Cons and Pros
(June 20, 2018)
4-Fandom
The vast exhibit hall stretched so wide, long, and tall that the Mystery Shack would fit in it and, Dipper thought, hardly be noticed at that. Hm. Holding Wendy's hand, he thought to her—it was too private an idea to speak, and anyway, unless he yelled, she'd have no hope of hearing him over the hubbub. –Maybe next year we could get the publisher or the show to sponsor a Mystery Mansion exhibit, and Grunkle Stan and Soos could put it on. They'd probably make out like bandits.
Mention it to Stan, Wendy thought back. Just a sec.
She had her phone out, taking photos of the exhibitors, the displays, and the dense pack of attendees. The Werner Brothers display included ten-foot-tall cutouts of Fantabulous Beasties—the next big CGI movie up—and around it fans dressed as wizards, witches and warlocks mingled and pointed. Further down the row, the Cartoony Network seemed to be hosting some artists, who were signing posters of their creations. All around, fans in plain and fancy clothes alike, some barely wearing anything but paint, jostled with each other. Wendy took a final shot, and then she took his hand again as they started to venture into one broad, but jammed aisle. Want to show them what they'd be getting in for! Where's Mabes and Teek?
—You got me. She dragged him off through the crowd, and I lost sight-whoa, look at that!
They had almost passed a booth dedicated to—ta-dah! Ghost Harassers. And Jasyn and Grant sat there, passing out souvenirs and autographing eight-by-ten photos. Dipper and Wendy struggled through the press of people and got close enough for Grant to notice them. Recognition dawned in his eyes, and he called out, "Dexter! Gwendolyn! Come over here! Back behind the table!"
They managed it, and with one arm around Dipper's shoulders and the other around Wendy's waist as Jasyn shot a photo, Grant called out, "Guys! Look who's here!" Dipper held up his name badge—hung around his neck on a lanyard—and Grant noticed it. Smoothly, he said, "Two of our guest stars on The New Ghost Harassers, Stan and Gwendy! Remember the ghost in the closet? These are the ones who tipped us to it!"
With oohs and ahhs, the people just leaving returned and more stopped to stare, and before he knew it, Dipper was signing New Ghost Harassers posters and Jasyn was loading him up with a keychain styled like a Ghost Harassers Spirit Detector (totally as effective as the real thing—that is, not at all), half a dozen pens with the GH logo, and other mementos. To keep appearances up, he signed "Stan Mason," though the first time he almost slipped up. Fortunately, he noticed the fan's name was Douglas, so he altered the Di he had started to write to scribble, "Douglas—from Stan Mason."
Wendy, he noticed, was signing "Wendy Corduroy," which was fine with him. About the fifteenth time he signed, his phone rang—though he could tell only because he felt it vibrating—and he pulled it out. "Excuse me," he said. "Gotta take this." He stepped back and turned away from the noisy crowd.
By plugging one ear with a finger, he could barely hear Mabel: "Broseph! Get your dippy butt here stat! Emergency!"
"What?" he almost yelled. "What's going on?"
"I'm being denied my birthright as a Mason! Quick, come here!"
"Where's here?"
"Doy! Where I am! Look around and find me."
"Mabel, that's impossible—this place is so huge and crowded, and there are so many exhibits—"
"Climb up and put your knees on Wendy's shoulders! It's not like you haven't done that before, just do it rightside up! What? Wait, Dip, Teek's yelling something in my ear. Ok. OK. Dipper! We're at the Granite Rapids booth! Look around—it's in the Ditzney group. Look for the big blow-up balloon of Larry Lemming! We're under that! And come quick, my life depends on it!"
Dipper grabbed Wendy's elbow and urged her to stand up. When fans made disappointed noises, he bawled out, "Sorry, we have to be somewhere right now. I'll be autographing tomorrow in, uh, the autograph room! Check your schedules—Stan Mason!"
A girl squealed.
Dipper and Wendy hustled out into the aisles and the squealer tackled him, almost bringing him to the floor. "You're him, you're him, you're really him! Eeee!"
"Uh—yeah, Stan Mason," he managed so say .
"OMG, OMG, OMAG! Hi, I'm Twinkle!" She was scrawny and gangly and maybe fourteen, and in a plush outfit and face paint, she was dressed in a mascot-like costume as a humanoid, um, pink horse or something. "We gotta find Maisy!" she screeched. "Oh my actual God, she's gonna be—I can't breathe—your books—we—"
"I'll be glad to meet her tomorrow," Dipper said. "There's a Granite Rapids panel and I'm on it. Come to that. It's on the schedule. I'll talk to you both right after it!"
