Who Wants to Get Badgered?
(May 31-June 1, 2012)
6-Departures, Arrivals
(On the Road)
Dipper settled in beside the bus window, on the driver's side, near the back. Mabel preferred an aisle seat because she tended to suffer from (actually, to enjoy) car-sickness. Speedy Beaver had an Oakland terminal, though in Piedmont there was just a bench under a three-sided weather enclosure. Mom and Dad had driven them into Oakland to catch the bus.
Mr. and Mrs. Pines stood on the sidewalk. Mabel waved at them with the enthusiasm of a semaphore operator. Dipper gave them a less enthusiastic wave. The seats ahead of them filled up, or at least filled as much as they were going to—it was about a three-quarters-full bus load. The bus driver settled in and announced over a PA, "Folks, we're due to depart in two minutes. Our next stop will be Redding, California. There are two restrooms in the back, ladies' on the driver's side, across from it the men's. Our ETA for Eugene, Oregon is six A.M. tomorrow, so make yourselves comfortable and try to sleep. Should be pretty smooth run, traffic is light."
The terminal PA overrode him: "Last call for Speedy Beaver service to North California and Oregon, Bus 618, departing from Bay 10. Last call."
Thirty seconds later, the dispatcher called the driver and said something crackly and impossible to understand, the driver cheerfully called out, "All aboard," closed the door, and headed out.
"Dinner time!" Mabel announced, opening the package of sandwiches and fruit.
"Why not wait until you're hungry?" Dipper asked. They'd had a big lunch, and Dipper was a little worried about Mabel's touchy tummy.
"Never let hunger sneak up on you, Brobro!" Mabel said. "Mm, PB and H!"
"You can have both of those," Dipper said. He didn't mind peanut butter and jelly, but honey made it a little too sticky and cloying for him.
Mabel rummaged a little more.
"Here you are, you little crinkly sack of excruciating deliciousness!" she said, pulling out a bag of red-hot spicy Cheesy Pufferinos. She also retrieved a box of apple juice.
They rolled along with Mabel munching and Dipper reading—he'd picked out a nonfiction book from the reading list, Video Games: The Tech, the History, the Future, partly because his dad was in computer tech and development, and Dipper knew he could ask him if there was anything that he needed explained.
An hour passed by. Mabel burped from time to time, but seemed to have passed the carsick crisis point, though she continually dug out some other food item and nibbled—a banana, a chocolate-chip cookie, another apple juice. Dipper soon realized that at the rate she was going, they'd probably have a skimpy breakfast the next morning. He closed his book and had his own dinner, a chicken-salad sandwich (not his favorite) from which he removed the tomato slices, which he did not like. Mabel ate them. He also had an apple and a small bottle of water.
For a while after that, Mabel sketched in a drawing pad. She drew the Speedy Beaver bus, with herself and Dipper waving from adjoining windows. She got out of her seat and visited the restroom three times. "What's wrong?" Dipper asked, afraid that she might be nauseated.
"Had some food stuck in a tricky spot of my braces," she told him. "I cleared it out that last time."
Well, she hadn't thrown up, and that was something.
Up around the mountainous stretch of I-5 that cut through the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, full night caught up with them and Dipper improvised a pillow from the jacket that Mom had insisted he take. Mabel leaned on his shoulder, drooling a little, and they both fell asleep and slept surprisingly well, not waking even for the last bus stop before Oregon, in the town of Weed.
Then the bus pulled out, heading north, to Eugene and after a half-hour layover there, the exact same bus would turn into Speedy Beaver 223, bound for Bend, Gravity Falls, and a few other places before heading for its final stop in Seattle, Washington.
Dipper slept on, dreaming of playing a video game that he was not very good at, until the character he was playing, Atomic the Porcupine, finally stared coldly at him and said, "You stink at this. Let your sister play!"
Muttering, Dipper squirmed a little and then fell back to sleep.
(Gnome Man's Land, Gravity Falls, Oregon)
Granny Gypsum, a hekse'vin, counseled Jeff. Any other Gnome would have gone to his or her grandmother, but Jeff's grandmothers, as far as he knew, were somewhere underground, perhaps alive, perhaps not, but either way, they would have no wish to speak to him or any of the other traitors in the family who had moved to the trees and become Civilized. Jeff therefore traveled to the ancient, incredibly gnarled hollow—but still living—tree where Granny Gypsum (no relation, everyone called her "Granny") had lived for longer than most surface Gnomes remembered.
A hekse'vin was more or less a Gnome witch, sorceress, wise woman, healer, what have you. She was reclusive and Gnomes rarely saw her out and about. Almost at dawn on the day of the Queen's death, Jeff huddled close to the low red fire in Granny's fireplace and, haltingly, in gasps and bursts of words, he told her what had happened.
