Camo watched in confusion as Stan put a bunch of bumper stickers on the back of an RV. There were a couple bags on the ground, a pink one, a blue one, and a green one. The green one, she was surprised to find out, had her stuff in it, though she didn't remember packing any of it.
Stan yelled to Soos, who was carrying over some more stuff, "And don't forget bug spray. It's perfect for spraying in the face of hitchhikers."
Dipper walked up. "Whoa! An RV? Camping gear? Are you running from the law again?"
She turned to Stan, a little alarmed. "Is my stuff here because I got caught working with you? One sec! I need to go get Colonel Forrest."
Stan grabbed her by the back of her collar and lifted her into the air. She pouted and folded her arms. He wouldn't even let her bring Colonel Forrest? "I already grabbed him," he said instead, pointing at the bag. She beamed and ran over the second he set her back down.
"Dude, it's the ultimate Oregon road trip adventure," Soos said from where he was sticking stuff on top of the RV. She made a face. Being stuck in a van with lots of people for days at a time? Really?
"More like revenge trip," Stan said, and her mood improved considerably. "Every year, my tourist trap competitors prank the Mystery Shack. Last year, those hooligans duct taped Soos to the ceiling."
"That was a fun 78 hours."
Stan turned back to his nephew. "Well, no more. This year, we're visiting every tourist trap along the Redwood Highway, and I'm gonna prank back every single one." Camo, who had retrieved her camouflaged dinosaur plushie, which had also gained a WWII-ish hat, peered over Dipper's shoulder at the various tourist traps.
Mabel came with her friends, Candy and Grenda. "Bow-wow! Time to let the Road Dawgs bark," Grenda said.
"That is us. We are the Road Dawgs," Candy giggled.
"Thanks for letting me bring Candy and Grenda along for our road trip, Grunkle Stan," Mabel said.
Stan happily said, "The more, the merrier. Just sign these non-disclosure agreements. None of your parents are lawyers, right?" Stan and the two girls went into the RV. Camo watched them go. Jason could've come, but not only would that make it even more crowded, but . . . well, they liked more private places, she supposed.
The twins plus Camo moved to hop in too, but Soos jumped down from the roof of the RV. "Ha! What do you say, dude? You coming?" he asked Dipper.
"I already went to the trouble of packing all your stuff," Mabel told her twin. "Even the stuff you kept in that secret box under the bed." She picked up the cardboard box labeled "do not touch!" Camo, who had peeked in it the second she saw it, snickered. Mabel dropped it and saw all the pictures of Wendy. "Whoa! What the . . ." She sighed. "What's that?"
"Uh, nothing," he said hastily, picking up all the stuff. "Just . . . Wendy stuff, from old times."
Soos and Mabel sighed, frustrated, and Camo snickered. Dipper went red. "Bro, I thought you were finally past all this." Well, she clearly didn't know her brother very well.
"Ah, I know, I know!" He tapped his forehead with his fist aggravatedly. "I know she's not interested, and I know it's over, but how do you just turn off the way you feel about someone?"
"Two words, Dipper. Move on," Mabel said, which was probably not the best advice for him at the moment.
Soos agreed, "Yeah, dude, and a road trip's the perfect place to meet new people." He and Mabel got on the RV, and Camo kneeled down next to Dipper.
"Hey," she said, and he looked at her. "I know you like her, that's never gonna stop, but maybe it doesn't have to. You just need to channel romance love into friendship love, y'know? And . . . I can't believe I'm the one saying this. Jason's changed me, and Wendy is changing you, too. You can help it be for the better, okay?"
Then she got onto the RV and hoped he dealt with his feelings well.
They made their way down the road. Soos was up front, his tongue out like a dog. The kids sat in the back, with Dipper, Mabel, and Camo on one side and Candy and Grenda on the other, since Grenda was bigger than anyone else. Not that Camo was particularly small, but . . . Grenda was big. Candy was reading a travel brochure and Camo wasn't actually reading, so she could ration out the three books Ford had lent her.
"Man, RVs are amazing," Grenda said. "I can't believe we're sitting at a table in a moving vehicle."
