Save the Manatee!
(June 7, 2015)
4: News from the Undernet
"You saved all these?" Dipper asked when Mabel opened a trunk in the attic, reached in, and with semi-musical clinks pulled out a corked glass bottle.
"Of course!" Mabel said. "These held all the letters that Mermando sent me up until we lost touch last year. Ugh, this is tight." With an effort, she pulled the cork out with a pop! "Here, hold this."
Dipper took the bottle. Though it was definitely glass, it felt strangely light in his grip, as if it were made of plastic. Mabel rolled up the note she had written to Mermando and pushed the tight cylinder paper inside the bottle. Then she took the bottle back and corked it again, pounding with the heel of her hand until the seal was tight. She bounced up from the floor, where she had been kneeling. "Come on! Wendy can drive us!"
"Where to, dude?" Wendy asked as they clattered down the stairs, Mabel far in the lead.
Mabel opened the door and gestured dramatically. "To the public pool!"
"Um—'s not open yet," Wendy said. "Not until June fifteenth."
Laughing with reckless abandon, Mabel shot back: "Who cares!"
Wendy shrugged, they crunched across the parking lot and climbed into her car, and she drove them into town and from there to Mr. Poolcheck's domain, the Gravity Falls public swimming pool.
Sure enough, the chain-link fence—repaired and strengthened and made two feet taller after the summer of 2012 had seriously weakened its integrity in numerous places—was secured by a modern padlock that would certainly defeat the President's Key and perhaps even a hairpin in Mabel's hands.
"We better not get caught breaking in," Dipper said.
"C'mon," Wendy told him, with a chuckle. "Where's my daring dork of yore?"
Dipper forced a grin. "It's just that—well, I'm scared of Mr. Poolcheck. He always looks like he's about to have a fit or a stroke or something."
"I happen to know," Wendy said, "that when the pool's not open, he drives over to check twice a day, once in the early morning and once around sundown. Unless he just comes by for no reason and spots my car in the lot, he won't catch us."
"But if he did, we'd be trespassing—"
"Oh, we're not trespassing!" Mabel said. "In fact, we don't even have to go inside the fence. Well, not yet, anyway. And if somebody did have to go in, I'd do it on my own."
"Wait," Dipper said. "You had Wendy drive us here for no reason?"
Mabel looked offended. "No, for a good reason!"
"I'm confused."
"Doesn't matter! Follow me!" Mabel said, leading them into the park-like stretch of ground behind the pool enclosure, where once Soos had desperately fled a pursuing Mr. Poolcheck. She shoved through a screen of young pines and pointed. "There it is!"
It turned out to be a square concrete base, maybe four feet on a side and less than a foot tall, with a steel manhole cover embedded in it. "Shoot," Mabel said. "I should've brought the crowbar! It's been so long that I forgot."
"Um—tire iron do?" Wendy asked.
Mabel nodded. "Maybe."
"Just a sec." Wendy brushed through the trees, heading back to the parking lot.
Dipper asked, "What are we doing, exactly?"
"Using the undernet!" Mabel snapped. "Doy!"
"All right," Dipper said, striving for a calm tone. "And—what exactly is that?"
"Dipper!" Mabel said. "How do you think Mermando was able to write to me, and I was able to write back? The undernet, Brobro! It's operated by—" her pupils got enormous—"merpeople magic!"
"Undernet," Dipper said. "So that's a thing, is it?"
"Shh!"
Dipper heard someone approaching, but it was Wendy, not an apoplectic public-pool guardian. "Here ya go," she said, crunching back over fallen twigs. "Let me guess, we have to open this manhole."
"The proper term," Mabel said, "is 'maintenance access shaft.' Less sexist."
"Not 'person hole?'" Dipper asked, a little sarcastically.
