decision should be a desert, bright and clear

When Mabel's mother asks her if she'll be trick-or-treating with Dipper this year, Mabel immediately responds in the affirmative. Her head is already dancing with visions of entire pillowcases stuffed with candy. It isn't until Mom walks away that Mabel's enthusiasm begins to dim as doubt sets in.

She doesn't want to upset their newly cemented sibling bond, especially in the wake of a successful ghost busting, but the fact of the matter is that Dipper had been a real butt about Summerween. Sure, it wasn't the real Halloween; close enough, though! She worries that Dipper really is done with the holiday, too 'grown up' to care about candy—which is a total load. Even grownups should care about candy.

But if Dipper couldn't even summon the enthusiasm for trick-or-treating when their literal lives were on the line, what's the chance he will care now?

Mabel puts off talking to him about it for almost half a week, which is basically a million years by her standards. She doesn't want to come up with costume ideas yet, because all her ideas are for twin stuff. Not that it matters since she thinks of, like, twenty ideas anyway (macaroni and cheese! No, they did a food theme for Summerween. Mouse and keyboard? Cop and robber? CENTUAR-TAUR!). Darn her amazing creative brain!

Finally, she corners him in his room while he's moving his discarded piles of laundry into his hamper (Mom must have yelled at him). She plays it cool.

"So, Halloween is coming up," she says ultra-casually, leaning against his door frame and letting one arm dangle.

He stops what he's doing and squints at her. "…Are you having a stroke?"

Okay, so maybe she's gone a little far on the 'casual' part. She straightens up and wipes away the drool from where her cheek had been smushed against the jamb. "You know, Halloween? Like Summerween, but hollow?"

"I know what Halloween is, Mabel. You want something."

Big pitch. "Dress-up-for-Halloween-and-go-trick-or-treating-with-me!" she says in one breath.

"What?"

"Come on, Dipper!" she cajoles. She pulls a folded MabelVision Board™ out of her pocket and unfurls it dramatically, revealing a mass of images mostly created from Mom's clothes catalogs. "Look, we could be Ghost Harassers! Or Globnar contestants!"

Dipper looks uncertain. "I don't know. Getting chased and almost eaten alive sort of gave me a newer, more horrified perspective on trick-or-treating."

She pulls out the big guns. "Don't you want to spend time with me?"

"Wow. Straight for the guilt, no attempt at subtlety whatsoever," Dipper says, unimpressed.

"Listen, bro: real talk. We don't have a lot of Halloweens left before we end up being those gross older kids who go around when trick-or-treating is supposed to be over. Is that what you want? Showing up after the candles are out, making your voice all high and wearing a mask to hide your teen boy mustache hairs? Do you want that, Dipper?!"

Dipper drops an armful of t-shirts into his hamper and turns around. She's surprised to see the amusement on his face. "Mabel, all you had to do was ask. Of course I'll go. Who knows, this really could be our last time."

She beams at him, joyous and relieved. Then she drops her MabelVision Board™, suddenly struck by the best idea ever in the history of time and space. "Oh my gosh. Dipper, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'm thinking about Halloween," he says gamely.

"Close enough!" She grabs him by the shoulders and looks him straight in the eyes. "Mabel and Dipper: Government Dudes."

It takes Dipper a second to make the connection. "Government… You mean Agent Powers and Agent Trigger?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that," Mabel says in her most deadpan voice (which, like a lot of her voices, sort of sounds like Mr. Upsidedownington).

Despite her inability to mimic Agent Powers, Dipper is immediately on board. "We could wear cool shades!"

"And earpieces!"

"And black ties!"

"And imprison anyone who gets in our way!"

"Whoa, pull it back," Dipper says.

Most of the accessories are easy enough to produce. They buy some plain black sunglasses at the store and Mabel makes earpieces out of old curly phone cords and earplugs. The pieces of the suits come from a secondhand store in wildly varying sizes and Mabel puts her sewing machine to heavy work. In the end, she manages to alter them into some reasonable facsimiles. She would have preferred to rent real suits, but it turns out that would be beyond her price bracket. Suits are way expensive; who knew?

Mabel is highly motivated. Summerween had been, to put it mildly, something of a disaster. Trick-or-treating is supposed to be about candy, not avoiding death at the hands of a self-loathing, revenge-driven, spider-limbed mass of ick. So maybe Piedmont is a bit too normal, all around, but on Halloween night, for once that would be a big plus. Mabel doesn't have to expect anything more dangerous than high school kids being jerks.

When the big night arrives, she and Dipper stand in front of the mirror in her room; arms crossed, mouths firm, and eyes hidden behind smooth black plastic. It's pretty rad.

"Agent Mabel," Dipper says, tone cool and impersonal.

"Agent Dippingsauce," Mabel acknowledges.

"I believe we have some candy to requisition."

"Ten-four, over and out, breaker breaker."

"Let's roll."

They don't so much 'roll' as they do 'walk,' but they still feel cool doing it. There's something freeing about being behind a pair of solid black shades, as if Mabel can look out at the world and it can't look back in. She gets why all the government stooges (as her Grunkle Stan would say) wear them. They're the modern equivalent of a ninja mask.

There's a price to be paid for fashion. By the time they are done with their street she's tripped twice and walked into a fire hydrant.

In the end, it's all worth it. They reconvene in Dipper's bedroom and dive onto the beanbag chairs, spreading their haul out on the floor. It's edible confetti, a brightly colored, bounteous buffet just waiting to be savored. Mabel fully intends to. She starts with the full-sized chocolate bar that some beautiful soul dropped into her pillowcase.

Dipper sees her full bar and immediately begins searching for his. "No way, where's mine?"

"I think I got this at that house when you had to run back to pee," Mabel says through a mouthful of chocolate.

"Of course. Of course," Dipper says in disgust. He reaches down and picks up a much smaller bar, looking at it as if it has let him down by existing. "Why do they call these things 'fun size?' There's nothing fun about a small candy bar!"

An hour later and Mabel is deep in the throes of a sugar high. The world is wide and wonderful and Dipper is the best brother ever and every video game they play is the best game ever and every piece of candy she consumes is better than the last.

An hour and a half after that and she's deep in the abyss of a chocolate coma, eyelids half-open as she slumps on the beanbag and hears Dipper talking to her as if he's in another room entirely, distant and sort of muffled. She makes a halfhearted attempt to pay attention.

Dad shows up in the doorway and sends them to bed with a reminder there's still school tomorrow (Wednesday is a dumb day for Halloween). Mabel sluggishly brushes the taste of candy out of her mouth and resigns herself to the presence of a low and constant stomachache. Her sheets are cool against her feet as she slides into bed, and she feels the lump of amalgamated high fructose corn syrup in her gut begin dragging her down into slumber.

Across the hall, she knows Dipper is also climbing into bed, but he won't be sleeping; not yet. He will be reading for at least another hour, and maybe even after that. He's only eaten a fraction of what she did. It's not that he doesn't love candy, but he loves what Halloween stands for even more. He loves it as a celebration of all the things in life that interest him (and many of which they've since discovered are very real). His behavior during Summerween had worried her, but this time he hadn't tried to ditch her to find a party or to act older. He'd gone with her, like always.

Her eyes close, and she's thinking of all the candy she'll be eating for the next week or so. And she's thinking of which ones are Dipper's favorites, so they can trade.

Like always.