Beware the Banshee
Chapter 10
From the Journals of Dipper Pines: Wednesday, June 11, 11:45 a.m.—Wendy got back to the Shack a little before Mabel and I returned, and we found we were needed. Three busloads of tourists crammed the place, and Wendy, very relieved, asked us to take over the registers, which Mabel seemed happy to do. Soos was getting ready to take a group out on the tram tour, and Grunkle Stan was working the floor. Mabel went into the snack bar and took over that register, while I started making sales in the gift shop.
I don't think I've ever seen the place that busy! I kept overhearing Mabel talking to T.K. O'Grady—passing orders, of course, but also chatting. I couldn't get much of what they were saying, but they kept up a lively conversation. Man, people were actually standing in line for burgers and hot dogs! At one point, Mabel came running out and grabbed a whole case of Pitt Colas, then went staggering back in with them. "Gotta get a fountain!" she said in passing.
And it never seemed to slack off—as one group went out and boarded its bus, Soos dumped more off from the tram. I got dizzy from making change and running credit cards, and Stan was outdoing himself promoting stuff. At one point he even said, "Folks, ya have friends an' relations back home, I know! Bedazzle them with some genuine authentic guaranteed tourist junk! Great for birthday and Bar Mitzvah presents!"
He got a big laugh—but people bought! I know that he and Ford don't charge Soos any rent on the Shack—he pays them a token one dollar a year, which Stan claims makes the arrangement legal—so Stan is doing this just for the love of conning people. I should hate that, I guess, but it makes Stan who he is.
Finally, after one o'clock, things cooled off. T.K. and Mabel kept the snack bar running overtime until finally the last bus pulled out and then they closed up shop and cleaned the place up. Wendy came over and hopped on the stool and put her feet up on the counter. "Whoosh, man! If this keeps up, I'm gonna ask Soos for a raise!"
"Yeah," Stan said, leaning on the counter, "an' he's probably gullible enough to believe you need one!"
"Hey," she said, "I got my car to fix, remember! I'm gonna try to finish the work on Saturday. Can't wait to have wheels again. Right now I'm just a ground walker!" She grinned at me. "Remember that?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Well, ya know the place is gonna be closed on Friday. We always close for the fishing opener."
"Is that this Friday?" I asked.
"Oh, yeah. Me an' Ford are gonna go out together. You an' Mabel are welcome to come, too."
"If we even make it to Friday," Wendy said ominously.
"Yeah, there is that," Stan said, looking suddenly serious. "Hey, you hear that?"
I cocked my head and heard it then, a droning sound. "Just an airplane," I said.
"Yeah, but they hardly ever fly over. The Valley does weird things to their instruments. I wonder—"
He went out, and Wendy and I followed. "There it is," he said, pointing up to where a yellow prop plane was circling at maybe 4,000 feet. "Uh-oh. I wonder if—yep, there he goes!"
I saw a dot leave the plane. A few seconds later, a multicolored rectangular ram-air parachute blossomed. "Grunkle Ford jumped out of an airplane?" I asked.
Wendy clenched both of her fists and bent her elbows. "Cool! I've always wanted to do that!"
"Just like my brother," Stan complained. "Jumpin' out of a perfectly good airplane! I can't watch."
"I think he's gonna land in the woods!" Wendy said.
"He's gonna kill himself," Stan snarled.
"Wait, wait," I told them. "He's steering—he's coming around in a circle—I think he's gonna land in the yard!"
Well, I was nearly right. Ford landed and fought to collapse the 'chute, finally just unharnessing himself and letting it float away. Wendy ran and retrieved it. Stan, his hands on his hips, yelled, "Well, Poindexter, ya proud of yourself?"
"I'm surprised," Ford said. "But satisfied that I can do something I've never done before. Well, that was exhilarating. In a way. Stanley, could I ask a favor?"
"What, Brainiac?"
"Well, I thought it would be obvious, but—get me down from the roof!"
"We gotcha, man!" Wendy called up. "Be there in a minute!"
Dipper ran inside with her and they climbed the roof ladder, emerged though the trap, and worked their way up to the sign, where Ford was clinging. "I'm afraid I dislodged the S," he said.
