Dipper was sweaty.

He was running in a frenzy to his homeroom class, History. While repeating the room number in his head and running at speeds he never thought his scrawny legs could take him, his fingers ended up slipping and causing him to spill his books all over the floor.

"No, no, no!" Dipper yelled, stopping dead in his tracks and kneeling down on the ground. Just as he began to pick up his books, he heard a slightly familiar female voice begin to speak from above him.

"Want some help?"

Dipper's eyes peered up at the voice. He had to do a double take realizing who it was coming from.

"Candy, is that you?" Dipper asked.

The girl in front of him had the same long black hair as Candy, the old friend that Mabel had hung with during their first summer in Gravity Falls.

"Oh, hi, Dipper!" Candy said, smiling at him.

So it was her. Dipper could hardly believe it; her hair was about the only thing that was the same about her.

Looking as long as he could without making it seem awkward, Candy no longer wore her large pair of glasses, making her eyes pop out through her long eyelashes. She now had her braces off, her teeth looking shiny and straightened.

Her cheeks still had a certain blush to them, but appeared to have a certain different texture to them. Was that...makeup?

It was, though thankfully not to a ridiculous extent like some girls seemed to think was necessary. She had also grown an inch or two taller, and had a slender, rounded out body frame with slight curves in her hips.

"Hey, you, uh...got your glasses off!" Dipper said, trying to keep back his shock over how much she had changed.

"Yeah, I wear contacts now." Candy replied, grabbing a book off the floor and handing it to Dipper. "It seems you finally grew a couple inches too! And is that a bit of a mustache I see?"

Dipper's face turned a bit red. "Yeah, haha, just started to."

It was about time someone had noticed! His "mustache" wasn't all that impressive; just a few peach fuzz hairs that had started to darken a bit, but it still was something.

Candy handed the last book to Dipper and stood up, again flashing a smile to him. "Well, it was nice seeing you. Gotta get to class! You should, too!"

Dipper waved at Candy, becoming lost in thought for a few seconds. He was suddenly snapped back to reality by a high-pitched bell signaling the end of passing period.

"Shoot! I'm late, I'm late!"

Dipper took a left and bolted into his History classroom, where the teacher had started a sentence before Dipper opened the door. As Dipper opened the door, the teacher suddenly stopped what he was saying and looked at Dipper. As their eyes met, Dipper recognized the teacher.

"You're late." The man said to him. As Dipper's mind began to put together his appearance - long white beard, overalls, gold tooth - he saw that he was none other than Old Man McGucket.

They're letting the town kook teach a high school History class?, Dipper thought to himself. They must've been really desperate.

However, "Sorry, sir." was what Dipper actually said out loud as he found an empty desk towards the middle of the room.

"Ah, it's fine." McGucket said. "I can't even count on my ten fingers and nine toes how many times I've been late!"

McGucket opened a drawer in his desk. "What was it I was supposed to get again? Oh yeah, the syllabus."

He went through some more papers before finally finding a stack of green sheets of paper, which he passed out to the class.

"Alright, so according to the government, I'm supposed to be teaching ya'll United States history." McGucket stated. "However, that sounds like a load of boring donkey spittle, so instead I've decided we're going to learn more about the town we all live in: Gravity Falls."

There were a few cheers from the back of the class, mostly because they knew it was going to be an easy A.

"Thank you, thank you." McGucket continued on. "You see, kids, there's more to this town if you may think. But if anyone asks any of you kids what we're learning in here, hehe, say something about George Washington, alright? Now, let's look at this thing. Personally I prefer to eat paper rather then read it, but I guess every teacher's gotta do this..."

Dipper's mind wasn't really on the syllabus, or the syllabuses in any other class that day. His mind kept lingering on how much Candy had changed. She had previously been just one of Mabel's geeky friends.

However, suddenly Dipper saw her in a way he wasn't even sure of. However, he was pretty sure he liked it.


Mabel's day had went a bit smoother then Dipper's - she had actually made it to her first class on time, for one - and she was now sitting in her last class of the day: English.

For some reason she had heard a lot of hubbub about this class; particularly the teacher among girls. It was time for her to figure out why.

As Mabel saw the old brown door begin to open and a figure begin to step into the classroom, the room fell silent. Her heart fluttered as she looked at the man.

He was exceptionally tall and lean, with a bit of muscle on him too. His slightly shaggy black hair was just above his eyes as he displayed his model-like smile to the class.

Now she knew why this class had all the hubbub. This guy was a hunk.

"Good afternoon, students." The man said. Mabel's heart did another jump as she heard the man's British accent. "My name is Mr. West. I'll be your English teacher. I hope to get the pleasure of educating you all, and maybe perhaps more."

And with that last word, Mabel could've sworn that he was looking right at her. She was likely just crazy, though. There was no way a guy like him would be interested in her, right?

As she looked around the room, Mabel began to notice looks of jealousy from the other girls in the room.

What if he was looking at her in particular? Mabel decided to brush that off for now and focus on the syllabus.

However, as the bell rang to go home, her mind went back to Mr. West - what did he mean by "perhaps more"? There was no way he meant...

Before she could get more lost in thought, she heard two familiar voices calling to her: "Mabel!"

Mabel looked ahead and saw two familiar figures.

"Grenda? Candy?" Mabel asked, running forward to them. "Oh my gosh, you guys! It's so nice to see you. Wow, you've both..."

As Mabel began to say changed, she actually began to look at the two and was shocked. She began to notice the same changes in Candy that Dipper did, and she felt a bit envious.

Candy looked almost supermodel perfect. She didn't know what she had done over the last year to get like that, but she wanted it. She looked like she had lost all of her childlike features - even the baby fat in her cheeks seemed to have melted away, unlike Mabel's.

Mabel also briefly glanced down at her chest, a bit jealous that Candy had filled out more then her already, but decided to not think about herself and be happy for her friend.

"It's so good to see you, Mabel!" A deep voice said to Mabel with a laugh. That deep voice was none other then Grenda, who hadn't really changed much. She was still the same muscular, deep-voiced girl that she had been back when they were twelve.

At least one of them was the same.

"Hey, we've got a lot to catch up on, huh?" Candy said to Mabel. "I'm sure you've got plenty to tell us, too. Wanna go out for coffee?"

Mabel's eyes went wide at the last word in Candy's sentence.

Coffee? Mabel's mom had told her that there was a legal age limit on coffee back when she was little. However, she didn't want to seem babyish in front of her old friends, who had seemingly matured more then she had.

"Yeah, sure." Mabel said. The three of them walked out of the school together, chattering away, with Mabel a tad bit anxious about the whole "coffee" thing.

Eh, how hard could it be?


A/N: Another mostly uneventful chapter. Though we did find out Dipper's got a little bit of something blooming for Candy...hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge.

Next chapter is going to start up our first mystery! Yay!

If you liked this chapter, please R&R. It'd really make my day. See you all next time!