Save the Manatee!

18: Debriefing Each Other

(June 14, 2015)

From the Journals of Dipper Pines: OK, continuing from when Wendy came out of it, which I think was about ten AM on Sunday —Once we were both awake, they brought us hot drinks, tea and lemonade (whoever thought up hot lemonade)? Once we got them down, Wendy and I began to feel well again. The doctor—Ford says to mention no names—said that was par for the course in cases of hypothermia with no complications.

We didn't see them, but I know there were guards outside the door. Later I learned they weren't there to keep us in, but to keep any random bad guys out. Wish they'd told us that.

OK, so there we were in a windowless room in a hospital in some town in some state, presumably Oregon, but we didn't really know. We weren't even in real hospital beds, just those rolling things you see in emergency rooms. Gurneys, I think. They're kind of tall and narrow—you can't turn over on your side without falling off unless you're really careful.

Wendy got tired of lying there, so, carefully, she swung her feet over on the far side of hers (because the IV stand was on the side toward me) and sat on the edge of the thing with her feet dangling. "Man," she said, "my hair must be a real mess. It feels gross!"

And she took the tangled mane in her hands and pulled it around over her shoulder . . . .

And, um, the hospital gowns they had put us in didn't have any backs. Well, they did, but they weren't tied closed. And looking at my Lumberjack Girl from behind, I saw, well, more of her than I usually did, let's say.

I alerted her to her predicament by saying, "Gleek!" or something like that. I cleared my throat and managed to squeak, "Wendy, check your bu—uh, back."

"Oh, my God!" She quickly pulled the sheet around her. "Didn't mean to flash you, man!"

"I'm wearing the same thing," I said.

Doctor—well, call him Doctor X—came in and took out our IVs. It hurt. I mean, it hurt worse than when I sprained my ankle and was on one because they knocked me out to realign the joint. But a nurse did that one. I don't think doctors get as much practice.

He put two bandages on our hands and said, "You two are good to go as soon as Dr. Pines finishes his debriefing and clears it."

"Uh, Doc, can we have our clothes back?" Wendy asked. "This is kinda embarrassing."

"Sorry. They cut you out of your wet clothes," the doctor said. "Your personal effects were bagged and will be given to Dr. Pines. But about clothing, I'll check with someone in authority."

"If they destroyed our clothes—" I began.

He stopped me: "Don't worry about it. The people in charge of your guard will do something to fix you up, I'm sure. All right, as soon as a few loose ends are tied up and your, uh, family, I guess, confirms that it's all right, you're free to go to the place where you'll meet them. I'll take care of all that now."

"Uh," I said, remembering how Dad had fussed about all the hospital red tape, "don't you need our insurance information?"

"Why would I need that?" he said, as blank-faced as Tad Strange.

"Well, because—isn't this a hospital?" I asked.

"Sure," he said with a shrug. "So what? You two have never been patients here."

Wendy tilted her head. "Doc? Do you mean-?"

Blandly, he assured her, "There's no record of anyone of your description ever having been brought here or admitted. Never happened. Anything else?"

"Uh—any chance of a shower?" Wendy asked.

"The bathroom is right there," he said, pointing between our gurneys. I turned and looked — hadn't before because of the gurneys having their heads toward that wall. Sure enough, behind us a wide door stood ajar, and through it I could see a toilet and shower stall. "I'll see that you have privacy. Oh, robes are hanging on a hook in the bathroom. You can keep them if you want."

Wendy hopped off her gurney, still holding onto the sheet. She draped it around her shoulders and tried to reach under it and tie the gown closed, but didn't have any luck. "Shoot. Can't find the strings. Little help, Dip?"

So I got off my gurney and managed to tie my own hospital gown. I went over to her, the tile floor hard and cold under my bare feet, and just as I got to her, she dropped the sheet.

And her gown fell off with it. On purpose.

"One-time deal, OK?" she said, turning around, long and soft and warm in my arms, pressing against me and kissing me and heating me up to a body temperature of about 103. She whispered in my ear, "Quick hot shower together, no sex, but lots of hugging. Deal?"

