Camo had learned a lot of weird things about Gravity Falls. Scuff, she worked at the Mystery Shack, where every other day was a new adventure, and almost all of them were dumb. She'd fought gnomes, wax statues, a creepy ten-year-old, and at least dealt with her old boss, so she figured she'd seen the wildest stuff this place had to offer.

Then came Pioneer Day.

Honestly, she only knew about it because she wanted to go to the diner for breakfast and ran into Jason, who was very helpful in explaining why the scuff everybody was wearing this stuff and what was going on. He even provided her with some old-timey clothes that were just a little too big (she supposed being the son of a tailor, he had provided a lot of people with Pioneer Day clothes and had to guess their sizes by eye. She was pretty glad she'd befriended him.)

So, there she was, wearing a Pioneer Day outfit (men's style, because dresses were dumb) simply for the chance to roleplay, when Stan's car showed up and, upon him realizing why everyone was in covered wagons, started to screech around. It was all for naught, because they ended up surrounded anyway.

She walked up as the twins got out of the car. Stan was a little slower, and she could see him gripping to the steering wheel like it was his lifeline. Ha, ha. She watched as Dipper compared a postcard he had in his pocket—wait, he had a random postcard in his pocket?—with the town before him. He even looked through some dirty glass so it all came out sepia.

"Ah, boy," Stan said, apparently having decided that he didn't want to just stay in the car. "It's Pioneer Day. Every year these yahoos dress up like idiots to celebrate the day Gravity Falls was founded."

"Oh, I'm so glad you think so highly of me, Stan," Camo deadpanned, her hands on her hips.

"Ah! Not you, too!"

"Relax. I'm only doing it because I like cosplaying. I couldn't care less about pioneer times." She rolled her eyes. Stan could be ridiculous sometimes. Though, she was the one wearing the cowboy outfit, so she supposed she couldn't really say anything.

Toby Determined showed up, and her eyes sparkled at his hat. She needed one of those! "Welcome to 1863!" he said in his annoying, nasally voice.

"I will break you, little man!" Stan threatened, rolling up his sleeve. Terrified, Toby ran away, crashing into a barrel and dropping his hat. She considered going to get it, but it was Toby's, and she didn't want to risk getting lice, so she left it where it was (sadly. It was a great hat.)

"Wow, look! Candle dipping!" Mabel said excitedly. Were those corn chip earrings . . . ?

"Whoa! Gold panning!" Dipper added, interested.

"Is that guy getting married to a woodpecker?" Camo frowned. This place always seemed to get weirder.

"Oh, yeah, I remember this," Dipper said, and he pulled out his Journal. She looked at it with hunger. Her mission to get him to let her read it was still on. "In Gravity Falls, it used to be legal to marry woodpeckers."

"You know, that doesn't surprise me one bit."

"Oh, it's still legal," the newlyweds walked up to them. "Very legal."

An announcer cut through this honestly bizarre conversation with the words "Come one and all for the opening ceremonies!"

"Grunkle Stan, you comin'?" Mabel asked her caretaker.

"No, thank you!" He seemed adamant. "Just remember if you come back to the Shack talking like these people, you're dead to me!"

Which of course led to all three kids putting on a country twang and using made up words. Camo felt like she sounded more like Old Man McGucket than anything, but whatever. It made Stan mad, which was always hilarious. The kids ran away laughing.

"Hear ye, hear ye!" the announcer, who turned out to be Sherriff Blubs, said. "Ye olde commencement ceremony is about to commence."

"Whoo! I got a bell!" Deputy Durland said, running on stage and ringing it loudly. Both cops wore a raccoon hat on their heads, which did not look as cool as Toby's probably lice-infested cowboy hat. At that moment, a thief who was also ridiculously dressed stole a lady's purse, but neither cop seemed to care. Camo sighed and ran after the guy, he was pretty easy to follow since he was wearing a red face mask (those were rather familiar to her, as you might imagine . . .) It took a couple minutes, but she managed to nick it back for the old lady. When she got back, she realized it was Pacifica who was running the commencement ceremony.

