Chapter 22

"Hey dudes! Where were you?" Soos asked the twins.

"Gun shopping!" Mabel exclaimed, her eyes growing big as she pulled out a gun and pointed it at Dipper's face. "Pew pew pew!" she shouted gleefully.

"Whoa, dude. Maybe you shouldn't do that. It's a pretty dangerous object." Soos said worriedly.

"Yeah, Mabel. Give it a rest," Dipper agreed.

"It's on safety lock," Mabel grumbled.

"Well, anyway, we'd better leave you to what you were doing. See you later, Soos." Dipper said, turning to go.

"Soos! You wanna be in our army?" Mabel asked excitedly.

"Army...?"

"Come on, Mabel. Let's go." Dipper said.

...

"Why did you stop me? Soos would've been awesome to have in our army!" Mabel exclaimed.

"Do you even understand the concept of war, and armies!?" Dipper asked. Mabel nodded earnestly. "No, you don't!" Dipper shouted and shook her shoulders. "People die in war. Tens. Hundreds. Thousands. Do you want Soos to be dead!?" Mabel shook her head vigorously as Dipper went over to his bed.

"But- are we going to die?" she asked. Dipper stopped leafing through a book and looked over at his sister. Her eyes were full of hopeless childhood longing.

"Of course we aren't, Mabel. But- I don't think most of our army will. And to die for something like this- they won't want to do it."

"This is confusing." Mabel said.

"It is." Dipper replied. Mabel went over to her bed and put her head down. She was sad. It was obvious. "You okay, Mabel?" Dipper asked. Mabel nodded. "You're lying," he said, grinning. Mabel looked up with her own devilish grin.

"Then why'd you ask?" she inquired.

"To test your abilities... and so far, they suck!" Dipper returned, laughing. Mabel laughed as well.

"Fine! I'm not okay!" she giggled.

"We still have a few more hours of daylight. What do you want to do?" Dipper asked.

"Grocery shopping."

"What!?"

"Grocery shopping."

"Why!?"

"I don't want to be hungry when we go back!" Mabel laughed. "You don't really expect Mel is gonna feed us, do you?"

"Guess not."

...

"Candy! Look at all the candy!" Mabel shouted, tripping over a candy barrel. "Can we buy some, Dipper? Please?" Dipper looked around. A banner read, 'Candy Week' in candy wrappers. Of all weeks... he thought. He nodded slowly.

"But- Mabel- only a little-" Mabel dumped ten packages of candy in the cart unceremoniously. "Bit..." Dipper finished. Mabel smiled contentedly, but frowned as Pacifica Northwest and her friends walked up to them, laughing.

"Well, look. Mabel's shopping like the fat pig she is." Pacifica snorted.

"I'm not fat." Mabel said hotly.

"Natural for you to say that. I'm right. Right?" Pacifica returned as her friends nodded in agreement.

"She is fat," they whispered loudly and giggled.

"I'm n-not!" Mabel said, her voice cracking as her eyes filled with tears. Pacifica patted the candy bags and her friends started snickering.

"Fat!" Pacifica giggled. Mabel ran away, face burning and eyes pouring with tears. "She's having a meltdown!" Pacifica scoffed gleefully and her friends scoffed with her. Dipper stared at her.

"You're so mean," he said. Pacifica blushed.

"No, Dipper- wait-"

"Look what you did. You have no idea what she's been through." Dipper said angrily, walking away from Pacifica to find his sister. But Pacifica and her friends followed him, much to his distaste. They found her in the toothpaste aisle with her head in her arms, sobbing.

"So the fat pig does know about toothpaste!" Pacifica whispered loudly, and she and her friends laughed as Mabel gave another pained sob.

"Would you leave her alone!?" Dipper said furiously. "You're just in a bad mood because daddy bought you the 23 carat gold necklace instead of the 24 carat!" he added sarcastically. Pacifica shook her head as her face strangely burned.

"She's just insecure about her weight. I'm trying to help her!" she protested. "She's an ugly fat girl that's gross to look at." People started to stare at Mabel, and it was hard not to. Her eyes and cheeks were a bloodshot red, not to mention the fact that Pacifica was pointing at her too. Some younger kids started pointing and laughing as well, which made her tears flow even more.

"Come on, Mabel. We need to get out of here." Dipper told his sister, helping her get up as she nodded. As Dipper led her away, Pacifica mouthed one last word for Mabel and Mabel only:

"Loser."