"Ooh! Informational travel pamphlets," Candy said. She had all of them sitting out in front of her. "I want to read them all and gain their travel knowledge." She rubbed them on her face, which was pretty creepy.
Stan spoke up from the driver's seat. (Camo secretly hoped Soos would be driving at least part of the time.) "Kid, those useless pamphlets have never helped a single person. The only wrinkly old travel guide you'll need is me." Candy glared at him. "Now look alive! We're coming up on an attraction run by the most black-hearted proprietor in all of Oregon."
Camo gazed out of the window at the sign. Granny Sweetkins' Yarnball: World's Biggest! She narrowed her eyes at the old lady. The big cutesy eyes just weren't doing it for her. "Don't let the face fool you. This woman lit my car on fire on two non-consecutive occasions," Stan reminded them.
Everyone oohed and ahhed at the big yarn ball. Though it was tall, Camo doubted it was the world's biggest. Still, Mabel said, "I'm going in, girls," and dove into the big thing. Candy and Grenda followed a moment later.
"Why are we going through so much effort?" Camo wondered aloud. "We can just let Mabel knit a big sweater of that thing and bam. Problem solved."
Still, she helped Stan find the end of the yarn and watched him hook it up to the back of the RV. Still, her attention was diverted by Dipper, who was being hilariously bad at talking to girls. "You're funny . . . and cute. I mean, not cute. I mean, you're not not cute. Whew, let me start over. My name is Dopper." She just stuck her ice cream cone on his hand and walked away. He sighed.
"Something on your mind, kiddo?" Stan asked, walking over. "I saw that with Miss Cold Shoulder over there."
"Ah, I'm so embarrassed," Dipper said, walking a couple steps away and then stopping. "Look, earlier this summer, I ruined my chances with Wendy."
"Heh, yeah. Chances . . ."
The preteen continued on as if his uncle hadn't said anything. "And I wanna move on, but I'm terrible at talking to girls. The moment I open my mouth around them, I unravel like . . . like . . ." Camo looked at Mabel and Grenda, who were having a good time playing with the yarn. "Well, I can't think of a perfect metaphor, but you get the gist. At this rate, I'm gonna grow up to be a sad loser like Toby Determined."
"Whoa, never say that about yourself."
"Yeah, even if you don't know how to flirt, you're gonna get a job as a paranormal investigator or something awesome like that, and you'll get famous for it. You might be lonely, but you won't be Toby Determined level of scuffy," Camo pointed out. It cheered him up a little bit.
Stan put a hand on his nephew's shoulder. "Lucky for you, I'm an expert on women." He missed Camo's scoff. "Listen to me, kid. When it comes to girls, always be confident, and be funny, but not too funny. And be kind of annoying, but in a loveable way."
"I don't know, Grunkle Stan. This sounds kind of jerky."
"Hey, 'jerky' is just a term non-jerks use to bad-mouth innocent jerks," Stan said in his defense.
Camo scoffed once more. "I'm a jerk, with my blunt, sarcastic comments. You are a blockhead."
Stan shot her a half-hearted glare, but he continued his 'advice'. "Confidence, comedy, some third word staring with a C. The three Cs of the Stan Pines Dating Technique. At the next tourist trap, try out my advice on the first girl you see."
"Cool. Grunkle Stan, thanks."
"Hey, I'm full of good ideas. Speakin' of which, everyone, now!"
They ran back into the RV, though the girls took longer to get detached from the yarn ball, and Soos had enemy merchandise. Then, Stan drove off, and the piece of yarn tied to the back of the van meant that the further they drove, the more the ball was unraveled, until Granny Sweetkins was left standing there very angrily. Camo sat next to Dipper on it, so she could whisper something else to him.
"You might wanna take advice from Soos instead. He got four times Stan's score on the dating quiz, and he had a stable relationship." At which point Dipper rolled his eyes and shoved her away with a little laugh.
Their next tourist trap was Upside-Down Town, an upside-down house. Stan pulled over. "Ah, Upside-Down Town. The nausea capital of the state. Whatever you do, don't use the bathrooms."