"We'll be there! We have all your books!"
"Great, great," Dipper said. Luckily at that moment a parade of stormtroopers marched through, and Wendy managed to drag him to the other side of the flow.
"This way, while the getting's good!" she shouted. Then she took his hand. Where are we going, man?
—Mabel's having a fit. She's at the Granite Rapids booth somewhere—she says it's near the big balloon of Larry Lemming.
Hang on, I think I saw that—over there! Across the room, past the dinosaur balloons—the big brown thing—that it?
-That's it. If we can get to it!
They wound like a drunken snake through the throng, working their way toward the cheerful face of the Ditzney Company's first big star, the loveable Larry Lemming, who debuted at about the same time as sound in movies and who in the old black-and-white theatrical short cartoons of the 1930s had been a raucous, trouble-making prankster with a squeaky-voiced catch phrase that caught on: "Ha-ha! Hi, kids! Follow me!"
They always followed him into disaster, but the toons were funny. More recently Larry had become more of a corporate logo than a cartoon star, but he had longevity—you had to give him that.
Dude, I see the booth. And Mabel's jumping up and down. See her head popping up above the crowd?
He could hardly miss her. Surging up like a pitch-poling whale, waving both arms frantically, she appeared and then sank out of sight again about once ever second and a half.
—I see her now. Man, the crush around there's unbelievable!
They almost reached Mabel, but she saw them first, shoved attendees right and left to force her way to Dipper and Wendy, grabbed them, and yelled, "Crawl under the table and tell these people who you are! And then vouch for me!"
Teek, looking rumpled and with his glasses hanging low on his nose, shrugged ruefully.
Mabel ducked under the table, dragging Dipper.
Someone inside the booth yelled, "Hey, hey, no! Rich, call Security—"
"Belay that call!" bellowed Mabel. "That's a funny word. Look, smarty-pants guys, this is my brother Stan Mason, author of the books! Look, see, he's got a badge and everything! Show them your driver's license, Dip!"
The guy, more frazzled than Teek, even, was thin and tall, a basketball player's build, and he wore—Dipper blinked—a Granite Rapids tour jacket, shiny black satin with full-color images of the cartoon figures of Tripper and Alexia Palms, back to back and grinning. The flustered fellow's name badge identified him as Drake Seitz, PROFESSIONAL/DITZNEY HD. He had a bristly mop of coppery hair—not as red as Wendy's, but coppery—and a long nose. He stared at Dipper in shock. "Stan Mason? For real?"
"Yeah," Dipper confessed.
"Oh my gosh—back here—" Seitz opened a slit in the rippled maroon curtain at the back of the booth.
"My wife's over on the other side of the table—"
"Her, too, and your sister and her husband!"
It hardly seemed the time for explanations, so they all hustled into an odd little space—bulwarks of cardboard cartons had made a small room, six feet wide and fifteen long, behind the exhibit space. The guy held out his hand and said, "I'm D.D." He yelled, "Hey, Rich, snag Mari and get her to help you hold down things! We got Stan Mason here!"
"You're kidding!"
Grinning and shaking hands, D.D. called back, "Nope! Give Mari a yell!"
"You got it!"
Dipper felt Wendy clasp his free hand. I think you're a star, my Big Dipper!
"Whoosh!" D.D.'s face was red and gleaming. He swept a palm across his hair, managing to make it stand a little straighter. "Sorry, it's a madhouse. Your sister was telling us you were here, but we weren't sure, we hadn't had word—"
"Hi," Mabel said, raising her hand for a high five. "Up top! Mavis Mason, glad to meet you, Drake. Why is it D.D?"
"Uh—because my middle name is David?" It sounded as if he was unsure himself.
"Sure, it can be," Mabel said graciously. "Now, D.D, my man, we gotta talk merch. Dipper, they've got a plush Waffles!"
"Waffles?" Dipper asked.
"Dipper?" D.D. asked.
"My nickname," Dipper explained. With a sigh he pushed his hair off his forehead. "See?"
"Dig it," Wendy said. "The Big Dipper."
"Oh!" D.D. said. "Like in the books, Tripper because Tripper has a birthmark—wait, that's not in any of the episodes so far! How do I know that?"