"Deal," I think I said.

Fifteen minutes later they were out of the shower and into the white terrycloth bathrobes—like thick warm, soft towels—just in the nick of time. Someone tapped on the door, didn't wait for an invitation, and walked in.

"You!" Dipper said stepping so one of the gurneys was in front of him. The bathrobes closed in front, but his hadn't quite closed all the way.

Agent Trigger didn't look happy. But then he never did. "Brought you some clothes," he said. He held out a bulky gray plastic department-store bag, no logo. "Your uncles are on the way."

"How'd you know our sizes?" Wendy asked. Dipper was busy adjusting his robe. He held the bag in front of him and hoped it covered the requirements.

"That's on a need-to-know basis," the crew-cut agent said, his eyes narrowing. "Need to know!"

"Uh—thanks, man," Dipper said. "We'll, uh—we'll get changed. Are you still with your partner, the guy with the mustache?"

"He's working on another element of the case right now," Trigger said, sounding faintly resentful. Then he frowned. "How do you even know about him?"

"Um, used to see you guys around? In Gravity Falls? You were there for about a month one summer?"

Trigger leaned forward and poked Dipper in the chest with two fingers. "That was a confidential visit!"

Dipper sensed that the man seemed to be waiting for a cue. He said, "Ah—you mean . . . top secret?"

Visibly relieved, Trigger poked him twice more: "Top! Secret!"

And then he left them. At least his bad-tempered visit had deflated Dipper's main problem.

"That guy and Powers," Dipper said. "They've got some kind of weird vibe goin' on between them. I don't know, man."

"Let's see what they brought us," Wendy said, taking the shopping bag from him.

She pulled out underwear and socks, of course. Black jeans, exactly the right waist size, but a bit tight in the legs. Black socks. Black sneakers. And black turtlenecks, or as Trigger would say, "Black! Turtle! Necks!" Their outfits were identical. Suddenly overcome by modesty, Wendy and Dipper dressed separately, she in the room, he in the bathroom. He tapped on the door and asked, "Are you decent?"

"Come in and find out," she said. And she was fully clothed.

"Well," Dipper said, "it's clothing."

"They have no sense of style," Wendy complained, but she turned around, modeling for him, a slender, tall girl all in black.

"You look great in that, though," Dipper said, admiring her.

She grinned, pulled him close, and rested her forearms on his shoulders. She leaned forward until her forehead touched his. Huskily, she whispered, "As good as in the shower when you were soaping my back?"

"Nope," he said. Then, quietly, he added, "That felt so right at the time. But, you know, we can't. I mean, we just can't do that as a regular thing, because, well..."

Wendy kissed his nose. "You're right, we couldn't possibly hold out. But, man, just bein' alive and bein' with you—remembering how you never let me go when we were both, like, dying—I mean, just for that one time, it was really all pretty innocent, but it was still so—you know—it was—"

"Heaven," he said.

"Yeah, it was." She caressed his face, and he heard the soft scrape.

"I'm scruffy," he muttered. "I looked at myself in the mirror and I really need a shave. I guess I could have a beard if I let it go for, what? a year?"

"I don't care how scruffy you are," she said, her breath warm against his cheek.

They kissed.

Dipper sighed. "If only we had some peppermint!"

That was around noon, probably. Not long after that, two men in dark glasses, with receivers in their pockets and earbuds in their ears, escorted them to a freight elevator, down to an interior parking lot, and into the back seat of a car (black, of course). They discovered the windows were so darkly tinted that they couldn't see anything, and a similar dark barrier blocked their vision of the driver.

"We're moving," Wendy said in surprise. "I don't hear the engine!"

"It's electric," Dipper told her.

"I didn't recognize the make, man. What is it?"

"I don't know," Dipper said. "The body style is just kinda generic. It may not have a normal make name. But I'm pretty sure it's an electric car."

He would not, in fact, learn the whole truth until another few years had passed, but he was correct. The automobile, which had no insignia, was one of a small fleet built expressly for an Agency tasked with investigating, isolating, and if necessarily eliminating any paranormal threat to the American way of life. The vehicle was based on patents owned by an eccentric and yet brilliant designer and engineer. Eventually, when the cars were declassified and did hit the American market, they would be called McGucket Dynamos.