They had to put on these velcro shoes, and then they ran up the stairs onto the spinning wheel thing to get them upside-down. She did not feel particularly safe, being supported by a little bit of velcro. Plus, all the blood would be running to her head pretty soon. Still, it was pretty cool.
It looked like everyone's hair was flying, and Dipper's vest was falling down, making it look like it was floating up. Holding her glasses on her face so that they wouldn't fall off, she watched Dipper attempt to talk to a girl with big pigtails.
"Hi, I'm Dipper," he introduced himself. "Crazy place, right?"
The girl turned around from her photo taking. "Oh, hi. I'm Emma Sue. You know, if you pretend we're right-side up, it looks like everyone's hair is standing on end."
"Huh, yeah. Weird, right? Pretend you're screaming."
"Okay! You gotta take a picture of me, though." Camo watched as he took her camera. Emma Sue undid her ponytails so she had a solid curtain of hair falling upwards, and she screamed, pointing at something that wasn't there.
Dipper took the photo and looked at it. "Let's see about—whoa!" He dropped it, and it fell upwards until he caught it. "Ho-ho, just kidding." He laughed, and she punched him in the shoulder.
"You are the worst!"
"You bet I am. I'm bad, Emma. Kind of a jerk." Camo snorted loudly, revealing her hiding place from where she was crouching behind an armchair. "Camo!" he whined. "Quit spying on me."
She shook her head with a smirk.
"Emma, c'mon!" The speaker was a man and a woman, presumably a couple that were presumably Emma Sue's parents. "We have to get to Canada before your mother gives birth!"
"It's a long story," Emma Sue said at the confused expression on Dipper's face.
"Maybe you could tell me sometime." She wrote her email on his hand, and then ran off to rejoin her parents. He stood there in shock. "A girl gave me her email, and it wasn't out of pity," he said in awe. He jumped triumphantly, laughing, and Camo watched as he fell to the floor. Meanwhile, she just walked over to the upside-down stairs.
She walked into the gift shop, still upside-down, just in time to see Dipper acting all confident with the other girls. She rolled her eyes when she saw Candy blush. "Maybe it's the blood pooling in my head, but Dipper seems different," Grenda said from where she stood on the roof, next to Camo. Then her forehead turned purple, and she groaned.
Camo realized Stan was about to start the prank, so she hopped down onto the floor and ran back inside the attraction, just in time to help Stan jump the tourist trap over until it was right-side up. Then they ran out as fast as they possibly could. "Not so upside-down now!" Stan cackled as they drove away.
The day passed in a breeze of fun and rather mean-hearted pranks. At Log Land, they released beavers as Dipper talked to a girl with a log hat. At the Corn Maze, they released Corn Weevils, and Soos "mysteriously" disappeared. Then the day was over, so they stopped in an RV park for the night.
Camo decided to join the rest of the girls roasting marshmallows around a campfire for smores, because, come on. Marshmallows. Smores. Food. She was already on her third one for the night, though she was pretty sure nobody had noticed. She munched happily at the melty chocolatey goodness and listened to Mabel. "Okay, it's time for . . . Truth or Dare or Don't!" They pointed at Candy.
"I choose . . . don't!"
Grenda huffed, and Camo did pout a little, despite her mouth being absolutely covered in melted marshmallow, just because it was less entertainment. "You always choose don't," Grenda complained.
"Fine. Uh . . . truth."
Mabel smiled impishly. "Do you like someone?"
Candy turned completely red. "Uh-oh. Someone's blushing," Grenda said teasingly.
"Okay, maybe just a little," the Korean girl said. "I don't know for sure. It just started." Then Mabel and Grenda began chanting for answers. Camo stayed quiet, roasting her fourth marshmallow. "Okay. It begins with a D and ends with an ipper," she said conspiratorially.
Mabel looked horrified. "No!"
"Yes!"
The other girls gasped, and Camo snickered quietly. Of course she did. It was obvious way back in Upside-Down Town (or should she call it Right-Side Up Town now?) when she'd blushed as profusely as she did now. "Ready, Grenda?" Mabel asked. "Three, two, one." They squealed loudly at the exact same time. "Candy, Candy, all my life dreams are coming true right now. My brother, my best friend."
