For a moment, the entire Pines family sat frozen in the station wagon, staring disbelievingly at the sight of the Mystery Shack's state. Stan was the first to react. Letting out another sharp oath, he threw off his seatbelt, wrenched open his door, and took off toward the Shack more rapidly than anyone his age should be able to run, slamming the car door behind him.

Dipper and Mabel shared a glance between each other before they unbuckled and hurried down the drive to join their uncle. They entered through the house's front door, and upon entering, Mabel let out a gasp and Dipper a sick-sounding groan. Whoever had broken into the Shack had meant business. It didn't look like a single item of furniture in the den had been left alone. The sofa was overturned, the stuffing of the cushions spilled out onto the floor. The chairs in the dinette had all been tossed aside, and a leg had broken off of one of them. The cabinets over the table had all been emptied, their contents strewn about. And the glass of the aquarium where Stan kept that odd skeleton whose source the twins didn't want to consider, had been smashed, allowing gallons of water to spill onto the floor and seep into the carpet.

"Oh my gosh," Mabel whispered. "How - what did - how?"

The twins both glanced toward the gift shop when they heard the string of profanities from Stan erupt again. They hurried over and pushed the door open, cringing as they took in the mounds of destroyed merchandise, and turned to see their uncle starting to wrench open the door of the vending machine, which had been smashed at keypad.

"Grunkle Stan?" Dipper said. "Is everything - ?"

Stan jumped and turned to them, a look of surprise on his face suggesting that he had nearly forgotten his niece and nephew were there. "What?!" he barked. "Is everything okay? Is that what you were going to ask? Does everything look okay to you?!"

Dipper stepped back from the red-faced, snarling figure that was his uncle. He didn't think he could recall Stan ever being this angry before, about anything. After seeing him in a rage like this, and after having suffered through grouchy-Stan all weekend, Dipper sort of regretted ever getting annoyed with the uncle he was used to, the gruff and unkempt one who told dumb jokes and gave him noogies. "I - I just - " he stammered.

With a sigh, his uncle turned away and put his head in his hands. "Sorry, I didn't, ah, didn't mean to blow up, there," Stan muttered. "Go, ah, go check on the rest of the house. I'll clean up around here."

"We should probably call the police, right?" Mabel suggested. Dipper nodded in agreement. The cops in this town may be dumb and dumber, but slow-witted cops were better than no cops at all.

"Fine," Stan said with a half-hearted wave. "Call them." Mabel started toward the landline phone sitting atop the gift shop's counter, but Stan threw out an arm to stop her. "Not in here," he said. "Wanna start cleaning up, need some peace and quiet. Use the kitchen phone."

Mabel raised an eyebrow. "But why can't I just - ?"

"Because I said so, okay?" Stan snapped. "Stay out of the gift shop right now, got it?" He began sweeping his niece and nephew out of the room. "Out, out, out."

Dipper and Mabel allowed him to push them out the door of the gift shop. Once out, they let out a simultaneous sigh and turned to each other. "You wanna call the cops, or should I?"

"I'll do it," Dipper said. "You go start checking the rest of the house."

Mabel nodded and started up the stairs. Dipper could hear her footsteps and she ran across the upstairs hall, stopping occasionally to open and close doors, as he went into the kitchen. The kitchen had fared not better than the den in that, although the furniture had been left in one piece, every drawer and cabinet had been opened, most of them emptied, but all of them at the very least rifled through. Dipper opened the other doors leading out of the kitchen, relieved that at least the vandal had left the back porch and pantry alone, before he picked up the phone from its ancient rotary jack attached to the wall. He begin moving the dial to call the police department, figuring this wasn't a 9-1-1 situation, and began biting on the nail of his pointer finger while waiting for someone to pick up.

"Gravity Falls City Police." Dipper recognized the deep voice of Sheriff Blubs.

"Hey, ah, this is Dipper," he said. "Um, Dipper Pines."

Blubs groaned at the other end of the line. "I told you kid, that info on the Gleeful case is confidential. Now would you stop buggin' us? The phone lines have to stay open for actual reports and - "

"I wasn't calling about that," Dipper snapped. He felt himself scowling. Ten seconds on the phone and Blubs had already managed to get under his skin. "I'm reporting a break-in. At the Mystery Shack. Someone smashed in the lock on the door, and the whole place has been wrecked."

"Vandalism, then?" Blubs said. "Anything stolen or anything?"

"I, uh, I dunno. I think just the vandalism but - "

Blubs tutted softly. "I've told Stan, I've told him, he keep messin' with people's wallets, someone's gonna try to get back. Did he listen?"

Fuming, Dipper slammed his hand onto the kitchen table. "Look," he growled, trying to ignore the pain in his hand and not scold himself for slamming it in the first place. "This was a crime, and you're supposed to deal with crime. So are you gonna come down here or not?"