"Well, in New York City they're supposed to call them 'maintenance holes,'" Mabel said, sounding thoughtful and almost reasonable. "Other cities call them 'worker access cover' or—"
"That is very nearly interesting," Wendy said cheerfully. She found a rock to use as a fulcrum, then wedged the pry-end of the tire iron into the notch of the metal cover. "Here we go." She used the tire iron to lever the heavy cover open a few inches. Dipper gripped it, strained to hold the weight, and then with his arms and her foot, they flipped it upside-down, with an almighty clatter. "Boosh!" Wendy announced.
"How'd you do this by yourself?" Dipper asked Mabel.
"First time was hard, but after that usually the Gnomes would help," Mabel said. "Or a Manotaur, if I had jerky to offer him as payment. Gaze into an underground chamber of wonders!"
They all three gazed down into the concrete shaft. About ten feet below the surface, a swirl of water, like a permanent whirlpool, rotated—and glowed golden with its own internal light. "I never knew this was here!" Dipper said.
Mabel sounded smug: "Yeah, I don't tell you everything. Get ready to see some real magic." She held out the bottle, grasping it by the neck, and said loudly, "For Mermando of the Gulf merfolk! From Mabel of Gravity Falls!" She let go, the bottle plummeted, and the instant it hit the surface of the water, without a sound or sign of a splash, it vanished in a bright flare of light.
"It'll arrive instantaneously in the Gulf of Mexico," Mabel said. "Now. We ought to get a quick response on this. Let's put the cover back in place."
It took all three of them working together. The weighty steel cover grated over the concrete, and Wendy had to use the tire iron to make it settle into its collar. "How'll we know if he answers?" she asked Mabel. "And do I have to pry this dang cover off again?"
"No, you don't. And we'll know when he answers because the reply bottle will pop out into the pool."
"Uh—so we have to break into the pool enclosure anyway?" Dipper asked.
"All part of the plan," Mabel assured him. "But we won't break anything, so stop fretting about Mr. Poolcheck, Broseph!"
"Wait, wait," Wendy said. "Let me understand something. You mean the water from this magical, what, spring?"
"Yeah, natural spring," Mabel said. "Or, better yet—unnatural spring! Mwop!"
"So, you're saying the weird water from this thing is what fills the pool?" Wendy finished.
Mabel shrugged. "Well, yeah."
"Oh, man!" Wendy said. "If I'd known that, I'd never have taken that lifeguard job!"
"Oh, the water doesn't affect humans," Mabel said. "Just special merfolk glass. The fun thing is the bottles are hand-blown—over the lava from an undersea volcano. Come on!"
They agreed to boost Mabel over the chain-link fence. Luckily, the town council had decided that Mr. Poolcheck's suggestion of six-strand razor wire at the top would be too expensive to implement. Mabel dropped down, went over to the pool edge, and said, "They've got the pool cover on still. I'll have to unlace it."
She untied the lacing that held the floating polypropylene-plastic mesh cover in place, then peeled back a section beside the inlet. She leaned down. "It's warm," she said. "Of course, in the heat of summer, it feels comfortable, but it's a little warm when the weather's still cool."
"Must be why it never freezes over," Wendy said.
Mabel took off her shoes and socks and sat on the edge of the pool, pushing the cover below the inlet with her bare feet. "Mm. Feels good. Yeah, the warm water coming in keeps the pool temp around eighty degrees, give or take. Now all we have to do is wait. This may take a little while, though. You guys can make out or whatever. I'll yell when the bottle pops out."
"Mabel!" Dipper yelped.
"Good idea, Mabes," Wendy said, reaching down to squeeze his hand. "I'll run and put this back in the car. Then we can sit under the trees there." She took the tire iron back, and then she led Dipper did to a tall evergreen. "This'll be private," she told him, bending and pushing the limbs aside. The boughs sheltered a clear space, and creeping into it was a lot like crawling inside a tent. "Know what this is?" Wendy asked, sitting with her back against the trunk.
"Blue spruce," Dipper answered promptly. He grinned. "Got that from you—I can identify every tree you knew when you shot me that information last year."
