"I presume you two know each other already." Pearl stated, taking a seat at the table that was set up in the room.
"Yeah, we do." Candy said, smiling at Dipper. "I should've expected you to be here, in fact."
"I wasn't expecting you to be here, though." Dipper replied, taking a seat next to the girl. "I didn't think this was your line of interest."
"This isn't something I would normally do, but this club's very different from what I expected it to be." Candy stated. "Not only that, but meetings are on the only day off I have from working at the dog kennel during the week, so it's convenient enough."
"Well, it's nice to see you here. I was just forcefully dragged by the ear here by a certain someone. Did you get that too?"
"Pearl!" Candy shouted from across the table. "Can't you be a little nice to a newcomer for once?"
"That wouldn't be fair. If I'm nice to one newbie, I have to be nice to all of them, and that's boring." Pearl said with a chuckle, before looking around the room with a puzzled expression. "Where are Violet and Tommy? They're never late for a meeting."
"Who?" Dipper curiously asked.
"Two more members. Twins that I rounded up last year to get the club's total to five so we wouldn't lose our room. However, it turns out they have their own connection to the paranormal. We'll talk about that more later."
"Twins?" Dipper repeated. "You know I'm a twin, right?"
"Yes, but your sister didn't seem like the type of girl that'd be into this on her record." Pearl stated. "You, on the other hand, are definitely club material."
"Her...record?"
"Pearl, tell me you didn't..." Candy started, with an accusatory tone in her voice.
Pearl turned a bit red in the face as she shrugged her shoulders with a nervous grin. "Sorry."
"You could get expelled for that, Pearl!"
"Well, I needed a member quick and didn't have any other way to get one!" Pearl shot back loudly. "Since Jackson moved away...kid was a freak, anyways. And not in a good way."
"Sorry, but what exactly did Pearl do?" Dipper asked, still trying to catch up.
"Broke into the school's permanent records and did a search for anyone who'd been involved in extracurricular activities involving mysteries in the past." Pearl said proudly. "You, Dipper Pines, were the founder of your middle school's Mystery Novel Book Club, which sounded good enough to be member material for our club to me."
"So you mean you just broke into my records?" Dipper questioned, bewildered. "But...how..."
"I have connections." Pearl simply stated with a smirk. "However, we're not here to talk about that today. We're here to initiate Dipper, and if there's time, talk about the common theme that brings us all together here."
The common theme? Dipper thought. I guess that means what we all have in common. Does she mean our interest in the paranormal? No, because then how would Candy-
Dipper's thoughts suddenly trailed off as the door swung open, and standing outside of it were two figures that Dipper had never seen before. Both of them had black hair, blue eyes and were wearing fairly similar attire; the girl was wearing a white dress with blue leggings and the boy a plain white T-shirt with blue jeans.
"Sorry we're late." The girl announced loudly. Dipper used his critical thinking skills to interpret that the pair must've been Violet and Tommy. "Tommy was dragging behind, as usual."
"I wasn't dragging behind!" Tommy snapped back at his sister. "It's your fault that I-"
"Let's save the bickering for later." Pearl interrupted, forcing a smile at the pair. "We're about to head out to my brother's restaurant for Dipper's initiation."
Suddenly, Dipper noticed the twins smirking at each other.
"New member, huh?" Violet said, looking at Dipper. "Well, it's nice to meet you. We'd better get going to the restaurant."
Something about this gave Dipper a bad feeling...
The restaurant turned out to only be a block or two away. The name on the front of the building read Gizli Sürpriz, which Dipper couldn't even begin to imagine how to pronounce.
As soon as they entered the restaurant, they were approached by a heavy-set man with a very dark mustache, scruffy hair and wearing a chef's uniform.
"Ah, welcome!" The man said excitedly. "Pearl, this is the new member you were telling me about last night, right? I'll get a table for all of you right this second."
Dipper couldn't help but notice how barren the restaurant appeared to be. The group were quickly seated, but only Dipper was given a menu. That was...strange.
As Dipper opened the menu, he saw that there were no item descriptions or prices listed anywhere on it. Instead there were various names of dishes which were even harder to pronounce than the name of the restaurant, accompanied by pictures.
"Uh...I don't get any of this." Dipper said. "Can I just get water?"
"Oh, no, no, Dipper, you have to order something." Pearl said, with a smile that Dipper wasn't sure if was meant to be encouraging or mischievous. "Come on, it's my brother's restaurant. Give him some support, would ya?"
"Alright, alright. But why didn't anyone else-"
"Don't worry about everyone else."
Dipper sighed in defeat. "Alright, fine. Eenie-meenie-minie..."
With a bit more muttering and picking between confusing photos, Dipper finally decided on something that from the picture appeared to be fried and fairly appetizing. Maybe it was a type of fish or chicken.
When Pearl's brother finally came back around, Dipper placed his order. "Um, one order of the panerede får bolde, please. Well, uh...how much does it cost? I only have like a five in my pocket..."
