10-Never the Twins Shall Meet
"What are we doing, now?" Wendy asked as she sped toward the mall, barely catching the end of a yellow light as she made a turn.
"We're trying to find Mabel!" Dipper yelled, hanging onto his seat. "Wait a minute! I can drive!"
No, I can't! Except maybe the golf cart
Wendy was already heading to the mall parking lot. "Too late, dude, I got it! There's a spot close to the west side entrance!"
"Park and let's find Mabel and Elise. We need to hurry."
She quickly reached the slot and parked, a little crookedly but still barely within the lines, and they hopped out. "It'll be quicker if we split up!" Wendy said as they jogged toward the mall. "You take Level Two, I'll take Level One!"
"If you find them, bring them back to the truck and call me!"
"I don't know your number!"
Then it hit Dipper. In this world, the year was 2012. The other older Dipper inside him told him what to say to Wendy: "Uh—I don't have a phone!"
They stepped into the cool, fluorescent-lit mall. The air smelled like popcorn, because there was a PopBag kiosk right inside. Beyond it, the mall looked pretty crowded. "The important thing," Dipper said quietly to Wendy, "the main thing, is if you see Pacifica anywhere, you've got to keep Mabel and Elise away from her. Or vice-versa. That's real important! Go, go, go!"
He ran up the escalator, dodging around startled, indignant shoppers. On the top level he saw right away a jewelry store, a health-food shop, a bookstore, and a maternity shop. The layout was different from the mall he remembered. Anyway, he wouldn't find Pacifica in any of these shops, so he headed at a fast walk toward mall center. The first shoe store he came to was Hoofin It, but a glance inside told him it specialized in farm and logging boots. Nothing for Pacifica there, unless she was shopping for riding boots—and gazing through the window, he didn't see her.
On past a cell-phone store, a computer store, and then—ah, a Hott Toggz! Teen fashions! He ducked inside, and a half-dozen teen girls looked around at this tall, gasping eighteen-year-old guy who came into the store, swiveling his gaze all around. One nudged another and smiled as she nodded toward him. And in the part of the store farthest from the mall exit was someone with shining yellow hair—Dipper dodged around clothing carousels. "Elise!"
The blonde girl looked up with a frown. "Ew! Dipper Pines! Puh-lease go away. I don't want to be seen talking to you!"
He immediately second-guessed. "Pacifica?" he asked. "Is that you?"
Had to be. Her hair hadn't been trimmed, and she was richly dressed. She had taken from a hanger a light-purple jacket, and she glared at him as if she wanted to throw it or a brick or something at him. "Don't pretend you think I'm somebody else. You know who I am!"
Hey, hey, you do know her because she beat Mabel in a party contest!
It must have been the voice of this dimension's Dipper, but before he thought, the Dipper in control of the body said, "That was when I was twelve!"
"Are you crazy?" Pacifica asked, hanging the jacket on a carousel. "When you were twelve, I was like seven! You're so creepy!"
How did she know I'm eighteen?
Maybe Mabel told her.
Guys, about Wendy—do we have a chance with her?
"Listen," Dipper said desperately overriding the voices in his head, "you need to go home, right now. I can't explain—it's too crazy. Did you drive here?"
"Are you completely insane? I'm thirteen!" she snapped. "Our chauffeur drove me!"
"Find him, call him, whatever, and have him take you straight home. If you see Mabel, don't go near her. Believe me, E—Pacifica, this is a matter of life and death!"
"He's so dramatic!" some girl said from behind him in an admiring tone.
"Sir," said a stylishly-dressed clerk only a few years older than he, quickly approaching, "I'll have to ask you to stop annoying our customers."
"I'm sorry," he said to her. To Pacifica, he added, "Please believe me. You know what things in Gravity Falls are like. You're in real danger."
She backed away. "Leave me alone!"
Come on, we can go and stand outside this store and if Mabel comes in sight, we can get HER to leave!
Good idea! Who's that?
Me. Fifteen-year-old Dipper!
Let's go.
"Remember what I said about not approaching Mabel," Dipper said.
Pacifica rolled her eyes and huffed. "As if!"
He headed out, and a cute girl who was maybe seventeen or eighteen said, "Hi. New in town?"
"Just visiting," he said. She was pretty, with sort of strawberry-blonde hair and startlingly light blue eyes and a nice smile.
"My name's Marcie," she said, eyeing him up and down. "What's yours?"
"Dipper," he said without thinking. "Uh, my great-uncle's Stanley—Staneley Pines, I mean. My sister and I are spending the summer with, uh, with him."
"The holistic clinic," Marcie said. "Yeah, I know where it is."
"Sir," said the clerk. "I can call security."
"Gotta go," Dipper said.
Marcie smiled, wrinkling her nose. "See you!"
Stop it! You can't mess with my life like that! I just found out that Wendy's got a crush on me!
"Sorry, sorry," Dipper muttered to himself. Literally.
He crossed to the other side of the aisle and stood with his back against a shop specializing in sports equipment, keeping an eye on the Hott Toggz doorway.
On Level 1, Wendy was more than halfway through the mall and hadn't sighted anybody yet. She'd checked inside Hooty Hoo's Pizza Time Circus, crammed with little kids watching the corny, creaky animatronics show.
She had already checked out two fashion shops and two shoe stores. She had just come to the food court, with places like the Meat Cute kiosk, Snacker's, the Sassé Café, Katz's Dogs, and a few more exotic eating places, Thai Up, China Plates, El Burro's, like that.