Of course it was, she thought with a sigh.

Anyway, the lady was very happy to get her purse back, so she gave Camo twenty bucks from it. She grinned and shoved the cash in her pocket. She should be heroic more often! Then she wouldn't have to do so many extra hours at the Shack!

". . . we ask you to come on up and introduce yourself," Pacifica was saying as she squeezed through the crowd to stand next to the twins.

"Audience participation!" Mabel squealed. Camo raised an eyebrow. Didn't they just spend an entire party fighting with this girl?

Dipper voiced her concerns, but his twin waved it away with a giggle and, "That's water under the bridge." She promptly ran up onstage.

"Not to me, Mabel," the older girl whispered, "not to me . . ."

"Did you say something?"

"Huh? What? Uh, noooo . . ."

"Our first newcomer is . . ." Pacifica started out brightly, which immediately turned dark and stormy as she continued, "Mabel."

"Yeah! Let's get this Pioneer Day started!" the preteen said in her usual optimistic manner. She blew a raspberry. "Right, guys?" She started chanting. "USA! USA!" Pretty much everyone immediately joined in, including some dude completely covered in the stars and stripes and crying at their patriotism.

Pacifica ruined it, like she did pretty much everything. "I'm sorry to break it to you, but Pioneer Day is for serious people, and you look and act ridiculous."

"Says the girl wearing a raccoon on her head!" Camo shouted.

The rich girl flushed in anger but continued her mockery as if she hadn't been interrupted. "I mean, a puppy playing basketball? Are you always this silly?"

Mabel embarrassedly gripped her adorable sweater and said, "Hey, I can be serious!" She tried making a serious face but looked like she was trying to poop.

"You do have nachos hanging from your ears, hon." The usually cheerful girl touched the chips and went red. "Wow, I'm embarrassed for you. Give her a hand, everybody!"

Mabel looked close to tears, and Camo glared. She tapped her foot impatiently, but the look on her friend's face was too much. She forcibly climbed onstage while Pacifica was talking about herself, much to the shock of the audience. She poked the rich girl in the stomach and quietly muttered, "You are a horrible person. I don't know how you can smile after saying something that makes a girl as happy-go-lucky as Mabel cry without hating yourself inside and out." Then she stormed off the stage to comfort her friend.

"I need some old-timey butterscotch," Mabel said glumly.

"Let's get outta here," Dipper said (he'd ran to her aid as well), and the three kids walked away from the stage and the unfortunate crowd. They really were unfortunate if they thought Pacifica was someone they wanted to watch.

They bought some of the candy and made their way to the statue of Nathaniel Northwest, passing Stan on the way. Apparently, he had assaulted somebody and got thrown in the stocks, where Camo proceeded to snicker at him. He, predictably, didn't like that much. Anyway, Mabel was really upset over the things Pacifica had said and asked, "Guys, can I ask you something? Do you think I'm . . . silly?"

"Uh, noooooo," Dipper said, very suspiciously. This did not help his twin's self esteem.

"Well, yeah," Camo admitted. "But that's part of your charm. There's nothing wrong with being silly, because normal people are boring."

She still was clearly distressed. "The nacho earrings, the sweater . . . I thought I was being charming, but I guess people see me as a big joke."

"Can you not hear me?" Camo deadpanned. "I just said—ah, whatever. Apparently, I'm invisible."

To her horror, Mabel threw away her earrings and pulled off her sweater, tying it around her waist.

"Come on, Mabel. You love that sweater," Dipper reminded her.

She sadly responded, "I did before Pacifica ruined it for me," without meeting either of their eyes. "She ruins everything!"

"Pacifica!" Dipper said angrily. "Why does she think that being related to the town founder means she gets to treat everyone like garbage?"

"Because she's a jerk," Camo said dryly, eliciting a very small snort from the younger girl.

"Someone needs to take her down a peg," he continued with fervor. "More than just a cheap party crown." He gasped. "Wait a minute! I feel like I read something about Pacifica's great-great-grandfather before." He pulled out his Journal again, and she stood up with a sour expression.