"Yeah, yeah," Blubs said, sounding almost bored. "Don't get your big-city boxers in a twist. We'll be right down."

"Good," Dipper said. He turned at the sound of footsteps. Seeing Mabel join him in the kitchen, he hung up the phone sans adieu and turned to her. "So?" he said. "How's the rest of the house?"

Mabel tugged at the hem of her sweater. "Well, our attic, the breakroom, and the bathroom were all left in one piece."

A rapid inventory of the rest of the house flicked through Dipper's head: the parlor, Stan's office, the cellar, and of course all the display rooms for the museum. "And the rest of it?" he asked, dreading the answer.

Mabel shook her head. "All destroyed. It's like someone took their pet rhino on a tour of the house."

Dipper wasn't one to swear, but the mantra his uncle had been spewing in the gift shop echoed quite loudly through his head. "Stan's not gonna be pleased."

"Should we tell him now, or wait for him to cool off first?"

"The second," Dipper answered immediately. "Oh, and the cops are on there way. They asked if anything was stolen, or if it was just vandalism. Were any of the exhibits missing or anything?"

"Nope, all there, just broken." Mabel bit her lip, then leaned in closer and added in a much softer voice, "I checked under your bed. Don't worry, the journal's still there."

It took a moment for Dipper to realize what she was talking about, but when it struck, he felt like his stomach had just dropped to the floor. "You - " he stammered. "You - you don't - you don't think - "

"I dunno," Mabel said uneasily. "But, I mean, nothing was taken, and after that whole thing with Gideon, well, you know..."

Dipper sank down into one the rickety kitchen chairs and pressed his forehead against the table. "I think I'm gonna be sick," he moaned. Mabel began rubbing her hand across his back in comforting circles and the two sat in silence - well, relative silence, as they could still hear Stan rampaging through the gift shop. It wasn't until they could hear the police car pulling into the drive that Dipper finally brought his head back up.

"Right," he said. "Well, I guess, um, I guess we're not gonna be able to keep that journal around."

Mabel's eyes widened. "What, you're gonna, like, throw it away, or burn it or something?"

Her brother shook his head. "No, I mean, obviously that thing's important. I don't want to destroy it. For now, I guess we should just keep it hidden. Hidden better than just under my bed, I mean."

"Okay," Mabel said. In the gift shop, they could here a shouting match starting up between Stan and the cops. "Still thinking the woods, then? Like you said before?"

"The woods," Dipper repeated without hesitation. "Nearly forgot I'd even suggested that. That little compartment where I found it in the first place. Yeah, I figure it must have been there for years without anyone finding it before I stumbled onto it. It should be safe there."

"I guess," Mabel replied. "You sure you want to let go of it, though? I mean, you've been completely attached to that thing all summer. It's like, uh, velcro, or, you know, something that gets all... attached to something else. A parachute."

Dipper raised his eyebrow. "Parachute?"

"You know, like a flea."

"Parasite."

"Yeah, that."

Dipper shook his head. "Nah, I think I can let it go, at least for a little while." He got up out of the chair. "Now's as good a time as any. If Stan asks, just tell him I needed some fresh air."

"Will do, bro-bro," Mabel said, flashing him a thumbs-up and he climbed the stairs and hurried toward the attic to retrieve his journal.

It wasn't particularly difficult to find the metal tree a second time, not since now he knew where to look. Dipper had been a bit lazy when he'd hung up those signs at the beginning of the summer, and they took him in more or less a straight path. He reached the spot where he had left off, and began tapping at the trees, waiting for that metallic clang. Upon hearing it, he pulled the door open.

As he did so, he glanced nervously over his shoulders, listening closely for any sounds. Maybe he should have waited for Stan to get settled and then brought Mabel along; being in the woods alone after being in the wrecked house was sending his paranoia through the roof. Every shadow was somebody sneaking up behind him, every sound was the footstep of a pursuant.

"Hello?" Dipper called out, as he had several times already. "I can see you!" He couldn't, of course, but he hoped it would be enough to deter this imaginary lurker on his tail.

With a slight shiver, he flicked the switch to open up the compartment in the ground, and he gently laid the journal inside. He jumped up a foot in the air when he heard a loud snap and caught movement out of the corner of his eye, but sighed in relief when he saw a deer hopping away through the trees. "Shake it off, Dipper," he muttered to himself.

He collected his composure and started back toward the Mystery Shack, glancing back every few seconds, unable to shake that oh-so-familiar feeling of being watched.

A/N: I have four mid-terms next week, which sucks. However, I took a break from studying in order to bring you this new chapter, which, hopefully, does not suck. If you think I don't suck, favorite, follow and review!

Also, did you hear that the Season Two premiere is going to be in Disney Channel's Summer 2014 line-up? That's so soon! Gah, I can't wait!