Anyway, the car cruised for maybe a quarter of an hour, slowed, went down a sharp incline, and the identical two men—Dipper supposed, anyway, because they were interchangeable—opened the back doors and escorted them from the car. They'd parked in another underground garage, but this time they took a normal elevator up to what seemed to be a normal apartment, until you realized that the windows weren't windows, but holographic screens that offered three-dimensional views of some bucolic scene that might have been in Idaho or Indiana: acres of flat rolling farmland, a blue sky, nice day.

Their guard ushered them into a living room with a big flat-screen TV and—more important to them—a huge, low coffee table loaded with two covered plates, two glasses full of ice, and two Pitt Colas in cans.

"We must be in Roadkill County," Dipper said. "You can't get that anywhere else."

They briefly explored. The living room, a bathroom (no shower, just the toilet and sink), and that was it. No closet, no bedroom. "Well," Dipper said, "they don't expect us to spend the night. So—what do we do?"

"Eat! I'm starved," Wendy said. They took the covers off the plates to find out what they had. One plate was loaded with a thick sirloin steak, asparagus spears, a big steaming baked potato with butter and sour cream on the side, and a yeast roll. The other had roast turkey breast, a risotto with peas and carrots, a salad with spinach, greens, tiny tomatoes, croutons, and two little containers of dressing, poppyseed and ranch, plus another roll.

Like little kids, they sat on the floor, their backs leaning against the sofa, and shared both plates, each eating from both. After a while, Dipper was feeding Wendy forkfuls of steak, and she countered with bites of turkey for him. "This is the life," Dipper said.

"And look at this." Wendy opened another container. "There's pie! Looks like lemon meringue and apple. Which do you want?"

"I'd prefer some peppermint," Dipper said, grinning.

Wendy whispered, "Uh, dude, the TV or the windows might be spying on us, so—"

Dipper chuckled. "I'll settle for pie, I guess. Take your pick, I like both."

They turned on the TV and found it was a closed feed. Only one station. "I can't believe it!" Dipper said as the movie began. "Look, it's Help! My Mommy Is a Mummy!"

Wendy laughed. "My gosh, it stars old Chadley and Trixandra!"

As the corny black-and-white Poverty Row movie from, probably, the 1950s began, Dipper said, "Hey, this is the flop we read about on the Internet but could never find!"

"And we've talked about wanting to see the worst of the worst! How do these guys know so much about us?" Wendy asked.

Dipper was a little worried about that, too. But he didn't say anything. Surrounded by plates, knives, and forks, he and Wendy cuddled, sitting on the floor, leaning against the sofa and each other, and watched the improbable story of Trixandra's suburban housewife mother being kidnapped and replaced by a dead ringer who happened to be an ancient Egyptian princess—transforming into a withered, wrinkled mummy when she became angry—shepherded and guarded by a Japanese swordsman whom nobody ever noticed because he was so stealthy and wore head-to-toe black. For some reason, this Asian warrior was the Egyptian Princess Khu-Farrah's eternal guardian. When Trixandra's steady guy Chadley (still a college freshman and football star, though he looked forty) at long last tumbled to the fact that something was off about Trixandra's mother (maybe her habit of walking sideways with one arm crooked up, the other down), the Japanese guy jumped out, grabbed him, and threatened to kill him. "I never saw you at all, there standing right behind me!" Chadley objected.

And the Japanese guy said in an accent that sounded as if he'd been born and raised in Brooklyn, "I am a Ninja! Of quietness!"

Wendy laughed her head off, Dipper put an arm around her waist, and she and he held hands. "Man," she said. "This takes me back! Remember that one time we were in my house watchin' one of these epics and you were, like, layin' on my bra and practically had a heart attack when you realized it?"

"Yeah," Dipper admitted.

"Well, Dip," Wendy said, leaning her head on his shoulder. "I guess you wouldn't do that these days, huh?"

