Trans Pacifica

Chapter 8

Mabel's urgent voice rang in his ears as (Dipper) answered the phone. "Dipper! Agent M here! Code flannel!"

She spoke so rapidly that (Dipper) barely understood. "Code what? Mabel, calm down—"

Mabel giggled. "You sound so cute when you try to be forceful in Pacifica's voice. But I ain't got time to calm down, Dip! We found Wendy's body, we think! Maybe!"

(Dipper) felt Pacifica's heart beating faster in his chest. "OK, where?"

"Um—you know the coordinates you gave us to help us find the phone?"

(Dipper) threw a scatter of loose papers from his desk and grabbed the one on which he'd scribbled a copy of the numbers. "Yes!"

"OK, same coordinates, due up."

"Wait, what?" It took (Dipper) a few seconds to process that. "Oh, you mean I was right? In the trees? She's hanging in a cocoon?"

"Well—there's somethin' up there, but it's like camouflaged with leaves and stuff. It's kinda attractive, really. It could use a little more symmetry, and I would have used different leaves—"

"Mabel!"

He heard her sigh. "Right, back to business. It's way up in a—what kind of tree, Wendy?"

"Never mind the species!"

"Well, Miss Grumpy Pants, forget it then. But, Dip, there are all these monkey spiders swarming around up there!"

"Not monkey spiders! Oregon spider monkeys—"

(Dipper) heard his own voice: "We're wastin' time! Gimme that! Hey, Dip? Wendy here. Look, dude, we think we probably have her, and whatever's in that bag up there is movin' so it's not too late, but, dude, we gotta climb to get her, and it's about two feet too high for Mabel's grappling hook to reach. You gotta bring me some equipment. Now, here's what I need—"

It took him five minutes to round it all up, including a hatchet, and another thirty seconds to persuade Soos it was an emergency. Soos yelled, "Hon! I'm on like a rescue mission! Watch the Shack!"

From the gift shop, Melody called back, "Go get 'em!"

"Let me carry that, Paci—Dipper." Soos grabbed the big coil of rope, and then they ran out the door.

Behind them, Melody called, "Drive carefully, darling!"

As they sprinted toward the Jeep, (Dipper) said to Soos, "You are one lucky man."

"Tell me about it, dawg. OK, seat belt buckled, Pacif—I mean Dip—hey, dawg, can I call you Pacdip? Makes rememberin' easier."

'Whatever, sure, just go!"

"It's like urgent?"

"Wendy's been captured by giant spiders, and they've hung her in a tree!"

"Oh. That sounds urgent. Hang on, dudette! Da-da-da-dat-ta-da! CHARGE! Heh. Always wanted to do that." Soos floored the accelerator. The Jeep left the ground as they went over a low hill, pounded back down, and reached the highway. "No time to obey traffic laws!" Without pausing at the stop sign, Soos made the tires squeal as he cut into a hard left turn.

"Other way! Other way!" (Dipper) yelled, hoping that he wouldn't wet himself.

"You shoulda said. Hang on!" The Jeep cut a tight donut, tires smoking, and Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland, heading toward town in their cruiser, had to jam on the brakes to avoid a collision.

Soos stopped, the Jeep at least pointing in the right direction, as the lawmen pulled up alongside. Blubs rolled down the window of his cruiser and said, "Hold it right there! You committed an 1103, a 1604, and possibly a WD-40!"

Beside him, Durland called, "Where's the fire, boys?"

"It's not a fire!" (Dipper) yelled back. "We're going to save our friends from giant spiders! Come and help us!"

"Spiders?" asked Blubs nervously. "Sorry, but my deputy suffers from arachnophobia."

Durland objected: "No, I don't! I'm just scared of spiders, is all!"

Blubs smiled and waved. "But have fun!"

(Dipper) yelled, "Go, Soos, go! To the river, then turn south!"

"Those are real nice guys," Soos said as the view through (Dipper's) passenger window became a green blur of motion.

(Dipper) reserved his opinion.

It ordinarily would have taken Soos about ten minutes or a little more to reach the spot, but that day he made it in six. "Here, here, pull off on the grass!" (Dipper) yelled, and Soos did. There was a wide enough grassy shoulder for the Jeep to rest well off the road. They spilled out, Soos grabbing the rope, and (Dipper) yelled, "We're here! Where are you?"

Faintly, to their right and from deeper in the woods, came Dipper's normal voice: "Over here! Hurry up, Dip!"

"That's you, dude!" Soos gasped as they ran toward the sound.

"It's Wendy! She's in my body, remember!"

"Oh, yeah, Pacdip. Hey, can I call her like Wendip?"

"Whatever! Hey, Wendy, yell again!"

"Over here!"

They pushed through brush. Now they could glimpse the river, past the last stand of trees. And standing beneath a tree that grew in a sort of clearing of its own were Mabel and Dipper. Or Wendy in Dipper's body.

