Camo sat watching a 'new' episode of Ducktective with Dipper and Mabel. She already knew how the series ended—thanks, Internet—but she had never actually watched it, so it was cool to be watching it in real time with everyone else. Apparently, or at least, according to Stan, the first week of the summer was always the busiest, and then it would tone down. So, with no tours to give, she got to watch TV. Honestly, this job was incredible! She was so glad she lied about her age to get it!

The episode cut to ads, and Mabel paused her knitting to gasp, "That duck is a genius." Camo snorted as she remembered the body shoved in an excruciating position in the phone booth. She may have been sitting upside-down in Stan's chair, but it was still really obvious for a detective show, though she supposed they liked to make things easy so the audience would feel smarter.

Dipper scoffed. "It's easier to find clues when you're that close to the ground," he said.

"Are you saying you could outwit Ducktective?" Mabel asked.

Camo raised an eyebrow, or, well, lowered one, since she was technically upside down. "Oh, no, outwitting a duck? Impossible!" Note the sarcasm.

The twins ignored her, as usual. "Mabel, I have very keen powers of observation," he said confidently. "For example, just by smelling your breath, I can tell that you have been eating . . ." He took a big long sniff. ". . . an entire tube of toothpaste?"

"It was so sparkly," Mabel said, though whether it was in defense or in guilt, it was hard to say.

"Psh," Camo said. "Anyone can smell that. It's bubblegum, for goodness' sake. I'll give you a real puzzle: I bet you won't be able to guess my real name!"

"Wait, it isn't Camo?" Mabel cocked her head, and the older girl sighed.

"Hey, dudes!" Soos called, and Camo sat partially upright to look over at the big guy. He came sliding into view of the doorway, clutching a broom. "You'll never guess what I found!"

"Buried treasure!" Dipper shouted, and Mabel whined about how she was going to say that.

"I won't tell you what I'm thinking," the upside-down girl said slyly, "you'll have to guess, Mr. Excellent Detective."

The boy rolled his eyes, and Soos led them down a dark hallway, explaining as he went. "So, I was cleaning up when I found this secret door hidden behind the wallpaper. It's crazy-bonkers creepy." He pushed the door open, revealing a dusty old room full of old wax statues, ominously lit by the light from the doorway alone.

"It's just wax," Camo said, rolling her eyes, but her mind had started rolling. It was a bit odd that Stan would have a secret room with random wax statues. An old exhibit, maybe? Or was it yet another secret about Gravity Falls? Scuff, she'd been spending too much time with Dipper. She was seeing conspiracies in every nook and cranny now.

Again, Dipper straight ignored her comment. "Whoa! It's a secret wax museum," he gasped.

"They're so lifelike," Mabel marveled.

"Is that the Queen of England?" Camo craned her neck to see better.

"Oh, yeah, I guess it is," Dipper confirmed. "Ugh, what's that one? It's not as lifelike as the others—" Suddenly, the 'statue' Dipper's flashlight had landed on moved, waving at them.

"Hello!"

They all screamed and backed away.

Stan loomed over them, chuckling. "It's just me, your Grunkle Stan!"

They screamed louder and straight-up ran away from him. Honestly, Stan was more terrifying than an animated wax monster.

"Behold the Gravity Falls Was Museum," Stan said, waving at the various statues. "It was one of our most popular attractions . . . before I forgot all about it. I got 'em all! Genghis Khan, Sherlock Holmes, some kind of, I don't know, goblin man." He scratched his head, looking at some kind of reporter dude. Camo didn't know any better, so she didn't say anything.

Dipper shuddered. "Is anyone else getting the creeps here?"

Stan continued on as if his great nephew hadn't said anything. "And now, for my personal favorite, Wax Abraham Lincoln, right over—" He gestured to a beautiful pile of wax on the floor, courtesy of the small window in the room. He then looked at the pile of wax and shouted, "Oh, no, who left the blinds open!", as if any of the others had been there at the time to leave it open. "Wax John Wilkes Booth, I'm looking in your direction!" he said furiously, pointing at another statue, and she snorted at the possibly-intentional joke. He sighed and kneeled down by the remains of his favorite wax man, and asked, "How do you fix a wax figure?"

"Cheer up, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said (cheerfully, although at this point that word is a given when it comes to Mabel). "Where's that smile?"

