"We're home, Grunkle Stan!" Mabel yelled, unnecessarily since their great uncle was sitting in his armchair in full view of the front door when Dipper and Mabel returned.
"Meh," Stan grunted in greeting. As was is usual evening routine, he was staring at the television set.
Mabel happily perched herself on his armrest. "Don't you want to hear about our day at the festival?" she asked.
"Not particularly," Stan answered.
Dipper chuckled. "Yeah, he's much more interested in whatever love affair that little black and white Duchess of his in involved in tonight. Isn't that right, Grunkle Stan?" He prodded his uncle playfully.
"Don't poke me," Stan grumbled. "And for your information, Dipwit, The Duchess Approves isn't even on tonight."
"Good!" Mabel said. She sat up straight and began swinging back and forth her legs that dangled off the armrest. "Then you'll have nothing to distract you from me telling you all about my day. First off, this morning, after Dipper went off with Soos to look at some rocks or whatever, Wendy and I went to this stand where you get to make your own rock candy. And then I saw one of those balloon-popper games, and it had stuffed elephants for prizes, and so naturally-"
"I have a feeling this is going to take a while," Dipper said softly to Stan. "I'm gonna go make a snack."
"Great, leave me alone with the chatterbox, why don't you?" Stan whispered back.
Dipper just smiled and darted into the kitchen. Mabel's voice narrating every minute detail of her day provided background noise as Dipper slowly fixed himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and poured a glass of milk. Taking care not to spill any of the milk, he edged his way back into the den, just as Mabel was in the process describing the magic show to Stan. "Then she pulls the sheet away," Mabel was saying, "And boom, the stuffed sheep had transformed into a live one! But the next trick was my favorite, because guess who was the audience participation person was?"
"Soos?" Stan guessed dully.
"Nope! It was Dipper! The magician had him go into one of those old-timey head-chopper-off thingies. He was so scared, I thought he was going to be sick all over the stage!"
"I was not!" Dipper cried defensively. "I knew it was just a silly magic trick, of course! I just... I had a little stage fright, that's all!"
Mabel burst into giggles. "Aw, don't lie to Grunkle Stan, Dipper!" she said, before turning back to her uncle. "Seriously, his face was like this the whole time." She widened her eyes and pulled her lips back into a comically exaggerated image of a frightened face.
"Not true!" Dipper snapped.
Mabel pulled the twins' shared phone out of her pocket and waved it in the air. "True! And I have photographic evidence to prove it!"
Dipper felt himself blush. "Mabel, delete those pictures," he said.
"Not until I show Grunkle Stan how scared you were!" Mabel replied happily. Dipper lunged at the phone, but Mabel held him back with one hand as she showed Stan the pictures with the other. "See," she said, clicking through them. "There's Dipper going up onto the stage. And there he is when they pulled out the choppy-thingy. Ha! Look at his face! And here he is getting put in the choppy thing. And here's the magician lady pulling down the shiny choppy part of the choppy thing. And here's-"
"Wait-" Stan cut her off suddenly. "Go back."
Mabel looked up, an eyebrow raised. Stan had very suddenly taken a much greater interest in the photographs. His eyes were wide as he stared intently at the phone. "Um, you mean this one?" she asked. She displayed the picture of Rose pulling down the blade.
"Yes, yes," Stan answered. He snatched the phone from her to look more closely. After gazing at it a few moments, he asked, "Do you have any clearer pictures of this magician lady?"
"Sure," Mabel said, "Let me look." She took the phone back.
Dipper looked at his uncle curiously. "Dang, Grunkle Stan," he said. "Sure, she was decent-looking, but do you really-?"
"Shut up, kid!" Stan growled. He turned back to Mabel. "Found any yet?"
"Yeah," Mabel said. "Here's a pretty good close-up." She gave him back the phone.
Stan stared at the picture, then, with shaking fingers, closed the phone and gave it back to Mabel. "You still got that flyer of yours?" Mabel nodded and hurried to the kitchen to grab it. She came back with it moments later and gave it to Stan, who quickly looked it over. "She's got two more showings this week," he muttered, much more to himself than to his niece and nephew.
"Ooh!" Mabel squealed. "Do you want to go see her show? Because I'd love to see it again! How about for the Wednesday show we-"
"No," Stan snapped.
Mabel stood still and stared at him. "But, Grunkle Stan-" she started, but Stan interrupted her again.
"I said no," he told her sharply. "No more magic shows. That goes for both of you."
Mabel's lower lip trembled. "Why not?" she asked.
"Because- because those things are a load of hokum anyway. And I don't need you two patronizing that sort of thing."
Dipper rolled his eyes. "Sorry, pot, I didn't catch that. What were you saying about kettle?"
Stan glared at him. "Just," he said with a sigh, "Just don't go to any more of this Rose Thorn's woman's shows, okay?" He got up out of his armchair, the flyer still clutched tightly in his hand. "I'm going to bed," he said, and he started up the stairs.
"But Grunkle Stan!" Mabel called after him. "Don't you want to hear how the show ended?" She was answered by the sound of a door slamming shut on the floor above. She turned to Dipper. "What was that about?" she asked him.
Dipper could only shake his head dumbly, just as confused as she was.
"Pines!" Rose cried as she entered the dressing room, tossing her hat aside and peeling off her gloves. "You heard that, didn't you, Joanne? The kid said his name was Dipper Pines!"
"Don't get too excited," Joanne replied. She walked over to pick up the accessories that Rose was carelessly tossing aside. "It could have just been nothing more than a coincidence."
Rose, however, shook her head adamantly. "No, no way," she said. She turned to call back out of the dressing room, "Kenneth! Go find me a phone book for this town, would you?" She stepped back into the room. "And you saw the kid, didn't you? The hair and the face shape and all. That's genetics, Joanne! Must have been his grandkid or something like that!"
"Rose, you don't know that for sure," Joanne replied.
"Are you kidding?" Rose said. She had moved across the dressing room and was rummaging through her trunk of props. "How common a surname do you think 'Pines' is? And don't you think it at all odd that a kid with his last name and his features just happens to be in the same little backwater nowhere town as the kid who just happened to own this?" As she said it, she pulled from this trunk a large, crimson book, with a six-fingered hand and the number two on the front cover. "That's not coincidence, Joanne. That's destiny!"
A knock came at the dressing room door, and Kenneth poked his head into the room. "Got a phonebook," he said, holding it up.
"Give it here, give it here!" Rose cried, hurrying to snatch it from him and then flipping rapidly through the thin yellow papers. Kenneth glanced at his sister and gestured with his head toward Rose with an eyebrow raised, as if silently asking, What's with her?
"She thinks she's had some sort of epiphany, I think," Joanne whispered to him.
"Yes!" Rose shouted suddenly, triumphantly. She slammed the book down in front of her assistants and jabbed her index finger excitedly at one of the listed names. "Look at that! Look!" Kenneth and Joanne leaned closer to read the name, but they needn't have bothered, because Joanne announced it anyway. "Stanford Pines!" she exclaimed. "He's here! He's in Gravity Falls!"
A/N: Everyone else here on campus is freaking out about finals, and I'm just here, writing fan fiction, because I only have a final in one class; all the others had semester projects, which I finished and turned in last week.
Oh, and if you get author alerts from me, you may have noticed that I've also started up a Total Drama fanfic. Don't worry, I'll still be updating this fic as regularly as always. I've just got my work cut out for me a little now, juggling two fics at once. Anyway, favorite, follow, review, don't do drugs, and stay in school!