One More Spring

(April 2017)

5. Live! On Stage with the Ghost Harassers

Dipper didn't get airsick, but he began to fear he would be stage-sick. After their lunch, Dipper, Wendy, and Mabel went to hair and makeup. Jace slipped into a barber's chair, as did Dipper, Mabel, and Wendy, and three cosmeticians began to work on them. Dipper agreed not to wear the hat, they brushed his hair, and his operator asked, "How about this birthmark, dear? Cover it or not?"

"Could I just leave my hair over it?" Dipper asked.

"Mm. I guess so. I'll spray it, though, so it won't bounce around. That would be distracting."

Next to Dipper on his left, Mabel said, "Gimme the works! Make me look even more beautiful!"

On his right, Wendy said, "Just the basics for me, please."

They each got a light coat of foundation, the girls some lip and cheek color, and a light powdering ("It gets hot on stage"). A page came and took Teek.

"Where's he going?" Mabel called.

"Front row center, Ma'am," the page said.

"Teek, wave at me so I can spot you!"

"OK," Teek said in a relieved voice. He hadn't wanted to be on stage, anyway.

Craig Grantley, the bearded, heavier, and somewhat older member of the Ghost Harassers, came in and harassed Jasyn. Grantley was in costume—sort of a khaki explorer's get-up—with a small towel tucked in around the neckline. When Jasyn, newly made-up, got out of his chair and said, "I'll see you on stage, Wendy, Mabel, Dipper," Grantley slipped into the chair and the cosmetician spritzed his beard with something.

"Hi, Wendy," Grantley said. "So these are the grand-kids of the owner, huh?"

"Grand-niece and nephew!" Mabel chirped. "I'm Mabel, he's Dippingsauce. Better known as Dipper. And Stanley Pines is the guy you already interviewed."

"Yeah, I remember him well!" Grantley chuckled. "He's a trip! I think we'll have a good half-hour installment once the footage is edited down. Done, Mavis? Thanks, hon. I better go check out the stage one last time. Mike! Where's Mike!"

"Here," said a skinny guy holding a clipboard. He handed Grantley a bottle of water.

"Tell the kids about the set-up, OK?" Grantley said as he pulled the towel from his collar and tossed it into a hamper.

"Sure thing."

When they got out of their barber chairs, Mabel and Wendy looked a little strange, but the cosmetician said, "Don't worry, hon. The camera will see you differently from the way you look in the mirror right now. It'll be fine."

Mike waved and said, "Hey, I'm Mike. You can remember that 'cause I'm wearing the mike." In fact, he wore a headset. "OK, so here's the drill. The audience is waiting to come in now. Once they're seated, Elaine Petty—you probably saw her on some of the new epi—no, wait, the season doesn't start until June, sorry. She's been on a bunch of hair-product ads, you might remember her from there."

"What brand?" Mabel asked.

"Awesome Aromatics. Anyway, Elaine is the new assistant to the Ghost Harassers. She's real pretty and in the new version of the show for Webflix, she'll be, like, the communications director for the guys. You'll see a lot of her sprinkled throughout the episodes as she gives the guys radio messages about the dangers they face. Anyways, Elaine's gonna go out and warm up the audience and talk to them about how to react and no cell phones and so on. Then she'll take a few questions. After about half an hour, Jace and Craig will enter. They'll talk to the audience a little about the new series, and then they'll show some teaser footage from the show they shot in Oregon. Then they'll call you guys out and let you introduce yourselves. I've got a list of questions they'll ask, but they probably won't stick to the same order, so study the questions and just have fun and be prepared. If you mess up, don't worry. We're gonna shoot about three hours' worth, counting today and tomorrow, and we'll edit that down to ten, fifteen minutes."

Dipper started to read through the questions and wonder if he'd even be able to speak when they called on him. "Tell us your name." "Uh, uh, Dinner Pipps. I mean Pidder Nipes. Uh, I don't know!"

Wendy, though, seemed laid-back as usual as she glanced at the paper, and Mabel was asking stuff about ad-libs and whether she could sing a song from My Fair Lady ("No, copyright and all"). Dipper finally asked Mike where the restroom was, and Mike said, "Right over there, under the sign that says 'Restrooms.'"

When he got back, Mabel nudged him and said, "XYZ, Brobro! Ha! Made you look!"

