Vacation Vexations
Chapter 2
The next day was off to a bad start. Everyone had a task, some easier than others, but all important. It was a small price to pay, however, for the fun we would be having. Mabel had thoroughly composed a schedule jam-packed full of activities, with just enough time between adventures to rest and recover. After all, she reasoned, traveling with friends in unfamiliar territories could teach everyone how to be accommodating and tolerant. It was also a valuable chance to create precious memories too.
Unfortunately, once all of those tasks were completed, we realized that Soos's pickup truck could not hold all of us thanks to the extra luggage and Mabel, with only three seats left. No taxis could be hailed within sight and drivers who responded were not keen to bring us to the airport, explaining that the place was a distance in by a deserted side road of Gravity and the authorities did not allow them to impose an extra charge. Moreover, it would be ages before they could pick up a passenger for the return journey. Understandably, only Soos was sympathetic, especially since the rest of us considered how Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland were part of the lazy and sarcastic local law enforcement team of Gravity Falls, and they deemed every case unsolvable so that they could go to lunch instead. It was my brilliant idea to lay out their limited choices.
While Stan still could not drive his car, he actually kept a fishmonger's truck for sentimental reasons. Whenever the smell of rotting fish invaded his nostrils, it brought up fond memories for him... and his lunch. It was certainly not a hot choice, compared to Wendy's shiny car.
Being the novice that she was and not being related to a long line of car racers, it was not reluctance that had prevented her from being the speed-demon she had a reputation for but her sheer ignorance about how to operate the latest Lamborghini Lightning model. She would often make the car stop and start a few maddening times before finally getting the hang of it and cruising along the highway with wolf whistles of admiring teenagers and flirtatious men with their eyes agog at the automobile that aroused the lust of men and women alike. With Wendy's poor driving skills being the only deterrent, many of us wanted to use that vehicle rather than riding on Waddles and riding a smelly truck. Alas, it had the least seating capacity, with only two so we drew straws. Naturally, I drew one of the longest straws. I could not believe that the others actually had the gall to attribute my to the fact I 'bribed' Grunkle Stan to give me six-inch high heels. Besides, how would I know he had those things? And other lady stuff...
Mabel and Soos reluctantly boarded the fishmonger' truck under Grunkle Stan's watchful eyes before he revved the engine and while the old tin can cracked and groaned, it finally started up. While Wendy and I were still partying over our victory at riding the car, everyone went off.
Overall, the plane ride was smooth, save for Mabel accidentally repainting the entire interior of the cockpit but we actually earned some money from grateful pilots by prying her out of there so Grunkle Stan was cool with it. Then again, the government agents nearly arrested him again.
After some giggles, everyone was finally able to rest in our hotel, its exterior resembling a sophisticated palette of concrete, steel and glass. Grunkle Stan could barely open the massive front door to our room, let alone form any words once he saw the interior. Mainly because that door was heavy. The timber venetians complemented the rich shade of mahogany in the parquet flooring. There was ample sitting space at the plush, deep set lounge space in the living room. To the left was the well-equipped kitchen, complete with stainless steel pots and pans, fine china and porcelain plates. In the middle of the console stood a huge LCD flat-screen television and a home theatre system with state-of-the-art technology. That was only the living room mind you.
Without warning, Wendy pitched herself into the center of the sofas with an exuberant whoop, "This rocks!"
I could not help but cheer in Czech because everyone did that whenever something good happened in cartoons for Gravity Falls,
"Trochu se pobavit, všichni!"
Everyone could only stare at me weirdly, god knows why. One of Soos' eyes was even bulging though it seemed like he was suppressing a cough. Luckily, Mabel cleared the tension by rushing to the door and slapping a cap on her head,
"If that means fun, I'm all for it!"
"If it does not?" Soos wondered aloud from his paper bag that he had suddenly cut to create eye holes and cover half of his face. I had to say, he totally rocked the look and they really hid those pimples that just suddenly popped out of nowhere.
