Chapter 12: Finals

Late May, and the Mystery Twins got some good news: Because of their extra work, they had exempted some of their freshman finals. Math and English were mandatory, but Dipper didn't have to take his other finals, and except for history, Mabel had exempted her other classes, too—she even was the school Honor Student for art.

If Track and Field had been a more popular sport, Dipper probably would have been a school hero, too—but very few students even knew that he was on a team, and in the halls he was just Dipper Pines. At least he had cured them of calling him Dorkface early in the school year.

During the study days, Dipper and Mabel—who had English and algebra together—helped each other study. Dipper had no worries of acing the algebra test, but numbers and Mabel didn't always get along. When she had to solve for X, she tended to wander off into a narrative about pirate booty and the spot where the scallywags had buried it. However, with few other classes to worry about, she buckled down and studied hard. In return, Mabel pointed out ways that Dipper could make his English compositions more lively. He didn't really need the advice, because he was carrying an A average in English, but she helped him see ways of avoiding repetitions and putting in specific details that, he thought, really did help his writing more interesting to read.

When they took the final exams, Dipper got 100 on the math test, Mabel 93—still an A and still a good grade. In English, they tied at 95. As the last week of May ticked down and June began, they received identical official-looking envelopes that told them they had made the Principal's List, the highest tier of the Honor Roll.

Mabel danced around, brandishing her letter. "Hey, bro-o'-mine, I want your letter for my scrapbook! Mine and yours go on facing pages! High five?" Mabel asked with a wide grin and a raised hand.

"For real this time," Dipper said. They slapped five-fingered hands—hard, because Mabel was enthusiastic—and then did a pinky lock.

"Still feels weird," Mabel said, wiggling her pinky. Both of theirs had finally split off from their ring fingers the previous day, and they both agreed that the new skin on the side of the fingers felt strangely itchy.

Dipper wriggled his own fingers. "Give it time, Sis, give it time." He chuckled. "At least I can play all the guitar chords now!"

Mabel flopped down to sit on the foot of Dipper's bed. "So—how's the school going to do in the state track meet, brobro?"

Dipper gave her a squinting glance of suspicion. "Whaaat do you want to know that for? Are you planning on laying a bet?"

"Nah," she said in a passable imitation of Grunkle Stan. "I only like to make wagers with things I can roll, fan, or spin!"

Dipper had to laugh at that. "Yeah, well, we'll do OK. My average time isn't as high as two or three of the sprinters from other schools, but it's pretty good. I think I'll at least be in the running for third place."

"In the running! I see what you did there!" Mabel jumped up and began to dance around him, poking him with her forefinger. "Boop! Boop!"

"No. Tickling," Dipper said firmly, because he knew where that usually led. Then he sighed. "Wendy's not gonna be able to drive down," he said.

"Aw! What's wrong?"

He shrugged. "Engine trouble with her car. She's saving to get parts to fix it, but it won't be ready by the sixth. But she told me on the phone last night that she'll meet the bus."

"Man. I'm missing Waddles and Widdles so much it hurts. I wish we could at least fly up to Portland again."

"You vomited last time," Dipper reminded her.

"So? If you put your mind in the right place, puking's actually fun! Hey, Grunkle Stan said that he and Ford might take us out on the ocean on the Stan O' War II this summer!"

"That'll be cool," Dipper said. "Now get out of my room so I can change."

"Into what?"

"My running shorts!" Dipper said.

She laughed. "You gonna take off your underpants?"

"No."

"Then go ahead. I've seen you in less than that! I won't stare."

"All right, be a pest."

Dipper had laid out his socks, running shorts, tank top, and sweatband. He kicked off his shoes without untying them—that always drove his mom crazy—and then pulled off his red T-shirt.

"Oh, wow," Mabel said. "You're startin' to look like Grunkle Stan, Dip! Remember when you grew your first chest hair?"

"Sure," Dipper said, pulling the tank top over his head and tugging it down. "I can visit it any time I want in your first Gravity Falls scrapbook."

"I'd have to use like twenty pages now, and they'd all be full!"

Dipper turned his back and shucked off his cargo shorts. He reached behind him for his running trunks and pulled them on.

"I'm gonna tell Wendy to look at your butt," Mabel said.

"Don't you dare!"

Mabel giggled. "But you got a good butt now, Broseph! Must be all the running. I think she'll like it. Something solid to hold onto, you know?"

"Please." He got into his socks and running shoes. "Want to go over to the park with me?"

"OK. I'll time you."

