How Is the Weather?


(January 2019)

2. Gearing Up

Wednesday was Registration Day at both Olmsted and Western Alliance University. The actual class registration was no worry—Mabel, Wendy, and Dipper were already signed up for class schedules, Dipper's terribly crowded because he was pushing to graduate early.

By overloading, exempting, and challenging a slew of courses, he had already shaved almost a full academic year off his graduation requirements. This spring, and—maybe—over the summer and for sure next fall he hoped to accumulate all the credits he'd need, though with track season beginning he couldn't do extra evening classes. Wendy was in better shape, since she had transferred a year of credits to begin with and, like Dipper, had challenged and exempted a few as well. She'd have no difficulty finishing by the end of that academic year.

Mabel—well, she was in no hurry, particularly. Despite Grunkle Stan's urging—"You'll thank me later on," he assured them all—she kept up a full schedule and picked up only a couple of easy extra courses per term, mainly independent studies in art.

Basically on that Wednesday all the three had to do was report to their separate campuses, renew their parking registrations, accept or turn down a meal ticket for one, two, or three meals a day in the cafeterias (easy decision, thumbs down all around), buy or rent their textbooks, and, in Mabel's case, pick up the syllabi for the courses. Western did it a little differently, and Wendy and Dipper would get their syllabus on the first day of each class.

The registration schedule was not demanding. They ran into Eloise Niedermeyer in the bookstore and had coffee with her. She had settled on a major—Mythology and Folklore—and was dating a guy she wanted them to meet soon. They had a nice thirty-minute break, then went to stand in line for parking permits.

The clouds had mostly cleared out, and the morning was partly cloudy, partly sunny, with an early temperature of 38 degrees forecast to rise to 52 in the afternoon. "Lot different from the Falls," Wendy said as they walked back to the parking lot, parking decals in hand.

"Practically balmy," agreed Dipper. They had driven in Dipper's car, and he applied his sticker. Later, when they got home, Wendy would put her parking permit in the lower left corner of the windshield, as Parking Services demanded.

Anyway, all three of them had finished their college business in the early afternoon, and at about one-thirty they met Mabel at Wong Wei, a pan-Asian restaurant, for a late lunch. "Man," Mabel said as they were seated, "You should see the stack of books I had to rent! But on the other hand, it's all plastic and visual arts this term, except for a survey of American history. I don't think it's gonna be too hard, but I'm just not ready!"

She was, however, ready to eat. The Cantonese seafood bird's nest was one of her favorites, and with it the strong Oolong tea. Dipper and Wendy shared Wengchang Chicken with ginger sauce. Mabel asked about their schedules, and they told her in some detail. "Wendy," she moaned, "I hoped your lumberjack mojo would rub off on Dipper. Instead I think you're absorbing some of his nerdiness!"

"I'll deal with it," Wendy said, grinning.

"And I have picked up a lot of Wen's logging expertise," Dipper said. "I can identify almost every species of tree in the Northwest, I know how to fell a redwood, I can even operate an industrial log-splitter."

"And Wendy's read your copy of Dr. Crackpot's Book of the Damned cover to cover. Win some, lose some," Mabel said.

When they got home, she played with the dogs for a while, then came inside, where Dipper and Wendy, feet propped up on an ottoman, sat on the living-room sofa watching a movie on the big-screen TV. "What's on?" Mabel asked, plopping down in the armchair.

"The end of Big Fish," Dipper said. "From the book by—"

Mabel covered her face with a cushion. "Don't talk to me about books just yet!"

Wendy glanced at her and asked, "You feeling all right, Mabes?"

Mabel dropped the cushion. "Sort of queasy and achy," she said. "I may have a bug."

"You're a little pale, too, but it's not a virus," Wendy told her. "Toxins from over-indulging. Next time you go to a party—"

"No champagne," Mabel finished for her. "I've already sworn off all flavors of alcohol. Three or four hours of fun ain't worth the misery that comes after. I got a case of toxins, you think? How do I get rid of toxins?"

"Wait it out," Dipper said.

Mabel stared hard at the TV. "Did that guy just turn into a fish?"

"It's what he wanted," Wendy said solemnly.

"You guys watch weird movies."

The movie wound up, and Wendy switched to a local news and talk channel. At the moment Bobby Renzobbi was hawking the Bear Hair Care pack, guaranteed to give your bears shiny, soft, touchable pelts. Dipper said, "Soos will probably order one."

Mabel asked, "Dip, what did you mean 'wait it out?' Detoxing is a thing."

"Not exactly," he said. "Not in the way you read about in magazines. You can't get rid of the leftover chemicals from champagne in your blood by putting adhesive pads inside your shoes, or sitting in a sauna and sweating. Your liver and kidneys do the work, not your skin. It just takes time for the chemicals to break down. Another day and you'll be fine."

"Would be already if Teek were here," she mumbled. "Gah. I don't know why I'm so bummed. Yes, I do. I miss him so much! That's why I went to the stupid party in the first place. I knew all along it would get crazy—Antonia and Beebee threw it, and they always overdo stuff. They've got in trouble for drinking before, and between you and me, they're kinda s-l-u-t-t-y. They started that naked volleyball game."

"Was it naked?" Dipper asked.

"Skins and shirts, and all-girl teams," Mabel said. "I didn't join in. I dunno, probably when the guys started to play with them, the game got full bare-ass."

"Naked volleyball, eh?" Dipper sad, smirking.

Wendy elbowed him. "Dude, you want to play naked volleyball, you talk to me!"

"See," Mabel complained, "that's what I miss with Teek." She glanced over at the deck doors. "Not that we play volleyball, but, you know, the teasing and kidding and flirting. Huh. It's clouding up again. I wish we'd have just one more day off school. Snow day! Snow day!"