"No," Dipper said, kissing her. "Because I am a Ninja! Of love!"

Just as the movie ended, a black-suited man entered the room, silently, and picked up all the dishes, stacking them on a tray. "Oh," he said before leaving. "I was supposed to give you these."

He held out his hand and dropped something in each of their palms.

Two peppermints each. Then he left, silently.

Wendy smiled crookedly at Dipper. "They sure must've been listening to us. Good thing we didn't play Naked Ninjas, dude."

"Please," Dipper groaned.

They dozed a little, sitting on the sofa. Dinner came at what Dipper guessed to be about seven p.m. And another old movie. They ate, they started to watch the film, a rock-and-roll musical (Hot-Rod Alien Beboppers from Beyond Space) but before the rubber Neptunian dinosaur ate even one Tonka truck, somebody threw open the door with a bang that made them both jump.

"You guys!" Mabel yelled, tearing in to hug first Dipper, then Wendy, then both at once. "I brought your phones, but not your bags! Oh, you look so good to me! Man, you're a matching pair! Nice threads! What are you supposed to be, mimes?"

Dipper struck a pose—the Preying Mantis, approximately. "We are Ninjas!" he pronounced.

Wendy crouched and held up both hands like a Karate master. "Of love!"

Mabel pressed her lips together and laughed. It came out as a raspberry sound, but cheerful. On TV, the Earth kids' garage band started wailing, "I'm so glum at the prom, I should call my mom, 'cause a lizard just ate up my date..." Mercifully, the screen went dark. Evidently their hosts knew they wouldn't hang around to see the end of the movie.

"Mabel! Don't run off like that!" Grunkle Stan huffed as he came through the door, with Grunkle Ford close behind him. He gave them his trademark ear-to-ear grin. "Hiya, knuckleheads! See what you get for jumpin' off a perfectly good boat?"

"Sorry, Grunkle Stan," Dipper said. "But you did need help. Did—what happened with—you know—"

"The manatee? She apparently teleported back to the Gulf of Mexico," Stanford said. "We won't absolutely know for sure if she did, or if she's in good health, until Mabel hears from her friend on the spot there." He touched a finger to his lips.

"Oh," Wendy said. "Well, I hope everything went all right. Man, that whole boat deal was crazy! You guys all OK?"

"We're fine," Stanley said. "Ford's buddy the prof—"

"Stanley," Stanford said in a warning voice.

"Sheesh! The you-know-who had us picked up by heli—"

"Later, Stanley," Ford said, hissing on Stanley's name.

Stan shrugged and looked grumpy.

"We're here," Stanford said, "to take you home."

"What about your boat?" Dipper asked.

"It's bein' towed up to Vancouver," Stanley said. "Next week we'll have to run up there and check it over for repairs and such, but it's basically OK."

Dipper began, "What about—"

"Later," Ford said firmly.

Once outside, Wendy and Dipper learned they had been in what looked from the street like an old, shuttered motel plastered with DO NOT TRESPASS warnings. They were about a hundred miles south of Portland—and the usual black van (gasoline-powered this time) with darkened, but this time not completely opaque, windows drove them up. It took over two hours, but a little after nine PM, they got off at the marina and Ford reclaimed his dark-blue Lincoln. The van pulled away and nobody waved goodbye. On the way up, at Stan's direction Wendy had phoned ahead and made reservations for them at the marina motel—two ground-floor rooms, one for the guys, one for the girls.

"Heck with that," Stan said when they walked into the registration area. "Family arrangement. One room for the adults, one for the kids. Your room's got two queen beds in it. You three figure out the sleepin' arrangements!"

It wasn't that late, just about nine-thirty, but both Stan and Ford looked exhausted. Even so, they all gathered in the elder twins' room and heard their story, and the kids told their part in it, as much as they could remember.

"You guys got through it lucky," Stanley told Wendy and Dipper. "I knew what happened when we freed the manatee, and you two were out of it, off in la-la land or something, so you didn't have to be debriefed by Poindexter's old playmates."

