"Ladies and gentlemen, continuing on our mystery tour," Stan was narrating. Camo was sitting behind him, taking notes. She'd never done this style before, and she wanted to figure out how he did it so that she could put the appropriate Camo-spin on it. ". . . you'll see the world famous Outhouse of Mystery." (The tourists oohed and ahhed and took pictures.) "I got stuck in there once!"
"Could I go to the bathroom?" a kid sitting next to Camo asked.
"Save all questions until after the tour" was Stan's response, and the boy groaned. She desperately hoped he wouldn't pee his pants. That would be a pain to clean up. They went over a bump, and he sighed in relief. She winced and scooted away from him. "And up ahead if you look really closely, everybody get your cameras, you're gonna want to see this . . ."
Ew, the pee was getting closer to her! She decided she'd go on a tour later, and she abandoned ship, jumping off of the train and onto the ground. It was not exactly a heroic landing. (She made a mental note to practice later.)
She came back to find Mabel dancing with the walking bacon, Waddles. The two girls kind of looked at each other, and Camo waved it off. "I don't care what you do, just don't bother me. I'll be in my room if you need me."
Nobody else was in the house, and Mabel would be occupied with her pig for a good long while, which meant it was the perfect time to go and look through those papers that had been in her room.
None of them seemed to be revolutionary. A lot of newspapers, some science-y papers, a couple things with Stan's name on them that were really old, like 1982 old. She was increasingly certain that some scientist or something had been here. There were notebooks in fancy cursive, and only a nerd would write that good. (She had good handwriting . . . was she a nerd?!) Also, she wasn't really sure what other profession would acquire this many science trophies.
One of the notebooks looked to be about Gravity Falls. Specifically, the weird supernatural stuff in Gravity Falls.
Even though she was intrigued, she was interrupted by a loud yell from Stan. She realized he was back and, with a forlorn look to her findings, she shoved them back underneath the bed. Couldn't have him finding her secrets, after all. He clearly had some, so she deserved some of her own.
She came into the gift shop to find Stan with a ripped pant leg and Mabel defending her pig and why he shouldn't go outside. She simply raised an eyebrow at the conversation and waited for an opening.
"That's just the natural order," Stan argued, clearly for the side of 'out of the house'. "It's not my fault your pig's potentially delicious."
"He should be inside, like a person."
"People don't roll around in their own filth." Stan hesitated, then amended his statement. "Except for Soos."
Mabel took the opportunity and said, "And we're the lesser for it! Maybe we're the ones who should be put outside. Huh? Huh? Think about it!"
Camo hummed. "I'd be fine with that." Both of the Pines turned to look at her, and she shrugged. "If you two go outside, then I'd be left in here with Waddles, peace, and quiet. Honestly, sounds like paradise."
Mabel didn't like that. Mabel huffed and left the room with her pig. Stan looked at Camo, and Camo looked at Stan. They both shrugged in unison, and then broke into uncontrollable laughter.
Was it a bad sign that she got along this well with her sixty-something year old boss?
"I'm off to get a Huggy Wuvvy Tummy Bundle!" Mabel screamed, and Camo looked up from her book to frown in confusion. What even was that? Whatever, it didn't matter. She returned to her reading (her regular book, because Stan was in the house, as much as she wanted to read the old notebook. It just wasn't a safe environment.)
"Yeesh! Isn't knitting matching sweaters for that pig enough?" Stan groaned.
Mabel wore a sweater with Waddles on it and vice versa. When was she going to make Camo one? "Nope," she said. "Anyway, I need you to look after this little gentleman while I'm gone." Waddles casually ate a fly, and Camo wondered why she was listening to this conversation.
"Not now, kid. I got some tourists comin' through," Stan said while fixing his tie.
"I could take care of one of those two things," she piped up. Both of them looked at her, and she had a definite sense of deja vu. "Either the tourists or the pig, I mean."