"We got the stuff you asked for!" Dipper panted. "I'm so glad to see you guys!" He dropped almost everything he was carrying and hugged Wendy.

Mabel's phone clicked as she took a photo. "Blackmail," she said in her soft, evil voice. "Hah! Dipcifica!"

"Hey, Mabel," Soos said, "my name for him is Pacdip."

"Give me the belt," (Wendy) said. "And the axe."

"This do?" (Dipper) asked, handing her the hatchet.

"Yeah, yeah, it'll have to. Man, Dipper, you got like no waist!" With some difficulty she jammed the handle of the hatchet down through Dipper's belt. "How long's that rope?"

"'Bout a hundred feet," Soos said.

"OK, let me see if I can carry it. Awkward. Dipper, I am gonna recommend an exercise routine for you. You gotta build up your strength.!"

(Dipper) said, "Yeah, and Grunkle Stan wants me to have boxing lessons."

"Couldn't hurt. Your belt, Soos?"

"Yeah, dawg. Is it OK?"

(Wendy) hit the tree bole with the belt like a slap bracelet, and she caught the other end. "Perfect. Wish me luck."

"Man, look at him go!" Soos said as (Wendy) used the belt to hitch herself up the tree. "Dude, you're like a lumberjack, Pacdip!"

(Dipper) said, "I had no idea my body could even do that! Hey—I didn't notice, but there's the Oregon spider monkeys!" He grabbed his camera and began shooting, standard shots, zooms, extra-long zooms. "I have to show these to great-uncle Ford!"

"They must've drug Pacifica up right here," Mabel said. "I'm standing where we found the phone, and there's the cocoon right overhead, see?"

(Dipper) had trouble noticing it—the camouflage was nearly perfect—but it was heaving and twitching as the spider monkeys swarmed around, attaching new lines as old ones snapped.

"Wendip is up there!" Soos yelled.

(Dipper) clenched his teeth as he saw his own body walk out along the limb. A spider monkey rushed Wendy, and she twirled the hatchet and—discouraged it. The wounded animal fell to the ground with a thump, and (Dipper) rushed over to photograph it.

It seemed more stunned than harmed, and he retreated as it got back up on its four spindly legs and scuttered over to a more distant tree, which it climbed in a hurry. Mabel yelled, "Look out, Wendy! One coming down behind you!"

Up on the limb, Dipper's body spun, the hatchet hissed through the air, and the spider monkey plummeted as the blade severed its web. Now all the creatures had retreated. Dipper's body lay down on the limb, leaned over, and tied the rope to the base of the leaf-covered sac. (Dipper) heard his own voice: "Stop strugglin' if you don't' want to fall! We're here. We got you now!"

And pretty faintly, muffled and sounding weak, Wendy's voice from the cocoon: "Dipper? You came to rescue me? I love you!"

(Dipper) winced at the words. They were in the right voice—but they came from the wrong mind.

"OK down there," (Wendy) called, "I'm gonna lower her down. If I lose my grip, try to break her fall. I don't know how strong Dipper's arms are gonna be!"

Soos promptly lay down on the ground directly under the cocoon. "Use me like a big old trampoline!" he yelled.

"Cutting the cocoon loose—ugh! Here—she—comes!"

(Dipper) yelled, "Hang on! You can do it!"

(Wendy) had tied off one end of the rope around the limb, the other to the cocoon. She leaned back, straining, threading the rope around her waist, letting the slack fall in a long loop.

"Hurry!" Mabel yelled. "Some of the spiders are coming back! They're in the next tree!"

"Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh!" (Dipper) said, looking around for something to throw.

"Hey, Pacdip!" Soos said from the ground, "Can you use a flip? You know, a slingshot?"

"Uh—yeah, but Mabel's better!"

"Hambone, look in the toolbox behind the back seat of the Jeep. Slingshot there and a bag of ball bearings. Kind of a hobby of mine."

Mabel dashed through the underbrush. Up on the limb, Dipper's body strained and grunted as slowly, penduluming, the cocoon came down foot by foot. (Dipper) yelled, "Hurry up! One's on the end of the limb!"

The brush crashed and Mabel said, "Got it!"

"Don't hit Wendy!" (Dipper) yelled.

Mabel loaded a metal pellet, tilted her head back, stuck her tongue in the corner of the mouth, drew a bead, and—

Thwap!

The spider monkey jerked and fell from the limb, catching itself on a hastily spun webline, and swung back to the other tree. The others hesitated, obviously scared of whatever had knocked their friend off its perch.

"Hah!" Mabel yelled, doing an air punch. "You want some more of that? Come on, you freaks of nature!"

"Dawg!" Soos said. "You're usually, like, kind to animals!"

"I'll be kind when they're not trying to eat my brother and my friend!"

"Soos!" (Wendy) yelled, "I gotta drop this! I can't hold it any longer. You got it?"

"Bombs away, Wendip! It's just ten feet or a little more!"

