One Week of Wonder

10. Who's Minding the Kids?

(August 26, 2015)

Little Soos could walk and he could sort of talk (though Dipper often had to rely on Mabel to tell him that 'Mumper gah goona bow' meant 'My little car is under the refrigerator, and I would be obliged to you if you would get it out again'). The walking bit meant that keeping track of him sometimes proved hard.

Harmony, just three months old, still was relatively easy to take care of: a bottle, a diaper change, and a little singing, no matter how off-key, and she was ready for a nap. Both were usually happy babies, Harmony giggling at the least amusing thing and Little Soos especially prone to outbursts of laughter for no apparent reason. They rarely cried, unless Harmony had a diaper emergency or Little Soos bumped his noggin, which he was prone to do—he loved to run under things and sometimes forgot to duck.

On Wednesday, Melody, Soos, and Abuelita had an errand to run—Soos's aunt, who lived near Portland, had had an emergency appendectomy, and they drove over in the early afternoon to help prepare the house for her homecoming from the hospital. Cousin Reggie was the designated driver, so it was up to the three of them, plus Reggie's dad, to get the place back in order.

Soos appointed Wendy temporary acting full-time manager, and she, Dipper, and Mabel, with some help from Teek until he had to go home—his grounding sentence would end on Saturday—ran the Shack. That wasn't hard. Wednesdays tended to be slack, and between them they covered all the bases. Teek even drove one half-full tram load of tourists on the Mystery Trail tour, though he had a little stage fright and reeled off the spiel in a voice that sounded comically high-pitched.

Soos checked in at six to make sure that the Shack was still standing. Dipper reassured him. "Well, dawgs, the doctor was late on his rounds this afternoon, so my aunt won't get out of the hospital until tomorrow morning, but that's OK. We'll have the house all cleaned up for her, and we can come back tonight when that's done."

"If you want to stay over and see her—"

"Nah, that's OK," Soos said. "We visited her for about, like, an hour or some deal when we first got here. Everything went fine, the operation and all, and she doesn't feel all that bad. It's probably better if she's just with her own family tomorrow. She doesn't need a whole lot of excitement, just rest."

Soos went on to estimate that wouldn't be back until either shortly before or shortly after midnight, depending on how much they had to do at the house. Mabel had volunteered to babysit, together with Dipper, but she still hadn't fully regained her own strength from the infamous Gnome Jam Incident, and watching after the kids from three to six PM had already tired her out.

As soon as they closed the Shack, Wendy hurried home to prepare a quick dinner for her dad and brothers, and as soon as that was done, she returned to the Shack to share babysitting duties. "Got my little brothers to wash the dishes!" she announced as she came in.

"Great!" Mabel said from where she sat with Little Harmony in her lap. "It's about time they took some responsibility!"

"I know, right?" Wendy asked. "Of course, tomorrow I'm gonna have to go along behind them and re-wash about half the dishes, but it's a start."

Wendy took Harmony, and Dipper played with Little Soos—who liked music and enjoyed Dipper's guitar playing, though he kept wanting to reach up and help. "We ought to get him a guitar of his own," Mabel said, yawning.

"Yeah, or a ukulele," Dipper told her. "You can get a kid's version. I'll check it out before we have to go home."

Mabel, who was still sleep-starved, conked out around seven-thirty on the sofa. Wendy rocked the baby and gave her the evening bottle; Dipper sat with Little Soos on his knee and read him his bedtime story, an epic about a lost baby duckling who couldn't remember what species he was or what his mother looked like. The baby duck made a few embarrassing mistakes:

"Mama?" asked the duckling.

But the cow said, "Mooo!"

"Booo!" repeated Little Soos happily. Dipper turned the page.

He read aloud, "The cow was not the fluffy duckling's mother. Then Fluffy Duckling saw an animal that was covered with beautiful white curly wool. 'Mama?' asked the duckling."

Giggling, Little Soos said, "Baaa!"

"Hey, that's right!" Dipper said. "A sheep says 'baaa.' Good for you, Soosie!"

They tracked through all the possible duck-mothers: the donkey, the turkey, the horsie, the dog, the cat, and at last the real mother, who, not so shockingly, proved to be a white duck.

"Qua!" Little Soos exclaimed happily when he saw the last page. "Qua! Qua!"

"Yes, I am your mother!" Dipper read. "Quack! Quack!"

"Oh, Mama!" Little Soos said before Dipper could read the last words on the page. "I love you!" Then, as if by automatic reflex, he yawned.