Before I could even explain what I had said earlier on, Mabel just shrugged her shoulders and grabbed a bowl of salad from the fridge, stomping towards the bed before plopping herself on it.
"Fine, Mr Scrooge! I'll eat my favorite dish in the world, WITHOUT FUN!" She huffed as she speared a cherry tomato sitting atop her salad with gusto, imagining it as my face probably before shoving it into her mouth. Split seconds later, she found herself gagging, I was wondering why Mabel suddenly liked vegetables.
Once she was cleaned up, the girls went to their own rooms while Soos and Grunkle Stan went their own ways. I was the only one left in the place with the only computer so I seized the golden opportunity, typing in the address of the place and bingo a flamingo, got the train route there.
Thirty minutes later, Wendy and Mabel were good to go and I was scanning the list of names on the security panel beside the lobby door of Claire's apartment block, towering over a leafy park to just confirm that this was the place.
"Hey, he's on the fourth floor— for good luck," Mabel commented before turning to me with a brace-filled grin and asking me, "Four is your good luck number, right?"
I could not help but roll my eyes before correcting her mistakes, "Ok, one, Claire's a SHE. Two, only if you believe in such things. And since I do, it's 3.1415926535897. I would have put in more digits of pi but my blog would not let me when I typed it out under the 'Favorite things' category."
Both Mabel and I were still too short to reach the button besides Claire Chang's name so we formed a human ladder, struggling to get our balance until Wendy sauntered to the front door and just pressed it. While waiting for a response, she just simply said, "Boosh!"
I really could not wait to leave adolescence in the rear-view mirror. Maybe then, I would actually beat at least someone in the height department and I told this to Wendy, sinisterly warning her in the best way I could mimic Darth Vader's voice,
"Be warned that this child would grow up and then, you won't be the only one with power. In fact, he may have even more!"
"Boosh!" Mabel added for a dramatic effect before we all burst out laughing. Well, at least me and my sister. To be honest, I started to regret that joke because all of a sudden, it seemed as if I struck an unaware nerve within her psyche. She had to know my words had an unexpected, yet realistic truth to them, right? She should have seen it coming.
Before I could ask her if she was fine enough to go along for the mission, a harsh voice answered the intercom,
"Who is it?"
"Oh, er, hello! Good day Ms Chang, my name is Dipper Pines and I am with my sister Mabel Pines and my friend Wendy Corduroy. I have some questions to ask you about and we would really like to have some answers please. I promise, it will only be a few."
For a moment there was silence. Then the voice crackled over the intercom.
"I'll let you have five minutes. No more, no less."
A buzzer sounded and the front door was clicked open. I could not believe that Mabel actually recognized the Bauhaus look Claire was apparently going for as she showed us into a white-walled apartment, decked out sparsely with chrome and black furniture. Nor could I believe the face the lady possessed witch's face. It seemed as if all the blood had been drained from her flesh years ago, her face bearing the color of a tombstone. Lupine eyes floated in ancient sagging sockets on either side of her pendulous nose. A wart, the color of midnight, tipped her pointed chin, bobbing up and down in wariness and Mabel actually enjoyed watching it because it reminded her of the bouncing ball on our dad's TV screen when he was having one of his karaoke sessions. The rosy red apple in her right hand glowed with a strange inner light, as though a fire was burning inside of it. Though I wondered what powers it contained, I also hoped that I would never find out!
She leaned against a black bar and surveyed us curiously.
"So, what seems to be the problem?"
"Well, there's this great merman named Mermando and I really love, I mean like, I mean likely, likely like him..." Mabel began at the same time Wendy started,
"Despite everything that makes a relationship between us impossible, this guy I like knows what it takes to care deeply for someone..."
