Dipper strode to the attic with mixed feelings.
He had just been right about Jake being a dragon! It should have been a victory for him. And it would have, but there was one thing that held him down.
"Nineteen," he counted. He pulled out a notepad, flipped past the list of times he'd won sports, and marked another tally on his list of magical experiences. It was also his list of times he had been right about them.
He reached the attic and laid down on his bed, taking off his vest, hat, and shoes. He pulled Volume 3 out of his vest and flipped through it carelessly. Mermaids, leprechauns, trolls, Starbucks... dragons.
As Dipper now realized, fate had a cruel sense of humor. Of course he flipped to the page about dragons. Perfect.
He hadn't wanted to scare Jake. He just wanted to prove he was right and have a little fun on the way. No harm done.
Dipper sighed. Who was he kidding? Jake probably hated him now. He had nosed his way into something that wasn't his business, and discovered an amazing secret in the process. Come to think of it, there would probably be an attempted mindwiping for him and Mabel. He'd better warn her about that.
Dragons, Dipper read. Dragons are not commonly found in Gravity Falls, but they are such fascinating creatures that I could not resist recording my encounters with them. Dragons have the abilities of flight, superstrength, and fire breathing.
"Huh," he thought aloud. "So Jake can breath fire. Sweet."
He read on. Dragons also have the natural abilities to shape-shift into a human form.
"Well, that would have been nice to know before!"
Along with these, they can also make doppelgangers of themselves using chi energy, make images of the past appear, and, using a special potion, transform into someone else.
"Those would all be useful powers," Dipper mused. "Except for the doppelganger part. I've had enough experience with those."
Then Dipper noticed something in the margin of the page. It was faded, but he barely made out the letter h.
Out of curiosity, he turned the page. In the same place, the letter a was also smudged on.
He pulled out the notepad, flipped the page, and recorded the letters in order- S, H, F, W... what did it mean?
He kept recording until he reached the very back of the book.
He looked at the jumble of letters he had recorded. It was obviously in code, but the problem was that he didn't know where the spaces were. He'd have to decode it in order to space it out.
He thought about the vast multitude of codes he knew, and realized it would take him hours to try them all out. Then he thought about the code that he saw graffitied on several buildings around town. After asking Soos, he learned that it was called Caesarian code.
Using the Caesarian code, he started to decode it. E, X, P, E, C, T... it was working!
Finally, he was staring at a group of all new letters. Now it was obvious where the spaces were.
Expect the unexpected.
"Really?" Dipper asked impatiently. "That's what I wasted my time for?"
He closed the book and set it on his nightstand, but it flipped open to the page about dragons again. He was about to close it when he looked at the h in the corner. Getting an insane idea, he turned back a page. As he suspected, there was no letter.
"So someone left this message for me," Dipper concluded. "The question is, why? What does it mean? Is it going to happen soon?"
Dipper noticed that the sun was in his face, and for some reason he really liked it. He closed the book again and placed it on the nightstand, instinctively laid down on his bed, and quickly fell asleep at twelve in the afternoon.
Dipper woke up five minutes later.
He didn't know why he had fallen asleep in the first place. He had just suddenly felt tired. Huh.
He swung his feet over the side of the bed and sighed sleepily. Mabel wasn't here; she must have still been hanging out with the guests.
He stood up and stretched, and again he was surprised at how good it felt. He put on his vest and shoes, grabbed his hat, and walked to the door. He scratched his head and was about to walk out the door when he stopped mid-scratch.
He walked over to the mirror, saw his reflection, and instantly realized what the message in Volume 3 had meant.
Because attached to the top of his head were two chocolate brown cat ears.