"Thanks, Camo!" Mabel beamed, and she shoved the smelly thing in her arms. She tried not to grimace as the stench hit her. The younger girl ran out the door happily, and Camo shrugged, placing the pig on the floor and returning to her book.
A couple minutes later, another bang of a door opening was heard, and Dipper came into view. "Hey, Camo, Soos and I managed to snag a picture of that creature I was telling you about! Wanna help me develop the film?"
"Sure," she shrugged. "As long as you don't get me all sappy."
She shut her book and almost left Waddles there, but she remembered and picked him up, bringing him to the room as well. She set him down on the floor and turned her attention to Dipper and the film. It was tense, and quiet, and all her focus was on helping Dipper. The preteen had almost gotten the picture of it when the door banged open and—
"Who wants victory nachos?" Soos's happy voice called out, unaware that he'd just cost them the photo. Dipper screamed out and seized the photo, horrified. "Dude, don't worry. I only ate like a third of 'em. Half of 'em. I ate all of 'em, dude!"
A similar scream was heard from a different room, this one belonging to Stan. Camo furrowed her brows for a second. Why would Stan be screaming? Also, where was . . .
She felt her blood run cold. Waddles wasn't in the room. Waddles wasn't in the room. Stan was screaming because of Waddles, and who knew what he was going to do to the pig?!
Aah! Mabel was going to KILL HER!
She ran downstairs as fast as she could . . . just in time to watch a pink-and-red-yarned thing disappear in the claws of a pterodactyl. She screamed and, in a moment of fury, kicked Stan in the shin (though not as hard as she could've done. He was old.) "Are you kidding me?! You put him outside and got him eaten by a dinosaur?! Do you even know how mad Mabel's gonna be?!"
"You were the one who let him sneak away and eat my exhibit!"
Dipper and Soos ran down, chattering about the dinosaur, and Stan was still in a little shock. "It . . . it took Waddles," he murmured, as if he couldn't believe it.
She snorted derisively.
Mabel came up on her bike. "What'd you say about Waddles? Camo, where is he?"
"Ask Stan." She gave the old man a side-eye, and all eyes turned to him.
It was a very awkward conversation. Stan wasn't sure what to say ("oh, by the way, I did the exact opposite of what you told me to do" wasn't going to cut it) and ended up telling a massive lie involving the dinosaur getting into the house and Stan punched it in the eye. It was very, very clearly a lie, and Camo wondered how on earth Mabel believed it.
"Wait, but how did he end up with Stan?" Mabel asked, tilting her head. "Camo was watching him."
"I swear, I looked away for like two seconds," she hurriedly said. "And since the doors were closed, I figured it'd be fine. How was I supposed to know a pterodactyl would come in the house?" She very pointedly glared at Stan with those words. "I'm sorry, though. I should've paid him closer attention."
Mabel looked . . . disappointed, but seemed to accept this answer.
"You punched a pterodactyl in the face?" Dipper asked skeptically. "I thought you didn't even believe in the supernatural."
"Dinosaurs aren't magic. They're just big lizards," Stan replied, looking nervous. Yeah, right. "Get off my back!"
Mabel took out a photo of her and her pig chilling and murmured, "Oh, Waddles."
"That's it." Dipper stalked over to his twin with a determined look on his face. "No pterodactyl messes with my sister. We're gonna go out there, catch him, and save your pig. For Mabel, guys!"
"For Mabel!" both Camo and Soos cheered. The teen stepped forwards and put a hand on Mabel's shoulder comfortingly. "I'll make it up to you, I swear."
The younger girl smiled slightly.
"But how do we even find the little guy?" Stan pointed out. They all thought for a moment, but Mabel spotted the trail of red yarn going through the trees. Everyone cheered again, sans Stan. "Or, ya know, we could just call it a day, maybe hit the pool hall, or, uh . . ." He looked down at the unimpressed faces staring up at him. "Yeah! Let's go . . . save Waggles!" he added awkwardly.