"Ai, ai," Granny moaned. "I grew up with Klemmy. She was a good Queen. You will lead the mourning." That was not a question.
"I've never done that before," Jeff confessed. "Queen Klemmatha told me I would have to perform the rite of passing, but—I'm afraid I'll make mistakes."
"Of course you will make mistakes," Granny Gypsum said, not unkindly. "We expect that when a Gnome is shocked and sad. Mistakes do not matter. You will be forgiven. The rite should be done—"
"As the sun comes up tomorrow," Jeff said. "I know."
"Are the women attending to her dress?"
Jeff nodded. "My mother is leading them."
Gnomes interred their dead, making sure that the graves were like little burrows. The cleaned and clothed body was always sewn into a shroud, a head-to-toe form-fitting bag, preferably of linen, but in these days when Gnomes shopped at the human dump for fabrics and clothing, polyester would do at a pinch. Queen Klemmatha had kept a folded bolt of linen for this day, and from that six of her women subjects, with many tears, were creating her shroud.
"That is good, that is good," Granny murmured. "And now—Klemmatha was the last of her family, so—"
"She made me promise to choose the next Queen myself," Jeff said. "I hope that you—um—"
"No," Klemmatha said firmly. "I was not born to be Queen, and anyway I know that Klemmy didn't want the next Queen to be a Gnome. You must choose from outside the People." She leaned over to pat his hand. "I don't envy you."
Jeff shook his head. "I don't know how to find a Queen. I just—I don't know how!"
"You have been Queen's advisor for a good time now," Granny said. She changed from Gnomish into English and suddenly sounded different: "I reckon she taught you summat about that, no? You has helpers, no?"
Jeff stuck to Gnomish: "I have my friends. I've gone to them before with problems, and they've been helpful. Jason and Carson. Steve. Shmebulock, Junior."
"Ye understands him, do ye?"
Jeff nodded. "It's hard because he has only the one word. But I taught him how to write Gnomish in the human letters, so he can communicate, and I'm learning to interpret what he means from his tone and the way he carries his head and gestures with his hands. I know everyone thinks he's weak in the head, but—no, he's smart. I think he gives the calmest advice."
"Good, good." She slipped back into Gnomish: "Call them together. Gnomes have to have orders. You know how we are. Someone has to make decisions and tell us to carry them out. For a time, you'll have that responsibility. At least until the turning of the seasons."
"What if I can't find a Queen?" Jeff asked. "What if all the Civilized Gnomes turn against me? They could all go Feral, or even become burrowers again, and I couldn't do a thing to stop them."
"Give them orders confidently," Granny advised. "They'll hear and obey. Eventually you must name a Queen. I will stir myself to advise all the Gnomes to follow your lead. You can do this."
"I'll need a lot of help."
"You will have it, Jeff." Granny, with many a grunt, took hold of her cane and pushed herself up to her feet. "Now," she said, turning toward the niche that was her kitchen, "about the funeral jam."
(Gravity Falls, Oregon)
Dipper had been right. At breakfast time their food bag held only wrappers and empty boxes. At the bus terminal in Eugene, he had to go inside and get breakfast for him and for Mabel from vending machines: corn chips, granola bars, two half-pints of milk. When Mabel had now and then wakened from sleep on the bus, she always ate another sandwich or snack, and the last morsel had vanished somewhere around the Oregon state line.
"How much longer?" she asked, munching a fruit-and-nut bar. She had left the bus, too, to walk around and stretch her legs.
They sat on a bench where they could see their bus, so they wouldn't miss it, and drank their milk and ate their improvised breakfast. "We're supposed to be there around noon," Dipper said. "I think there are only two buses a day for Gravity Falls. One at noon, one at six p.m. The first one's heading north, the later one's going south."
Mabel sniffed. "No offense, Dipper, but you definitely need to hit that shower as soon as we get to Grunkle Stanford's house."
"Yeah, I feel sort of greasy and sweaty."
"Why don't you go into the guy's room over there and do what you can?" Mabel asked, nodding. "I'll pound on the door if the bus starts to board."
Dipper did. He washed his face in cold water, then crumpled up some paper towels, wet them and touched them with a little dribble of hand soap, and sort of swabbed his armpits, following up with more towels wet with plain water, and then dried as much as he could. He rejoined Mabel. "Any better?"
She leaned close and inhaled. "Some, but your clothes have kind of picked the stinky-stink up. You need a real shower."
"OK, OK," he said. "Come on, that's our driver."
