Disclaimer: Gravity Falls belongs to Alex Hirsch and Disney.
Chapter 10: Beware the Gobblewonker Part 1
"What're you playing at old man? Why the sudden interest in fishing?" Dipper asked, confronting his Grunkle. Stan ignored the accusation, instead waving out to the lake.
"Are you kidding me, the whole town's out here. Where else would we be?" Stan stated. And he was right; Wendy observed nearly the entire town was out on the lake, all trying to win the fishing competition. The only people who weren't immediately present were her friends and the Gleefuls. Wendy saw her father break Paul's fishing pole before reaching into the lake to pull out a decent sized trout with his hands.
"This is prime family bonding time." Stan expressed, gazing out over the lake. Wendy smirked.
"Are you sure it's not because you want to win the fishing competition?" The twins glanced up at her.
"Fishing competition?" Mabel asked.
"Yeah, every year on the first day of fishing season, Ranger McGucket holds a competition where the person who gets the heaviest fish wins a dollar for every pound on the fish. Second place gets fifty cents on the pound. At ten dollars per person competing, it's a win-win for McGucket and the first place entry, since the winning fish has yet to weigh under a hundred pounds." Wendy answered. The twins gave a sound of awe as they contemplated the potential payout. Stan snorted.
"Please, I never compete; it's a fool's gamble. The Pisces family wins every year, first and second place. No, today is all about the bonding." Wendy quirked an eyebrow, usually Stan was on top of everything that was going on in the town, second only to Gideon's spy cameras.
"You didn't hear? The Pisces are down to five members competing this time." This caught Stan's attention.
"You don't say," – her boss replied, stroking his chin. – "That settles it, this year the Mystery Shack is going to win the Gravity Falls Fishing Competition. Wendy, here's fifty dollars to go sign us up; Soos, get your boat ready, we're gonna need it, and kids, be prepared for the most intense ten hours of your life."
"Ten hours?!" they cried in dismay. Wendy chuckled to herself as she headed over to the bait shop to sign the five of them up. Her good mood evaporated when she saw the Mystery Eats truck parked next to the shop. Will waved at her from inside the truck, which Wendy pointedly ignored. She was still a little angry over his manipulation of how he answered her question from before. She registered the Mystery Shack employees, sans Will for the fishing competition. On the way out, she bumped into Will, who was waiting just outside.
"What are you doing here?" she snapped, Wendy wasn't in the mood for any of Will's shenanigans at the moment. The man shrugged.
"Promoting the Mystery Eats brand, watch a bunch of shmucks waste time trying to catch the second biggest fish in the lake, keep an eye on you to make sure you're not cheating. You know; regular human stuff." Wendy stared at him, suspicious.
"I thought you were an all-seeing demon, why do you need to be down here to make sure I'm not cheating?" she asked. Will stared at her nonplussed with her questioning.
"In case you can't tell, in a human body." He stated, indicating himself, "Some things have to be seen with your own eyes."
"If you say so, but I'm watching you." Wendy replied, pointing her fingers at her eyes, and then his own to indicate that she was watching him. Will simply smirked and walked back to the food truck, calling out that fish tacos were two dollars off if the customer brought their own fish. Wendy walked over to the pier, brushing past McGucket as he ran by, murmuring something about finding some sort of creature himself, to where the twins were waiting nervously.
"What's going on, you guys look nervous?" Wendy inquired. Dipper was looking out across the lake, at Scuttlebutt Island.
"An old man ran through here, talking about how there was a monster in the lake." Dipper replied, "He claimed that it destroyed his boat and we were all in grave danger."
"Don't forget 'Oh, Donkeyspittle'," Mabel stated in a hick voice, crossing her eyes to emphasize the state of the man. Wendy sniggered a little bit at Mabel's portrayal of the town kook.
"Well, I've never heard about any monster in Gravity Falls Lake, so I think we'll be fine." Wendy reassured them. She was not certain that it was the truth, as she did not remember Stan taking the twins on any trip to Gravity Falls Lake on Family Fun Day last time. She and her friends had instead taken advantage of the lack of police presence to graffiti half the town and steal some liquor. The twins accepted her assurance, just in time for Soos to pull up in his boat.
"All aboard the S.S. Cool Dude," Soos waved from the wheel.
"Finally, took you long enough to get the boat over here," – Stan grumped as he strode past Wendy and the twins with his fishing supplies, only pausing to place fishing caps on Dipper and Mabel's heads. – "Careful not to lose those, they're hand stitched."
The twins looked at their hats before smiling at each other and scrambling aboard the boat, Wendy followed them at a sedate pace, and absently wondered what her friends were doing at the moment without her.
Thompson wearily looked at the bottle of Hirsch-Bomb in his hand. "Guys, I'm not sure about this."
Lee slapped him on the back, "Thompson, quit being such a wuss. Just drink it."
The group then started to chant, "Thompson. Thompson. Thompson."
