Mabel and Teek's Excellent Adventure

(July 4, 2014)

Chapter 11

"Get back!" Ford yelled, pushing himself away from the lab table. "I think it's going to blow!"

The crystal ball flared and surged with intense light, like lightning trying to escape from a goldfish bowl. Dipper could hear things on the lab shelves vibrating. "Turn off the lamps, man!" Wendy yelled.

Dipper pulled Wendy off her lab stool and pushed her to the floor, covering her with his body and throwing his arm around her. "Cover your head!'

"Dude!"

Up on the lab bench, with a final flare of energy—

Teek, Mabel, and Little Soos poofed into existence—all of them on the edge of the table. "Whoa!" Mabel yelled, clutching the baby and beginning to topple.

"I got you!" Teek shouted, grabbing her.

As a result, they all three fell off, but together—and between them, they kept Little Soos from hitting the floor and didn't land too hard themselves. "Why'd you do that?" Mabel yelled, scrambling to her feet, still holding onto the baby, who was giggling in a let's-do-that-again way.

"I was trying to keep you from falling!" Teek yelled, struggling to stand up. His jeans were tight.

"Are you all right?" Ford asked.

"Mabel!" Dipper yelled, jumping up and hugging his sister, who ignored him.

Wendy pushed up from the floor, dusted herself off, and waved at Teek. "'Sup, dude? Kickin' threads, T.K.!"

"I didn't mean just now!" Mabel yelled at Teek. "Why'd you kiss Jerkface?"

Teek stared at her through his round specs. "You told me to!"

"I did not! He said to kiss the sky!"

Teek blinked. "I thought he said 'this guy!'"

"Well, I kissed the sky and got us home!" Mabel paused. "Um. How was it?"

Teek blinked and made a yeck face. "He was a dude!"

"Yeah," Mabel sighed.

"Mabel," Dipper said, releasing his hug. "What the heck happened?"

"Later," she said. "Where are we? Oh, the lab. I gotta run upstairs and put Soosie to bed and get Widdles out of it! Where's the diaper bag?"

Ford gingerly bent forward and touched the citrine globe, which had calmed down and apparently was not hot enough to singe his fingertip. He reached to the floor and brought up the floral bag. "Is this it?"

"Yes! Thanks! Back in a second!" Mabel grabbed the diaper bag in one hand, put Soosie on her hip with the other, and hurried up the stairs.

"So," Dipper said to Teek, "exactly what have you and my sister been up to?"

"It started with this thing," Teek said, pointing to the crystal ball, which Ford now held in his six-fingered hand. "Mabel asked Stan if I could have something . . . . "

Before he'd finished, Mabel had come back, without pig or baby. She chipped in some information about the end game. "And then genius here grabbed onto the king and smooched him!" she finished. "I thought G.K. was gonna turn us into hop-toads or something, so I took hold of the back of Teek's shirt and stretched up and kissed the inside of the dome, and everything turned inside-out, and here we are!"

"Mm-hmm," Dipper said. "And did you two smooch each other much?"

"Dipper!" Wendy said, laughing.

"There wasn't time!" Teek said. "And I told you why Mabel jumped up and grabbed onto me and wrapped her le—herself around me. We were going to be magically transported!"

"Wait, wait, wait, brobro!" Mabel said, turning hotly to Dipper. "You are worried about me kissing somebody? When you're all the time kissing—"

"I think I need to go see how Lorena is," Ford said hastily. "You kids just . . . lock up behind you. Oh, and I'll take the crystal ball. I think it should be kept safe somewhere. T.K., feel free to take something else from the shop. I'll pay for whatever it is, no limit." He tucked the citrine ball into his pocket and left in a hurry.

As soon as he had gone, Dipper said hotly, "Wendy and I do not kiss all the time!"

"Yeah," Wendy added mischievously, raising a suggestive eyebrow. "We do other stuff, too."

"Wendy!" But Dipper couldn't help laughing.

"Come here, Teek!" Mabel said defiantly. She pulled him against her. "Mmmm!"

"Mabel!" Dipper yelled. Teek couldn't speak, his lips being otherwise occupied.

"Hey, Dip?" Wendy said, turning him around. She leaned in. "Mmmm!"

It's funny how a little public display of affection can cool an otherwise fraught situation. By the time the four teens came upstairs, Mabel was holding hands with Teek, Dipper with Wendy, and they were laughing and joking.