Wendy slowed her pace. She knew how Mabel loved snacking. She weaved in and out of the restaurants. None were huge, and none took long to scope out. Finally at the ice-cream place called Skoops, she heard Mabel's gurgling laugh and there at a corner table sat Mabel and Elise, each girl with an ice-cream soda in front of her, Elise's chocolate, Mabel's strawberry. Neither had noticed her.
"I'd give him a seven," Mabel was saying. "He's got kind of a weird nose, which is a minus, but he's got a job so he probably has a car, and that's a plus!"
"But he looks like a peasant!" Elise exclaimed, though in a quiet voice.
Mabel sipped her soda. "What do they taste like? They look sort of like tiny chickens!"
Elise blinked at her. "Not pheasant, peasant!"
"Guys!" Wendy said.
Both girls looked a little startled. "Wendy!" Mabel said. "Hey, go get yourself a soda and while you're doing it, see if you think the guy at the counter is H-O-T! Uh, I hope you brought money—"
Wendy realized she was sweating. Dipper's panic had affected her more than she realized. In a serious voice she said, "Listen, there's a crisis at the clinic. You gotta come back with me right now."
"What's wrong?" Elise asked with obvious apprehension.
"Come on and I'll tell you. I borrowed Zeus's truck. This way—no, you go in front, and I'll be right behind you." Easier to shepherd them if she was bringing up the rear, scanning ahead for any sign of Dipper or Pacifica.
"But what's the matter?" Mabel wailed. "Is it Grunkle Stan?"
"Dipper, like, passed out!" Wendy said, at least not lying although not telling the exact truth. She herded the girls toward the mall's side exit, past the vestibule of the Multiplex.
Pacifica came out of the shop carrying a lavender plastic bag with the store's logo on it and missed seeing him across the mall because she opened the bag to do a quick check on whatever she had bought. She must have been satisfied because she walked toward a down escalator, swinging the bag in time with her strides..
He tailed after her, and when they reached the escalator, he looked down and past her and got a quick flash of red hair hurrying through the crowd below. And then he saw Mabel being urged along in front of Wendy—
Pacifica was already halfway down the escalator.
Dipper didn't have time to shove past the crowd. He impulsively jumped up onto the handrail and slid down it, yelling, "Out of the way, please!" The shoppers on the escalator grunted in surprise or yelped in anger as he skidded past them.
It worked and it didn't work. Pacifica heard him and her head whipped around, blue eyes narrowing. She gave him her angriest scowl. "You!"
"One side!"
She looked outraged as he passed her without slowing—whether because nobody was supposed to do that or because he was Dipper, he didn't know which.
He stumbled as he jumped off the rail at the bottom and struggled to regain his balance. Everything was happening too fast.
Mabel had heard him too, and she looked around. "Hey, Dipper!" she yelled. "Are you OK? Wendy said you were sick! Hey, look, Elise, that's Pacifica! Wendy, we gotta say hi to her—"
"Who is that?" Pacifica asked from behind him. She sounded more shocked than surprised.
We were right, Elise's hair is like a shade darker than hers.
Lots shorter now, too!
Not important! Keep them apart!
It was so hard, and he was making it hard—of the many Dippers in his mind, at least four were now fighting to possess his body, and they wanted to go in different directions for different reasons, making him fight for balance and control.
"No!" Wendy yelled. She managed to seize one of Mabel's wrists, stopping her, but Elise was hurrying forward, toward her double.
Dipper finally mastered his body and cut to one side.
Elise was close enough to ask past him, speaking to Pacifica, "Who are you?"
At the same moment, almost at Dipper's elbow, Pacifica asked, "Why do you look so much like me?"
Leaning forward as he ran, Dipper got an arm around Elise's waist and as she yipped in surprise, he scooped her up and carried her, jogging.
She pushed against him, wriggling. "What are you-?"
"Mabel! Go with Wendy, now!" Dipper yelled.
"It's OK, folks!" Wendy yelled to everyone who was gawking. "Family emergency! Let us through!"
She half-dragged Mabel outside, held the door for Dipper. Elise had given up struggling and put an arm around his neck, trying to hang on and obviously scared.
Wendy threw open the passenger door of Zeus's pickup. "Pile in!"
She shoved Mabel inside. Dipper set Elise down beside her. "I'll ride in the bed!" he yelled, scrambling over the side panel. "Go, go, go!"
Luck was with Wendy. Nobody had parked in the facing slot, so she started the engine and pulled straight through. In the parking lot, Pacifica stopped in her tracks, just steps short of the truck. Dipper gripped the tailgate and shouted, "I'll explain later! Just go home and wait!"
Mabel had rolled down her window and called out from it, "What's going on?"'
Don't get chummy with Pacifica! She's the worst!
No, it's her family!
There's a ghost in the manor—
Dipper put his hands against the sides of his head. "Guys! Please! There's stuff some of you can't know, or everything's in danger!"
What do you mean?
He's older than you are, listen to him!
You're younger than I am, what's really going on?
"Shut up!" Dipper almost screamed, more fiercely than he'd intended.
Mabel held her hair out of her eyes as she leaned out the window. "What?"
He couldn't hear her, but he saw the word form on her lips and the tears spilling from both her eyes.
And his sister looked so . . . hurt.
To be continued