairs.
Dipper shifted to look at the ceiling, locking his fingers behind his head. "I guess not." Sure, they didn't really sound like they were going to kill each other. But it did sound worse than when their parents argued. But that probably had something to do with Grunkle Stan's gravelly voice that sounded annoyed even when he wasn't, and Ford's propensity to use bigger and bigger words the angrier he got. He could cram a prodigious number of syllables into three words.
With a sigh, she sat up and plucked her backpack from the floor. She still hadn't unpacked it, but they'd been here two days. All of Dipper's shirts were shoved in a heap in his duffel. She pulled out her wallet—empty except for the emergency credit card their parents gave them and their summer spending money. They'd given Dipper the same. The cash between them totaled $150.
It had seemed like a small fortune three days ago.
Mabel rubbed the old bills in her fingers and looked at him. "You think it will help?"
Dipper pulled up his own backpack, his own little mostly-empty wallet. "It's better than nothing."
"But there's gotta be something we can do," Mabel said. She dropped the money and looked around. "Kinda explains all the weird money-making schemes last year, don't you think? A carnival? A dance party?" She giggled and shook her head. "I mean, what the heck."
Dipper chuckled. "They had a pretty good turn-out, though. Imagine how much money Grunkle Ford would have lost at the dunk tank."
"If he had any."
"He'd assume Stan was cheating, though."
"I guess he wouldn't lose any money after all…"
They exchanged another glance, and Dipper knew that look. He was supposed to come up with something. They needed a plan, and a better plan than just handing Ford their meager $150. Ideally it would also be a plan that wouldn't get them in trouble, like using the emergency credit card for essentials other than getting home. They would be grounded for the rest of their lives… or worse. Their parents might never let them come back.
"I have an idea…" Dipper said. He pulled down the pretty black leather-bound tome Ford had given him the night they arrived. It was empty, waiting to be filled. Dipper had only traced his hand onto the first page.
Mabel launched herself across the room, startling Waddles lying on the floor between them. She landed on her knees next to him, peering into the journal like it had some secret message inside.
Dipper had already checked. Nothing inside, not even in invisible ink, just a little note from Ford on the inside cover. Your turn.
Over his traced hand, Dipper wrote, A GUIDE TO THE MYTHICAL CREATURES OF GRAVITY FALLS. Underneath he wrote in the tiniest print he could manage, dedicated to FP. "I'm going to need flyers."
"Flyers?" Mabel almost squealed, her eyes shooting to the shelf where she kept her glue, glitter, construction paper, scissors, and markers from the year before. She had already checked, and all of them supplies were still there. "I've got this, Bro-bro." She leaped off the bed, disturbing Waddles again, and ran to the shelf. "What's the flyer for?"
"Dipper Pines, Ghost Hunter."
Mabel grinned brightly. "Brilliant. How much do you charge, Mr. Ghost Hunter?"
Grimacing, Dipper covered his mouth with the book. Narrowing his eyes at Mabel, he came to the same conclusion she had yesterday. "I don't know how money works."
"We can ask Grunkle Stan." Mabel started drawing on her sheet of paper. Dipper could make out the phone number to the Mystery Shack at the bottom as she wrote it out. Great idea. "He may not know how to spend money responsibly, but I think he knows how to make money."
Dipper couldn't argue. Tossing his quilt aside, he went to the floor next to Mabel and, armed with his spiral notebook he'd filled over the school year with everything he could remember from Journal 3, started tracing out everything he could remember about all classes of ghosts.
They were occupied for only about ten minutes until they heard Grunkle Stan's voice yelling at them, because apparently he'd gotten tired of yelling at Ford. "Kids! Are you planning to eat breakfast or what?"
"Coming!" the two chorused, and sprinted out of the room. Mabel brought her markers and paper, and Dipper brought his journal.
They almost fell over each other running down the stairs, right into Grunkle Stan. He was already dressed in his Mr. Mystery uniform. The year of separation had no affect that Dipper could tell. He offered Mabel a fond pat on the shoulder with his free hand. The other wore the traditional armor of an oven mitt gripping a skillet. It smelled like eggs.
Mabel hopped up into the seat next to Ford, and Dipper took the one across from him. That left the one by the window to Stan. Ford looked the opposite of amused, tapping feverishly into a calculator, until he saw Mabel sit next to him.
Funny and a little irritating the way she could brighten a room just by being in it.
"Good morning, Grunkle Ford!" she said, still engrossed in whatever she'd decided to put on the flyer.
"Good morning Mabel." He glanced at her paper and then across the table. "Ghost-hunting, Dipper?"
Dipper didn't get a chance to answer, as Stan slammed down the skillet in the middle of the table and stared at them. "Uh. Stan-bled eggs." He paused. "Like scrambled eggs, but—does that work? I'm out of practice."