"I would've, too, if you actually let me read that scuffing thing," she said grumpily.

He just continued flipping, oblivious to what she said. "Of course! Oh, this is perfect." He lowered it and sat down so that his sulking sister could read it too. Camo crouched down behind them, managing to read over two people's shoulders at the same time and feeling a little like a goddess in managing this feat. The boy continued in an old man voice, "In my investigations . . . Should—should I do the voice?" he asked hesitantly, and both girls made an 'ehn' face. "Eh, I'll just read normal. In my investigations I recently made a discovery. Nathaniel Northwest may not be the founder of Gravity Falls. I believe the proof of this secret is buried somewhere on the enclosed document."

Camo grinned at this revelation. Oh, that would feel so much better than a couple harsh words!

"If only I could crack the code."

Dipper unfolded the old piece of paper and all of them looked at it. A triangle with all sorts of weird symbols on it.

"Oh, man! If this cover-up is true, it means Pacifica's whole family is a fraud! This could be a major conspiracy!" He looked at his sister, though Camo suspected she kind of ruined the tension of the moment.

"Or maybe just a minor one, since we're in the middle of nowhere, Oregon."

"I gotta investigate this!" Dipper continued, ignoring her. Honestly, was she invisible? She looked at her own hands, just to be sure.

"Wait. I'm coming with you." Mabel put a hand on her twin's shoulder as he stood up. "Conspiracies are serious, right?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely."

"Well, if I help you crack this code, nobody could ever call me silly again!" She looked very happy at this train of thought.

Camo stood up as well. "And you know I'm coming, since nothing else interesting happens here. What else am I supposed to do, throw food at Stan?" Ooh, actually, that could be pretty fun . . . well, if she saw him later and there happened to be a tomato or two lying around . . . she snickered evilly in her mind.

She was completely normal, if you couldn't tell.

"Mystery Team?" Dipper asked.

"I thought we were the Mystery Twins," Mabel said, confused.

"Well, that's the two of us on our own, but when Camo's here—oh, forget it. Let's go!"

Mabel grabbed her bag of butterscotch and the Mystery Team ran off, accidently leaving a delicious trail of sweets on their way to the library. Old Man McGucket was there, reading to the children and eating a book (?) They began their research and Dipper ran them through the facts. "All right, guys. If we can prove that Nathaniel Northwest wasn't the real founder of Gravity Falls, it'll finally put Pacifica in her place."

"And solving a mystery will prove that I'm not silly . . . I'm serious." She leaned over and licked at her butterscotch without using her hands, as they were holding a book. "Serioussss . . ."

"We just need to crack this code," Dipper said, starting up the old projector. This thing was old to them, meaning it was ten years more ancient to her. Things like that . . . whoa. Really put it into perspective. "Let me see . . ."

"It doesn't look like anything I've ever seen," Camo frowned. Certain elements looked Egyptian, but others didn't. There was actual writing, instead of pictographs, that was small and impossible to read. There was random arrows and signs drawn around the main triangle, none of which made any sense. Basically, it looked like the ancient artifact of some civilization nobody's ever heard of.

Which was kind of conspiratorial on its own.

"It's not Egyptian, it's not numerology, it's not . . . wait! Of course!" She narrowed her eyes at the slide he'd stopped on. One symbol matched up, and . . . "The triangle is the alchemist's symbol for flame. Lighting the parchment on fire will reveal the secret message!"

"Wait, WHAT? No, dude, don't do that!" Camo said, baffled at how dumb he was being. "Look. This symbol is the same. 'Extraction of dryness'. I don't know what that means, but lighting it on fire will not help. There are tons of correlations to triangles in the ancient world, and you think this exact one is it? No! It's—it's not even the same!"

He had the decency to look somewhat embarrassed. "Right, right. So . . . extraction of dryness. How would we do that?"

"Well, getting it wet would be the opposite of making it dry, thus 'extracting the dryness' . . . though I expect that would ruin it as surely as fire would. Hmm . . ."

The two of them sat in thought for a moment, until: "I just made a hat!"