I had to admit, the beginnings of those confessions were quite frightening yet intriguing, especially Wendy. I could not recall her hanging out with any guy. Not that I cared or anything, you know? Anyways, their confessions actually made Claire tell her own tragic backstory,
"Oh you girls remind me of my own love problems, if he even loves me! He was the only one kind to me! Everyone kept calling me a witch... even though I was one... but it still hurt! Only he treated me with respect, gave the ingredients I needed and he never asked for anything in return, I checked because I had a truth spell... though that spell revealed too much. But he loved and married... Well, It's all such a blur!" She stuttered so I whipped out a piece of bubblegum Mabel gave me and shouted,
"Well, does THIS jog your memory?"
She stared blankly at the gum and said,
"Uh, no, not really."
"Oh, wait." I quickly chewed on the spearmint-flavored gum before pulling out the right article, journal 3. More specifically, the monocle.
At the sight of the single eyeglass, I could actually hear the squeaky cogs in her brain churning out memory after memory.
Claire's watering, sad eyes were replaced with dark ones that burnt like fire with her sights locked on me, but not in anger. I knew that look because I had sported it enough times myself to be more than familiar with its implications. She remembered who it belonged to.
As if she was violently struck by lightning, I watched her rise up and head towards a closet. I guessed at that time, she was not one for openly displaying tears. Or perhaps she was getting her broomstick to beat me up. Imagine my surprise when she showed up with a candle giving off a weird green glow.
"I don't believe it, he actually did get me a present, I have to do it!"
"Peegel paljastab, mis on valesti!"*
(In Estonian, it means that the looking glass would reveal what is wrong)
A chant. A sudden blow to my head and.. something weird.
Dipper… what are you doing?
I clawed my way through the clinging mist, tenaciously following the sound of my name. Gloom and haze engulfed me, obscuring my line of sight on all sides. I was literally in a fog, surrounding me on all sides. I heard my name echoing over the rolling clouds, in between booming claps of thunder. Every so often, the looming vapor above my head would sizzle and crackle with streaks of lightning. A storm was coming…something fierce and unimaginable…
Kid, listen to me! You must stop this!
I jumped, turning frantically in the murkiness for a glimpse of the familiar yet masked person calling to me. "I'm here!" I cried out, "Tell me where to go!"
You are not infallible... whatever that word means. No one is. This power is beyond even you... That's why I'm trying to protect you. When the world starts fighting you, you must fight back! Unlike brother Stan... Costed him his life. Did you have to take after him, only Mcgucket hadn't gone insane... Wouldn't have to resort to this. Could have gone home...
The warning made absolutely no sense. As much as I tried to puzzle out the reasoning behind the words, I could not shake the sense that they were meant for not only me but someone else. My heart hammering with escalating fear and dread, some unnamed instinct urged me to look up and, when he did, the pulsing canopy of purple mist above him parted to reveal a levitating Grunkle Stan who quickly descended.
My cry of frustration was lost in the howling wind, "What? Stan, I only know one Stan and that's you! And home? What home?"
His response to me was gone in a rolling crash of thunder. Without warning, a chasm began to open up between the two of us, separating us in the foggy recesses so that we were each swallowed up and cloaked from the other's visual field. "What's happening?"
The chasm yawned wider, taking Grunkle Stan further and further away. He had already been swallowed by the mist, but now I could barely make out his echoing words over the cacophony of thunder.
The end is near and it's all my fault! Only you can fix it, don't depend on anyone else!
The words were still echoing in my brain when I suddenly came back to myself and, the instant I did, I immediately yelped in dismay. Mabel's and Wendy's faces were only bare inches from my own as they both peered at me closely. They surveyed me studiously like I was some curious oddity Grunkle Stan owned. I recoiled with a discomfited grimace.
"What are you doing? Why are you two staring at me like that? You nearly scared me to death!"
"Did you know that you could glow?" Mabel asked in a fascinated tone, "Is that a new thing or have you always been able to do it? You have all these secrets, Dipping Sauce. It's like I don't even know you…"
I squinted at her. "What are you talking about?"
Wendy was only too happy to clarify, though her countenance remained wary as she spoke. "The witch actually transported us to the park and said she had already given you all the answers or something. It took awhile for you to come back to Earth though. You ok, dweeb?"