The barbecue had started, and a few minutes later, Melody went inside to check on Little Soos, found him awake, and brought him out. Everyone oohed and aahed over how much he'd grown and how smart he was.

Dipper, Mabel, and Teek got busy helping serve people. Wendy murmured, "My day off, dudes," and she wandered off and found Ford and Lorena sitting together on a tablecloth on the lawn. "Join you?" she asked.

They said sure. She sat down, they chatted a bit, and after a few minutes Lorena tactfully said, "I'm going to get another drink. Bring anyone anything?"

"No, thank you, dear," Ford said.

"I'm fine, thanks, Mrs. Jones," Wendy told her.

When she had walked away, Wendy sighed. "Dude, what were those crazy lamps plugged into? I saw that gizmo—it wasn't a regular electric outlet, but kinda a silver ball in the middle of an octagon of outlets. And it wasn't hooked up to anything!"

"Hmm? Oh, that's something I picked up the design for in Dimension 46-MT. A zero-point energy extractor. It collects free energy and transforms it into unlimited electricity."

"Dr. Pines!" Wendy said. "That can make you rich! I mean, super-rich!"

Ford shrugged. "I don't think I'll patent it or release the design to the public. It occurs to me that the more energy humanity controls, the worse the wars get. Maybe as a species we're not yet ready to handle that kind of power. So I keep my little prototype just to supply electricity for those special devices that most require it in the lab."

"Oh."

After a moment of silence, Ford asked kindly, "What's wrong, Wendy?"

She sighed. "Shows, huh? I dunno. I'm feeling—well, not right. See, up to two years ago, all I wanted to do was hang with my friends, avoid school, and get in trouble. My dad, like, hated me for a while there. But since I've started feeling, you know, affectionate with Dipper—I'm trying to change, but maybe I can't. You know when we were under that—naiad?—naiad's spell or whatever, he and I were in each other's heads, but now we're not any more. But now I know how strong he really feels about me. I'm getting there with him, I mean as far as returning his affection and all, but—I worry. I'm so afraid that I'm gonna disappoint him one day."

"I don't think that's possible," Ford said with a smile. "Is it the age thing?"

"Yeah, I guess it is," she sighed. "Not even three years, really, but it feels like more than that. And we have to wait for three years from his next birthday before we can tell anybody! It's kinda difficult to, you know, stay within bounds when we're together, and I don't know if we can hold out—not when we're apart for most of the year. I mean, I'm not interested in any guys but him, but—well, he's still growing up, he's bound to run into other girls—geez, Dr. Pines, why don't you invent a pill that could make me the same age as him?"

"Ah, an ancient dream of mankind's," Ford said, smiling. "I'm afraid there's no such pill. If there was, I'd take it myself. I'm twenty-six years older than Lorena. Stanley is twenty-eight years older than Sheila Remley. Still, we're not calling off our, well, relationships, and we're reasonably happy. I think you and Dipper can handle three little years, and when he's college age, the difference really won't matter at all."

"I hope so," Wendy said. "But you know, Dipper is still younger than me not just in years, but in so many ways. Like he got so mad about Teek and Mabel, but they're just having an ordinary teen romance. If I was their age—maybe it wouldn't seem so heavy."

"Of course," Ford mused as though lost in a daydream, "there is the legend of the Fountain of Youth. Just a myth, everyone says. Odd that I've never researched that."

Wendy stood up. "Sorry for unloadin' on you, Dr. Pines. Just had to tell somebody, and I don't want to hang this on Dipper. It'd worry him. As it is, I have to tuck it away in the back of my mind so he won't find out when we—when we hold hands or whatever. Have a good Fourth! See you guys later at the fireworks."

"Florida . . . ." Ford murmured. "What? Oh, fine, fine. Don't worry, Wendy. These things work out."

"So you're not really mad at me?" Teek asked Mabel.

"Not really," Mabel admitted. "I'm sorry I went off on you like that. I mean, I was scared to death because of my acrophobia, I'd been worried all day we'd lose Little Soos, I found a nearly naked girl in bed with you—it was just all my doubt and fear and worry coming out like that that made me seem so mad."

"But you were so optimistic the whole time!" Teek said. "Like you knew all along we'd get out fine!"

