WARPED

Chapter 12

Great, thought Lucy on their way back to the shack. She was crammed in the back of Stan's car, jammed between Hazelle and the door. Next to Hazelle was Dipper, his nose buried in the journal, and next to Dipper and the other door was Jocelyn, who was chattering away with Mabel in the front seat.

Lucy crossed her arms and glared out the window. She couldn't understand how Jocelyn and Hazelle could be so excited about some stupid monster hunt when they could be figuring out how to get home. It wasn't like the things they could do here were actually important. Plus, their families were probably missing them. They had no idea how the rest of the free world was continuing on in their absence. They needed to get home.

After what seemed like an eternity, they pulled up at the Mystery Shack. Once Stan put it in park, Mabel hopped out of the car, leaving Lucy, Hazelle, Dipper, and Jocelyn to struggle in the backseat. "Come on guys! What are you waiting for?"

"WELL FOR ONE," began Jocelyn, "THE DOOR'S JAMMED AND SO ARE WE."

"Here," Dipper offered, reaching around Jocelyn to the door handle. "You just gotta jiggle it… almost… got it… wow it's really stuck…" Hazelle leaned over to try the handle.

"What if you tried it this way?"

"No that's not right…" Dipper replied, trying the handle another way.

Lucy was tired of waiting. "Isn't it just like this?" she asked, leaning over Hazelle.

"Guys," gasped Jocelyn. "Can't… breathe…"

Just then, Mabel opened the door from the outside, and all four of them fell out onto the ground.

"GUYS!" Jocelyn wheezed from the bottom of the pile. "STILL CAN'T BREATHE HERE!"

Lucy quickly hopped off the person pile and brushed herself off, rolling her eyes when she saw Dipper and Hazelle laughing awkwardly upon realizing that Hazelle had landed on top of him.

"Waaaaahhhh I'm dying," Jocelyn complained, pretending to pass out.

"You're too overdramatic," commented Hazelle, standing up and fixing her hair, cheeks slightly red.

"Nope I'm actually gonna die," replied Jocelyn, shoving Dipper to the ground and standing up. "I can't handle more than twice my body weight."

"Like I said," Mabel butted in, "what are we waiting for? Let's get on with that monster hunt!"

"Well," Dipper responded, "we're gonna need some supplies."

Lucy rolled her eyes again and sighed, blowing her bangs out of her face. "Why in the name of Satan's butt crack are we gonna need supplies to catch a squash?"

Dipper looked up from the journal and stared incredulously at Lucy. "Please don't ever say that again." Dipper then continued into the house, nose buried back in the journal.

Hazelle turned to Mabel. "How long is it gonna take to find all these… supplies?"

Mabel shrugged. "Who knows? He usually brings crazy weird useless mystery stuff anyway. One time he used stuffed animals as armor, and another time he used a mirror suit." Mabel grinned. "I found the blind spot."

"Oh yeah!" Jocelyn chimed in. "I remember that short—"

"HEY I HAVE A GREAT IDEA," Hazelle cut in. "LET'S, UM, LET'S GO INSIDE!"

"Okay," Mabel replied. She ran towards the house. "HEY DIPPER! REMEMBER THAT TIME I FOUND YOUR BLIND SPOT?"

Once they were alone, Hazelle gathered Jocelyn and Lucy into a huddle and said in a low voice, "Okay guys, we are not to bring up the fact or allude to at all that this is a TV show."

Lucy broke away from their huddle and crossed her arms. "But it is a TV show."

"WE ARE NOT MESSING WITH THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM!"

Yeah, good freaking luck with that, Lucy thought, not bothering to argue with Hazelle.

"Hey!" piped Jocelyn. "Speaking of the space-time continuum, why don't we check searchfortheblindeye? That's how we got here in the first place."

Hazelle smacked her palm into her forehead. "WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE?! I'M THE SMART ONE!"

Lucy snickered. "Apparently not."