Dipper chuckled, but he was the only one to do so. Ford took a full spatula without a word and gave that plate to Mabel before going back to his calculator. Mabel seemed too interested in her drawing to notice there was food on the table. Dipper would have put an elbow in her ribs, but he was too far away for that.
So, with a bracing smile, Dipper looked up. "I think so. Thanks, Grunkle Stan." With that, Dipper helped himself to a small serving.
With a well-meaning pat on the back, Stan walked away to hang up the oven mitt.
"Dipper."
Dipper jumped so hard his chair almost fell over backwards. "What? Jeez, Grunkle Ford." He put his hands on the table to steady himself in case something like that should happen again.
"I've seen a gnome eat more, and they have stomachs as big as my fingernail." Ford jabbed at Dipper's plate, then the skillet.
"I'm not that hungry…" Dipper said, looking at the paltry amount still remaining and the fact that Stan hadn't even sat down yet. When Ford squinted, Dipper said, "Really!" Mabel looked up from her flyer.
Stan suddenly appeared behind him. "You're thirteen. Not hungry, my ass."
Ford cleared his throat and glared. Dipper rolled his eyes.
"I mean, uh. Yeah, right." Stan seized the spatula and shoveled the rest of the eggs inside onto his plate. "Damn. I really am out of practice."
"But what about you? And—"
"We already ate, you knucklehead."
Dipper shrank into his chair, and he could feel his ears shift two hues into the red.
"It's ten o'clock in the morning. What do you think we're gonna do, wait for you?"
"This isn't about the money, is it, Dipper?" Ford spoke at the same time as Stan. Dipper made eye contact with him long enough, apparently, for Ford to get the answer he was looking for. He looked at his brother. "Stanley!"
"What did I do?"
Dipper ducked as if the shouts going over his head were something physical. Mabel didn't even redirect her attention back into the flyer, glancing between them like a prey animal trying to decide which predator to flee first. Whatever their disagreement, it apparently wasn't done.
Stan tapped a spoon down on Dipper's plate insistently. "I'm not the one going on about how much money we have. Eat your breakfast, Dipper."
As if. Dipper picked up the spoon, but didn't eat anything.
"Dipper," Ford redirect his attention from Stan, since apparently that wasn't having his desired outcome. "First of all, we're not poor. Not that poor. We can afford eggs." The fact that Ford had to pause a few times to correct himself was not at all inspiring confidence, but Dipper let him finish. "Second, let us worry about the money."
"If you're not poor, why were you arguing about it this morning?" Dipper asked.
Stan scoffed. "Have you met us? It's what we do."
"Tell us the truth, Grunkle Stan." Mabel put her marker down with a bit more force than Dipper was used to seeing from her on the daily. On the other hand, make her angry or worried, and nothing could get in her way. Not permanently, anyway. "We can handle it."
Stan scoffed and turned back to the kitchen. "Why do you think I'm the one lying to you, Mabel?"
Frowning, Dipper looked at Mabel with wide eyes. Probably best not to go in that direction.
Over the school year, they'd called their uncles at the very least twice a month… though communication was often impossible due to geographical positioning. Not a lot of cell towers in the middle of the ocean, and satellite calls were… expensive. Dipper had noticed two things. First, Stan always seemed more eager to talk to them—even when it was just Dipper. Second, in their expedition that only ended up taking six months, both of them only got more irritated. Nobody's happy ending worked out like they wished it would.
What did they expect? Dipper still had nightmares about wandering in that apocalyptic wasteland alone, because nobody was looking for him. Mabel's anxieties about the future hadn't gone away, because the future was still there and unknown. Ford was still holding all his grudges, because Stan was still Stan. Stan was still pessimistic, because he got everything he worked so hard for and it didn't change anything.
Even Soos couldn't manage the place as well as he wanted to, forcing the return of Mr. Mystery before the entire operation fell apart (though Stan couldn't have hidden his relief even if he'd been trying). Dipper hadn't heard one word of Melody, and wasn't going to be the one to ask for an answer no one wanted to give. Abuelita apparently moved to Florida with her infirm sister, but it was temporary. All the same, Dipper didn't imagine Soos had eaten anything except the same slice of pizza in months. And wherever Wendy was, it wasn't here. Dipper just hoped she'd found a summer job somewhere in town...
Mabel didn't answer, probably for the best.
"Well." Stan finally spun around, casting a glance out the window. There were cars pulling into the parking lot, and the gravel was crunching. "I've gotta go do what I do best." He pushed through the employees only door, mumbling something Dipper hoped Mabel didn't hear.
Dipper and Mabel both turned their eyes on Ford.
"I don't think either of you are lying, for the record," Mabel said.
