Wanderers from the Weird Side

(August 17, 2017)

15: Making It Right

False Wendy tried to lunge between Stanford and Mabel to get to Dipper. Before Dipper could react, real Wendy pushed him back so hard that he fell on his butt—and stood in front of him, her axe poised, ready to risk it all by confronting her double.

"Wait!" Mabel put her arm around the false Wendy's waist and held on, though the construct's momentum staggered her.

But—and this is key—the two did not vanish in a flash of anti-energy. "Let me get to him!" begged the Wendy construct. "Please! I was made for him!"

The real Wendy didn't strike but held her axe straight out in front of her, ready to fend off her double. "Stop squirming!" Mabel yelled. "I'll make it right!"

Stanford fiddled with the energy device. "Maximum power!" he said. "Dip—uh, Dippy Fresh, go over there and just wait. You're very cooperative, I hear!"

"Okety doke!" Dippy Fresh tossed his skateboard in the air, did a cartwheel and wound up beside the head of the bed, and caught the spinning skateboard. He leaned with an elbow against the table and grinned. "Cool or what?"

Mabel manhandled the false Wendy back to the center of the room. "Stop it! You're strong, but I'm bigger than you! And you can't dissolve into roaches when the energy thingy is on full power, right, Grunkle Ford?"

"That's my hypothesis," Ford said.

The false Wendy and Mabel stood, both breathing hard, facing each other. "Listen!" Mabel said. "I have a couple of ideas, OK? I think I can do this and make everything all right. Give me a chance, and you can be happy!"

Wendy helped Dipper to his feet. "Sorry, man."

"You shouldn't have stood in front of me, though," Dipper told her. "She probably wouldn't have hurt me if she touched me, but you—"

"Reflex, dude," Wendy said. "You OK?"

"Yeah, fine. Love you, Wendy."

"Back at you, Dip."

Teek called, "Be careful, Mabel!"

"Thanks," Mabel said. "But it's OK. I don't know what I'm doing, but that's when it always goes right!"

"She's got a point," Dipper admitted.

"OK," Mabel said. "Here, hold both my hands and look in my eyes. How old are you?

"Fifteen," the false Wendy said.

Mabel glanced at Dippy Fresh. "Hey, Dippy, how old are you?"

"We're samey-same-same, Sis! We're twelve rockin' years old!"

"There's the problem," Mabel said. "OK, uh, Wendy 2.0, you just watch and let's see if I can do a little editing and tweaking here. If it works, I'll help you out, I promise. Deal?"

The construct bit her lip and nodded. One tear slipped down her freckled cheek.

Look at her eyes, Dipper. She can cry!

—She's more human than I thought.

I feel sorry for her, man.

—She scares the spit out of me!

What's Mabes saying? I can't hear her.

—I don't think Mabel wants anybody but good old Dippy to hear her.

What's going on? What's happening?

—I . . . don't know.

"Let's fix you up a little," Mabel whispered, smiling. She took the skateboard from Dippy Fresh's grasp and set it on Dipper's bed. Then she took off his purple shades and his cap and ruffled his hair up from his forehead. "I'm gonna start on this."

Dippy Fresh stood obediently still while Mabel held his hair off his forehead with her left hand while tracing his Big Dipper birthmark over and over with her right index finger.

Wendy, peering in past Stanford and the false Wendy, whispered to Dipper, "She's erasing his birthmark! It's fading out!"

—Maybe she wants to make sure the two of us can be told apart. But we look so different now!

Five years can do that, man!

"There we go," Mabel said, admiring Dippy's smooth, clear forehead. "Now then." She cradled his head between her hands. "Keep looking in my eyes. OK, we're gonna fix you up inside now. You're cheerful but not overboard about it. Sometimes you worry. But you're stubborn and you're smart, OK? And listen to me now. Wendy Corduroy is like your best friend. You admire her! Everything she likes to do is fun! All you really want to do is to play with her. Now listen . . . ."

Nearly half an hour passed. Mabel left the sunglasses and the skateboard on the bed, but she put the pine-tree hat back on Dippy's head—forward, not backward. When she turned away from him, he shyly waved at the false Wendy but didn't speak.

"Now let's take care of you," Mabel said. "Come take my hands again."

The two gazed into each other's eyes—Mabel, an inch or two taller, had to look down a bit. Suddenly, a panicked false Wendy tried desperately to jerk away. "I'm afraid! Stop!"

—She's not like you at all, Wendy!

Dunno. I'm pretty good at hiding my terror.

Mabel called over her shoulder, "Give me more power, Grunkle Ford!"

Ford tried to adjust the power knob. "I'm giving you all she's got!"

Tightening her grip on the false Wendy's hands, Mabel said firmly, but in a kind, loving voice, "Calm down. You're safe with me. Listen, Wendy, you can trust your—your mother! You do trust me, don't you?"

Breathing hard, the false Wendy whispered, "Y-yes."

"I'd never ever do anything to hurt you. Look in my eyes. All right, now tell me the truth: How old are you, Wendy?"

"Fifteen. But Dipper's only—"

"Think hard," Mabel said. "Think about high school and everything. Are you happy being fifteen?"