They stopped at the fridge long enough to grab their water bottles, nicely chilled, and to tell their mother where they were heading. Then they walked to the park near their home—half a mile—which, though it had no track, did have a soccer field. Dipper had measured a hundred meters on it, and that's where he practiced his sprints.

At six in the afternoon, no one was using the field, and Mabel took up her station at Dipper's finish line as he did warm-ups and stretching exercises. "You're not much shorter than Wendy now," she said. "I still got a millimeter on you, though. Still, I gotta admit you buffed up nice."

"You should exercise, too," Dipper said as he did his stork stretches. "Makes you feel better."

"If I felt any better than I normally do, I couldn't stand myself," Mabel said with a smile. Then it faded, and in a small voice, she asked, "Dipper? Am I—dumpy?"

He looked at her in surprise. "Dumpy? No. I mean, you're not skinny, but skinny wouldn't look good on you. You're becoming a very pretty girl. That's why I worry about you and jerks like Trey Moulton."

"Pffft! Oh, let it go," Mabel said. "Trey's going out with like three girls now. I am so over him." She sighed. "Maybe this year's the charm. Maybe I'll have my big summer romance at last."

Dipper went into his lunges. "Promise me that you'll consult with Wendy when you zero in on a guy."

"Yeah, good idea, bro. She's broken up with about a dozen guys—what's wrong?"

"You know," he said darkly.

Mabel put a hand over her mouth. "Oops. Sorry! But come on, bro, she's not gonna break up with you! You worry too much. You'll see."

"Maybe. I just wish she could come and drive us up, like she wanted to."

"Hey, it's not her fault, Dip. And think of her. I mean, it's a long way for her to drive. If we have to take the bus, we're used to it."

"Yeah. It'll be weird, us off in Gravity Falls and our parents, like, six thousand miles away in Europe."

"Just for a month in June and July. And we weren't exactly in running distance before."

"I'm ready," Dipper said, standing up and shaking out his arms. Give me the signal when to start."

"OK.'

He walked to the end of the soccer field, did a few last-minute stretches, then got into his starting stance. "Any time!"

Mabel held out a red handkerchief—that had become their preferred signal—and set her phone to stopwatch mode. She yelled, "On your mark! Get set! Go!" She dropped the handkerchief and started the stopwatch.

Dipper ran all-out, arms pumping. Mabel clicked the STOP button as he passed her. He came back, not as out of breath as he'd always been when he'd started track. "How'd I do?"

"Ten point thirty-three seconds, brobro."

He shook his head. "That seems to be my limit. I keep hitting that but not doing any better."

"So who is doing better?"

"The freshman guy at Crosstrees High clocked ten point twenty-one in his last meet. And the sophomore at Lattimer Consolidated was ten point twenty-eight."

Mabel sat on the grass. "I'm sure you have a plan," she said with an exaggerated sigh. "Unfold it and read it to me."

He sat next to her. "No written-out planny thingy. I've learned better. All I got is to train until Friday. Then—we'll see."

From the Journals of Dipper Pines: Thursday night, June 5, 2014—I can't sleep, which is bad, because tomorrow we drive down to the track meet. I have to qualify in the prelims, and I just can't break 10.30 seconds. That ought to get me into the finals, but what if it doesn't? I'd feel like the whole year is wasted.

Which is dumb! I mean, I'm tied for the most first place wins with Coop in the 1600. If I were a sophomore, I'd already qualify for a letter jacket. But coming this close and then maybe not even getting into the running—I have to try harder!

I wish—shoot, I've written that so many times. I wish Wendy were going to be there. Even if I came in dead last, I'd feel so much better. But her dumb car chose this time to break down. It's not her fault, but I really feel depressed tonight.

Ever since that nasty business with the Westminster ghosts I keep expecting Eloise to call, too, but she hasn't, and I'm not going to bother her. I remember once Wendy complaining that one of Robbie's faults was he was so needy. I don't want her to think I'm that way. Or Eloise to think it, either. But I do wish I knew what happened with the ghost she saw in their house back in Minnesota. I liked Eloise, and it would be so good to hear from her.

I really hope I'm not needy.

But I guess I sorta am. Needy and nerdy.

Oh, speaking of the Westminster House: I talked on the phone to great-uncle Ford for about an hour last Saturday evening. I finally thought I'd be able to hold it together and tell him about the house and the ghosts and all, but he could tell I was getting upset all over again just speaking about that old man Eben Westminster. He cut me off and said, "Calm down, now. I know what it was, Dipper."

"What? He looked like a mummy, but he said he was a ghost. Or dead, anyway."

"He was a lich."