Mabel had decided it was the perfect time to make a paper hat out of an old, fragile piece of paper. As they gaped at her, she noticed what she had done and angrily said, "Ugh! I just did something silly again!"

"Wait. Mabel, you folded it into a map," Dipper said.

"Wait, WHAT?" Camo said, for the second time. She looked at it and her mouth fell open. "What?! That—that's so dumb! Out of all the origami people could use it for, and this specific design had to be the right one, and it had to be oriented the correct direction—so many things could go wrong!" She groaned and plopped into a chair moodily.

However, her attention was pulled away from her sulking by the voice of Sherriff Blubs. "We were on the lookout for three kids who might be reading." She looked over, her eyes wide. What could the cops want with them? They hadn't done anything wrong! (Unless they were supposed to be witnesses on Stan's trial, that could be a very real possibility.)

"We're hunting 'em down for secret reasons. Whoo!" Deputy Durland added. So, not Stan's trial and probably related to their conspiracy business. The three of them hid under the table as the deputy rang his bell.

"Maybe we should take this elsewhere," Dipper suggested.

Mabel took the map hat off her head and said, "This map should lead us to . . . the Gravity Falls Museum of History."

Camo looked at the museum in front of her. (Yeah, they had a super intense chase scene to get there, but no one wanted to hear about that anyway.)

"You realize what this means, guys," Dipper said in his dramatic voice. "We're gonna have to break in."

"And those are your free Pioneer Day passes and your balloons, two pink and one blue," the woman at the entrance said.

"Do you have any other colors?" Camo asked. "Green, maybe?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, honey, we don't," she said, not unkindly.

She sighed long-sufferingly. "White, then, please."

And, when they had their balloons, Dipper's dramatic voice continued, "We're in."

Camo ended up being the one to hold all of their balloons while the twins looked around. "What are we gonna do next?" Mabel asked. "Steal Thomas Jefferson's rib cage?"

"Ew. No."

"Plus, this place probably isn't cool enough to have that," Camo pointed out.

Dipper pointed at her. "Yup. Anyway, according to the map, the next clue about the real town founder should be right . . . Here!"

They looked at the abstract sculpture (it was a relief, but it wasn't like anyone wanted her to show off her art knowledge . . .) hanging on the wall. She couldn't make heads or tails of it, and after multiple minutes of sitting around and trying to interpret it, she groaned and sat. Not on the bench, like a reasonable person, but on the floor, because she was bored as scuff and it wasn't like anyone else was here, anyway.

She looked at it again, laying with her back on the floor, and noticed something odd. "Uh . . ."

"Hey, painting! Be less stupid!" Mabel said as she shifted to different positions on the bench. She ended up sitting upside down, in a position similar to Camo's, actually, and she gasped. "It worked!"

"Wait! It's not abstract, it's upside down!" Dipper exclaimed.

"Yeah, well, I figured it out first," Camo said childishly. "I just didn't say anything about it."

"I think I've seen that statue in the cemetery," Mabel said, completely ignoring her.

And she was back to being invisible.

Everyone hopped up, this being especially difficult for Camo, since she was on the floor and carrying three different balloons, and immediately clutched their heads from the head rest. However, the cops were there again, and the nice lady who gave them balloons was telling the deputy, "I'm sorry, but we're all out of pink balloons."

"Why did we even come?" he asked sadly.

Sherriff Blubs had to take a call on his walkie-talkie and backed up against the wall. He was just saying, "I promise. Those kids'll never get past us," when the three of them ran past. Camo backtracked a couple steps and handed Deputy Durland Mabel's pink balloon, and the look of happiness on his face stopped them from chasing her for a second. Then they realized what they had done and chased after the three of them.

The twins were pretty far ahead now, and she had to race to keep away from the cops. However, they were dumb and managed to get stuck in the door. She let loose a bark of laughter and caught up to the Pines. And, because she didn't want to litter, she tied the two remaining balloons to a couple graves. It could be taken as paying respect for the dead, right?