"I did!" Mabel announced. "I told 'em all about mermen and manatees and the whole nine yards. Even my first kiss and the daring poolbreak I pulled to free Mermando! I think they thought I was crazy!" She threw back her head and gave a prolonged maniacal laugh.

Then Ford took up the story and explained that the paranormal element of the manatee kidnapping fell into the Agency's jurisdiction. His own incidental involvement and past associations with the group let the Agency have an inside view of the Triton Trident's suspicious activity—right up until the explosive end.

"So," Stanford wound up, "apparently this criminal, Voillelli, somehow learned that the freighter was being tracked and elected to sink it, probably hoping to eliminate all evidence. The Coast Guard recovered eight or nine bodies—the monster killed his own men in cold blood—and found four wounded survivors, including the captain of the yacht. They're being held and will be charged. They're already spilling everything they know in hopes of clemency. Voillelli didn't exactly gain their loyalty by turning on them."

"Yeah, and the Coast Guard came and took our boat in tow, and another chopper came and met us at the docks and flew us off to where you kids were. They told us you were doin' OK, but we were worried. Took 'em a couple hours before they stopped questioning us and let us come and get you."

"I was going crazy worrying about you guys," Dipper said.

Stan shrugged. "Yeah, well, we both came out of it better'n that Voillelli guy."

"Did he get away?" Wendy asked. "I say we go after him!"

Stanley scratched his nose. "About that. The Coast Guard also found floatin' wreckage from his yacht a good many miles out to sea. It somehow blew up. I dunno, maybe some enemy of his planted a time bomb, whatever. We may never know for sure."

"He could have escaped in a lifeboat," Dipper pointed out. "Maybe he even blew it up himself, just like the freighter. He could be out there somewhere now!"

"Not likely," Stanford said. "In any event, Canadian authorities have at last agreed to cooperate with the Agency. Joint search warrants have been issued by both governments, and Voillelli's island is now occupied by lawmen who will closely examine everything they find there. If he returns, they'll arrest him on the spot, and if he doesn't, well, I hear from the Professor that at the least, he fully expects a number of vicious crimes to be solved. Enough to put the man away for good."

"I hope they find what's his name, Volleyball, and string him up!" Mabel said, viciously. "Make him a tetherball! Ka-pow! Ka-pow!"

"Nah, chill, Mabes," Wendy said, patting her shoulder and interrupting her imaginary punches. "That's way too harsh. Tell you what, if we find him, let's just feed him to the sharks."

When the kids went next door to their room, Wendy clicked on the light and said, "Oh, man. Check this out!"

Mabel was the only one of them with luggage—she had just enough time to pack her clothes before the helicopter had taken her and her Grunkles aboard. Dipper's duffel and Wendy's overnight bag were still on the Stan O'War II. All they had were the black outfits that Agent Trigger had given them.

Except now they apparently had more. On the closest queen-sized bed, men's underwear, socks, jeans, a belt, a red shirt, and a blue denim camper vest had been neatly folded and laid out. On the pillow rested—a blue and white trucker's cap with a blue pine tree on the front. "Oh, man," Dipper moaned. "They struck again. And we were right next door blabbing about everything!"

The girl's clothes were on the same bed, other side. Wendy moved aside the bra, panties, and orange-and-yellow socks and held up a new green plaid flannel shirt. "My size, all right," she said. "These jeans look a little bit tight, though. Meh, they're stretchy. They'll do." She reached to the floor and brought up a pair of new brown boots, shaking her head. "Man, they so got me pegged! My brand, my size. All these need is a little mud on 'em."

Mabel was looking at the two of them with one suspicious eye squinted. "Whyyyyy . . . did they put both your outfits on the same bed?"

"It's elementary," Dipper said with dignity. "This bed's the closest one to the door. The agents obviously wanted to be in and out quickly because they didn't want us to catch them at it."

"Like Santa Claus," Wendy said in support. She grinned. "Or ninjas!"

Mabel seemed to buy that, so Dipper said, "I'll take this bed, and you and Wendy can sleep in the other one."

"Only one thing missing," Wendy said, folding her new outfit.

Mabel reached into her bag. "Ta-dah!"