"Not gonna happen," Wendy said. "Low tonight's supposed to be 36, fifties tomorrow, and fair to partly cloudy."

"Hey, look," Dipper said, using the remote to turn up the sound on the TV.

Over news footage of the smoldering remnants of the grass fire, sparks red in the night, the announcer was saying, "—the five men arrested in connection with the blaze have entered pleas of nolo contendere to charges of public drunkenness and causing destruction of private property by setting off illegal fireworks. Authorities say about two-thirds of an acre were burned and a wooden fence partly destroyed. Damages are estimated in the two thousand dollar range. Alice Zindell, CCS crew chief, told us that a providential rain contributed to extinguishing the fire."

A thirtyish, short-haired blonde woman, speaking to an on-the-spot reporter that night, confirmed that: "Just as our firefighters arrived we had a real cloudburst. It didn't last long, but it damped down the fire so our job was mostly mopping up hot spots."

"It could have been worse," the reporter said somberly.

"It could have been worse," she agreed.

"In other news—"

Dipper said, "Aw, they didn't credit Wendy."

"Or me," Mabel said. "I was there. I don't remember any of that, but I was there." She blinked. "Wait, what did Wendy do?"

Dipper put his arm around Wendy's shoulders. "She told the clouds to send rain," he said. "And a few minutes later—they did!"

"Really?" Mabel asked. "Are you some kind of weather witch?"

"Not me," Wendy said. "Coincidences do happen, Mabes. Anyhow, we were due some rain. And yesterday we got a couple inches, if you'll remember."

"Tell the clouds to snow!" Mabel said, bouncing up onto her knees. "It's worth a shot!"

"Not hardly," Wendy said. "How much snow does Crescent City get in an average year?"

"One inch," Dipper said. When they both looked at him he said, "My physics class did a unit on meteorology, OK?"

"I don't suppose an inch would be enough to cancel school," Mabel said.

"Maybe in Atlanta," Wendy said. "I hear nobody can drive in icy weather down there."

"Who told you?" Mabel asked.

"Teek. One day at work he told me about a January a few years ago when Atlanta had what they called a Snowpocalypse. Started as rain, temperature dropped more than they thought it would, and the rain froze and snow fell on top of that. Cars piled up on the beltline around the city—"

"That's 285," Mabel, who had visited Teek, said.

Wendy said, "Is it? Anyhow the storm brought schools, mail, traffic, everything in the city to a standstill for two whole days. Stores had to close temporarily. People stranded on the freeways had to sleep in their cars. There were like five hundred pile-ups all around town. And that was just a little over two inches of snow."

"So maybe an inch here would get us, like, an hour delay in starting classes?" Mabel asked hopefully.

"Might, but we won't get it," Wendy said.

"Aww." Mabel tried making her eyes wide and puppyish. "Try, Wendy. Try it for Mabel."

Wendy glanced at Dipper, who shrugged.

With a sigh, Wendy said, "If you clouds are listening, give us some snow tomorrow morning."

"And make it cold enough for it to stick!" added Mabel

Wendy rolled her eyes. "What she said."

"I'm gonna set my alarm an hour later!" Mabel chortled.


The next morning Dipper knocked on her door at seven.

Mabel opened it, her eyes still closed. "What?"

"Get ready for school," he said. "We've put coffee on and we're cooking breakfast."

Tripper and DC pushed out through the open bedroom door. Mabel yawned. "Um—snow?"

"That would be a no," Dipper said. "It's forty degrees and partly cloudy."

Mabel groaned. "Worth a shot."

Despite her mood, Thursday and Friday weren't so bad. Mabel, who was taking six courses—one an independent study in two-dimensional design—liked all her teachers, even Mr. Ferd, who was doing the American History survey and started off with a pop quiz that nobody passed. Who became President in 1781? No, it was John Hanson, under the Articles of Confederation. How many soldiers were killed during the first battle of the Civil War, 3300, 2100, 1000, 100, or ten? None, the shelling of Fort Sumpter only killed a mule. In what building did General Lee surrender to General Grant? No, not a courthouse—the name of the town was Appomattox Court House. The building was Wilmer McLean's home there.

"I didn't expect you to know any of these," Ferd said cheerfully. "Because these facts aren't really history—they're trivia. What I want you to learn this term is that history is not a list of battles and presidents and dates. It's an understanding of the currents of thought, the ideals, the successes and failures over the years. So let's begin with the introduction and Chapter 1 tomorrow . . .."

That evening Mabel called Teek, who told her that there had been no snow in Atlanta, either. "It's in the fifties here," he said. "We've had rain on and off for most of the day, but no snow. Anyway, GCAF is a few miles south of the city, you know. When it snows in Georgia, it's usually in the mountains."

"Georgia has mountains?" Mabel asked. "I only saw one when I came to visit you, that great big rock of a thing—"

"Stone Mountain," Teek said. "It's really not a mountain so much as a monolith, though. I guess what the Georgians call mountains would look like hills to us. I think the tallest of them is only about five thousand feet. Pretty up in there, though. You ought to come out when the leaves are colorful in the fall, and we could go for a long drive."

"Wish I could," Mabel said. "So what's your semester looking like?"


In their bedroom, Dipper and Wendy were getting ready for bed. "Sorry your weather thing didn't work," he told her.

Wendy laughed. "I'm not. I don't think I had anything to do with the rain, either."

"Speaking of rain," he said, helping her unfasten her bra, "right now a nice warm shower—"

"Mm, a warm soapy slippery shower would be nice," she said, turning to hug him. She wriggled a little, teasing him. "But wouldn't we just get dirty after it?"

"If we're lucky," he said cupping her bottom in his hands, "during it."