"I thought I was your best friend," Camo pouted, making another smore.
"I can't breathe! I'm so excited, I can't breathe!" Grenda screamed, falling over.
Candy shrugged. "I never really noticed him before, but he seems different lately, less sweaty and more charming." Camo debated telling her about Stan's dating tips, but that would ruin the love story, so she didn't. "But how do I approach him?"
"Don't even worry about that, Can-Can. Mabel's got a plan."
"So, you're screwed," Camo said around a mouth full of smore. Mabel punched her in the shoulder.
Stan and Dipper came over a little later, when she was on her sixth smore, and Stan actually played the part of responsible guardian, for once. "Camo, how many smores have you had?" he asked, hands on his hips. "Tell me." She reluctantly told him. "Nope. You're done with sweets for now. I'm not gonna have you on a sugar high while I'm stuck in a moving vehicle with you for hours."
Aw, man. Her sugar!
Camo had managed to score shotgun, so she could actually see Stan when he said, "All right, campers. We've got another day I've breakin' laws and breakin' hearts. Everything up until now has been a walk in the park compared to our next attraction."
"Is it a walk in the world's biggest park?" Mabel asked eagerly.
"Uh, sort of. There she is, kids. Mystery Mountain." He waved his hand at the big mountain in the distance, and Camo gaped at it, sitting forward on the dashboard. "Five times the size of the Mystery Shack, and what's worse, she has real attractions." Camo narrowed her eyes and punched her palm.
Candy, reading the brochure, said, "Oh, I have read about this place. It has sky tram, and a mummy museum, and sightings of half-human, half-spider creatures." Camo had actually grabbed one of those, too, since she'd already finished Ford's books. The signs for spotting an "arachnimorph", as they were called, include sweaty palms, hairy body, ravenous appetite, and crouching behind furniture.
She rubbed her hands on her shorts and tried to ignore the fact that she filled out three of the four symptoms.
"Even their made-up legends are better than ours," Stan said, and she thought she could detect the green of jealousy in his tone. "Today, the mountain falls."
The girls started switching up their seats, but Camo was allowed to stay up front, so she didn't really care. She sat there, bored out of her mind, for a while, until a thought came to her. "Hey, Stan?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you teach me how to drive?" He hesitated, and she pouted in retaliation. "Oh, come on. You taught the bear to drive, but not me? There's no way I could possibly be worse than you, and I know you aren't fazed by the fact underage driving is illegal."
He sighed in defeat. "Sure. On the way back, I'll teach you how to drive."
She cheered loud enough that she was sure she drew at least one glare from the back.
They arrived at the Mountain pretty quickly. It was foggy today, and it covered the Mountain in an ominous, but super cool, aura. There was a massive blue bull and an even more massive lumberjack with an axe on his shoulder, backdropped by the even more massive mountain.
"All right, Road Dawgs, I got five bucks for whoever can tip the big blue ox," Stan told the group. Camo, who had already clambered out of the car, rushed over towards said ox and pushed. It was solidly stuck there, though, so she looked around for something else to push it over with. After a second, she found a really big, strong stick, so she stuck it onto the side, braced it on the ground, and pushed.
The stick just broke. She pouted, then she noticed the lamppost nearby. She bit her lip and looked around some more, past Mabel and Grenda, who were just trying to brute force it. Rope. She needed rope. She spotted the edge thingamabobs. Well, chain would work too.
In a quick tug of her arm on the chain, the weakened, partially rotted section of edge she'd specifically chosen gave in, tearing the chain out. She couldn't manage to do it on the other side, but it did work on the opposite side of the pole. So, improvising, she just ripped the log out of the ground. She walked back to the big ox, whistling quietly, trying not to look suspicious as she trailed a chain behind her.
Thankfully, Stan was flirting with (and distracting) the lady at the booth, so she didn't notice Camo using her chain, throwing up the pole so it caught on the lamppost and she could climb up it easier. After a couple moments of struggle, she sat on top of the lamppost, which was a rather uncomfortable spot, but it was nice and bright. It would be good for reading.