Hazelle threw her hands in the air. "I'M SO DONE WITH YOU PEOPLE! YOU," she pointed to Lucy, "HAVE A BAD ATITUDE. AND YOU," she pointed to Jocelyn, "HAD TO GO MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE LOCAL KOOK!"

Jocelyn argued back indignantly, "I didn't make friends with him. I experienced him."

"UGGGHHHH! YOU KNOW WHAT LET'S—LET'S JUST GO INSIDE LET'S CHECK SEARCHFORTHEBLINDEYE!" Hazelle stomped away into the house, leaving Lucy and Jocelyn outside.

The moment outside with Jocelyn was majorly awkward for Lucy, as she knew Jocelyn was one to hold grudges if you managed to make her mad.

Lucy tried to ease the situation. "And I thought you were the oneto yell."

Jocelyn looked at Lucy for a moment, then walked away into the Mystery Shack.

Lucy sighed and followed her inside.

XxX

"Stan, do you have a computer?"

Grunkle Stan frowned down at Jocelyn over his clipboard. "Weren't you knuckleheads gonna go on a 'monster hunt' or whatever?"

"We still are," Hazelle replied. "We're waiting for Dipper."

"He's getting 'supplies'," added Lucy sarcastically.

Stan snickered. "Oh, more teddy bears and mirrors? Top of the line supplies that kid's got."

"So do you have a computer?" Jocelyn asked, twirling the end of her braid.

Stan raised an eyebrow, obviously suspicious. "What do you kids need a computer for? Ya can't AtlasAdventure that dumb squash of yours."

"We need it for…um…" Hazelle glanced at Jocelyn in panic.

"GIRL STUFF!" Jocelyn yelled, giving an innocent brace-filled grin. "We can tell you all about it if you want."

Stan stared at Jocelyn for a moment. "The computer's in the office."

"Thanks, Stan!" Hazelle called as Jocelyn dragged her and Lucy towards the office.

"Just don't check the internet history!" Stan called back, trying to act nonchalant.

Lucy tried to resist, and Jocelyn let go of her at the door to the office, but continued to drag Hazelle. The office was quiet and dim, early afternoon light trickling in through the slanted window. Jocelyn went right behind Stan's desk, flipping open the laptop.

Hazelle grimaced at Stan's background: the cover to last month's issue of Women Fully Dressed Magazine: the Pantsuit Edition! "I don't even wanna know," she groaned.

"Moving on," Jocelyn said. "Let's check dat searchfortheblindeye."

Lucy rolled her eyes and hung back near the doorway, sticking her hands into her back pockets. Her nose wrinkled when her fingers touched something sharp.

"What the—?" She yanked the object from her pocket. It was a triangle shaped rock on a string, the stone a dark, sinister black. At the touch, memories sizzled in the back of Lucy's mind.

"It's not gonna work," she said.

Hazelle, from behind Jocelyn at the desk, glanced up at Lucy with a frown. "What was that, Luce?"

"The website. It's not gonna work."

"And I'm Pacifica Northwest," Jocelyn quipped. "Come on, it's totally gonna work. How could it not—oh."

Lucy ran to the desk. Searchfortheblindeye's main page wasn't there: in its place was the Internet Adventurer Screen, telling them that the page they were looking for couldn't be found.

"What?" Jocelyn refreshed the page again and again, but searchfortheblindeye never came up. "Aw, what! Boo!"

"How—how is it not working?" Hazelle spluttered, eyes wide. "It has to be working!"

"Wait." Jocelyn glared skeptically at Lucy. "How did you know it wasn't gonna work?"

"I—I dunno," Lucy said. She pushed the necklace back into her pocket. "I just had a feeling, I guess."

Jocelyn narrowed her eyes and went back to hitting the refresh button.

"Well, now what do we do?" Hazelle sighed.

From the next room, Mabel's loud voice rang out, "MONSTER HUNT!"

Jocelyn smiled. "I think I know."