"Waddles," Mabel corrected.
"Him too."
They took a couple minutes getting ready (they didn't usually prepare—she was half expecting them to go charging into the forest without a plan) and Soos almost ran over his own head. The twins had a quiet conversation, and Camo was bringing her sketchbook so she could draw the dinosaur. They rode off on the truck—thankfully Soos was driving, so she didn't have to worry for her life—and the yarn led them to this old church.
She went in ahead of the group so she could look at the crumbling walls, the massive hole in the floor, the broken windows, and a humming McGucket. When the others came by, he went and explained himself. "You'll never believe me! So I was doing my hourly hootenanny . . ." He gave them an example, which Stan winced at. ". . . when this enormous wingly critter stole my musical spoons and flew lickety-split into the abandoned mines down yonder." He pointed to the pit.
She didn't think she'd ever get bored of the way he spoke.
Everyone looked in the pit and gasped. "Looks kinda hairy down there," Stan said. She elbowed him.
"Come on, Grunkle Stan, you can handle it," Mabel encouraged the less-than-eager old man. "You punched a pterodactyl in the face, remember?"
Stan laughed nervously, and all the was on Camo's mind was how upset Mabel was going to be when she found out the truth. "My! What suspicious laughter!" Old Man McGucket pointed out, and Stan glared at him.
"Guys, we're going in," Mabel said dramatically.
"Need someone to tag along and tell weird personal stories?"
"No thanks," Stan said. It didn't matter. The crazy old man came down with them. Camo had some trouble getting down the rope, as she was also trying to avoid damaging the pages of her sketchbook. That also didn't end up mattering, as the rope snapped and they fell onto a giant toadstool. Camo had to wrap her body around her sketchbook so that it wouldn't be hurt. She wished, not for the last time, that she'd thought to bring a backpack.
So she shoved it in Dipper's. He owed her anyway, as it was his fault Waddles escaped to risk Stan's wrath.
Dipper walked away after giving her a short glare and gazed at the massive cavern. It was incredibly big. Why would mine tunnels be this big? Usually they were small and cramped, but these were big enough that it made sense for the dinosaur to choose it as a home base. There were also lots of geysers (yet another reason she was glad she'd stuffed her stuff in Dipper's bag).
"These plants look all Jurassic-y," the boy commented.
She hummed. "Well, it's a little harder to tell what time period, right? None of us were around for the dinosaur age . . ." She glanced at Stan and Old Man McGucket, mostly as a joke. ". . . I think."
"Huh. This little fella smells like battery acid," Soos laughed, and the flower shot fumes in his face. "Looks like I lost my sense of smell. Ha ha ha!"
Camo walked up to the wall and ran her hand down it, looking at the various layers of the rock. Sedimentary. It was still kind of sharp, and one of the rocks sliced her hand open. She gasped in pain and yanked it back. It thankfully wasn't a deep cut, but ouch. This was going to be more annoying than that cut from the gnome adventure, wasn't it? She absently rubbed the blood off on her neon green raincoat. She was glad she was wearing her rain stuff—it was really humid down here.
They passed a couple skeletons on their journey through the shaft, but nothing was super interesting . . . at least, until they saw the dinosaurs.
After the initial screaming session, she stepped up to inspect it, right along with Dipper. "They're all trapped inside tree sap!" the boy said in amazement, and it did look like that. "That's how they survived for 65 million years." They were also lit from the inside, so either it was a tourist trap Stan would be envious of, or something weirder was going on.
I see dinosaurs, and my mind is on lighting, she thought, annoyed at her own mental monologue.
One of the sap-covered beasts had broken free—the pterodactyl. "The summer heat must be melting them loose!" Dipper realized.
"It's probably been happening for a long time," Camo reasoned. "But yeah, between the heat and global warming . . ."