"Meh" was his response. She poked him a couple times in the face, which did not look comfortable.

"Don't worry, Grunkle Stan, I'll make you a new wax figure from all this old wax."

Camo snorted. "Have you ever worked with wax before?"

"Nope!"

"Then how do you expect to make one of these things on your first try?"

The younger girl gave her a wounded look. "I'll have you know that I'm an arts and crafts master. Why do you think I always have this glue gun stuck to my arm?"

Yeah, that's exactly what I'd call 'mastery', Camo decided not to say. "Well, do you want some help? I've worked with clay before, I might be of some help."

Dipper elbowed her and whispered, "Don't. I want to see how this goes."

". . . just kidding! You're on your own!" She was fully prepared to laugh at Mabel's hideous attempt at a sculpture when she was finished. There was no way she'd be able to pull off a masterpiece with her first time using a medium. It was going to be hilarious. "Anyway, I'm going to go to town to get some lunch. See you in, what, forty-five minutes? Bye!"

So, with a belly full of food from Greasy's Diner, she returned back to the Shack, fully expecting to find Mabel sobbing about how bad it was and how it wasn't perfect. That's what she would've done, anyway. What she did not expect to see was a banner saying Wax Museum of Mystery: Grand Reopening, a whole bunch of cars, and Soos guiding them with a partially eaten corndog. She gaped at the sight and furiously said, "I WAS GONE FOR LESS THAN AN HOUR!" A couple guests looked over, and she practically pulled out her hair. She stormed over to where Dipper and Wendy sat at a table, selling far overpriced tickets, and demanded: "What happened?!"

"Oh, Mabel just made an awesome sculpture of . . . you know what, you can find out when we unveil it," was Dipper's sly response.

She groaned and massaged the bridge of her nose under her glasses, walking over to one of the seats. Wendy mentioned buying a ticket, but Camo just ignored her. On stage (how the scuff did they have the time to set up a stage?), Mabel looked very eager amongst all the wax statues, and Stan started the introduction. "You all know me, folks, town darling, 'Mr. Mystery'. Please, ladies, control yourselves!" You could practically hear crickets after that comment. "As you know, I always bring the people of this fair town novelties and befuddlements, the likes of which the world has never known." Oh, that was good. She'd have to use that in her next tour. "But enough about me. Behold . . . me!" He took off the tarp, and Camo gaped.

This wasn't fair. This was not fair. How was Mabel so good at this?! A sparkly statue that looked basically identical to the real Stan next to it shone in the daylight, almost brighter than the sun due to the sheer amount of glitter on it. It was a work of art, and one that definitely deserved the sound effect Soos added, although that effect was ruined a moment later when he pressed a different button. There was a small amount of clapping, which Camo easily tripled in intensity just on her own. Honestly. It was terrifying how good Mabel was at it.

"And now a word from our own Mabelangelo," Stan continued.

"It's Mabel," she corrected, accepting the microphone. "Thank you for coming," she told the bored crowd. "I made this sculpture with my own two hands! It's covered in my blood, sweat, tears, and other fluids." Camo wouldn't be surprised if Mabel had glitter running through her veins instead of blood. She'd seen the girl eating edible glitter, for scuffing's sake. The crowd, though, didn't react very well to the last comment, as you might imagine. "Yeah. I will now take questions. You there." She pointed to someone in the crowd, it was hard to tell.

"Old Man McGucket, local kook. Are the wax figures alive? And, follow-up question, can I survive the wax-man uprising?"

"Um . . . yes! Next question."

"How the scuff did you guys get this done in under an hour?" Camo deadpanned.

Mabel waved her away and just said, "Ask Dipper later. Next!"

She pouted. Well, that was rude. A nasally voice split through her mind, saying, "Toby Determined, Gravity Falls Gossiper. Do you really think this constitutes a wonder of the world?" Camo snorted at that. Was that really how Stan phrased it? Who was she kidding, of course it was, he was narcistic and it was a glittery statue of himself.

"Your microphone's a turkey baster, Toby," Stan replied, and the man looked down at his 'microphone' in confusion. "Next question."

"Shandra Jimenez, a real reporter," a woman's drawling voice came in. "Your fliers promised free pizza with admission to this event. Is this true?"