They got back aboard the bus, the driver announced they would head for Bend, and they were on their way, the last leg of the journey.
It became a nice, clear day, and the drive through the mountains was scenic. They passed majestic woods, steep bare slopes, and now and then a waterfall. Bend turned out to be a small town. Gravity Falls proved to be even smaller, approached by a secondary road that led through a cleft in a high stone rampart. The opening had a strange shape, overhanging cliffs high up, chiseled out almost as though a gigantic buzz-saw had long ago gone through horizontally.
And there was a little bus stop, like the one in Piedmont. "Gravity Falls," the driver announced. "Five-minute stop."
They gathered up backpacks, blanket rolls, suitcase, and massive duffel bag, and lugged them down the aisle. As they neared the door, Mabel told the driver, "You did a good job, sweetie! When are you off work?"
He chuckled. "Not until I get to The Dalles. That's where my wife and I live. Another driver takes over there, and I get thirty-six hours off."
"Aw, you're married. Well, thanks for the ride!"
"Thank you," he said, pretty obviously struggling not to laugh.
They stepped down to the pavement and took their stuff over to the bus stop, where no one waited on the bench. The bus chugged to life and departed with a cloud of diesel smoke lingering.
Then somebody called, "Pines kids, right?"
They turned around and saw a broad-shouldered, tall guy with a lumpy red nose, gray hair, and black-rimmed glasses. He wore a black suit with a red string tie and one of those Egyptian-type hats, a fez, that nearly matched the tie. "Hi, I'm your great-uncle—"
"Grunkle Stan!" Mabel yelled, dropping everything. She hurled herself on him and clung to his chest as she hugged him. He looked a bit startled, as a shark might if he met an affectionate remora. "We've missed you so much! The last time we saw you we were two! Dipper needs a shower!"
Stan peeled her loose. "Your ride's right over there—that's my convertible, the red and white El Diablo. Grab your stuff, and I'll open the trunk. We'll be at the Mystery Shack in ten minutes."
"The, uh, the Mystery Shack?" Dipper asked.
"That's my house. It's a combination museum and gift shop. I've picked out a primo bedroom for you kids. You'll love it. Shake a leg!"
Dipper struggled to carry everything—his burdens and Mabel's both—over to the car.
As they rolled away, heading east, Mabel nudged Dipper. "Aw, look at the water tower!"
Dipper glanced out the backseat window. "A big muffin!" he said, chuckling.
Grunkle Stan drove through the woods, up a slope, and then off to the right, in its own clearing, loomed the rustic A-frame log structure with big yellow sign boards on the roof, reading MYSTERY SHACK in black and red.
"Ooh, I love it!" Mabel said. "Don't you love it, Dipper?"
Staring, Dipper didn't know exactly how he felt. This rustic, rather shabby place wasn't the kind of museum he had thought his great-uncle would operate.
After all, Stanford Pines was a PhD, a published writer, and a distinguished paranormal researcher.
Uh . . . wasn't he?
Dipper and Mabel arrived in Gravity Falls around noon. Six hours before that, Jeff began the thing he had most dreaded.
"Gnomes," he said, "now march in memory of our beloved Queen."
They marched six abreast, all thousand—for a Gnomish definition of "thousand"—of them, chanting a dirge. They had buried their Queen, and now the march led in a huge circle around the grave site. At the end of their procession, Jeff stood on a stump. "Fellow Gnomes," he said, "our Queen's spirit has left us and gone beyond the sunrise. We are here to wish her spirit well on its journey and to recall her wise and benevolent rule over her."
Gnomes all around sobbed and held each other.
Jeff swallowed hard. "Queen Klemmatha left me with orders, which first I pass on to you. All hear me."
"We hear," the Gnomes said in unison.
This was the most difficult part. "The badger that ate* our Queen—the badger is trapped, but lives."
"Kill it!" several Gnomes called.
"No, no, hear me," Jeff said. "Queen Klemmatha has ordered us to let the badger live. To—to try to—to tame it. Let us honor her order."
"We honor it," said the Gnomes, but the voices were a little out of sync with each other, the response a little ragged, and Jeff caught the tone of dissatisfaction. There's going to be trouble, he thought.
But for now—
"We will consecrate a great Gnome's memory with delicious jam," he said. But before that part of the ritual, he spoke at more length, an honest, plain, heartfelt speech commemorating Queen Klemmatha's kindness, her leadership, her loyalty—
There were a lot of tears.
Followed by a lot of grief jam.
*The Gnomish word that means "kill" can also mean "eat." Many Gnomes first believed that the badger had completely devoured the Queen, which was a physical impossibility.