I briefly considered explaining to them how the conversation went but then decided against it. First, the explanation felt a bit useless as I myself had no idea what it meant. And second, I wasn't sure that any description on my part would alleviate their confusion. More likely, it would elevate it. Third... I only remembered one thing.
Don't depend on anyone else...
In the end, I decided to settle with a vague, "I saw a storm. A storm's coming."
Again, the cosmic forces decided to gang up against me, as it started raining the proverbial 'cats and dogs' such that even a second of standing in the rain would result in a thorough drenching. We just made it to a bus station.
"Well, looks like somebody at least got weather forecasting powers!" Mabel tried in a good attempt to cheer me up. One of my aspirations was to become a weather forecaster.
"Yeah, I think that was only temporary. At least I know one thing, man did that author have a complicated love life."
"I know right? Speaking of love life, how about you guys all relax while I have a cat fight with that manatee lady..."
"Well, our route does stop there..." Wendy considered and I did want to see some action.
Only from my Grunkle. He obviously had something big to do with... whatever it was.
The thing was.. I really wished it didn't involve Grunkle Stan. Illegal things aside, he was great. Yes, he may seem to forget my name frequently, and he also liked to do the trick of taking a quarter out of my ears to freak me out but he did fight those zombies. And that pterodactyl. Man, how did such an old man learn how to fight.
On second thoughts, I had to investigate.
Right after making sure that Mabel was in safe hands/flippers with Mermando.
"Mabel! Dipper! Red-hair lady who is freakishly tall!" Mermando greeted us in his Hispanic accent, waving with his tail.
While I made sure Mabel never mentioned the reverse-CPR thing in front of Wendy, I was still worried. In order to prevent an undersea civil war, he was forced into an arranged marriage with Queen of the Manatees, a lovely bride though according to Mabel.
'Norman' turned out to be a bunch of gnomes who wanted to kidnap her and marry her as their queen, Gideon was a controlling dictator whom she did not even love at the first place, Gabe was too obsessed with puppets to even think about her, and all the other boys she encountered would just be weirded out or terrified of her. God knows why though.
Yes, Mabel constantly claimed that she had gotten over him but that was just a cover up. It was so obvious that Mermando was not just a crush, he was more than that, much more than that. Both Wendy and I could see that, even as we looked through my binoculars while sitting at a cafe 2.40 kilometers away. She faked a smile near the girl and her breath literarily hitched when Mermando played with her a little when he was talking about hair conditioners.
"Oh, poor Mabel. I mean, look at that manatee. She has already won Mermando's heart."
Wendy was not bluffing there as the aquatic mammal kept bouncing a real life heart with her fin. Apparently, when merpeople get married, they would have to give one of their seventeen hearts to their spouse and Mermando took the one nearest his armpits. Good choice, bro.
"I know, Mabel is already so happy to see him again. I never expected my boy-crazy sister to fall in love. She's... growing up." I slowly replied to Wendy. The realization just dawned upon me. My little girl was not so little. I mean, she had always been a millimeter taller but I was usually the one to look after her since we graduated from diapers to toilets. Whenever our parents were too busy for either of us (which meant every single day they lived), I read her books, played with her and discovered with her a world of snails, playground games, eating marshmallows. A day to normal people was twenty-four hours, presided over by a clock but measured in a life with Mabel, was the amount of excitement you could have, whether it is life-threatening or not.
Now, she was actually ready to settle down.
No, at that point, I did not cry at all. Not even one teardrop.
If she was growing up, that meant I was growing up and I was on my way to becoming a young adult! Underline the 'adult' in that sentence! Then italicize it. And bold it! Maybe highlight it in red. The words ought to be blue. I happily told it to Wendy. I thought she would be glad about it... after all,Wendy was living the perfect example of a great teenage life... well, with a little bit of sloth attitude and fox cunningness but still, I would love to take driver' ed class, plan for senior prom, take exams... freedom, no curfews, take exams.. Wendy seemed to manage on her own just fine!