Aaaand of course they did. The crowd, clearly, did not like being lied to, so everyone dissipated with yelling and fury. Never promise somebody pizza and then fail to comply, was the lesson she learned there. She sighed at Stan's being Stan and walked over to the twins and Wendy. "Why did you guys let Stan put 'free pizza' on the fliers?"

There was no response.

Later that night, as Camo was getting ready for bed, the phone she'd been given in her suitcase rang. Curiously, she looked at the screen. It was Stan. What could he possibly need from her at this hour? "Hello?" she said.

All she registered was incoherent screaming on the other end, and she sighed. Since she couldn't be bothered to change into her regular clothes, she left for the Shack in her pajamas. There was a police car there, so she figured it was either one of two things: one, the cops had finally figured out all the tax fraud Stan was committing, or something even worse had happened, because there was no way Stan would let the police come into his house unless it was an absolute emergency. She walked up to the patio door and came into the living room, and was very confused at the sight she saw.

Wax Stan was lying on the floor without his head, and all three of the Pines were clustered close to him. The cops (the only two she'd even seen in the town) were also there, one taking notes and the other drinking his coffee. Stan was describing the case. From what she could gather, Stan and his glittery replica had been watching TV together when he went to use the bathroom. When he returned, the statue was missing its head. She raised an eyebrow at the scene and, once again, wondered what the scuff the Pines did while she wasn't at work.

"Okay . . . why was I called?" she finally asked, and the twins looked over in surprise.

"Oh, Camo!" Mabel said dramatically, shaking her shoulders. "It's a disaster! And we don't know what to do, so we called you."

"You're usually pretty good at keeping your head in chaotic situations," Dipper admitted. He glanced at the 'corpse'. "Pun . . . unintended."

"Okay, okay," Camo said, lifting her hands and pushing away the preteen girl. "You guys are helpless without me. Now, what are the clues, suspects, anything?"

She wondered if something else was at play, too, other than her being good at managing situations. Mallory's time wish specifically stated she accompany the twins on their adventures, hadn't it? (She knew that it had, because she'd committed the exact wording to memory. She was rather fond of loopholes.) So, it could be that the time wish was forcing her to be roped into every adventure, though she supposed that theory didn't make sense when applied to the day at the lake. Ugh, she could think about this later.

"There are none," Sherriff Blubs said. "This case is unsolvable."

All of the Pines yelled, "WHAT?" at that, and Camo merely thought about it, and shook her head. They just didn't want to do the work. Stan added angrily, "You take that back, Sherriff Blubs!"

"You're kidding, right?" Dipper said. "There must be evidence, motives. You know, I could help, if you want."

"He's really good," Mabel interjected. "He figured out who was eating our tin cans!"

"All signs pointed to the goat."

Well, yeah, duh.

Stan defended his great-nephew, though whether it was because he actually believed in Dipper or because he just wanted someone taking care of his favorite statue, she couldn't tell. "Yeah, yeah. Let the boy help. He's got a little brain up in his head."

The officers just laughed it off and mocked Dipper. She glared at them, but her being uncharacteristically quiet meant they completely forgot she was there. Typical. Her snark evaded her around the people she wished to use it on most. Eventually, though, they had to leave because someone was going to eat an entire cantaloupe, all in one go. She heaved a sigh of relief when they left and rubbed the bridge of her nose in thought, looking down at the headless victim. One benefit to him being made of wax was that he didn't bleed all over the floor!

"That's it! Mabel, you, me, and Camo are going to find the jerk who did this and get back that head!" She looked up at the mention of her name, wondering why she was being dragged into this. "Then we'll see who's adorable." He then proceeded to sneeze like a kitten, and she smiled slightly at the sound. Then she realized that was the exact opposite of what he wanted to accomplish, so she reminded herself that in her regular time, he was twenty two and old enough to drive, drink, and hopefully wasn't doing them both at the same time. That proceeded to make her forget the kitten sneezes.

She plopped down in the armchair and happened to glance back at Wax Stan and noted odd, unfamiliar footprints. "Uh, guys?" She inspected the footprints closely. Dress shoes, one of them with a hole in it, standing around Wax Stan and leading to . . . oh, dear. There was an axe laying on the floor next to the armchair she was currently sitting in. "I think I found the murder weapon."