"Oh, no, no, don't worry about the money." Pearl's brother insisted. "This'll be on the house, for a friend of my sister. Coming right up!"
Dipper couldn't help but notice that Candy, Violet, and Tommy were acting rather awkwardly and avoiding eye contact with Dipper as he sat waiting for his meal. Seemingly to break the awkwardness, Pearl began speaking.
"So, Dipper, there is a common theme in all five members of the Paranormal Club." Pearl said. "That's the way it's always been; whenever we lose a member, we can find another that fits the theme. That theme is-"
"Bon appetit!" A loud voice suddenly interrupted, and Pearl's brother sat down the platter of panerede får bolde in front of Dipper with a glass of water. Pearl immediately spoke talking and turned towards Dipper, waiting for him to take the first bite.
Dipper hesitated for a second, having a bad gut feeling, but knew there was no getting around it. He took a bite of the mysterious food, and found that the flavor was definitely distinct from any fish or chicken he'd had before.
"Hmm...it's...chewy." Dipper said, slowly chewing the bite with a confused expression on his face. "Is this like one of those exotic fish?"
"Nope." Pearl said, with a smirk on her face. "You wanna know what panerede får bolde means? It's Danish, actually. Your taste buds were just widely expanded by the flavor of breaded goat testicles!"
The room fell silent. Candy, Violet, and Tommy all looked at Dipper in horror. Suddenly, a stomach-churning feeling brought on the inevitable.
"Come on, Dipper, you've been in there for an hour." Pearl said, with a laugh. "I think you got it all out."
"No...I don't...trust myself." Dipper choked from behind a bathroom stall. "I...need...ipecac syrup..."
"They don't even sell that stuff anymore. Anyways, everyone else went home a while ago, but Candy wanted me to give this to you."
Dipper looked up from the toilet bowl of unspeakable horrors and saw Pearl's hand slide a piece of paper under the door.
My number: 360-555-0176
Sorry about this. Text me later.
-Candy
"Anyways, I'm gonna head out, and my brother closes the restaurant at six. It's five-thirty now, so you'd best try and wrap it up in there." Pearl told Dipper.
Suddenly, Dipper stood up, flushed the toilet and practically flew out of the bathroom stall. "It's five-thirty? Man, I'd better get home before Stan and the others get worried."
Before running out the bathroom, Dipper gave an angry glare to Pearl. "I'm still mad at you."
Dipper made it home mostly without incident. Well, he threw up twice by the side of the road. Turns out that it wasn't all out of him yet.
When Dipper entered the Shack, Mabel was seemingly still going on and on about her day at school to Stan, Soos, and Wendy, who must've been bored by now.
"So, yeah, for a minute I thought about joining the Science Club, because I thought maybe it'd be like, science experiments and junk." Mabel stated. "But it turns out it's just for kids who really like science and it's a bunch of geeks reading textbooks for fun. Definitely not my thing. Oh, hey, Dipper."
Soos and Wendy gave similar greetings to Dipper as he entered.
"Candy messaged me about the, er, initiation." Mabel said, with a look of sympathy on her face. "I'm presuming you don't want dinner."
"No way." Dipper replied. "I'm still not even sure if all that junk's out of me yet."
Dipper headed out of the room without another word, heading towards his and Mabel's own room instead. He laid down on his bed and pulled his phone out of his pocket along with the piece of paper with Candy's number on it.
Hey, it's Dipper. Dipper texted to Candy. Much to his surprise, his phone dinged almost immediately with a response. She appeared to be a faster typer then he was.
Hey. Uh, sorry about today. Pearl made us all do something like that for initiation, I had to wrap myself in spiderwebs...
That's not as bad as goat testicles. Dipper texted back. Do people seriously go to that restaurant?
Yeah, a few kooks do, but it's more of a gag restaurant to trick tourists. Pearl probably chose it cuz she knew you were new.
You could've warned me.
Nope, against club rules: no one gets prepared for their initiation.
Dipper sighed out loud. Did Pearl come up with that rule?
Yep. Candy replied. But what I really wanted to text you about was this. You know how Pearl said we all have one thing in common?
Yeah. She never got to finish what she was gonna say though.
Well, that one thing is this: all of the members of the Paranormal Club have missing parents.
Before, Dipper had been kind of drifting off on his bed while texting Candy back and forth. But with that last message, Dipper was suddenly shocked to full attention.
A/N: Wow, I'm normally never this motivated to write. I don't know where I've got this sudden inspiration from, but I'm going to say it's coffee, mainly so I can have an excuse to drink more coffee.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter. As you can probably guess by now, most of the story is going to be focused on Dipper and the Paranormal Club, but there are going to be some occasional side-plots involving Mabel and the other characters as well.
Also it'd really make me happy if you gave this chapter an R&R, but hey, I can't tell you how to live your life. See you all next time!