With his friends chanting around him, Thompson steeled his nerves, and began to chug the bottle like it was filled with popcorn oil. Over the burning of his throat, Thompson heard the cheering of his friends as he killed the bottle. After emptying the bottle, he threw it to the ground with a cheer of his own. Then, faster than it went down, the Hirsch-Bomb came rushing back out. The group stared at the mess on the ground for several moments before Nate nudged Lee.
"$10 dollars says you won't slurp that up."
The misery of the blazing sun was only made worse by the lack of fish biting.
'Though,' Wendy reflected, 'it's probably because of Stan's terrible jigs.'
Half of the jigs were melted together, and the other half smelled like they had been rubbed on the floor of the world's worst locker room. The live bait smelled marginally better. Wendy did not foresee the Mystery Shack team turning in a fish, let alone win the fishing competition.
She was currently hiding in the shade of whatever it was that covered the steering wheel as the sun was torture on her pale skin, and for some reason, no one had remembered to bring sunscreen. She felt a stab of sympathy as she observed Dipper bring his vest over his head in order to keep more of his skin out of the sun, but she was not going to give up her spot to anyone else on the boat, not with the sunburns she'd get.
"Hey, you gonna lay there like a lump, or are you gonna fish?" Stan asked from his position at the front of the boat. Wendy simply smiled as she lay back against the steering column and closed her eyes.
"Mr. Pines, you know us Corduroy's only fish with our bare hands."
"You fish with bear hands?" Mabel gasped, "Do you use baby bear hands?"
"Mabel, I'm pretty certain Wendy doesn't actually me—" Dipper was interrupted by his sister making a growling noise and faking a swipe at him. Dipper fell backwards with a yelp and Mabel jumped on him, growling about her "bear hands" as the two wrestled. Their play was interrupted when Soos saw his line zip out.
"Mr. Pines, I got one!" Stan made his way over as Soos stared at the rapidly decreasing fishing line.
"What are you waiting for? Reel it in." Stan stated as he gave the rod a yank, hooking the fish. Soos squealed in excitement as he started to eagerly reel in the fish. By this time, the twins and Wendy were gathered around, cheering Soos on as he tried to bring in the fish. Soos spent nearly twenty minutes reeling in the fish in, and it was touch and go for a little bit, as occasionally the reel seemed like it was about to snap in half as the fish fought to escape. The anticipation rose as they saw a dark shadow start to rise up near the boat, nearly equal in size to the vessel.. Then with a pop, the fish shot out of the water and into the boat. They all stared at the fish that laid on the boat in surprise.
It was a small bluegill, just barely five inches long.
"What's this?" Stan stated in astonishment, "Is this some kind of joke? But we just saw…and the shadow, and the fight…"
"Mr. Pines, just accept that we managed to catch a fish after fishing several hours." Wendy spoke, "At least we have something to turn in."
"Turn in, this wouldn't even be good for Will's fish tacos." Stan snapped, before his brow furrowed in thought, "Maybe we could use it as bait…"
Soos gasped, "Use it as bait, Mr. Pines, we can't use Gilly as bait."
"Gilly?" Stan asked, confused, "You haven't even had that fish for thirty seconds; you can't give it a name."
"Too late Mr. Pines, I think Mabel's gotten attached to it." Wendy answered, gesturing back at Mabel, who, after placing the bluegill in a large bucket full of water, was making fish faces at it and cooing. Dipper simply looked on in embarrassment. Stan slapped his face in frustration. Before he could say anything further, the boat lurched. Wendy managed to keep her balance by holding onto the steering column, but she saw Mabel tip over and fall into the fish bucket before Dipper pulled her out.
"What was that, did we hit something?" Stan stated, looking over the edge of the boat to see if they hit an underwater tree. Everyone began looking around, trying to figure out what had caused the boat to lurch. There were no shadows under their boat, and the lake was calm.
"I'm not seeing anything Mr. Pines." Soos answered. Stan glared around suspiciously.
"Well something hit the boat." Any further discussion was cut off as the boat lurched again, stronger than the first time. This time everyone fell down as the boat swayed. Then the boat lunged forward, some unseen force dragging the boat to an unknown destination. The boat zigged and zagged, causing everyone on board to roll around, crashing into each other as they tried to keep themselves in control. The only one on the boat that seemed to be unaffected by the conditions that they were under was Gilly, who floated contently, oblivious as the bucket slid from side to side with the turns. Eventually though, the boat stopped making turns and slowed down to a gentle drift before finally coming to a grinding halt.
Everyone laid where they were for several moments longer, uncertain if they wanted to try standing up again since last time they had ended up rolling around out of control. When it was clear that nothing was going to happen, they all starting getting up from where they laid.
"Where are we?" Mabel asked, looking around at the dense fog that was beginning to settle on the boat. Nobody recognized where they were, nobody except Stan.
"We're on Scuttlebutt Island." He answered grimly.