"Don't worry about it, dude," Wendy said. "It's down more than it's up, anyhow. OK, Dipper an' me will hold the sign steady so it won't tear loose. You just let yourself down until your feet touch the roof an' then we'll take you back over to the trap door."
"Trap door?" Ford yelled down, "Stanley, you put a trap door in my roof?"
"Easier to get up an' change the bulbs in the lights that way! What do I do with this parachute?"
"Hang onto it! I get a deposit back when I return it!"
Ford needed a little steadying when he actually got his footing, but he crawled up to the roof peak, over, and then eased down to the trap door. "Funny I never noticed this ladder."
"It's behind a curtain in a corner of the gift shop," Dipper told him. "I'm surprised all the birds of the air didn't attack you!"
"I think my approach was too unexpected. We were close to a mile in the air. Who knows what may happen now, though? Will this hold my weight?"
"It holds Soos, dude," Wendy said. "Man, you parachuted in your trench coat and with a backpack? Rad, Dr. Pines!"
"Yes, I brought a few things that might help us. Well—here I go." He got his feet onto the top rung, then very cautiously lowered himself until he could climb down the ladder. Wendy and Dipper followed.
Mabel and T.K. had come out of the snack bar, and Dipper heard her saying, "Grunkle Ford! T.K. this is my other Grunkle! This is my buddy T.K. O'Grady! Grunkle Ford, how'd you get here?"
"Oh," Stan said, "he just dropped in." He nudged his brother. "Get it? Dropped in!"
"Very amusing," Ford said, shaking hands with T.K. "O'Grady, eh? Your family's Irish, I take it?"
"Uh, yes, sir," T.K. said, poking his glasses back into place on his nose. He stared at Ford, then at Stan. "Uh, excuse me, but are you twins, too?"
"Yeah, they are!" Mabel crowed. "Twins run in our family! Twins and in allergy season, noses!"
"Mr. O'Grady," Ford said, "if you have a few minutes, I would very much like to speak to you about some Irish subjects."
"Um—sure, sir," the teen said.
"He's so polite!" Mabel linked her arm through T.K.'s and kissed his cheek. "And he tastes like hamburgers!"
"Sounds perfect, Mabes!" Wendy said with a grin as T.K. turned bright red.
"Come with me," Ford said. He led T.K. to the vending machine, pressed his remote fob, and the door to his underground lab and study rooms opened.
"Wow!" T.K. said. "Like a secret passage!"
"Indeed. Please excuse the two of us for fifteen minutes or so. I must explore every avenue of this puzzle, and he may be able to help."
"Don't worry, T.K.," Stan said. "He ain't as crazy as he looks."
"He looks just like you!" T.K. said.
"Yeah, and they say I'm the nut, so you're safe!" Stan threw in a maniacal "Mwah-ha-hah!" for good measure, and Dipper thought that T.K. looked as if he were on the verge of making a run for it.
"Man," Wendy said. "OK, so now we got the full set. What do we do next?"
"Wait 'til Ford scares the bejeebers outa T.K. with his spook talk," Stan said. "Then Ford'll have some ferkakta idea of what we gotta do that'll turn out all wrong, as usual."
Mabel was fondling the rainbow parachute. "I can make a dress out of this! T.K.'s asked me to the dance after the Fishing Opener this weekend."
"You can't have it," Stan said. "Ford's gotta return it back to the Suicide Shack, or wherever he rented it from."
"Aw."
"Wait," Dipper said. "You've got a date to the dance? And there's a dance? And you think we'll live until then?"
"I see the glass as half full," Mabel said with dignity. "Shoot! Wendy, what do girls usually wear to the Fishing Opener Closing Dance?"
Wendy shrugged. You got me. Never been to one. Mostly older couples go, but the few kids I know who've been, I'd guess it's real casual. Jeans would do, even."
"Um," Dipper said, "just in case we do survive, would, um—I mean, if there's a dance and all, erm . . ."
"Sure, Dip," Wendy said. "I'll go with you. People are startin' to get used to us showin' up at these things together."
Mabel punched Dipper's arm. "Congrats, brobro! You're nearly half brave now!"