"A clue? And here I was, thinking it'd be months until we'd find the first one," Dipper frowned.

"Not just one! Two," she pointed out, pointing at the footprints. "The hole is super useful, as is the shape of the shoe. You can tell it's a dress shoe, which automatically gets rid of some suspects, because a lot of people wear sneakers." She kneeled down close and peered at it even closer than before. "Unfortunately, I can't tell anything about the gait or walk because shag carpet doesn't hold marks as well."

"How do you know how to do that?" Mabel marvelled.

"Oh, uh," she said, turning a little red, "I've spent a couple trips to the beach analyzing footprints in the sand. Sometimes it pays off to be a weirdo."

"Wow," Dipper said. "I'm glad we called you. You will undoubtedly be an invaluable asset to this investigation."

"You Pines," she said, rolling her eyes, "ever so dramatic."

"So, what do you think?" Dipper asked Soos this the next morning after handing him the axe.

"In my opinion, this is an axe."

"Wait a minute," Mabel gasped. "The lumberjack! Of course!"

"He was furious when he didn't get that free pizza." Dipper slammed his hands into each other for effect.

"Furious enough for murder!" Mabel added.

"A lot of people were mad about that," Camo noted from where she was leaning on the wall a short distance away. Today, she was wearing a shockingly tame outfit, with a movie reference t-shirt, jeans, hiking boots, and a black-and-white flannel. The only thing that really stuck out was her Mr. Mystery-style eyepatch. She figured they were going to be picking up clues today, so she wore something more toned-down for going incognito. "Plus, I don't think Manly Dan wears dress shoes. They certainly wouldn't be in that size, even if he did.

"Aww," the twins sighed in defeat, upset at her picking holes in their idea.

"But," she added pointedly, "he probably could give us some information on the axe."

They lit up as one and, before she knew it, they were rushing to town, deaf to her complaints that she had a job to do. Whatever. Stan paid Wendy, and she never did anything, and besides. He'd probably pay her just for keeping the twins entertained and out of his hair. She was just whining to whine, to be honest. Speaking (or thinking, she supposed) of Wendy, Manley Dan was her dad, wasn't he? It probably would've been smart to ask her where her dad went during the day, he had to mention it sometimes. Ah, well. What was done was done, and she didn't want to walk back to the Shack.

Unprompted, Dipper asked, "Hey, where do you live, Camo?"

"Uh—" Oh, scuff. That wasn't a great question for him to ask. She couldn't lie, because then she'd be claiming somebody else's house as her own, so she'd have to tell the truth and say she stayed at the motel. But, if they ever went to the motel, then it would become blindingly apparent that she lived alone, and they'd be questioning where her family was. "I'm staying at the motel at the moment. I don't usually live in Gravity Falls, but I'm staying here for a bit because my parents wanted to go on a vacation on their own."

"Oh! Our parents wanted to that too! They're in Hawaii," Mabel said happily. "Where are yours?"

"Uh, London," she lied. Of course, they were really at their house in Florida, taking care of her three year old self and her nine year old brother, but she couldn't really tell them that, could she?

"Who are you staying with?" Dipper pressed, leading to more lies.

"Erm . . . my grandma! But, she's really introverted and usually asleep, so let's just leave her alone, yeah?"

The boy shrugged, and she (mentally) heaved a sigh of relief.

They found the place where Camo had guessed Manley Dan stayed, a biker joint of some kind called Skull Fracture. It had a cool sign with a skull being broken in two and a muscular bouncer out front. "This is the place," Dipper said while peering around the corner of the alley. Mabel, meanwhile, was hiding in the dumpster. She'd ruin her sweater like that. "Got the fake IDs?" The preteen girl handed them to her twin brother, and the three of them made their way to the door. "Here goes nothing."

The miner attempting to get in walked away just as the three kids walked up. "We're here to interrogate Manley Dan the lumberjack for information on the murder of Wax Stan," Mabel said, and they all put up their glittery, sticker-y fake IDs. The bouncer fell for it, so Lady Mabelton, Sir Dippingsauce, and the Duchess of Camouflage were allowed into the biker joint, where there was a lot of punching, yelling, and a man laying on the floor, to which Mabel replied, "He's resting."