"The statue must be pointing to the next clue," Dipper said as he looked at the pointing angel. Camo inspected it closely. This one was in-the-round, unlike its clue counterpart, but again, nobody wanted to hear her nerdiness.

"Oh, gross! She's picking my nose! Ha ha!" Mabel said, having hung herself on the stony fingertip.

"Doesn't that hurt? I mean, it's stone. In your nose," Camo pointed out.

However, before the girl could get off, she triggered something by shifting the finger. A trapdoor opened up beneath their feet, and Camo gaped at the younger girl. How could she—

"Mabel, look!" Dipper said.

"Ha! Who's silly now, Pacifica? Bam!" his twin replied with the finger still in her nose. The movement caused it to pull out her nostril and the optimistic preteen finally removed it.

As they walked down the stairs that had been revealed, Camo nudged Mabel and said, "I wouldn't be surprised if you have dust in your nose now."

She ignored her and said, "Now we're getting into real conspiracy mode. I feel so serious." She then proceeded to pull out another butterscotch candy and happily munched on it.

"Okay. Look out for booby traps," Dipper warned.

"Ha! Booby traps," Mabel giggled. She promptly stepped on a stone, which sunk into the floor and caused darts to shoot out of the walls.

"Tranquilizer darts!" Dipper yelped, you know, like Captain Obvious.

Camo merely deadpanned, "This is like every cliche action movie."

And it played out just like one. They ran through, managed to avoid all the darts somehow, and fell into an underground tunnel and through a spiderweb. The kids stared in wonder and the scene before them, with all sorts of old-timey stuff, like weapons and an outdated American flag.

"It's a treasure trove of historic-y, secret-y things," Mabel said, looking at a bunch of secret papers covering up conspiracies about some of the presidents. "Oh, man! Ben Franklin secretly was a woman."

Camo picked up a sword that was laying in a box in awe, holding it in a defensive position and intending to keep it when Dipper said, "Camo, no. Put the weapon down." She pouted but reluctantly set it back where she found it. The blade was dull anyway. "Hey, jackpot!" the boy called, turned away from her and shining the flashlight on a folder saying The Northwest Cover-Up. The older girl rushed forward excitedly, somehow managing to not knock anything over. "Now we'll find out who the real town founder was."

The boy opened it up and read, "Let it be here recorded that Nathaniel Northwest, fabled founder of Gravity Falls, was, in fact, a fraud, as well as a waste-shoveling village idiot. Ha ha ha! Oh, bad news for Pacifica. Wait'll the papers hear about this!"

"Once people see that I uncovered a historical conspiracy, they could never call me silly!"

Dipper continued reading. "The true founder of Gravity Falls was Sir Lord, Quentin Trembley, III, Esquire."

"Who's Quentin Trembley?"

Camo was deep in thought over these newfound truths. She almost didn't notice when Sherriff Blubs shone a flashlight on them and yelled, "That's none of your business!"

Yeah, right. Of course she noticed! She wasn't that focused on the conspiracy.

Deputy Durland rang his bell with vigor, but then passed out, revealing several tranquilizer darts stuck in his back. "He got hit with quite a few of those darts," Sherriff Blubs said, and she gave him a look. Understatement, much? "I hate to do this, but Quentin Trembley's a matter of national security."

"So you're telling me it actually is a major conspiracy, and not something small?" Camo asked.

The twins took the opportunity to ask their questions, too, but to be honest, she was more focused on the deputy, who apparently believed he was colorblind now.

"See for yourself," Sherriff Blubs said, and he revealed a tape underneath his hat. He put it in the machine that she couldn't remember the name of and a video started to play. It was, in fact, black and white, much to the disappointment of Mabel.

"If you're watching this, then you are one of eight people in these United States with clearance to view this information. In fact, I myself will be shot as soon as the filming is complete," the suited man on video said. "What? No? Ha! Well, that's a relief! Of all of America's secrets, the most embarrassing was that of Quentin Trembley. The eighth-and-a-half president of the United States."

"President?!" all the kids said at once.

"Eighth-and-a-half?!" Mabel proceeded to ask, confused.