Mike patiently explained that they'd record for about thirty minutes, take a fifteen-minute break, then do another thirty. He took them to the stage—the route lay over a wilderness of looping cables and behind some flats—and showed them the layout. The set was a little like a talk show—Jace and Craig would sit in director's chairs on a platform, a flat behind them giving a faux view of Hollywood through the windows, and a long sofa accommodated their guests. Plastic greenery decorated the set and concealed some of the trailing wires. A big screen just to the left of the backdrop flat currently showed the Ghost Harassers' logo, but would show video for the audience later. The director, Freddy, came over and met them and checked their appearance. "All right," he said. "When you enter, Wendy, you come in first and sit downstage on the sofa—"

"That means closest to the audience," Mabel said confidently. She waved. "Hi, Teek!"

The director looked mildly annoyed. "Then, uh, Dipper? Dipper. OK, Dipper, you'll come in second and sit next to Wendy, and Mabel, you sit upstage of your brother, OK? Wait for the assistant to give you your cues, then walk on briskly. Try it out."

They went and sat on the sofa, and the director yelled, "How's the composition, Avie?"

A voice from the darkness said, "Looks good, Clint. Can the guy in the middle sit a little farther back?"

"Yeah, don't block me!" Mabel said, elbowing her brother.

Dipper scooted back a little. "Is that OK?"

"Lots better. Just remember to keep your back against the cushion, sir, OK?"

Someone yelled, "House open in ten minutes!"

"Ten minutes, thank you," said the director. "OK, guys, there are two cameras on stage, two more from up in the booths. Remember not to look directly at the cameras. That's a big no-no. Now go off that way—"

"Stage left," Mabel said.

"Uh, yes, stage left. There's a waiting area there, restroom and bottled water available if you need either. You'll be miked over there and we'll ask you to say a few words to get sound levels. Don't talk or make a lot of noise after that, but don't worry, after that the mikes won't be live until you're onstage and seated. Lainie, mike them!"

They found their way over to a kind of three-sided booth with two rows of chairs, five to a row. A slim girl there in jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt said, "Hi, I'm Deena, let me put your microphones on for you."

She did so, quickly and expertly, clipping the mikes to their collars and threading the wires down through their clothes and to plastic boxes which she hung from their belts on their upstage sides, and then spoke into her own microphone: "Dolph, mike checks, mikes 4, 6, and 7. Wendy 4, Dipper 6, Mabel 7. Ready?" She said to Wendy, "Say a few words. Your name and home town will do."

"I'm Wendy Corduroy from Gravity Falls, Oregon," Wendy said.

"Great. Same drill, Dipper."

"I'm uh, I'm D-Dipper Pines. Uh. From Piedmont, California."

Someone, presumably Dolph, called, "Little louder."

Dipper swallowed. "I'm Dipper Pines and I'm from Piedmont, California."

"'That's the way!" said the voice from the dark.

Deena said, "Excellent. Mabel."

"Hi, you wonderful people. My name is Mabel Pines, and I love pigs and puppies and rainbows. You can call me Dream Girl! But I got a boyfriend, so you can look, but you can't touch!"

Dipper heard laughter offstage and Dolph the sound guy yelled, "Perfect! And I think I want to ask you out on a date!"

"Too late! My special guy's already in the audience!" Mabel said cheerfully.

"One minute to house."

Several people—including Mabel—said, "One minute, thank you."

Within another quarter of an hour, an excited audience had crammed into the theater. The kids could hear them murmuring and laughing. Then a voice like Dipper's in his story about his temporarily getting a professional voiceover artist's voice boomed, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the studio audience for a brand! New! Season! Of Ghost Harassers!"

From where he was sitting, Dipper couldn't see much, but the stage lights came on. The audience was cheering and applauding—either spontaneously because they were fans or perhaps because a big red APPLAUSE sign had lit up. The disembodied voice said, "Joining the team for this new season will be the beautiful lady you'll soon love, the girl with the glow, the lady in the know, give it up for Elaine Petty!"

Dipper got a glimpse of a long-haired, long-legged blonde in a sparkly pantsuit bounding out on stage, hair swinging. "Hi, everybody!" she said.

"Hi, Elaine!" they yelled back.

"Are you all ready for the comeback of the Ghost Harassers?"

"Yeah!"

She stamped her foot. "Oh, come on, you can do better than that! Are you ready?"

"YEAH!"

"One more time! ARE! YOU! READY?"

"YYYEAAAHHHH!"

She talked to the audience, reminding them to turn off their phones and explaining what they were doing—"You'll see bits from one of the new episodes up here on this screen. Now, we'll be shooting video of you out in the audience, and we want you to react. If something funny happens, feel free to laugh! If it gets scary, look scared! And if a ghost pops up, scream! Let me hear some terrified screams!"