"All right, let's just try to blend in, okay?" Dipper said, and Camo gestured to herself.

"Why else would I be dressed like this? Blegh, normal clothes . . ." she muttered. Dipper ignored her, because of course he did.

"You got it, Dippingsauce," Mabel replied cheerfully, and she then proceeded to happily terrorize one of the men at the counter.

Dipper and Camo moved forward, finding Manley Dan near the back, trying to beat an arm wrestling machine. Not dress shoes . . . "Manley Dan, I have some questions for you about this axe. At ten o'clock last night, this axe was used to cut off the head of Wax Stan, and, since you're a lumberjack, we figured you could tell us some about it." She showed him the axe.

"Listen, little girl . . ." He was actually looking at Dipper when he said that, but okay. "I wouldn't pick my teeth with that axe! It's left-handed. I only use my right hand. The manly hand!" Camo, a leftie, was not too pleased at that comment, and she watched unhappily as Manley Dan ripped the arm off the machine and smacked the face with it. Tyler Cutebiker cheered him on, because of course he did. They left with the new information and found Mabel using a fortune teller with the man she'd been talking with earlier.

They were walking down the street, Dipper taking notes (how bad was his handwriting right now? It couldn't've been great, since they were walking . . .) and Camo breaking down what they knew. "So, this axe is left-handed. Whoever killed Wax Stan was left-handed, available at ten o'clock last night, and wears dress shoes with a hole in them."

"Manley Dan is right-handed. That means all we gotta do is find out left handed suspect and we've got our killer!"

"Wouldn't it be smarter to look at the shoes first? I know for a fact Old Man McGucket doesn't wear dress shoes."

"Hm, you're right." Dipper scratched out most of the names on the list, and they went to figure out who all was right or left handed. After much research, they discovered there was only one person left on the list, and he wore dress shoes.

Toby Determined.

Camo stayed outside while the twins and the cops went into the house. She eavesdropped and found that it was not, in fact, Toby, because the previous night he had been kissing a cardboard cutout of Shandra Jimenez, the reporter. She frowned in confusion. There was also no fingerprints on the axe, apparently, and at this she frowned and walked in. "Hey, wait, that can't be true," she argued, and everyone looked at her in surprise. "There's at least Dipper's, Mabel's, Soos's, mine, even yours . . . everyone who's been handling this axe today. So, either you lied, or you didn't actually do the test."

"Oh, snap!" Mabel said, and Dipper smirked.

Sherriff Blubs did not look pleased with her, and she realized calling a cop a liar was probably not a smart idea, especially when you lived alone as a minor. "We already accounted for that," he said, and she went red.

"Still, technically a lie . . ." she mumbled, and she leaned against the wall, embarrassed. The cops, once again, mocked Dipper for being a city kid, but she didn't have the courage to even glare this time.

Later than night—geez, it was late, she better not sleep in—was the memorial service for Wax Stan. "Kids, Soos, lifeless wax figured, thank you all for coming," Stan said sadly. "Some people might say it's wrong for a man to love a wax replica of himself."

"They're wrong!" Soos interrupted.

"Easy, Soos. Wax Stan, I hope you're picking pockets in wax heaven. I'm sorry, I got glitter in my eye!" He ran away sobbing, Soos following in a similar state, and the kids stepped up to say their final goodbyes to the statue. As they did it, Dipper noticed something odd.

"Wax Stan's shoe has a hole in it."

Camo froze. A hole . . . in a dress shoe . . .

"All the wax guys have that. It's where the pole-thingy attaches to their stand-dealies."

. . . with no fingerprints and was in the house . . .

"Wait a minute. What has holes in its shoes and no fingerprints?"

Camo slowly turned around and her eyes widened in shock. Was Wax Sherlock Holmes in a different position than before?

"Mabel! The murderers are—"

She shrieked as Wax Sherlock Holmes moved before her very eyes and said, "Standing right behind you?"

All at once, the wax figures got up and moved around. She backed up against the wall. Nope, she was out of here. She sprinted out, and the twins gasped at her cowardice. However, one of the wax dudes grabbed the back of her shirt and she folded her arms unhappily at being unable to escape. "Congratulations, my amateur sleuths. You've unburied the truth. And now, we're going to bury you." Dipper gasped, and the statues growled menacingly. "Bravo, Dipper Pines! You've discovered our little secret." He pulled out the head of Wax Stan. "Applaud, everyone! Applaud sarcastically. Oh, no, that sounds too sincere. Slow clap. There we go. Nice and condescending."