However, Dipper knew from past experience that Little Soos expected closure, so he quietly read, "And Fluffy Duckling said, 'Oh, Mama! I love you.' The end."

By that time Harmony was sound asleep. Wendy put her in the nursery and turned on the baby monitor. Dipper supervised as Little Soos got ready for bed, putting on his jammies and brushing his two teeth. Together Wendy and Dipper tucked him in, and Wendy kissed the toddler on the forehead. "Sleep sound, little guy!"

Back in the parlor, they relaxed on the floor in front of the TV, turned low so it wouldn't wake up Mabel—though to do that, the TV probably would have to explode. When Mabel went to sleep, she meant business.

"I think you're gonna be a good dad one day," Wendy said softly.

Dipper leaned against her. "It's scary just to think about that."

Wendy nudged him. "Yeah? Try thinking about a kid growing in your tummy for nine months and then pushing him out into the world!"

"I see your point," Dipper said.

At nine Melody phoned, just to check up. She said everything was ready, and she, Abuelita, and Soos were about to set off for Gravity Falls. "Soos's sister will be released tomorrow morning about ten," she said. "We talked to her on the phone just a minute ago, and she's doing fine. Reggie's going to stay here and help out for a few days until she's up and about again. I'm glad the kids were good for you."

"They were great," Wendy told her. "I just peeked in on Harmony, and she's sleeping soundly. She finished her last bottle at about seven-thirty, so she'll probably wake up between ten and eleven hungry for a fresh one. Little Soos went right to sleep."

She heard Soos say something, and Melody relayed it: "Soos wants to know if Little Soos got his bedtime story."

"Yeah, Dip read him Fluffy Duckling and His Missing Mommy."

Dipper said, loud enough for Melody to hear, "He did half the animal sounds himself!"

Melody relayed that news, and she could hear Soos, off to the side somewhere, say, "Yes! A genius! Everything's falling into place!"

Melody chuckled fondly and said to Wendy, "Well, we ought to be there by eleven-thirty or so. Thanks for watching the kids!"

"We enjoyed it," Wendy said.

Mabel woke up not long after that. They sat around for an hour, playing stud poker for matchsticks—Mabel won because, as she cheerfully explained, "Grunkle Stan taught me how to cheat like a pro!"

Then a little after eleven, Dipper stretched. "It's strange," he said.

"What is, Brobro?" Mabel asked, counting her ill-gotten matchsticks for the fifth or sixth time.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "We just had to babysit. We did it. And the kids weren't stolen by gryphons, or attacked by giant vampire bats, or whisked away to the past—Gnomes didn't kidnap them, the Gremloblin didn't show up to give them nightmares, they didn't morph into monsters, nothing!"

"Well," Wendy said, "Even Gravity Falls has an off day now and then."

"Yeah," Mabel said. "Maybe we can make up for it this weekend. When it's quiet like this, something's definitely building up. One last wild adventure before we go home to Piedmont!"

"You gonna get your driver's license when you get back home?" Wendy asked.

"You better believe it, baby!" Mabel said. "The day after Labor Day! Then we have to persuade Mom and Dad to buy us some wheels!"

"First, though," Dipper reminded her, "we have to pass the DMV test."

"Pffbbt!" Mabel said. "I've taken every practice test and aced 'em all! We got all our supervised driving hours logged over the summer. Now I can't wait to get my real license and be able to drive a car without somebody 25 or older supervising me!"

Wendy patted Dipper's knee. "How about you, Dip?"

Dipper shrugged. "It'll be nice, but I'm not car-crazy or anything. But, yeah, I'll be glad to be able to drive places on my own. Gives you a sense of freedom, you know. What's wrong? You just shivered."

"You OK, Wendy?" asked Mabel.

Wendy shook her head. "It's nothing. I just got this momentary creepy feeling," she said. "This is just ordinary, average teen talk. And Dipper's right—this isn't the way these things usually work out, so normal and all! Tell you what—let's be on our toes until your birthday party and watch out for anything strange. 'Cause this is Gravity Falls."

"Right," Mabel said. "Where anthyding can hadplen!"

"Mabel," Dipper said, "you are messed up."

"We're all messed up!"

Wendy hugged both the twins. "Yeah, but we're messed up in a good way!"

Harmony began to murmur on the baby monitor.

"Well-p," Wendy said, starting to get up, "sounds like it's time to warm up another bottle."

"I got it," Dipper said, jumping to his feet and heading for the kitchen.

Mabel smiled up at Wendy. "Two more years, big sister," she said softly.

And Wendy smiled back. "That's what I'm countin' on."