Ford gave Mabel a long look, a squint becoming more and more pronounced as he seemed to process what she'd said. "I suppose." He looked toward the door into the gift shop. "The truth is that we can't waste money, but we certainly aren't going to starve." With that, he whipped back to look at Dipper. "So eat your eggs."
Dipper did as he was told, even though it only made him feel sick. He was also supposed to follow Grunkle Stan around to remember how to give tours and work in the shop and things. He finished his eggs just as Ford was sitting down with an abacus that Dipper had no idea where it came from. He left Mabel with instructions of what else to put on the poster with no illusions that those instructions would actually be followed.
Stan was halfway through a tour, so he hopped up on the stool behind the counter and popped open the cash register. It was obviously a slow morning while he was sleeping, with about fifty dollars in fives and ones: the starting till for making change. With a sigh, Dipper tucked the twenty from yesterday into the last slot and closed it. There wasn't a lot to do in the mornings usually: once they got settled in, that was when he did a lot of his adventuring last year.
He rearranged the display on the counter, found a stray wooden eyeball underneath a basket, and a checklist he'd written for himself last year wedged under the counter. At the bottom, he'd left the box with the note to "talk to Wendy" unchecked. He pulled the flip notepad from his vest and added that to his list for this weekend and threw away the old list. He would have to find her, first.
When he heard Stan's voice becoming louder from the museum, he looked up. Grunkle Stan lead a group of two families out into the gift shop, finishing up a story Dipper had heard a hundred times about a local legend about how the state got its name. Apparently a mine just two miles down the road struck gold and was cursed. The very next day, all the precious ores and minerals were just… gone.
There was no mine, and obviously that wasn't why Oregon was called Oregon. Tourists ate it up, though. Even bought the vials of a few flecks of fool's gold that was supposed to be the remains of the little gold that was mined there.
Dipper rang up the customers, and sold five bumper stickers. For some reason it always made him extremely happy to sell a bumper sticker to each member of a family that arrived in a single car. And even though it had been a good nine months since he'd done this, he even managed to sell an Stan statuette, a piece of merchandise Dipper was always surprised to see headed out the door in anything other than a trash bin. He told a made-up story about watching fireflies past bedtime with his grunkle. Never mind that his grunkle was banned from all the states where there were fireflies, and had been since before Dipper was born.
Tourists… they ate it up.
"Hey, kid."
Dipper looked up at Stan, leaning in the doorway. Obviously seeing a distinct lack of customers in the parking lot. "Yeah?"
"Let's take a tour."
Dipper looked around in slight confusion.
"A trial run. Show me the place." He spun around, not looking at Dipper while he surveyed the gift shop. Suddenly, he did make eye contact and pointed at him. "Nice touch with the fireflies."
Dipper grinned and slid off the stool.
He paused and looked at the rest of the gift shop. It was decidedly empty. Soos was outside somewhere, probably, since the roof needed a few shingles replaced and that sort of thing was his job. But it was clear, at least to Dipper, that something had changed since last year.
"Do you usually hire help for the gift shop?" Dipper asked, looking back at him.
Stan sighed. "Let it go, Dipper."
"I don't want to be the reason the Mystery Shack goes under," Dipper said, more accusatory and forceful than he'd expected to be. But, of course, he and Stan didn't get along all that well. He was always ready to feel defensive around him.
Stan scoffed, shook his head. "Are you kidding me? This shack isn't going anywhere, and that's in spite of everyone's best efforts. We've definitely seen worse."
When it looked like Stan was going to say something more, Dipper interrupted before he could start, "We have to have somewhere to go in the summer." There was more to it than that… but he stopped there.
With a decided grimace, Stan crossed the floor to stand on the other side of the counter. He leaned on it, looming large in such a way Dipper suddenly saw a distinct similarity between him and some of the monsters in the woods outside.
"I'm going to say this once, so listen up," Stan said. "You always will."
Dipper nodded, but stayed quiet. Whatever Stan was usually, at this moment he was serious. Deadly serious. Dipper hadn't seen anyone this serious since… well, last year sometime. There was a lot of opportunity for being serious.
"So drop it," Stan said. "You don't have anything to worry about. Ford has always been a wet blanket; let me handle him." He straightened, and the time to be serious was apparently gone.
But not for Dipper. He agreed with Mabel: he didn't think Stan was lying. He didn't think Ford was lying either. They just had different views of the same situation. Neither of them had Dipper's, though, and that was all he cared about. Or, at least, most of what he cared about. This past school year hadn't gone well, and the threat of losing the only place on earth he felt at home, safe, incongruously with everything that had happened here… it was a little too much. He didn't have all summer to wait for Stan and Ford to settle their budgetary differences and figure it out.
"Alright. Now are you gonna give me a tour, or what?"