"Going to be in Book Seven, Copy This," Dipper said. "You might have read about it. We sent the company really detailed outlines of the upcoming books."
"Gotcha. Well, yeah, we knew about Waffles the Pig—next summer's book, right?"
"Right," Dipper said. "Piglet Out of Time."
"So, anyhow, yeah, we've got some plush animals, but we're not supposed to sell them—they're gonna be like prizes during the showing. But yeah, of course Mavis can have one. Just a sec."
He went through a split in the fabric curtain then returned with a football-sized pink-and-pinker plush piglet. "Come to Mama!" Mabel squealed. D.D. handed the toy over, and Mabel hugged it. "This so takes me back! Look, Brobro, just like Waddles! Even the circle around the eye! I'm gonna love it forever!"
"There's lots more merchandise here and in the pipeline," D.D. said. "You want a Tripper trucker's hat, with the pine tree?"
"Me?" Dipper asked. "Uh—I-yeah, sure, that'd be great."
"And you must be the real-life Willow," D.D. said to Wendy. "We've got a trapper's hat, we'll get one for you—"
"A fez for my guy!" Mabel said, urging Teek forward.
"Uh, that's not nec—" Teek began.
Mabel elbowed him. "I say it IS ness! I'll tell you what's ness! And a fez is definitely one of the nesses!"
They lingered for awhile. Everyone working the booth had to come back and meet them, and in the end they left—it was getting on toward dinner time—with each of them lugging a spacious fabric tote bag, with different characters on them—Wendy had a Willow, Dipper and Mabel had Tripper and Mavis—two different poses—and Teek had Grandy Manny and Moose the Handyman. And each bag had a splendid illustration of the Mystery Mansion.
"Man," D.D. said as they left, "I'm so sorry Alan isn't here. He's setting up the big show and the panels, though. You'll meet him tomorrow—Alan Kirsch, the showrunner and the director of the first six episodes. He's a cool guy, you'll like him. Hey, if you have time, here's my card with my number, call me tomorrow morning just before nine and we'll set up a couple hours when you can be here in the booth, OK?"
"OK," Dipper said. "Thanks, man, this is great."
"Gonna make you a lot of money, I hope," D.D. said with a grin. "You get two per cent every time any of our merchandise sells—starting after the convention!"
Wendy, fortunately, had always maintained her coolness in the face of chaos. She shepherded them all out of the exhibit hall, out of the Convention Center, and back to the hotel. Mabel was Mababbling: "I didn't know about the merch! Did you know about the merch? The Shack can be an outlet for the merch! I love Waffles! Did you see the tee shirts I scored? I wanna get married in one, Teek!"
Teek, walking at her side looking dazed in a replica of Grandy Manny's cranberry-colored fez, nodded, though Dipper didn't know if he was taking in all that came tumbling from Mabel's mouth.
Just outside the lobby, Dipper said, "Mabel. Mabel. Mabel." Finally he clapped his hand over her mouth. She kept talking for about three sentences but then realized she was making no audible sounds and got quiet. "Mabel. I'm glad you're so excited, but we're about to meet my editor, and I don't want you to, uh, overpower her, OK?"
"Uh 'ay," Mabel said in a muffled voice. Dipper took his hand away. "We gotta stash the loot in our rooms. Dipper, can I bring Waffles with me to dinner? Please?"
Dipper glanced at Teek, who shrugged.
"Sure," he said. "But let's leave everything else in the rooms. I'm not gonna wear the hat—"
"But it's just like yours!"
Dipper moved his hand beck toward her mouth, and Mabel shushed. "Let me finish. I'm not wearing it to dinner, but tomorrow when the panels start, I'll wear it. And maybe one of the tee shirts."
"I'll rock my ushanka," Wendy said with a broad smile.
"All the teen guys will fall in love with you," Teek said—surprisingly, because he was always a bit shy about stuff like that.
"At their own risk," Wendy said. "Hey, I gotta give my husband some reason to be jealous. Tomorrow he's gonna be assaulted by—what were their names, Dipper? Twinkie and Minnie?"
"Something like that," Dipper said. "I don't remember."
"That's the correct attitude," his wife said with her old mischievous grin. "Come on, we have ten minutes to dump the bags and get back to the lobby to meet people. I hope the restaurant's close. I'm starved."
"Oh, girl," Mabel said as they headed inside, "have some self-control!"
To be continued