Closing her eyes, the false Wendy admitted, "N-no. I'd give anything if I could be twelve again!"

"Breathe easy," Mabel said in a soothing tone. "Good girl. Think of how you were at twelve."

She was never twelve!

—No—but you were her model, and you were! I'll bet she has your memories.

Mabel was murmuring, "Hang onto that. Hold on. Here we go. Just relax. This is going to feel wonderful. Regular breaths. Good girl. Here we go."

The real Wendy gasped. The false Wendy—shrank. Not all that much—just a few inches. And she also got a little skinnier, and her hair shortened until it was just past shoulder length.

"Oops," Mabel said. "Let's adjust those clothes now!"

The false Wendy's logging boots shrank down to ankle-boot size, her jeans tightened a little on her lankier frame, and her trademark flannel shirt transformed into a soft, thick pale-green tee shirt. Then she clapped her hands over her mouth and bleated a muffled "Oh no!"

"No braces!" Mabel said hastily. "Uh—they just came off, and your teeth are perfect!"

With a relieved gasp, the false Wendy smiled. Her grin wasn't as cocky and self-assured as usual, but rather shy.

"You're so adorable," Dipper whispered to his girl. "Uh—she is."

"Dorky, you mean!"

"But if you'd looked like that when Mabel and I first arrived—"

"Yeah, you'd have been too shy to talk to me for like a month!"

. . . "Yeah."

"Dude, you think this will work?"

"It might."

"OK," Mabel said. She crooked a finger at the reshaped Dippy, who came over—yep, shyly."

Mabel let go of the false Wendy's hand with her left hand and took Dippy's. "Here we go. Wendy, this is Dippy. He's gonna like you a lot. Dippy, this is Wendy. She's gonna be your BFF. But you two have to move to a special place, OK? It's just like Gravity Falls, but you'll have each other, and you won't get older or move away, and people will come and visit you and you can do anything fun! Dippy, I think you ought to go first. Now, when you get there, you'll feel a little lonely, but just wait around and you'll find a friend." She whispered something in his ear, he nodded, and then Ford had him step on the launch pad—and he vanished.

"Now you, Sweetie," Mabel said to the false Wendy. "When you get there, you'll be really, truly real. And—" again she whispered in the construct's ear. "Go on and make Mommy proud."

Impulsively, the Wendy construct kissed Mabel's cheek.

Mabel held her hand as she stepped on the pad, then let go and stepped back. "I love you!" she said.

The false Wendy was smiling as she faded from view.

Ford immediately switched off the energy accumulator and shook his hand. "Hot!" he observed. "We pushed it to the limit."

Dipper asked Mabel, "What did you tell them both at the end?"

Mabel looked sad. "I told them to forget about each other until they meet again, and about Mabel Land and the real world. And once they do meet in the Dreamscape, they're going to be happy forever."

"Aw, Mabes!" Wendy said, hugging her. "You really are a straight-up saint!"

Ford put his big hand on Mabel's shoulder. "Mabel, you are truly an excellent young woman. But those—they really weren't your children, you know."

With a sad smile, Mabel said, "You're wrong this time, Grunkle Ford. They really were. They were my brain children."

Well.

Sometimes adventures don't end in life-or death battles, or in Armageddon experienced or averted. Sometimes . . .

Sometimes they end with a twelve-year-old guy grunting in frustration as he slips back off a tree trunk.

And with a twelve-year-old girl, unseen, behind him, laughing and saying, 'Hey kid! What are you doing?"

And the boy turns around. "Oh. Uh. Hi." He pointed upward. "There's a bird nest up there, and I just wanted to get up and look into it."

"Don't you know how to climb a tree?"

The boy shakes his head. "I guess I never learned."

"Come on, dude. I'll show you."

"You can climb a tree? Cool!"

"I kinda rule at stuff like that! My name's Wendy. What's yours?"

"I'm—" the boy breaks off, wrinkling his forehead as if for a moment he isn't quite sure. Then he grins. "I'm Dippy!"

"I like it! OK, Dippy, see that branch right there? That's our first objective, man. Here, I'll boost you up so you can get a grip on it. You pull yourself up and I'll be right behind you!"

She makes a stirrup with her hands, he gingerly steps on it, and she gives him just enough boost for him to grab the limb. Gasping and struggling, he hauls himself up and manages with a lot of grunting to straddle the branch. Laughing, she scrambles up, nudges him over, and sits beside him. "You waste a lot of effort, man! I gotta teach you to climb without all that kicking."

"I live in there," Dippy says, pointing at the nearby Mystery Shack.

"Cool! Can I come and visit?"

"Yeah! I'd like that a lot! Uh—is this an old nest?"

Wendy cranes to examine his find. "Yeah, dude. It's like last year's. You want to take it for a souvenir? The birds won't use it again."

Let's leave them there, perched cheerfully on a limb, two new friends in an enchanted world, kids forever, doing kid things—saving a bird nest, exploring discoveries that every single time seem fresh and new, laughing with each other, running and climbing, exploring, swimming, and lazing, always enjoying each other's company, and occasionally getting a dream visit from a sleeping Mabel, who always greets them fondly and—good mother that she is—lets them live their own happy lives.

The End