Who Wants to Get Badgered?
(June 1, 2012)
7-Mabel's First Day
Stan escorted them into the Shack, led them up the stairs to the attic without bothering to carry any of their luggage himself, opened the bedroom door, and said, "This is your deluxe room for the summer. Bathroom's there, each one pick out a bed, be downstairs in fifteen minutes for a quick lunch."
They unpacked as fast as they could. Mabel put up some posters she had brought and happily displayed a handful of splinters, which she thought was great. Dipper discovered a goat on his bed, which with difficulty he shooed out, but not before Mabel befriended it and let it chew her sweater sleeve.
When they got downstairs, first a big guy in a cap and a question-mark tee shirt drove in with a bag of fast-food hamburgers and fries. Stan introduced him: "Kids, this is Soos, the handyman. Eat up. Oh, Soos, get 'em a couple sodas from the fridge. Kids, when you finish, come in here and I'll show you the drill."
"Hi, Soos!" Mabel said, waving. "That's an interesting name, Soos!"
"Thank you!" Soos said. "Mr. Pines told me to pick up four burgers for you two to share and to get two for myself. So there are, like, six in the bag, and they all have lettuce and tomato and, um, onion, and pickle slices, but I told 'em to pack the decorations separate so you can put on what you want. There's mayo and like ketchup and mustard in those little packets, only I didn't get cheeseburgers 'cause Mr. Pines said you might be lactose intolerant. But we got cheddar cheese in the fridge if you want."
"You're the greatest," Mabel said. "Dipper, isn't he the greatest? Oh, I'm sorry, introductions! We're the Pines twins. I'm Mabel and this is my brother Dipper. Say hello, Dipper!"
"Hello," Dipper said, unpacking the wrapped burgers and a separate package of assorted toppings.
"Maple and Dipper," Soos said. Mabel looked a little puzzled, and Soos quickly added, "I'll call you 'Hambone!' It's like a nickname for a smart, cute girl. Let me get those sodas."
He visited the fridge and returned with three frosty cans, which he set on the table. Soos also took two large cartons of fries from the fast-food bag. "I figured we could just share these," he said. "If that's OK."
"Sure, it is!" Mabel said. They popped the tops of their soda cans, and Mabel said, "Wait, wait, wait! A toast! Here's to an epic summer!"
They touched rims and then began to eat. Mabel did a double-take after one sip of the soda. "Pitt Cola," she read. "It tastes like if cola married peaches and they had a baby! Mabel . . . likes!"
"Cola and peach baby! Clever!" Soos said, taking such a big bite that he made half of one burger vanish. "Uh, I'm the handyman, so if there's anything, like, wrong with the lights or the pipes or if something breaks or some deal, just tell me and I'll be on it like a flash. Like a flash, dawgs!"
"Thanks," Dipper said, chewing. "These are pretty good burgers."
"Yeah, they're from Yumberjack's, downtown," Soos said. "That's good for burgers, and there's Los Hermanos Brothers for Mexican, and the pizza place downtown is good, and there's Greasy's Diner—" he chuckled. "Too many to name! On our day off, if you want, I'll like give you the tour of the greater downtown area!"
They finished eating and Soos led them into what turned out to be a gift shop. "There you are!" Stan said. For some reason he had donned an eyepatch. "OK, grab this bottle of spray cleaner. Kid, there's the cloth. Take it and you clean all the glass in here—eyeball jar, display cases, everything. Mabel, sweetie, you take this big push broom and give the floor in this room and in that one through there a good sweep, OK?"
Mabel saluted. "Aye aye, Mon Capitan!"
To be honest, some of the exhibits gave Dipper the creeps. But he obediently went through the shop spritzing and wiping down everything that looked like glass, including the window in the door (he had to stand on a chair) and the one behind the counter (he moved the chair over). Before he had finished, Mabel was back. "Man, we gotta get Mom one of those push brooms! It makes sweeping go fast! Ooh, look, a great big eyeball!" She started to poke it.
Stan slapped her hand away, not viciously. "Don't touch the merchandise! He turned toward the door that led to the museum. "Step right this way! Now, folks, this is the souvenir shop where you can buy a keepsake to remind you of this visit. Only be careful not to buy anything—" he wriggled his fingers—"cursed!"
"Whoa!" Mabel said, nudging Dipper as the tourists shuffled in. "There's a cute guy. I gotta make his acquaintance!" She ducked behind the counter, looked on the shelves, and found a ruled legal pad. Giggling, she wrote something on it:
DO YOU LIKE ME?
[ ] YES
[ ] DEFINITELY
[ ] ABSOLUTELY!
Then Mabel folded and put the rigged questionnaire where the browsing tourist boy would find it. She crouched behind a group of Grunkle Stan bobble-heads and stared through them as the kid found the note, unfolded it, and read it in a baffled voice.