Wrapping her feet around the fancy stuff for balance, she chucked the pole at the horn of the ox. She missed, so she reeled it back in and tried again. This time, she successfully got it on the other side, and it even wrapped around the horn another time for extra strength, an unintentional benefit.
Then, she tugged.
At this point, the other girls had stopped pushing and were just staring at her as she pulled on the length of chain. And pulled. She pulled for quite a while. Eventually, her pulling was all that was keeping her from falling off the lamppost, since she was now standing sideways on it. The ox started to give. She pulled EVEN HARDER, and, with a sense of finality, the ox lifted up, up,
and fell over.
She cheered loudly, scrambling on top of the ox to stand on it in victory. Mabel and Grenda clapped, and she bowed to them with a triumphant grin. Then the other girls vanished somewhere, probably to spy on Dipper and Candy. Camo just slid off the ox and walked over to Stan, who seemed to have scored himself a date with the lady at the booth.
"Hey, Stan," she called. "I tipped the ox and ripped up some edging in the process. Can I have my money now?"
He seemed shocked that she'd actually managed to do it, though not shocked enough to give her any extra money. Still, she accepted what she was given and went to go join the girls in their spying.
". . . if I had a baby, I would name it Grenda 2: The Sequel," Grenda was saying. Camo looked at her oddly.
Mabel put her hand on the big girl's arm. "You would make such a good mother. Oh, hey, Camo."
"Hey. Where's the happy couple go?"
"In there." She pointed to the mummy place, so Camo, being Camo, went in to spy on them.
There they were, sitting on some bench, Candy with her head on Dipper's shoulder, Dipper looking very unprepared. "Uh, yep, this is what I want," he said, both nervously and unconvincingly. "This is all part of the plan and stuff." Even from several meters away, she could see him sweating.
Then she got bored and looked at the mummies, though she only did so for, like, a minute, max. When she turned back, Dipper was surrounded by angry girls, all upset by him talking to all of them. Camo mentally sighed. Why were people so jealous?
"Hey," she greeted. "I'm Camo. So, I know you're all mad at Dipper, but don't blame him. Blame his gross uncle, who gave him horrible talking-to-girls advice. He had a crush on a girl, but she didn't want a relationship with him, so he had zero clue how to get over it."
Emma Sue looked at her. "Hey, I recognize you. You were the one hiding behind the chair."
Camo grinned and shot her a couple finger guns. "That's me. Anyway, yeah. He just got really bad advice. Maybe he's a jerk for following it, but he's a preteen who has zero clue in social scenarios. I apologize on his part."
At this point, Dipper was bright red and wholly embarrassed. Corn Maze Girl and Log Land Girl walked away, looking annoyed and disappointed, but Emma Sue looked at Dipper, a much more sympathetic expression on her face than earlier. "Oh. I guess I get that, but . . . still not cool." She then turned to Camo. "Thanks for clearing that up, I guess? Too much information, though."
She just shrugged in her defense.
"I'm sorry," Dipper told Candy, but the girl was already walking away. He groaned. "Ugh, I messed everything up. I gotta find Stan. He'll know what to do."
Camo gave him a deadpan look. "Excuse me, who just saved your butt?" He ignored her. She sighed. "Stan's off on a date with the lady from the booth, so you probably won't find him."
"I gotta look anyway."
She decided to join him, so the two of them looked and asked around where they might've gone. Apparently, Widow's Peak was the place. They were on their way there when Dipper's walkie talkie started buzzing. "Hey, buddy boy," Stan said over the thing. "So remember how we were talking about my technique? Well, sometimes it leads to unexpected consequences."
"Yeah, you can say that again," Dipper said, glaring at the machine.
Camo sighed again. "Stan, what did you do?"
"The good news is, I've solved the mystery of where Oregon's mummies come from. The bad news is . . . I'm about to become one." Both kids' eyes went wide, and they exchanged a look, rushing to the sky tram. "Turns out Darlene is one of those spider people. But beyond that, the date's been okay."
"Wait, wait, wait," Dipper said as they walked. "Darlene's a spider person? How is that possible?"
Stan's reply was, "I don't know. One minute, we're having a perfect date, and the next minute, she's growing extra legs and encasing me in webbing. Women, right?"