"Oh, yeah, I bet it was super obvious, right?" Camo said, and her snark was back. Yes! "Whenever something happens, my first guess is always that the wax statues in my boss's hidden room are animated and they killed another statue! Oh my gosh, how ever did we not think of that?" She brought her hands up to her cheeks and gaped in a sarcastic way.

"I'd watch your tongue if I were you, girl," Wax Sherlock Holmes threatened, and of course her snark never stopped.

"How do you watch a tongue? I mean, I can't see inside of my mouth."

"How about we cut it out and hold it in front of your face?" one of the statues suggested, and she paled. She shut up immediately.

"But how is this possible?" Dipper asked. "You're made of wax!"

"Are you . . . magic?" Mabel asked.

"Are we magic? She wants to know if we're magic!" Wax Sherlock Holmes laughed. All of a sudden, he became angry and slammed his hand onto Wax Stan's coffin.
We're cursed!"

Isn't that also a kind of magic? she thought, though she didn't say it aloud since she was pretty sure they weren't bluffing when they said they'd rip out her tongue.

"Cursed to come to life whenever the moon is waxing." She barely held a snort at that. "Your uncle bought us many years ago at a garage sale. And so the Mystery Shack Wax Collection was born. By day, we would be the playthings of man."

Wax Coolio picked it up. "But when your uncle went to sleep, we would rule the night."

"It was a charmed life for us cursed beings. That is, until your uncle closed up shop. We've been waiting ten years to get our revenge on Stan for locking us away. But we got the wrong guy." She let out a little eep at that, curling in on herself.

"So you were trying to murder Grunkle Stan for real?" Dipper asked, his eyes wide.

"You were right all along, Dipper! Wax people are creepy!"

Camo was silent, because she was rather fond of her tongue.

"Enough!" Wax Sherlock Holmes said. "Now that you know our secret, you must die." The statues pressed closer to the twins, including the one holding Camo. The twins started freaking out. They threw everything on the table behind them at the wax people, ending with a pot of coffee, which melted the statue in front of her. She shrieked and wriggled out of the grip of the wax person holding her, pulling off her flannel. She was rather fond of it, and if they were going to be melting wax guys, she didn't want to get it dirty.

The twins grabbed the (uh . . . electric?) candles behind them and Dipper said, "Anyone move, and we'll melt you into candles!"

"You really think you can defeat us?" Wax Sherlock Holmes said, and while the twins were a little iffy on the question, Camo grinned and pulled out a log in the fire. It was on fire at the one end, and just cool enough that she could hold it.

"Scuff yeah!" she yelled, and she surged to be next to the twins. "And I can sass you as much as I want now, because you can't rip out my tongue when I have a burning stick of wood!" She let loose a battle cry and melted one of the wax figures in the chest, creating a massive hole. She then proceeded to brutally melt him in half. Everyone stared at her for a second, and then the battle began.

It was messy chaos. Wax statues fell like flies and melted into sludge. She spotted a melting wax hand of Shakespeare crawling toward her flannel and shouted, knocking it away. She took it off to avoid it getting messy, obviously. Wax Sherlock Holmes chased Dipper upstairs and out onto the roof, so the girls cleaned up wax debris. "Well, that was fun," she said. "It's almost morning now, so I'm going to head back home. If I'm late to work, tell Stan that I'm not showing up today."

"Okay!"

She went back home, throwing her waxy log back into the fire on her way out. Ow. She may have burned herself slightly, which really wasn't fair. The twins got off scot-free, and she got burned and scraped up anyway! Her leg still wasn't healed yet from their encounter with the gnomes. Ah, well. Cold water back home would help.

She did end up going to work the next day, and found the the S in 'Shack' had been knocked to the ground, which Dipper said was because of Wax Sherlock Holmes. Also, the decapitated head of Wax Larry King was hopping around in the vents, so there was that. The Shack never would change, would it?

Back from a spring break hiatus with a longer chapter! I'm trying not to drift off with this one, I hope you can tell . . .