"That's my way of dealing with anxiety, I guess," Mabel told him with a shrug. They were standing a little apart from the crowd enjoying the barbecue, in the shade of the forest edge. "But, Teek! Kissing that guy!"

He squirmed. "I didn't want to!"

Mabel nudged him. "How was it? Really?"

"Not . . . bad," Teek confessed. "For kissing a guy, I mean. I mean, you know, no tongues! Just lips. But it's not something I'm into!"

Grinning, Mabel challenged, "Show me how he kissed."

Teek looked around nervously. "Here?"

"Nobody's looking."

So . . . they stepped around a tree and Teek showed her. And then he showed her the difference when he kissed a girl.

And short as the kisses were, before the two pulled away from each other, Pacifica's voice broke in: "You guys! Oops! Hey, who's that—T.K.? OMG, you got swag! New outfit! Mabel, you lucky girl! Mm. Lucky, lucky girl! Come here and let me get a good look, T.K.!"

"Hi, Pacifica," Mabel said, her smile frozen. "Where's Adam? You know, your boyfriend?"

"Around somewhere," Pacifica said carelessly. "Mom, Dad, and I just got back in town yesterday. Europe was fabulous. Hey, T.K., walk me over to the serving table and tell me what's good . . . . "

In the realm of the Goblin King, Jahrkves brooded in the throne room. He called Phlegm in. "Take a memo."

"Yes, sire." Phlegm was an ideal confidential secretary. He could neither read nor write, but he had a magical gift of transferring spoken words directly to paper, without their leaving the least impression on his brain.

The Goblin King put a meditative finger on his lips, and then said, "Ready? Good. Note to self: Next time, try to persuade the hero to stay, not the maiden. Might not be that bad."

Phlegm handed him the parchment with the memo on it and bowed himself out. Jahrkves read it, shrugged, and muttered, "Damn narrative conventions probably won't let me get away with it, but it might be worth a try."

Bored and—yes, lonely, he snapped his fingers and started to change channels, trying to find something good on his crystal ball.

Stanford and Stanley Pines disappeared from the barbecue for a few minutes. They went down to the lab, and Stanford rummaged around in his underground library until he found an enormous atlas.

He opened it to a relief map of Florida—an old one, the book was published in the 1880s—and the twin brothers bent over it, Stanley looking interested but skeptical, Stanford stabbing the map with his forefinger and explaining why this, that, and the other place had been eliminated, but—"I'm beginning to suspect that this area just might have potential."

"I'm listening," Stanley said.

Wendy and Dipper found their way to the bonfire clearing. They kissed, of course. And when they did, they could read each other's thoughts:

—Dipper, you have to trust T.K. Let him and Mabel have their summer romance. He's good for her, and she's good for him.

—I know, I know. I guess it's a lifelong habit, worrying about her. See, I don't want us to drift apart. I'm thinking of going on another mystery quest with her, you know, like we used to. Would you mind if it was just Mabel and me?

—Do I get to go on one with you later?

—Later and for the rest of my life.

—Deal. Just don't you get hurt, you hear me? And if you need me—

—Got you on speed dial.

In the early afternoon, as they joined in the games and the laughter and the fun, Dipper said to Wendy, "It seems like it's been such a long day!"

"Enjoy it, man," Wendy told him as she tied their legs together—they were competing in the three-legged race. Mabel had just won the sack race, although she had run hard into a tree and although some of the other contestants were protesting. Unlike the others in the sack race, Mabel hadn't climbed into her sack but had pulled it down over her head.

"Well," Dipper said as he and Wendy stood up, "good luck. I'll probably get out of step and make you fall."

"Just cushion my landing, then," she said with a grin. "Ready?" They hobbled to the starting line.

And there were still more than eight hours of the Fourth of July to go. The fireworks were still hours away (if you didn't count as "fireworks" an earlier quick exchange between Pacifica and Mabel). It looked like the rest of the holiday would be smooth.

Oh, the three-legged race? Dipper and Wendy won first place, of course, by a wide lead. That's why they're over there around the corner of the Shack, hugging and kissing—nicely, politely, the way you do in public to celebrate.

People around them are cheering and clapping.

Everyone seems reasonably content, if not absolutely mad with joy, so perhaps this is a good place to leave them for a little while. Oh. Narrative convention—

And so they all lived happily, at least temporarily.

The End