"I'm right here," Camo deadpanned.
"You couldn't tell she was a spider?" Dipper demanded.
He got on the defensive. "I was blinded by flattery. Also, this acid she spit in my face. I'm up the mountain at Widow's Peak."
"Yeah, we know," she said. "We're on the tram headed there now."
Stan sighed. "Thanks, Camo. Apparently, your organization does help every so often."
"Gee, thanks." A thought occurred to her as Stan went silent on the other side. "Um, should we have brought the girls with us? Mabel is pretty useful, and Candy and Grenda could come in handy, too . . ." So, she pulled down the window—thank goodness this style let her do that—and shouted at a volume she hadn't previously thought possible, "ROAD DAWGS! TAKE THE TRAM TO WIDOW'S PEAK, STAN'S IN DANGER!" Then she closed the window again. "Hopefully, that works."
They arrived to the cave, running in. "Kids!" Stan shouted. He was completely encased in webbing, save for his head. Somehow, his fez was still on. "Do you know how to get me down?"
"Um . . . no," Dipper admitted.
They waited, or, rather, the boys waited as Camo searched for something to rip the webs with. Stan started to pray. "Please. I don't know if you're really up there or not, but if you are, please save me, Paul Bunyan."
"Mr. Pines!" Grenda's deep voice called.
"Whoa, did that really work?"
The rest of the cavalry showed up, and Camo looked up from where she'd pulled a rib bone from a webbified corpse and was now sharpening it on a rock. (She didn't drop it, though. She put forth this much effort making it, she was gonna keep it. Plus, it would make a pretty good weapon, and she wouldn't have to search for it.)
Grenda ran forward and punched through the webs, causing Stan to fall back down to the ground. "Quick, before the rest of the venom sets in," he told them, and they all pulled away the webbing. They got him free and were running away when Darlene the Spider Lady started chasing them."
"The sky tram, everybody on," Candy ordered. "I have a plan." So, they all hopped into it.
"Ride like the wind, sky tram!" Stan said, and Camo pouted slightly at not having been the one to say it first. Still, it was kind of pointless, since the tram was suuuuuper slow. Trambience, with the soft music and everything.
Darlene the Spider Lady must've easily jumped on other trams to catch up to them. Funnily enough, though, the recording had just said, "Enjoying the view? Take a picture" when she stuck her head down over the window. Everyone screamed, though Camo was somehow doing something in between a scream and a laugh, just because of the comedic timing.
Darlene began to wrap their tram in webbing, and they all stared in horror at the disappearing view. Everyone was still screaming.
"We're doomed!" Stan screamed.
"We're all gonna die!" Dipper screamed.
Candy just gave them an irritated look and looked in her brochure. Camo peered over her shoulder, but she couldn't read it before the younger girl closed it. "Listen carefully," Candy said. "The sky tram has an emergency drop switch. Below us is Oregon's largest Paul Bunyan statue. And Old Reliable goes off in five, four . . ." She reached for the lever.
"Candy, wait! Don't pull that lever!" Dipper yelped.
"Kid, are you crazy?!"
The Korean girl just gave them a defiant look and pulled it. Camo grinned at the scene, while everyone except her and Candy screamed some more. They fell, and fell, and fell . . . um . . . they had to be pretty close to the ground now . . . until suddenly they shot back upwards, presumably from the geyser. It was a very rough ride, with lots of falling and several bounces, and she banged her head on the metal frame a couple times before she just grabbed the side and clung to it for dear life, but otherwise it was fine.
Stan and Grenda managed to wedge open the door, and everyone stumbled out, completely dazed. Camo absently wondered if she had a concussion. The recording said, "Thank you for riding Trambience Sky Tram. Tell your friends that it was a boring, boring ride."
"Kid, that was ingenious!" Stan told Candy, who smiled at him. "How'd you know that would work?"
She held up her brochure. "Useless travel pamphlets."
The voice of Darlene the Spider Lady floated over. "Staaaaanley." She put her human face back on and twiddled a lock of her hair. "I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. You'll let me out, right?"