She laughed. "Yeah, like I can do math problems that two years back would have left me goin' 'Huh? What?' 'cause I got the skill from you in a mental-transfer dealy," Wendy said comfortably. "These trees aren't common around here. I guess somebody must've planted this one fifty, sixty years ago. Most important thing you need to know about them, though, is that trees like this one make real good emergency shelters if you get caught in a snowstorm. Dad saved his life once when he was about my age by holin' up under a big old spruce. Had enough fallen deadwood for a little fire, and he lasted out a three-day early blizzard, living on water from melted snow, until he could bust out and slog ten miles to safety. One day I'll show you how to improvise snow shoes!"
"I'll remember that," Dipper promised.
Wendy grinned. "Well, Dip, looks like it's gonna take a little time, and I'd hate to offend Mabel by not takin' her suggestion, so—wanna kiss and junk?"
He replied silently, but in a way that told her 'yes.'"
"Got it!" Mabel yelled.
"Darn it," Wendy said, faking a pout and buttoning up her flannel shirt. "Just when it was starting to get interesting!"
"To be continued," Dipper promised. They crept out. Mabel waited at the gate.
"Somebody take this," she said, stretching up to hold the bottle over her head.
"Got it," Wendy said, standing on her toes and grabbing the bottle neck. "OK, let's get you out."
"Way ahead of you," Mabel said. With the sleek grace of a squirrel, she effortlessly scaled the inside of the gate, swung a leg over, and dropped down to the pavement.
"You mean I didn't have to boost you up?" Wendy asked.
With a grin, Mabel said, "I just wanted you to feel involved! I'm gonna read this."
She did silently, and then she said, "OK, it's nothing personal, so let me read it out loud."
Without trying to imitate Mermando's Spanish-inflected English, she read:
My dearest Mabel—after so many notes without an answer, I was so afraid you had forgotten me! Thank you for explaining why you are not always in Gravity Falls.
Here is the bad news: Weeks ago, a fishing boat caught my wife Sirenia in a net. Manatees are a protected species, but these fishermen are evil. They sold my wife to the owner of a private aquarium near a town called Brookings in the state of Washington. That is near you, is it not? My knowledge of geography only extends to beaches.
My friends the loyal dolphins tracked the ship that took her through the canal of Panama and up the west coast of the continent. I think by this time she may be imprisoned. The dolphins heard the sailors speak of delivering her to a man named (I hope I spell it correctly) Folloll. Or maybe it might be Fellell or Fossoss. I do not know at all, dolphins have trouble with certain sounds of human language.
Please let me know by return note if you can help. As my people formed a magic circle to transport me from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, so can we do for her, if only she can reach the mighty sea!
With kindest regards and much gratitude,
Mermando, King of the Manatees
"Kindest regards?" Dipper asked. "Isn't that a little weak for the guy who got his first kiss from you?"
"Correction," Mabel said. "I got my first kiss from him!"
"Whatever," Wendy said. "So—are we in on this?"
"Mabel?" Dipper asked.
She gave him a popeyed look of surprise. "Are you kidding? Of course, we're in!"
Wendy raised an eyebrow. "Even though this Sirenia is, like, your rival for the dude's affections?"
"My love," Mabel said solemnly, "is as capacious as the mighty ocean! It is as forgiving as the calm waters of the Pacific! It—"
"Sheesh, Mabel!" Dipper said. "You gotta stop watching those Jacques Cousteau reruns!"
"Should've brought my waterproof paper," Mabel said. "I got my pen."
"Use the back of his note, girl," Wendy said.
"Brilliant!" Mabel said.
Her response to Mermando was brief:
Dear Mermando:
Help is coming! I will let you know as soon as we have a line on the perp!
Love,
Mabel
"Yeah, I'm sure that'll be clear as mud to him," Dipper said.
But they levered the manhole—personhole—uh, maintenance access shaft cover open again and dispatched the note.
"What now?" Mabel asked.
"Now," Dipper said, "I go online and see what we can learn about a guy who might have a private aquarium up in southwestern Washington state."
"Your turn to shine, man," Wendy said.
They piled into her car and sped back to the Shack.