Yips and yells and yowls answered her, and she said, "Remember, the more you react the better the chance you'll have of seeing yourself on this episode when it hits Webflix on July fourteenth! Now are you ready to meet your favorite guys? Come on out, Jasyn Torque and Craig Grantley!"

"Sorry, forgot," murmured Mike. He stepped forward and did something and a monitor came to life, showing the stage, the pretty-as-advertised Elaine, and the guys. They bounded onstage, stood on either side of her and did a group bow.

"Wow," Craig said. "Hey, Jasyn, I think this is our most enthusiastic audience so far!"

"I think you're right!" Jasyn said. "Of course, they're only the third!"

"Yeah, but they're excited 'cause Elaine came out before you showed up with your ugly mug!"

Jasyn struck a pose. "Please! The best defense against ghosts is to scare THEM first!"

Then for several minutes they talked to the audience and fielded questions—Yes, it's the same show, yes, the format's a little different, oh, yes, they would see some very spooky images, and so on.

Then Dipper watched as they played unedited footage that they had shot up in Gravity Falls. On the recording, Elaine did the short intro: "Up in Oregon we found a secluded valley where the natives claim all kinds of weird things go on. And the weirdest place is the museum they guys will visit—The Mystery Shack! Let's join Craig and Jasyn as they search for Secret Spirits of the Northwest!"

Then Craig and Jasyn narrated the silent parts live from onstage: "This is the entrance to the hidden valley of Gravity Falls. Very eerie looking landscapes!"

"Yeah, man, check out those cliffs."

Some shots of downtown, some of the waterfall. Then Jasyn said, "This is the Mystery Shack, which is advertised as the place where the dreams—and sometimes the nightmares!—are real. Meet Mr. Stanley Pines, the founder and owner of the Mystery Shack. You're going to hear an interview with him."

Stan had been in fine form that day, speaking of the mysteries you might encounter—"Little bearded men, very disturbing! They say there's a prehistoric monster in the depths of the lake! Look up in the sky and you might even glimpse a pterodactyl. If she attacks you, punch her in the eye! People in town will tell you stories of shapeshifters and dream demons and other spooks! But for my money, the spookiest place in the whole Valley is right here where we're standing—the world-famous Mystery Shack!" He struck a theatrical pose on the lawn, lifting his eight-ball cane to point at the Shack, grinning as broadly as he could.

A cut, and then in the Museum, Soos, who looked a little ill-at-ease in his Mr. Mystery costume, said, "Oh, yeah, dudes, there's real mysterious things here."

Jasyn said, "This is Jesús Ramirez, who started working for the Mystery Shack as a handyman and who now is the CEO of the daily operations."

"This one time," Soos said, "my Abuelita—that's my grandmother, dawgs—got, like, haunted by these mysterious floating blue orbs! They turned out to be, like, spooks or something from the far future! And that all ended when an angel paid her a visit and she vacuumed up the ghosts and we got rid of them! True story. I'll take you to the Bottomless Pit later. Oh, and I killed a fairy once with a fly swatter—I thought it was a hornet! And monsters have come round in the night and, like howled and stuff—once it was a banshee!"

"Aren't you scared to stay here?" Craig asked on-camera.

"No way, dude!" Soos said, laughing. "Stuff like that just makes life exciting! Like the time these characters from video games came to life? One had a crush on me! And another one punched out a pterodactyl bro of mine. Crazy bonkers stuff, man."

There was more of both Stan and Soos, but then about the same amount of footage for both of them combined of Wendy. The cameraman evidently loved her. There was lots of video of her showing tourists around, walking down the trail and pointing at the Bottomless Pit, then at the Talking Rock pseudo-pre-Columbian stone, and so on. Dipper noticed with relief that they didn't go near the Bill Cipher effigy.

Then she got an interview. "I'm Wendy Corduroy," she said to the camera. "I'm the Manager of the Mystery Shack. And, yeah, I've seen some pretty weird things. I grew up in the Valley, and I've gone on a couple of investigations with some friends of mine."

An inaudible question.

"Oh, for instance, once we encountered a couple of ghosts—can't tell you where, because it was on private property, and we weren't supposed to be there, but it was an old married couple, and they made spooky things happen, man! Terrified us all for a while there."

An hour had gone by when, on stage, Craig said, "That's a taste of our footage. Let's take about a fifteen-minute stretch break and you'll see us in action as we investigate. Then how would you like to meet, in person, Wendy Corduroy?"

A very loud group cheer.