That surprised me. "You mean like in 'Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons?' I thought that was just a game thing."

"No, they're very rare but real. A lich is an animated corpse, but not like a zombie, not mindless and obsessed. With a lich, the dead person has invested his or her soul in a physical object—and until the soul either is surrendered voluntarily or the object is destroyed, the lich will survive in a kind of undead state. They're usually powerful magicians, and it's not unusual for them to enchant the living to be their servants and followers. Their goal may be as ambitious as world domination or as simple as their Earthly survival. The lich fears death more than most people, you see. The magic they use to prolong their existence on this plane is—well, very dark."

I told him about how the house itself had tried to capture Eloise and me, how people thought its upheavals were only an earthquake. "It turned out there really was an earthquake," I said, "but it was too mild for what we felt—the first reports of it being a five-plus were wrong, and it was only a 3.7."

Ford said in a thoughtful voice, "Then the house may have been the lich's phylactery—the place where he imbued his soul. You said you actually saw his ghost pass on?"

"So did Eloise. She has, I don't know, second sight or something. She can see ghosts in a way I can't. I saw his ghost vanish, you know, just rise in the air and fade out, but she saw it go through a golden portal."

"Yes, that sounds accurate. This is what I think happened: This man—Eben? Eben Westminster's soul went on to its reward—but it had dwelled in that house so long that the house gained a kind of evil sentience. Now it isn't him anymore, but something different, something inhuman. I may have to pay a visit to San Jose to investigate at first hand."

"Come in the first week of June," I urged him. "Because we'll be leaving for Gravity Falls June seventh."

"I will see what I can do."

But I haven't heard back from him. I'm gonna put the Journal down now. I'll play my guitar for a while and try to get sleepy. I need to sleep. Without nightmares, for a change. I hope.

On Friday, Dipper's time of 10.29 in the prelims was third, after Thaddeus Greene, the Lattimer sophomore, ran a 10.28 and Hugh Hammermill, freshman from Crosstree, ran it in 10.26. At least he'd lost a fraction of his best time.

So on Saturday morning at nine o'clock, Dipper waited with his coach and the rest of the team for the meet to begin, feeling a little anxious and a little depressed.

"Never seen so many at a track meet," Chuck Macavoy, sitting on the bench next to him, muttered.

The stadium surged with an excited crowd, and Dipper began to feel the flutter of stage fright in his stomach. Somewhere not far behind him up in the bleachers, his mom, dad, and Mabel sat to cheer him on—but at the moment he needed more than that.

Franklin Clowse, for whom Dipper had run the 800 in his first meet, whistled from his place down the bench. "Oh, man! Check out the babe!" he said.

Dipper didn't look around. He was in no mood. A couple of the other runners murmured appreciatively, though, until Coach Dinson growled, "Knock it off."

And then—from behind him—a growling voice, asked, "How's it hangin'?"

Dipper jumped up. "Grunkle Stan!"

And as he turned—she was there, and she hugged him and hardly even bending her head, planted a kiss on him. "For luck, Big Dipper!" Wendy said, pushing him back and grinning at him. She was wearing his pine-tree cap, and a breeze stirred her beautiful long red hair. She held up her right hand. "High five!"

They slapped hands, and she said, "No way!" and grabbed his wrist. "Dip! Something new has been added!" She wriggled her own pinky, and Dipper touched the tip of his to hers. She locked pinkies with him. "Nice! You're really growin' up good! No go do your run and don't let me down, man!"

The coach said, "Very nice, young lady, but my boy does have to run in a minute, so how about taking your seats?"

"Yeah, sure," Stan said. "Hey, Dip—run good, 'cause I got a hundred bucks ridin' on you!" Before Dinson could protest, Stan clapped him on the shoulder. "Just kiddin'! But Dipper, I will be yellin' for ya!"

Dipper sat down, feeling pleasantly dazed.

Clowse leaned over. "Whoa, baby! You never told us about her, man! Lucky dog!"

"She's gorgeous! Way to go, Dipper!" Macavoy told him. He swiveled his head to look at Wendy as she climbed back up the bleacher stairs and sighed.

On the PA, the announcer was calling the runners for the 100-meter.

"Do your best, Dipper," Coach Dinson said, slapping his shoulder. "We're pulling for you."

That was nice and all, but at the moment it really didn't matter. The race didn't matter. Oh, he would try his best, all right, but win or lose, the race was no longer important. Not now that Wendy was here.

Smiling, Dipper hustled to the ready area where the others were stretching out. He felt ready to run.

End of Pages from a Scrapbook

…but stay tuned for Summer 3 in Gravity Falls