"Holy moly! Forget the Cornicorn . . ." Stan said in wonder. "This is the attraction of a lifetime! I could bring people down here and turn this into some sort of theme park. 'Jurassic Sap Hole'."
Men like Stan were the reason there were still problems in the world.
Soos pointed out that the claw of a velociraptor had started to twitch, but Camo had other things on her mind. How were the dinosaurs still alive? Yeah, the sap preserved them, but if that dinosaur just twitched and twitched its claw, then it would've run out of energy and died. Also, there was no air in the sap, nor food, so how did it still have the energy to even twitch that claw?
Suspension of disbelief applied to reality was her solution. Puzzle it out later.
"Maybe we should keep moving," Dipper suggested, and he met no argument. The only issue was with Stan, who was still figuring out the opportunity.
"This could be a gold mine!" he shouted. "Velvety rope type deal there, ticket booth here . . . ha! I shoulda put that pig outside ages ago!"
Stan: +1 to idiocy!
"Wait. What did you just say?" Mabel asked, her expression disbelieving. "You said the dinosaur flew into the house." She gasped, and Camo watched in grim satisfaction as Stan tried to defend himself, but it was to no avail. "You put Waddles outside, then you lied to me about it! And now, thanks to you, my pig could be dead! Waddles could be dead!"
"Look, he's an animal. He belongs outside."
Mabel's eyes were filled with tears, and she turned to Camo. "What happened? Give me the truth this time!"
"I did give you the truth!" she shot back, exasperated. "Yes, I didn't pay as much attention to him as I should've. Yes, I didn't notice when he slipped away. I'm sorry, Mabel, I really am. How was I supposed to know—"
The younger girl wasn't hearing it. "You said you'd look after him! You said that you'd keep him safe, and you failed. You know what? Both of you, I am never, ever speaking to either of you again!" She turned away.
Camo's eyes widened, and tears filled them. She turned and ran away so that nobody could see her cry. She'd failed. It was her fault that Waddles was in danger. She had screwed up, and now Mabel hated her. She tried to keep it down, but the horrible twisty feeling of guilt bubbled up, and before she knew what was happening, she was racked with sobbing.
She quickly turned around one of the sappy dinosaurs and found a little cubbyhole in the stone, just big enough for her. She wedged inside it, curled up tight with her knees to her chest, and she finally let the tears fall. Mabel hated her now. Mabel would never talk to her again. She was whispering it, too, and it only made her cry harder.
She hated herself when she got like this. She felt weak and hormonal, but it couldn't be stopped. Down the rabbit hole it went, and every time she thought she was done, she'd be crying again. It was awful and she hated it, but she didn't know what else to do, so she just curled up, bit her lip, and cried.
She had heard screaming a while back, but she'd gotten herself lost. It was dark and she was rather well stuck in her hidey hole, so she just stayed there and tried to think of a way out. Her hand ached, and she'd scraped her back trying to get out. She took a deep breath in, and a matching one out, and slowly eased her way out of the hole in the wall.
With a sudden pop, she fell out and landed rather awkwardly on her stomach. Shaking her head, she clambered to her feet and tried to figure out which way it was. "Guys?" she called out, a little scared. Nope, scratch that, she was definitely scared. She was trapped in a maze-like mining shaft, in the dark, with several dinosaurs that could break out at any time and eat her. Of course she was scared!
She wandered around, nervously checking around every corner and trying not to trip over any of the rocks. She found some light and ran towards it as fast as she could (well, as fast as she could without tripping over rocks). She came into a bright cavern just in time to hear Stan yell, "From heck's heart I stab at thee!" and punch the pterodactyl he was riding on top of the head so that it fell and he landed on the edge.
Also, he had what must've been the Huggy Wuvvy Tummy Bundle with Waddles in it. She watched as he soared through the sky and landed heroically, and it was, without a doubt, the most interesting thing she'd ever seen him do. Soos and Dipper surged towards him, and Mabel followed, albeit a little slower. She was wearing his fez.
