June 5th

A somewhat dented-up blue sedan trundled along the empty stretch of tree-lined highway, its frame shaking and shuddering slightly despite the fact that the road was smooth as glass from the lack of traffic. Dipper would be the first to admit that his beat up old car probably wasn't the best machine on the road, but he had an affection for it since he'd saved up the money from his part time jobs to buy it himself. At least the CD player worked well enough, and his fingers beat a tune on the steering wheel as he hummed along with the singer belting out her tune in heavily accented English from the speaker.

"C'mon Dip, its been 3 hours – do you have anything other than Babba in this car?" Mabel groaned from the passengers seat.

"Hey, you know the rules we agreed on when we set out yesterday – the person driving gets to pick the radio station or CD. I had to sit through your endless collection of 80's music last night and you didn't hear me complaining."

"You're complaining right now," she teased sticking her tongue out, "and anyway you should be thankful to have your mind broadened with some real classical art for once."

"At least you grew out of your boy band phase years ago. I think if I had to listen to any of your old Sevr'l Timez albums I might have just shot myself before my brain melted." They both had a laugh, and Dipper reached down and changed the radio station without a word. Mabel gave him a small smile of thanks at the gesture.

"It's so weird to think about how time passes. Do you remember when we first came up here when we were in Middle School? That was one of the best summers of my life!" she exclaimed with one of her characteristic bursts of excitement.

"I know, right? The mystery! The adventures. All the people we met." he felt his heart race slightly, and of course all the danger, the fear and the weirdness, but lets ignore that for now.

"Especially Wendy, am I right?" Mabel chirped as she nudged him in the ribs and waggled her eyebrows exaggeratedly.

Dipper blushed, "She was cool, yeah."

"You had the hugest crush on her! Oh man, can you imagine how awkward it was for her to have some preteen nerd sighing after her all summer?" she laughed, "Such a dork!"

"Hey, I got over my dorkishness." he muttered defensively.

"Sure thing bro-bro, you were a big hit with the ladies of science club back home." Mabel teased. She always knew how to get under his skin better than anyone.

"No teasing me about my love life sis- you dated outside the species once." Dipper replied playfully, but with a slight edge.

"What?" she asked, perplexed.

"That mermaid guy, remember?"

"Oh c'mon, that was a summer crush 6 years ago!",

"If Wendy still counts as teasing material so does he. At least we were still kids then so nothing went too far – can you imagine trying to get frisky with a fishman?"

"Ew! Gross Dip!" Mabel snorted.

"Seriously though, how would that even work? I didn't notice any kind of mer-junk… do you think it was retractable or something?"

"Ok, you've already put way too much thought into this so we're cutting this off right now"

"Fair enough, let us never speak of this again." Dipper said dryly. This is what he'd been missing after highschool had split them up with its cliques, clubs and separate classes. He missed the closeness, the banter and knowing that there was someone who always had his back around.

Kind of a shame to get it back right before I'm going to lose it again though, he thought gloomily to himself as the radio belted out a commercial for a local car dealership that apparently had "Dynamite Deals Deals Deals!"

"Hey, Mabel – you mind if we pull over at this next rest stop? I need to stretch my legs before my foot becomes permanently grafted to the gas pedal."

"Sure thing, but when we do I'm taking the next turn driving. I still have 3 whole albums of mind-expanding music to educate you with." Though his eyes were on the road Dipper could hear the wide grin just from her tone of voice.

"This is payback for the mer-junk crack isn't it?" he joked.

"If you choose to see it that way, its up to you." she replied haughtily.

The rest stop was fairly well maintained and just as empty as the main road had been earlier when they had been driving along. Dipper lay stretched out on a bench with his cap pulled down over his eyes and sighed deeply in contentment. The birds sang, the wind blew serenely through the high tree tops and best of all Mabel couldn't find those other 3 albums that she swore she had packed the night before. Dipper may, or may not, have kicked them under her bed when they had worked together recovering and re-packing her possessions from the exploded suitcase but she wouldn't be hearing it from him and the chirping birds were quite silent on the subject of musical sabotage.

Probably for the best that we didn't bring them anyway, he thought to himself to justify his admittedly dickish action, she was already bringing enough stuff to break a donkeys back without adding the extra weight.

Over the years the twins had accumulated a very impressive collection of odd and vaguely occult junk, and while he had been hesitant at first about its use he had grown more comfortable with these little trinkets and artifacts over time. The Presidents key that hung on a chain around his neck had gotten him out of more than one tight spot and he knew that Mabel kept her grappling hook with her at all times, even finding ways to sneak it into school and once (to his impressed horror) past airport security. This summer they didn't want to take any chances and took along as much as they could in case Gravity Falls trademark blend of small town oddness and actual supernatural activity started to drag them in again.

Mabel plopped down on the bench beside him and said "Suspiciously it seems that my albums have grown wings and flown off at some point in the night or, more likely, been hidden by some jerkwad. Do you think this is a case for the Mystery Twins, or would you want to just confess right now?"

"I plead the fifth," Dipper replied.

"I did find this though while digging through the bag... I was going to give it to you after we were done with the trip. You know, before we left back home to get to school... but I think I want you to have it now." Mabel handed him a thick rectangular bundle wrapped up in butcher paper and twine.

Dipper sat up and peeled off the packaging to reveal a book with a reddish faux-leather cover and a strange six-fingered hand painted on the cover in thick gold ink – the number 4 stark black in the center of its palm. Dipper turned to her excitedly, "Mabel, where did you get this!"

"I made it you dork!" she snorted, "Open it up and check it out."

Confused, Dipper cracked open the pages to reveal various photos and newspaper clippings pasted into the page, along with Mabels careful but oddly stylized pen and ink drawings and odd objects such as strange scales, pressed flowers and what Dipper was sure was gnome beard hair. "You made this?"

"Yeah. I know how much this mystery stuff means to you so I've been saving little mementos from our trips. I thought you'd like having your own journal to work on... I left the back half blank so you can put your future exploits down."

Dipper ran his fingers over the thick pages and turned to his sister, a soft smile on his face. "Thank you Mabel... I... this is just an amazing gift."

"Well you know, I'm great so of course my gifts would be amazing," she said jokingly. "Anyway I realized it would make more sense to give it to you now before we arrived at Weirdsville, USA just in case you found something worth putting into the book."

"Knowing Gravity Falls I might get it filled up in the first week."