"Thanks," he said.
When T.K. came back up with Ford, he looked a little green. "My folks tell stories about the banshee," he said, "but I never thought they were real."
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," Ford said.
"Um. My name's Ticknor, sir. T.K."
"That was a quotation from Hamlet," Ford said with a smile.
"Hey, Poindexter, the next buses will pour in in about twenty minutes. Let's grab some chow! That's a quotation from Omelet!"
"Dipper and I'll make sandwiches," Wendy said. "Come on, man."
They managed roast beef and Swiss and grilled-cheese sandwiches for everyone, and Stan opened the snack machine for chips. After their hasty meal, T.K. asked hesitantly, "Can I stay? I mean, I usually go home now, but I want to find out about this thing that's threatening you."
"Sure," Soos said. "The more, like, the more of us to be merry. Or some junk."
"Do without me for a while?" Mabel asked.
They said they could, and she took T.K. out to meet Waddles and Widdles and to explain about what had been going on.
"If she doesn't scare him off," Wendy said, "Mabel may have found her first squeeze of the summer."
"Actually," Dipper said, "I think the other one may be it. Russ Renard."
"What?" Ford asked suddenly. "Who?"
Surprised, Dipper said, "Uh, Russ Renard. He and his family live somewhere off in the hills. He showed up one night—huh. Come to think of it, he usually shows up at night. Anyway, he's about our age, and he seems worried about Mabel, but I can't get much out of him."
Soos, who was in front of a mirror, donning his fez, said, "Only comes at night, huh? You think he's like a vampire dude?" He chuckled. "That'd be so stupid cool! Also kinda terrifying."
"He doesn't have the fangs for a vampire," Wendy said. "And I think Mabel would've let us know. She has this whole thing about vampires."
Ford had taken out a pocket notebook and had scribbled something in it. "Describe this boy," he said.
"Uh, not quite as tall as Mabel and me," Dipper said. "Real thin, though, so he sort of looks taller than he is. Red curly hair, coppery-colored. Sharp chin and nose."
"Did you notice his ears?"
Dipper blinked. "He had some. Two, I think."
"Their shape?"
Dipper rubbed his neck. "Ear-shaped! I mean, they weren't pointy or anything. I don't think he's an elf."
"And you only see him at night," Ford mused.
"Well, no," Dipper said. "Just most of the time. The first time I saw him, he was in the bonfire clearing during the day, talking to Mabel."
"I may want to talk to Mabel about him," Ford said. "First, though, I need to check my Journals—I think Journal 1, if I remember correctly—"
"I've got my copy up in the attic," Dipper said. "I'll go get it for you."
"Thank you—"
Someone hammered on the door, making Dipper jump. Soos answered it and called, "Hey, Dip, dude! Somethin' for you!"
A delivery van had parked in the parking lot, and an elderly man in a tan uniform waited on the porch, holding a clipboard. Dipper's black, scuffed, dented footlocker, a relic of his dad's college years, stood on end beside him. "Mason Pines?" the old guy asked, thrusting the clipboard at Dipper. "Sign here."
"Mason?" Soos asked.
"I'll explain later," Dipper said, frowning as he signed the receipt DIPPER Pines.
"Is that, like, your nickname, dude?" Soos asked. "Mason? Like a stone mason, you know?"
"Yeah, something like that." Dipper reached for the footlocker as the old delivery man headed back to his van.
"Oh, I got that for you," Soos said, stooping and easily hefting it. "Up in the attic OK?"
"Yeah, thanks, Soos," Dipper said. "Here comes a bus. Better hurry."
"I'm on it, dawg!"
Dipper hurried back into the gift shop and told everyone that they were about to have company. "Guess Mabel's still off with T.K. somewhere," he said.
"You, me, an' Stan can manage," Wendy told him, "if you'll work the register."
"Got it. Oh, that was my trunk with all my camping stuff in it."
"Sweet!" Wendy said. "You an' me an' Mabes will go campin' and I'll teach you both how to be woodsy dudes!"
"If we live that long," Dipper said under his breath.
Because I'm the only one who seems to care about it—but the banshee said three nights.
We've only got two left!