"After winning the 1837 election in a landslide," the video showed a literal landslide burying everybody except Trembley in dirt, "Quentin Trembley quickly gained a reputation as America's silliest president. He waged war on pancakes, appointed six babies to the Supreme Court, and issued the de-pants-ipation proclamation. His state of the union speech was even worse."

A voice reenactment of Trembley started playing. "The only thing we have to fear is gigantic, man-eating spiders!"

"He was kicked out of office and escaped to an uncharted valley he named "Gravity Falls," after plummeting into it at high speed. Trembley's shameful term was erased from history and officially replaced by William Henry Harrison as president and local nobody Nathaniel Northwest as founder of Gravity Falls. The whereabouts of president Trembley's body are unknown." The tape ended.

It should be noted that whenever they showed Trembley, he was doing something dumb, like being silly at his desk, holding up a poster, pants-less, or saluting while riding a horse, backwards, across a cliff.

"Until now," Sherriff Blubs said, and it took Camo a second to realize he was responding to the video. He gestured behind them to . . . oh, dear. There was Trembley, encased in a hard, yellowish substance and frozen in time. He hadn't decayed at all, which was pretty good for a guy almost two hundred years old.

"Whoa!" Dipper said, quite unnecessarily. "Is that, like, amber, or something?"

"The fool thought he could live forever by encasing himself in a block of solid peanut brittle. Smooth move, Mr. President," Sherriff Blubs responded.

Camo frowned. "Did peanut brittle even exist back then?"

The man ignored her. Why did everybody always do that? "Finding Trembley's body was our special mission. And now, thanks to you, it's complete."

"Who knew all we had to do was follow a little girl's trail of candy wrappers?" Deputy Durland said, and Mabel groaned in realization. She smacked herself on the head.

"Now that you know the truth, well, we can't let you go around talkin' about it." The Sherriff rubbed his hands together menacingly.

The twins clutched each other and started panicking. Camo put some distance (and the twins) between her and the officer. "Are you gonna kill us?" Mabel asked, terrified.

"No, no. Ca-calm down now, buddy, calm down," Blubs said. Why was he comforting his partner instead of the kids who thought he'd just threatened them? "We're just gonna escort you and all this stuff back to Washington. You ain't comin' back, by the way."

Camo paled slightly, though not for the same reason as the twins. If they were going to go through the effort of moving them, they'd have to look into her living situation. They'd find out she'd been living alone, and they'd look her up, and they'd probably find out that she was also a three-year-old living in Florida, and she wasn't really looking forward to that.

"Do you have the clearance for that?" was all she asked.

Apparently they did, as now Camo, the twins, and the peanut-brittle-covered body of Quentin Trembley were in a crate, on a train, going who knows where (actually, it was probably to Washington D.C., since that was where Blubs had said they were going . . .) The twins were banging on the walls while she sat glumly on the floor, laying out and rethinking her life decisions.

What was she going to tell the twins? "Oh, by the way, I'm a time traveler who's only here because I lost at gladiatorial time combat" wasn't going to cut it. They'd be devastated when they realized she'd been lying to them.

"Ugh! I can't believe I left a trail of candy wrappers," Mabel sighed. "This is all my fault. Pacifica had me pegged all along. I'm just a silly failure, like that embarrassing President what's-his-name." She pulled off a chunk of peanut brittle and munched on it.

Camo probably would've comforted her, but at the moment she was lost in her own world. "Guys, there's something I need to—" She was abruptly cut off as cracks spread across the peanut brittle and it collapsed, falling to the floor in a sticky mess. She scooted away from it, making a face at the stickiness that had gotten on her shirt. Ugh. At least it wasn't hers.

"It is I, Quentin Trembley!" the suited man said. He reached down and pulled off his pants with such ease that she wondered if they were made from something other than fabric simply so that he could dramatically rip them off. She wouldn't put it past this guy.

"You're alive!" Dipper yelped. "But how?!"

"Peanut brittle really does have life-sustaining properties!" his twin said in awe.