"Oh, Mabes! Thanks." Wendy took the trapper's hat from her. "Still got your running medal in it and everything, Dip. Nice of you to remember to bring it, Mabel!"

In the dresser drawers, they found night things for them all—not a floppy-disk sleep shirt, but a similar one without the emblem, in lavender, for Mabel, with fuzzy pink pajama bottoms, and for Wendy green flannel shorty pajamas with a black tank top, and for Dipper a plain blue tee and loose blue cotton boxers. They also found toiletries in the bathroom, toothbrushes, two brands of toothpaste (the twins' favorite and Wendy's, too), and all the necessities.

Dipper found a disposable razor and a travel-sized sample of the shaving cream he'd been using, and he ran hot water and scraped off his scruff. Someone even had provided a three-ounce sample of the aftershave he self-consciously used: Tall Pines. He'd bought it to begin with only because of the name.

When he finished and rubbed a towel over his face, Mabel complained, "Aw, your dimple just about disappeared. Lucky I don't shave mine!"

"Mabel!" Dipper said, being jostled. It wasn't that big a bathroom, and it was a little difficult shaving with two girls at his elbows going through the goodies on the shelf.

"Man!" Wendy exclaimed, holding up a couple of bottles. "They even have my shampoo and conditioner here! It's gonna take the whole amount of both to get this salt and gunk out. Guess I'll get up early to do it, though. Don't want to sleep with damp hair."

"Guys?" Mabel said. "Uh, could I have a little privacy here?" Wendy and Dipper left her in the bathroom, but not for the first reason that springs to mind. Though it was nearly eleven, Mabel called Teek, sitting on the closed toilet just for privacy. She came out in a few minutes, looking a little subdued, and put her phone on the nightstand. "Teek and me have to talk some stuff out when we get back," she muttered.

"Hope it's not serious," Dipper told her.

Mabel shrugged and gave him a lopsided smile. "Well—I'll just say we both have to be grown-up about it. It's certainly not break-up serious. I think it comes down to mutual apologizing. And some forgiving, on both sides. We can patch it all up. I really didn't mean to hurt his feelings."

"It'll be OK, Mabes," Wendy said. "Teek and you are—what did we used to call it? MFEO."

They changed into their night clothes and turned in. Dipper was exhausted and fell asleep in minutes, hugging one of the three pillows on his bed.

Then past midnight, he woke up to a sound like the Gobblewonker gargling pebbles, or like Manly Dan sawing through a three-foot-diameter oak log with one gloved hand operating a rusty two-man saw, going for the world speed record.

He recognized the racket coming through the wall because back in the Shack he had heard it night after night when he and Mabel were only twelve.

Grunkle Stan was snoring.

Smiling, Dipper turned over and went back to sleep to the horrible, grating, infuriating—and completely wonderful—sound.

Afterword: Bulletins

(June 18, 2015)

At 8:30 that Thursday evening as she and Teek sat on the grass outside the Gravity Falls Municipal Swimming Pool, which had closed half an hour earlier, Mabel said to Teek, "OK, I'm sorry for blowing up because you took Toni to the concert."

"We didn't kiss or anything," Teek mumbled. "And I only took her, because, you know—"

"Yeah," Mabel said. "The tickets were eighty-five dollars apiece, and I ran off on this adventure without telling you I was going to rescue the manatee. I'm sorry for that, too. In the excitement, I just sort of forgot we had a date. I just got carried away, because—" she waved her arms and bobbed her head. "You know, Mabel!"

"That's OK," Teek told her with a regretful smile. "I'm sorry I got so mad. It's just, well, we'd been planning this and—aw. I guess we've said everything already, right? There's nothing between me and Toni Brandeis. We were lab partners in biology, but she doesn't even like me. I mean, she doesn't hate me, but normally she wouldn't go out with me, except she's a big fan—"

Mabel put a finger against his lips. "We've already said everything," she reminded him. "But for the record, there's nothing between me and Mermando, either. Mermen grow up faster than humans. Now he looks like he's twenty or some deal. And I think he really loves his—there she blows!"