"Here she comes!"

The rope caught the bag when it was inches from Soos's stomach. "Good deal!"

"Let's get her out of there!" (Dipper) said.

"Wait, is that me?" Wendy's voice asked from inside the cocoon.

"Comin' down!" (Wendy) yelled. She grabbed the rope and slid down it. "Look out below!"

Soos had pulled out his pocketknife and cut the knot on the mouth of the cocoon. He lifted it and moved it aside—and got stuck to it in the process—and Dipper's body came down fast and landed hard.

"You OK?" Mabel asked, helping (Wendy) up.

"Yeah, but man, that was hard! You gotta get in better shape. Promise me."

"I promise," (Dipper) said.

"What is going on? And I'm in great shape!"

(Dipper) helped Soos get unstuck from the webbing. "Give me the knife," he said. "OK, I'm gonna cut you out. Don't squirm or anything."

It was a tedious process. If the cut web-stuff touched itself, it tended to seal right back up again. But finally, with Soos's and Mabel's help—(Wendy) was sitting on the ground, keeping an eye on the spider monkeys—though they seemed to be mostly arboreal and reluctant to approach them.

"There you are!" (Dipper) said as he saw Wendy's face inside the cocoon. "Did they bite you?"

"Bite me? No, they—uh, no. I was looking for Dipper, and I climbed up in a little tree—that one—to get a better view, and something grabbed me and I hit it, and then it started to wind this sticky junk all over me, and some others came—ugh, they're horrible!"

"You're going to need a long hot bath, dude," Soos said. "Not all of this is comin' off. And I think you're gonna need a change of clothes."

From where she leaned against the trunk of the tall tree, (Wendy) said, "Spare clothes in the locker at the Shack, no problem there."

At last they freed (Pacifica), though as Soos said, her clothes were a mess of sticky residue, and her long, beautiful red hair was matted with the disgusting green goop. (Wendy) got up. "OK. Soos, you take the others back. She and I will come back in the golf cart."

"You, like, sure?"

"Yes. We need to talk."


As they climbed into the cart, (Pacifica) said, "You, uh, want me to drive, Dipper?"

"I can do it. Why'd you even come out here?"

"Uh, man, I just wanted to find you, and, uh, you know, ask you if you really, really loved me."

"Wendy! How can you ask that after all our passionate make-out sessions? After I gave you the engagement ring? After we set the date for your eighteenth birthday? Nah, I can take you or leave you."

"Don't—don't joke, Dipper. It's important to me. Honestly, now, do you really love me?"

(Wendy) gave her a weary stare. "And if I said I really, really do, what then?"

"Uh—well, I—you know, Pacifica has some feelings for you, Dipper."

"Dipper knows that very well. Only I'm not him at the moment. I'm Wendy."

(Pacifica) began to blush. "Oh—the carpet—huh. Wait, is that still Mabel in my body?"

"Guess again."

"Oh—is it—I messed everything up!" She began to cry.

"Don't do that! This is bad enough, me sittin' here lookin' at myself covered in that mess. Look, Pacifica, Dipper and I do like each other. A lot. But there's the age thing, you know? So we've agreed to give it time before we get real serious—if we ever do. People change. He likes you already, not the same as he feels about me, but he likes you. He won't, though, if you keep doing stupid things like this."

"It is stupid," (Pacifica) agreed. "I'm stupid."

"No, you're not! You're just messed up with, like, teen hormones. Happens to us all. Look, take some advice from an older girl, OK? Don't try to rush it. True love doesn't happen at thirteen. You think it does, but it's just, like, the hormones takin' over your brain. Give it time. You know what I most regret about when I was twelve an' thirteen? I didn't just have fun and goof around with my friends! This is the time for that."

"I don't have any friends."

"Bull. Mabel. Dipper. Prob'ly lots of others, if you'd loosen up. Relax. You don't have to be Pacifica Perfect Northwest all the time." (Wendy) chuckled. "When you get home, I think you're gonna find that Mabel's done a little work on your family. If they ease up, promise me you'll try to do that, too."

(Pacifica) sniffled. "Well—all right. But it's hard."

"Not any harder'n lowering you to the ground, I'll bet. Dipper's palms are blistered, and his shoulders are gonna ache for like a week. Hey, girl to girl—why do you like him so much?"

"I don't know" she wailed. "He's not cute, he can't really dance, he's like the world's biggest nerd, and he talks about stuff I don't even understand! But—but—he's . . . kind. He's the kindest boy I ever met. And loyal."

"And he's got guts," (Wendy) said. "Yeah, I know. Hey, I'm halfway in love with him myself. And we may get there yet. But we're givin' it time. You willing to do that, too?"

"I—yes, I guess. Yes."

"Then we've made some progress." (Wendy) made the turn onto the Mystery Shack driveway. "All right. Now let's go in and get changed." She grinned as she stepped out of the golf cart. "And I mean that literally."