"What? After all that?" Stan asked incredulously. "Seriously, do I look like an amnesiac?"
She laughed as she pulled her spider legs back underneath the boot of Paul Bunyan. Hey, Stan did end up getting saved by Paul Bunyan. "You're so funny. Have you ever consider becoming a comedian?"
"You know, I actually have. Comedy is too subtle these days. My style involves more over-sized props. Here, let me get you out—" He walked towards her, and everyone shouted and ran forward to stop him. Darlene tried to attack, revealing her spider face again. "Oh, yeah, right."
"You win this round, Stan, but mark my words. As long as there's men like you out there, with their dumb one-liners, and pick-up moves, I'll never run out of prey." She shot a bit of venom at him.
Stan danced away from it, screaming. "Get in the car, get in the car!"
"But I'm driving!" Camo added, at which point Stan gave her a tired look. She hopped in the driver's seat and looked down at everything. "So, uh . . . how do I do this?"
She ended up giving control back to Stan, since they had to get home quickly and getting lost miles away from the Shack sounded like a bad idea. So, she sat in the back and played with Colonel Forrest.
That didn't mean she wasn't also eavesdropping on Stan and Dipper's conversation.
Stan sighed. "All right, kid, I gotta admit something. I'm no expert on women. Truth is, I've been divorced once, and slapped more times than I can remember. Confidence can buy you a lot, but at the end of the day, pick-up artist tend to get our heads bitten off. When it comes to women, I'm a failure."
"Hey," Dipper said, "we're both failures." There was a pause, and Camo guessed Stan was smiling. "You know, even if your dating tips were bad, I actually haven't thought about Wendy all day. Plus, you did teach me to be more confident. I guess I just need to learn to use that power for good."
Then she saw Dipper walking to the back, so she immediately moved to go to the passenger side, though Mabel had (somehow) already gotten there. She pouted. Dipper walked up to Candy and said, "Hey, I found a pamphlet I don't think you've read yet."
The front read "A Loser's Attempt at an Apology", which was sweet. He opened it up, revealing several very cute pictures. "I'm so sorry" said the first one, with Dipper crying a puddle. A pie chart saying "sorry; I'm dumb" and an "it's true!", with an arrow pointing up to a drooling Dipper with his eyes going separate ways and "total jerk" on his hat. The last part said "true fact: I'm sorry. 4give me? You are great!"
Both girls smiled, Camo trying not to make it too obvious she was eavesdropping. "It's okay, Dipper," Candy said. "The open road makes people do crazy things. Plus, after seeing you flee the spider like a baby, I kind of lost interest."
"Yep, yep. I deserve that," he said embarrassedly.
Finally, after multiple days in a moving vehicle with these people, they were back in Gravity Falls. Everyone cheered at the sign, and Camo let out a whoop. Dipper, once again sitting in the front seat, said, "I still feel a little bad about wrecking those tourist traps."
"Ah, come on," Stan said. "Everyone loves my pranks. And the best part is, I never have to face any consequen—Sweet Lord!" They drove up to the Shack, which had been heavily vandalized. The part that said Mystery Shack had been changed to Stan Is A Hack!, there were several upside down "You stink"s, Granny Sweetkins was in the process of writing "Stan is a butt, Granny Sweetkins says eat it Pines!", there were several balls of yarn laying around, and the inside was filled with corn.
Stan ran out. "Ah, come on!" he shouted. Before their very eyes, Upside-Down Town man flipped their gift shop sign upside-down, and the corn guy broke their RV headlight with a bat.
"That's what you get!" the corn guy said. "That's what you get!" He dropped the bat and ran away, snickering. All the other guys ran away, too.
Stan looked up at the scene in shock. "I don't understand. I completely don't deserve this."
"Oh, man, are we gonna have to help clean this up?" Dipper asked.
"Nah, I'm sure Soos will take care of it," Mabel answered. "Where is Soos, anyway?"
Sitting in a corn maze, obviously.
Just clarifying: obviously, Mabel and the girls did get the unicorn hair last chapter, Camo does know, I just didn't stick it in either of them, because dramatic timing last chapter and it just didn't make sense this chapter.