A little more than fifteen minutes later, Deena said, "OK, guys, your turn. Come and line up here—Wendy, Dipper, Mabel. Good. Now, never look straight into the camera. Look at the audience instead. And remember where and how to sit. Dipper, it'd be nice if you stood until the ladies are seated. I'll touch you each on the shoulder, and then just go out at a good speed, don't look like you're running, wave at the audience if you feel like it, shake hands with Jace and Craig and then go to the sofa. Ready?"

They all nodded.

Onstage, Jasyn was saying, "And now we've flown in some special guests, all the way from Oregon, to see the scary stuff as you see it and to tell us about it. Please welcome—Wendy Corduroy!"

Wendy strode out grinning, waved at the audience, and got a few appreciative whistles. She shook hands, moved to her designated spot, and Jasyn said, "Dipper Pines!"

Dipper tried to walk out just as confidently, but his gut was full of butterflies. He managed a smile and a wave, shook hands with both guys, and went and stood beside Wendy.

"Annnnnd a little lady I think you'll love, Dipper's sister Mabel Pines! Come on out, Mabel!"

Mabel bounded out, blew kisses, aimed both forefingers as if they were pistols at the audience, winked, and then took Jasyn's hand to shake it, but twirled so he was hugging her. "Wow! You're so impetuous!" she said, getting a laugh from Craig and the audience.

Then she stood beside Dipper. Craig said, "This is gonna be a fun show! Welcome, and please be seated."

Dipper politely waited for both girls to sit, then he sat, then he remembered to scoot well back.

"First tell us a little about yourselves," Craig said. "Wendy we met you in the Mystery Shack. How long have you worked there?'

"I've been there five years, Craig," Wendy said. "I started out as the sales clerk in the gift shop and worked my way up to manager."

Jasyn asked, "Is that your permanent job?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm a college student and after this next summer, I'll only be working in the summers."

"Going to major in ghost-busting?" Jasyn asked.

"No, forestry and environmental science," Wendy said.

"You're brainy and beautiful! I like it!" Craig told her.

Jasyn said, "And the guy sitting next to you is—?"

Wendy nudged him, and he said, "Hi, I'm Dipper Pines. I'm not originally from Gravity Falls, but my—our—Mabel's and my great-uncle Stanley Pines, you saw him on screen, is the co-owner of the Mystery Shack, and Mabel and I have spent every summer up there since 2012."

"We're twins!" Mabel put in helpfully. "Hi, I'm Mabel Pines, and I'm from Piedmont, California, just like my brother here, and like he said, we've spent lots of time in the Mystery Shack. In fact, we're the Mystery Twins!" She held out her hand and, with a little eye-roll, Dipper did the fist-bump.

Mabel finally settled down, and they watched the footage—the Mystery Shack at night, with night-vision cameras making Jasyn's and Craig's eyes light up an eerie bright green. Flickers of light in the underbrush—Wendy was touching his hand and thought to him, Pfft. Just rabbits and possums, behind the plants. Craig, however, earnestly told the audience, "We believe these are low-level Class D spirit manifestations, orbs as we call them."

The exhibits in the Museum were catalogued and explained. The Japanese dagger was exhibited and Wendy came on long enough to say, "The legend is that this is haunted by the ghost of a Samurai who was a monster hunter."

Then, as they were watching some exterior night shots, a distant howl came on the soundtrack.

The screen image froze, and Jasyn said, "You heard that? Once again." They replayed the howl. "That sort of weirded us out. Guys, any idea what animal that was?"

"Gray wolf," Wendy said promptly. "They were hunted almost to extinction in the 1940s, but a few survived. They're on the endangered list."

"Just a wolf?" Craig asked.

"Oh, yeah, way different from a coyote," Wendy said.

"You know," Mabel chimed in, "I've heard there are werewolves way off in the valley."

"Have you ever seen one?" Craig asked.

"Seen one? We fought off a pack of them!" Mabel said. "They were after this injured r—uh, deer. We held them off and they finally went away."

"Werewolves?" Craig asked. "Really?"

"Wolves, anyway," Dipper said, with a glance at Mabel.

Mabel shrugged. "Yeah, but, you know—you can't be sure!"

"Remember, wolves in Oregon are scarce and real shy of people," Wendy said. "People hunted down and killed almost all of them."

Wendy again spoke of encountering ghosts, and Dipper confirmed it. "Now, that was scary," Wendy said. "The ghosts sort of messed with everybody's mind, so it seemed like the whole place turned upside-down. Dipper—"

"What did he do?" Jasyn asked.

Wendy put her arm over his shoulders. "He grabbed a bat and started swatting them and the ghosts disappeared!"

"Ah, a class A physical apparition!" Craig said.