The pool water near the inlet suddenly glowed golden. "Back in a second," Mabel said. She picked the lock, retrieved the bottle, and took out the message. Surprising Teek, she handed the coated paper, more like a thick sheet of plastic, to him. "You read it out loud," she said. "I don't think we should have secrets from each other."

Teek took it and read:

My dearest Mabel,

I write with deep joy to tell you that you and your family saved the life of the Queen of the Manatees, Sirenia the First. Her family and all the sea mammals rejoice and sing your praises. If ever you need help, you have but to call on me, though really you will have to write a letter, so please think ahead when there is a sea-related crisis and get your request in early. Thank you.

Sirenia and I are happy again, and now our friends the dolphins have established ties to their Pacific relatives. That bodes well for aquatic peace and tranquility. You and your brother Dipper have done more than you know. Like ripples in a pond, your kindness is spreading.

I was so pleased to receive your note telling me that you all came through safely. I regret that necessity forced me to leave the area through the golden portal just as the danger was approaching a critical level. I had asked the mammals to help you, but without my direction, I gather from your account that they unfortunately made many mistakes. I apologize. If my instructions had been clearer and they had better understood me, your brother and his friend the lifeguard would have been rescued much earlier.

My dear Mabel, I must confess that five of my hearts still ache for you, though we both know a love between us can never be. Let us part, and remain, as friends. Please reply to this note, and be sure to tell me if it is acceptable that I continue to correspond with you.

Always your friend,

Mermando IV, Prince of Merfolk, King of Manatees

"Is it OK with you if we write to each other?" Mabel asked when Teek finished reading.

"Sure," Teek said.

Mabel overwhelmed him, and he fell on his back, but didn't complain. She was kissing him as only Mabel could kiss.

Grunkle Ford and his wife had come over to the Shack for dinner that night. Afterward, Ford walked to the bonfire glade with Wendy and Dipper. "I didn't expect Mabel to be off on a date," he told them. "However, you can give her the news."

They sat on the log, and Dipper asked, "What news?"

"I came," Ford said, "because of this." He handed Dipper a notecard. Dipper read the small type on it and winced, then handed it to Wendy.

Dr. Pines—thought you would be interested in this news item from Westport, Washington:

Forensic scientists are examining a grisly find that washed up on an Ocean City beach and was discovered early this morning: a human foot, still in a shoe. Preliminary findings are that it may be the result of a shark attack. The shoe is an upscale man's Oxford. DNA testing will attempt to identify the victim.

—That is the substance of the news report. We can tell you that the brand of shoe is one manufactured in Boston and that it was the favorite brand, color, and style of a gentleman who lived like a recluse on an island off the coast of Washington. We may never know more.

—Your cousin.

"So much for Voillelli," Wendy said, handing the card back to Ford. "I joked about feedin' him to the sharks, but, man—" She shuddered.

"Cousin?" Dipper asked.

Ford nodded. "Back when I did R and D for an intelligence outfit, they informally called themselves the BHF. Big Happy Family. All the field agents were cousins, the supervisors were uncles and aunts, and the head was Dad. The Professor's Agency split off from that group, and they don't really use that jargon any longer, but the old-timers remember."

"I wonder what made the guy want to kidnap a manatee in the first place," Dipper said. "It makes zero sense."

"I have a few conjectures, but nothing definite and no solid evidence. We'll probably have to let this one go, Mason. Some mysteries," Grunkle Ford added, "will never be solved." He rose from the log where they sat and said his goodbyes.

Wendy took a deep breath. "I hope that guy's really gone for good. Gruesome, though. Speaking of gruesome, Dip—Friday night movies tomorrow evening. Your place or mine?" She grinned. "Dad and the boys'll off be bowling until midnight!"

"Your place," Dipper said, reaching to hold her hand.

She gave his hand a friendly squeeze. "Think that's safe, after what we went through and after what we, you know, did in that hospital shower, you ninja, you?"

He tightened his grip. "In the ocean we held on and didn't let go. I think we can also hold back, don't you?"

"Well," Wendy said, leaning close to him, "it'll be fun trying."

The End