Dipper suggested to Mabel that maybe she was pushing her boy-crazy phase a little too far, but she pooh-poohed that idea and patiently explained she planned to have an epic summer romance.
While they were talking, a tall, lanky teen girl wearing boots, jeans, and a green flannel shirt came in and called out, "Back from lunch, Stan!" She settled herself behind the cash register. "Anybody ready to check out?"
Dipper stared at her gorgeous long red hair, her green eyes, even her spatter of freckles, as he sprayed a jar full of probably fake (he hoped) eyeballs until he emptied his spray bottle.
The tourists bought some stuff, paid for it, got their receipts, and left. Stan came in from somewhere with a bunch of directional arrows under one arm. "OK, kids, good job. Dipper, there's a puddle on the floor. Wipe it up. Since you had a long bus ride, for this day only you guys can take off if you want after one last chore. Oh, Wendy, these are my grand-niece and grand-nephew. The girl is the niece. This is Wendy, and she's the cashier."
Wendy, who had tilted back her chair and taken out her phone, didn't look up from the screen. "'Sup?"
Mabel waved. "Hi! I love flannel!"
Dipper said, "I'm Dipper," but he had lost his voice somehow, and no words came out.
Stan said, "All right, all right, look alive, people. I need someone to go hammer up these signs in the spooky part of the forest."
Wendy and Soos quickly opted out, and wouldn't you know it, Dipper got the assignment. Feeling put-upon, he took the signs, a box of tacks, and a small hammer and went out to hang the arrows. "Make sure they're pointin' toward the joint," Stan advised.
Mabel said, "I'm gonna look around the grounds!"
They went in two different directions. Dipper was to discover a metal tree—as if that made sense—and then, hidden in a compartment buried in the ground, a book that would change his life.
And Mabel went for an hour-long stroll. She saw a church with a really interesting looking graveyard adjoining it—tombstones of different shapes and degrees of erosion.
That looked intriguing to her, so she looked for the shortest way to get there.
She did not realize she was being watched.
Let's rewind.
Jeff, the memory of that morning's celebration of the Queen's life and an expression of grief for her passing, hung over him like a cloud, had begun by lowering a pail of water down to the trapped badger. She leaped and snarled at him. He sat down beside the open mouth of the trap and said quietly, "Part of me wants to kill you. But My Queen said to try to tame you. I'll try for one week. I know you can't understand, but I'll bring food every day, and when you don't act like you're going to attack, I'll let you have it. Here's a fish."
He dangled the fish, but though she saw and smelled it, the badger growled and threatened.
"Thought so," Jeff said. "No food for you today. I'll try again tomorrow morning."
He gave the fish to a wild goose. Behind him he could hear the badger drinking from the pail. "Stay away from that hole in the ground," Jeff warned the goose.
Then with gloomy, miserable feelings bubbling inside him, Jeff just wandered, not caring where he was heading, until around noon he happened to be in the brush near the Mystery Shack when Grunkle Stan drove in and the kids spilled out of his car and followed him inside.
Even when they had been burrow dwellers, the Gnomes venerated some symbols that could only be seen when they ventured to the surface.
One was a star.
Another was a rainbow.
And the girl, who didn't carry anything to obscure her sweater, wore a garment with both a star and a rainbow on the chest.
For a Gnome, a star symbolized royalty. A rainbow represented a passage—from one place to another, from the past to . . . the future.
Jeff felt as though a thunderclap had exploded in his mind. It's a sign!
Jeff Blinked twice—close to his limit, because even young, strong Gnomes could not normally Blink more than three times in a row without collapsing and having to rest—and emerged on the edge of Gnome Man's Land. "Hey!" he called. "Jason! Carson! Shmebulock! Anybody?"
Steve and Shmebulock responded, and within a couple of minutes the others showed up, too. Jeff addressed all four: "I want to meet a candidate for Queen," Jeff said quickly. "Where are those human clothes that the supply team took from the dump?"
They led Jeff to the hollow log where the clothes were rolled up into neat cylinders. They found a black hoodie and Jeff said, "Perfect! Now we need some sticks—"
"Shmebulock," Shmebulock said, though his tone and posture made that mean "We have a couple of broomsticks."
"Brilliant!" Jeff said. "And do we have some human-sized gloves or—"
"Those hand shoes?" Jason asked. "I think we have a lot of them. My wife uses them to store beans."
Jeff rubbed his hands together. "Find a pair that look like human skin. Same color, I mean. Our skin is close, that will do—beans?"
Jason ducked his head, the Gnome equivalent of a shrug. "She says one glove holds just enough for a family meal. Four fingers for the kids, thumb for the baby, the palm for us and maybe some leftovers."
"Bring any that you can find that look sort of pinkish. And get a couple of the ladies to come, too, with their makeup brushes and pots. Who's the best Blinker?"
They jostled each other, and finally Carson said, "I can sometimes do five, but then I have to rest for many many minutes." That meant at least an hour, maybe two.