"Two-A, to be specific, Craig," Dipper said. "Both visual and aural manifestations."

"That means ghosts appeared and also made sounds," Jasyn explained. "Dipper, you watched our show before!"

"Big fan, Jasyn," Dipper said. This was getting easier.

Craig's turn: "Mabel, where were you while this was going on?"

"Umm—kinda unconscious. Almost like I was, um, drugged. I think the ghosts cast a spell on me. I was like in Hallucination Land and I didn't see much of them," she replied.

They took another break, all three of them went to the restrooms, and once they were away from stage, Dipper unplugged the microphone from the box clipped to his belt and whispered, "Guys! We can't give away how much about ghosts and stuff is real! It'd ruin the Valley if people started hunting down werewolves and stuff."

Mabel and Wendy unplugged their microphones. "Sorry," Mabel said. "I got excited."

"Remember," Dipper said, "the key to Ghost Harassers is that they never quite find a real ghost. Keep it just, you know, a suggestion."

"Gotcha," Wendy said. "You on board, Mabel?"

"Yeah," she said, "Dip, if I mess up again, pinch me."

"I will," he said. "Hard."

The next half-hour consisted of shots from inside the Shack at night—Soos and his family moved to a motel for that one evening—and the video kept showing faint glows, while the audio caught creaks and something that might have been the wind moaning in the chimney or might, if you had a good imagination, have been the soft wail of a ghost.

In the attic, Craig and Jasyn asked questions and were answered by something rapping on wood. Dipper had the feeling that the something was a crew member. One rap for yes, two for no:

Both ghost hunters were breathing hard, as if on edge. Craig: "Is there a spirit here?"

Knock.

"Are you an evil spirit?"

Knock. . . . . . . . knock.

Jasyn: "Whoo, I was worried there!"

The spirit claimed that its death had come long ago, that it had unfinished business, and that it hung out in the attic. That was news to Dipper and Mabel, but Dipper could tell from her expression that Mabel had the same suspicion he did.

When the footage ended, Dipper and Mabel answered questions: No, they didn't feel scared about being in the attic. In fact, Dipper slept up there when they were in Gravity Falls. Yes, now and then they noticed strange things. "Dipper never unties his shoes before kicking them off," Mabel said. "But when he takes them off up there, in the morning they're always untied! And they keep coming untied all through the day!"

Almost before they knew it, their share of the taping was over. They hung out in the wings until Jasyn and Craig wrapped things up and the audience was on the way out. Then Deena herded them and Teek to the green room—the place where, they were told, they would wait tomorrow until they were onstage again.

"OK," Craig said, "that was good—especially you, Mabel—but tomorrow, pep it up, put more energy into your voices and expressions. We're gonna ask you to wear the same outfits—when you get to your hotel, change to casual clothes and ring the concierge and tell them you have a rush cleaning job, don't worry, it's on us—and the limo will pick you up tomorrow morning. Go ahead and have breakfast at the hotel, charge it all to the room, and we'll see you here tomorrow. Jace?"

"That's about it," Jasyn said. "Yeah, Wendy, I love your voice, but it's way laid-back. Can you sound more excited?"

"Sure can!" Wendy said. "Man, those ghosts showed up, and I was terrified!"

"Yeah, that's it!" Jasyn said. "Dipper, same thing for you. You kind of get, uh, is professorial a word? You sound sort of like a teacher sometimes. Sound more like a guy who's encountered the unknown, and you're awed by it! Think you can do that?"

"I'll take a shot at it," Dipper said. Easy. I'll just think about Bill Cipher clutching me and Mabel and counting off EENY! MEENY! MINEY! YOU! That should just about do it.

And the next day they remembered their coaching, they covered about the same ground, and everything went fine. Then as they waited for their tour of Hollywood, Wendy said, "How was it, Dip?"

He chuckled. "Well, they're nice guys and all, and it was interesting, but you know, when I was younger and watched the show faithfully, it seemed so great, so real. And now—well, they're more like Grunkle Stan than I thought!"

"Yeah," Mabel said. "If they saw a real ghost, I think they'd flip out."

"Anyway," Teek said, "I'm glad it's over. I have to say, I got jealous when Mabel was on stage and all the guys in the audience were laughing and whistling!"

"That's the idea, sweetie," Mabel said, kissing his cheek.

And then their ride showed up, they had a wonderful tour of the town, they had a snack at a restaurant where Mabel recognized a singing star and an actor, and they went to the Chinese Theater and tried standing in the footprints of stars.

It didn't seem that anything bad had happened.

Not just then.