"Here's your pig, kiddo," Stan said, and he gave the girl her pet. She happily hugged him and Stan took back his hat.
"You saved him for me," she said with a smile.
Stan, oblivious to the dinosaur rising behind him, said, "Yeah, well, sometimes you just gotta . . . Look out!" The pterodactyl attacked, and everyone yelped, running towards her. She was running, too, as far away from the bloodthirsty beast as possible. It chased them down the shaft, and she ended up kicking it in the snout for it to stop biting at Dipper. They ran past partially freed dinosaurs and battery acid flowers and into a geyser.
"Guys, this is really dumb!" she yelled. "Geyser water is super hot, like melt-off-your-skin hot! Don't . . . wait, how are you still alive?"
She reluctantly climbed in after them—ow, ow, ow, ow, ow—and the pterodactyl went flying towards them. She screamed as loud and high as possible, and Soos yelled, "Bros before dinos!" and slammed the side of the geyser. She realized with horror that they were sitting in water and her sketchbook, which was made of paper, was in Dipper's backpack. This led to her next scream being a very loud
"NOOOOOOOOOO!"
They shot right through the roof of the building—OWWW—and fell to various places in the church. Mabel and Waddles hung from the chandelier, Dipper and Soos fell in the piano, Stan landed in a coffin, funnily enough, and Camo nearly fell in the hole again, scraping for purchase on the wooden planks. Thankfully, they held her weight, and she was able to scramble to safety before the roof caved in.
She sat there gasping, out of breath, and was going to ask about her sketchbook when another thought occurred to her. "Uh . . . where's McGucket?"
"Oh, the p-terodactyl ate him," Soos responded easily.
"Oh . . . okay." They walked outside.
Mabel was beaming up at her grunkle. "I can't believe you did all that for Waddles!" she told Stan gratefully.
"Ah, well, I can't have my favorite niece not talking to me, and if I gotta leap onto a pterodactyl and punch him in the face, then that's what I gotta do." Camo absently looked at her boss and snorted when she saw his hand stuck to Mabel's face with tree sap. (She quickly moved away from the two of them.)
She forlornly looked at Dipper and sadly said, "I guess my sketchbook is ruined now, what with the geyser and all."
"Uh, actually . . ." He reached into his bag and pulled out a perfectly unharmed sketchbook. She gasped and looked at him, practically seeing the sparkles in her own eyes. "My bag is waterproof," he admitted sheepishly.
"Dipper," she said seriously, "thank you for being so overly paranoid!" She squealed, grabbed her sketchbook, and ran back to the truck, clutching it to her chest.
Small fortunes.
Camo was sitting on her bed and pulling the splinters out of her hand with tweezers. A couple had gotten wedged in the cut on her hand when she'd stopped herself from falling in the hole again. She winced and pulled out another one, shaking her hand slightly. The only reason she was continuing was because she knew it had to be done.
There was a knock at the door and, without looking up, she called, "Come in." Mabel (and Waddles, by extension—the Huggy Wuvvy Tummy Bundle had become her most favorite accessory) opened the door and sat on the bed with her.
"Yeesh," the younger girl winced when she looked at her hand. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine." She was still confused how she only ended up with two bruises and no burns from riding the geyser through the roof. "What's up?"
Mabel rubbed the back of her neck. "I wanted to apologize for earlier, when I said I'd never talk to you again. I didn't expect you to . . . disappear."
Camo paused her splinter-removing long enough to look properly embarrassed. "I overreacted. Sorry."
"You're not supposed to apologize! This is my apology!" But there was no venom in her tone, and she playfully punched her in the arm, which was still pretty hard. "I guess I was kinda harsh, huh?"
"Nah, I was probably just tired. It went to my head and just multiplied. But . . . uh . . . just in case, don't say things like that anymore, okay?"
"Okay!"
Camo hummed and went back to her work.