Instead of gazing upon me while I sang her praises of great independence, she immediately saw red. Without hesitation, she stormed up to me and I was.. I hate to say it... but completely unprepared.
"Well, let me tell you something, 'Mr. Know-It-All', you don't know it all," Wendy snarled, poking at me roughly in the chest with her index finger, forcing me back in retreat. "Maybe it's not as great as you think to be a teenager!"
I stammered in horror, totally thrown for a loop by my friend's sudden change in behavior. The freckled-faced girl prodded at me with every sentence until I found myself with my back literally against the wall:
"Why can't you just roll like Mabel?! Why do have such an obsession with growing up, of all things?! In my life, everything's just happening so fast. I'm not even a Sophomore yet and they've been throwing all these expectations on us since we were 13. Graduate, get a job, get married, get a divorce, get married again, have babies, please don't ask me how we are supposed to have babies, plan your funeral well... I don't want to change at all if I could but I can't so I'm trying to make the best of it but you... you just want to get rid of everything that I can't have anymore! In fact, you have more than what I had when I was your age Dipper!"
At that, I couldn't help but shuffle my feet nervously before getting Wendy's arms (though they felt great) off my shoulders and sighed. I never knew how much she missed childhood. Wendy Corduroy was the kind of teenager every girl wanted to be and every guy wanted to be with; cool, popular, hip, smart, and confident. Why would she want to exchange her life with mine?! She was right though, sometimes changes were not for the better. It could be for the worse. One thing for certain, things would be changed for good when I grew up and there was no way I had power over that, considering what was coming and to be honest, I was surprised she was still unaware.
"But Wendy... you mean I didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"Wendy, me and Mabel are going to be officially teenagers at the end of summer. No more childhood like you just said. I was just, looking on the bright side, like Mabel. Birthdays are supposed to be nice."
At that, Wendy recoiled at that and, she was able to regain some control over her emotions. Exhausted and left with a head-splitting headache, we both closed our eyes with our left thumb and index finger, pinching the area just above our noses though Wendy quickly recovered from hers compared to me,
"You know, I thought I found someone who isn't afraid to be in love with the things no one else believes in. And I'm still right. But does he always want to be that way..?"
I could not deny it. That stung and I failed to hid the hurt those words had caused at that time.
"Are you saying you won't be with me if I want change? Not even as a friend?"
Again, she sighed. I wished I would just cause her to just sigh out of content rather than frustration. That time however, she was smiling a small smile.
"No, Dipper, that's not what I meant. You've been with me through the worst times. Can't really abandon you, that would be just so screwed up as... Soos eating red stuff?"
"Er... he does like red meat Wendy. " It was quite odd for her to say that until I glanced in the direction her sauce-pan eyes widened at and had a similar reaction when I saw Soos grudgingly peered into the pot. There was a bewildering swirl of orange and red, with bits of chicken and potatoes sticking out like hot coals that glowed threateningly in the lava of stew. He was carefully scooping the smoldering mixture onto his plate and blowing it over slightly before closing his eyes and shoving a spoonful into his mouth, as if bracing for the 'inferno' to sweep over his tongue. I would have done the same thing were I eating the Patia, the spiciest curry on Earth!
He gulped it, I quickly grabbed my glass of water while Wendy snatched some ice-cubes as we rushed to his direction... only for both of us to found out that Soos actually savoring the taste.
"Huh, maybe Patia's not that bad..." Wendy shrugged her shoulders, dumping the ice-cubes which conveniently all landed in the drink of someone who wanted it colder while my glass of water met the face of a man who had just been slapped by his girlfriend, and at that time, ex.
And that was when Soos started breathing... actually, more like burping, fire.
Luckily, Mabel was just wrapping up her talk with Mermando whom she talked all about as we rushed back to the hotel.
"Adiós buena novia .. quiero decir amigo!" Mermando bided.
Good thing Mabel didn't tell him I took Spanish lessons. Poor dude.