"How the scuff did the government cover up this guy? He's . . . pretty memorable . . ." Camo said, having gotten to her feet and now stood beside the twins.

"You're not silly, you're brilliant!" the younger girl continued, ignoring Camo, who pouted.

The former President looked down at the girl and said, "And so are you, dear girl, for following my clues and freeing me from my delicious tomb! Now, what year is it?" he asked, the question directed at Camo as Dipper gave his sister a confidence boost.

"Twenty twen—twelve," she said, just barely catching herself before she gave it all away. That . . . could've been bad.

"By Jefferson!" Trembley shouted. She got the impression this guy didn't know what an inside voice was. "We seem to be trapped in some sort of crate-shaped box."

"It's a crate, Mr. President," Mabel said helpfully.

"Good thing I have the "President's Key", which can open any lock in America," he replied, pulling out a golden key.

You know, except the electronic ones.

The silliest president walked over to the wall and tried to shove it into the wall. It was, obviously, to no avail. "I don't think that's gonna work," Dipper said.

Camo made a face. "How the scuff did this guy become president? I mean, yeah, the whole landslide thing, but there are primary elections too. Is this guy a Democrat, or a Republican, or whatever the scuff they had back then?"

"Wood! My age-old enemy," Trembley continued, as if the kids weren't even there. "In order to get out of here, this is going to take the silliest plan ever conceived."

"I think I know how can help you," Dipper said, and his sister beamed.

Camo totally stopped paying attention just then. She was vaguely aware of Mabel and Trembley trying (and failing) to come up with a way out, but her mind was on other things. What political parties did they have in, what, 1837-ish? Democrats and Republicans weren't there yet, but she knew that almost immediately political parties formed. This guy, however, was probably Independent, or part of some third party, and it occurred to her just how much of a nerd she was that she knew all of this stuff, and was thinking about when in the company of a walking national conspiracy.

Then the crate fell apart, and she wondered what all she had missed in her brief musings. "Well, we didn't fit through the hole," Trembley said. "Let's rebuild the box and try again!"

"We gotta get out of here!" Dipper said, scooping up the papers.

"Also good!"

They tried to escape through a door, which only managed to notify the cops that they'd escaped the crate. They closed the door and ran to the other one, though that opened onto the back of the train, which did not sound like the smartest idea. They climbed up a ladder and, after getting past the idiot Trembley, managed to get on top of the train. The twins began running across the top of the train.

Now, Camo suspension of disbelief stops here. It doesn't matter that it's real life, this shouldn't have been able to happen. Peanut brittle being life-sustaining, sure. But running on top of a train would be terrifying and basically impossible.

She was weird enough to be actually thinking about this as she ran on top of the train, along with thoughts of I'm going to fall off and meet a bloody demise. The cops were right on their tail, though, so she couldn't afford to slow down. Eventually, they reached the front, and they had to face each other.

Sherriff Blubs panted as he said, "There is . . . no escape! Let me—I gotta take a knee."

"Do you even realize how evil you sound when you phrase it like that?" Camo shouted.

They ignored her. Why did she even try?

"Sherriff Blubs, do you really want to lock us all up in a government facility somewhere?" Dipper attempted to reason.

"I've got no choice!" he said angrily. "Our orders come from the very top!"

Dipper looked around, then said, "Wait! Quentin, did you ever sign an official resignation?"

"No, sir! I ate a salamander and jumped out the window."

"Then technically you're still legally the President of the United States, right? You gotta answer to this guy now!" the boy told the cops. Well, no, they probably didn't. She doubted there was anything in the Constitution about the president being encased in peanut brittle, but when the president can't serve, it falls to the Vice President. Ah, whatever. As long as she was better at civics than the dumb country cops, then they'd be fine.

And they were!

Mabel got a cool top hat that Camo vowed to steal as soon as Trembley left, and Dipper got the President's Key. Camo didn't get anything except a pat on the head for her snarky comments. They went back to town and, since she decided she was tired, she just went back to the motel. Whatever. She'd had her fill of adventure, and she didn't think she could handle any more.

Though that meant she couldn't nick Mabel's top hat.