"OK," Jeff said. You stay with me. The others, hurry back home and get everything set up. Wait, can we do a five-Gnome assembly?"
"Don't see why not," Jason said.
"Let's try it. OK, the legs are gonna be Jason and Shmebulock. Stand together. Now Carson and Steve, one can be the right arm the other the left arm, doesn't matter. Get on their shoulders. Good. I'll be the head, only because I've learned a lot more human language than you guys have. Ready? Here I go."
He scrambled up to stand on the shoulders of Carson and Steve. "Now—we're one human-sized person, right? I'll signal with my feet, and you guys pass it down to our legs. Let's try to walk."
It looked grotesque, no doubt, but the five of them managed a lurching, teetering walk. "To that tall tree and back," Jeff ordered. They made it. Sort of.
"Disassemble," Jeff ordered. "How's that? Too much for anybody? Too hard?"
They all claimed they could keep it up indefinitely, but Shmebulock looked a little shaky. "OK," Jeff said. "I want everyone to take one spoonful—only one, no more—of the Jam of Strength. We'll all have to rest tonight, but the jam will get us through many many minutes of walking around assembled. Bring a pot of the jam for me and Carson to share, too. Go! Don't Blink, but hurry!"
The other two scurried off, and Jeff led Carson to the brush near the Shack, where they waited. They ducked down low when Dipper passed by, muttering to himself about having to go in the spooky woods. A moment later, Mabel came skipping out. "We'll follow her," Jeff told Carson. "Don't let her see us."
The two Gnomes had not even a pinch of their special fern-seed recipe—it allowed them to be invisible—but Gnomes are stealthy, and they found it easy to follow Mabel, who acted as if everything distracted her. She wandered along the roadside, heading toward town, until she saw the church and cut across country to visit it. By then at least an hour had passed since the five Gnomes had assembled. "Carson," Jeff said. "Blink home and bring the others to that place where the humans meet and where they bury their dead. It's a shursh. The woods behind the shursh would be a good place to meet me. Shursh. Shursh? Wait, that's almost right. Church, that's it. Hurry!"
Carson vanished. Jeff hurried ahead and paralleled Mabel. As Jeff had expected, Mabel paused in front of the church to look at it. Then she took out a device—a phone, Jeff knew—and took photos of the building. "Scrapbook!" she said as she snapped each one. Jeff had no idea what that meant.
He felt the change in the air that told him four Gnomes had just Blinked in, and he sensed they were in a copse of firs behind the church. He raced around.
"Who's got the jam?" he asked, pushing through the fir branches and getting some twigs stuck in his hair. Carson, breathing hard after his four Blinks, brought it out. Jeff produced a tiny spoon. "Each one gets one spoonful!" he said. Quick!"
They took their dose, and the jam worked sort of like spinach did in those old cartoons about Popeye. You almost expected to hear "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean" as background music.
Jeff took the pot. "Get into the coat. Where are the hands? Good job, those look real! Let me take a spoonful—oof!" Shmebulock had jostled his arm, and a splotch of jam landed on his cheek, but Jeff couldn't feel it. He impatiently scooped another spoonful and swallowed it. In a moment vitality surged through him. "That's the stuff!" He climbed up the forming imitation human, and then they struggled into the coat and pulled up the hood. The buttons were hardest. "Here we go," Jeff said. "I'll talk, you guys stay silent. Remember, we have to appear to be a normal man."
Mabel was reading tombstones and photographing the interesting ones when the stranger came reeling around the corner of the church. He caught her eye at once. He looked about fifteen, she thought, judging from his height.
He seemed a little unsteady, but she waved and said, "Hi!"
"Hello!" the stranger said, his voice deeper than she had expected. "Um. Hello. I already said that, shut up. Sorry. I'm doing the talking. So . . . are you lost, Miss?"
"No!" she said, laughing. "I just moved into the Mystery Shack. My great-uncle owns it! Hey, would you like to walk me back there?"
"Sure," the stranger said.
"I like hanging out in graveyards," Mabel said. "They're so gravy and yardy! I bet I'll be a goth one day!"
"O . . . K," the guy said, blinking.
"I like your black hoodie. So mysterious. I like that in a guy!"
After a moment, he replied, "I like your garment with the star and the rainbow."
"I made it myself!" Mabel said. "I know, you knit. I mean I knit, you know! Hey, the Shack is this way. Let's walk and talk. It's so great meeting you!"
Beginning to sweat—talking to humans was more stressful than he'd thought it would be—Jeff remembered an old Gnome saying and mentally translated it into human: "A happy star shines on the meeting of friends." He said that as the two of them left the churchyard.
Mabel gasped. "That is so deep! This way until we get to the road, then left. I have a good feeling about this!"
With her skipping and the Gnome assembly lurching along beside her, they headed for the Shack.