the pull of gravity
Being grounded is the worst.
It's almost March, and Mabel has been grounded for nearly two weeks. The restrictions are making her crazy. Wake up, go to school, go home, go to sleep. Wake up, go to school, go home, go to sleep. It's not that she doesn't have things to do at home or doesn't usually spend that much time there; she spends hours working on crafts or homework in her room or playing games in Dipper's. But when all her activities outside the house are stripped away, it suddenly feels like too much time.
Really, it still wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't for two things: the regulations on her at-home activities, and the atmosphere. Dipper's video game consoles have had their power cords confiscated and he has to leave his door open if he's on his computer to ensure he's doing homework. Still, Mabel could easily turn her room into a blanket fort or have a pillow fight with Dipper or start filming Mabel's Guide to Being Grounded, but the twins know the more they visibly suffer, the quicker the punishment will be lifted. Running around having improvised fun like they did so often at the Shack (although the Shack does offer so much more as a starting ground for the homemade kind of entertainment) isn't going to do their sentence any favors.
The first week of grounding was especially tense. Mabel is pretty sure that Mom used the internet to verify Pacifica's existence, though fortunately she hadn't made any attempt to contact the elder Northwests (if she'd succeeded, it could have only been a disaster). The twins are bearing the brunt of Mom and Dad's fear translated fully into anger.
The second week has been going slightly better. Mabel figures at this rate she will only have to mope around, appropriately penitent, for a few more days. And she is sorry, for real. But only that she made her parents worry so much. She's not sorry at all that she went to help Pacifica (she keeps that to herself).
Actually, there is one thing worse than being grounded: Pacifica's sudden silence.
Mabel sort of knows where her parents are coming from because she is very worried for her friend. Dipper hasn't heard from her either, not a single text or phone call or email. Mabel doesn't want to think there's anything ominous about it as contact from Pacifica is generally sporadic anyway, but the timing is hard to ignore. It's not like they're just waiting to hear from her; their texts have gone unanswered.
Which is why they're discussing it just before bedtime. Dipper is brushing his teeth while Mabel sits on the edge of the bathtub, the bathmat fluffy beneath her bare feet. She digs her toes into it, relishing the sensation. All carpet should be so long and soft, in her opinion.
"Maybe she got grounded like we did, but from her phone too," Mabel says. It's not the first time the suggestion has been made, but it bears repeating because it's the least upsetting possibility.
Dipper spits into the sink and pauses before using his toothbrush again. "I don't know. I bet she's never had her phone taken away this long before."
"I bet she's never disobeyed so much before," Mabel counters.
"Yeah, that's why we're worried," Dipper mumbles around the plastic handle of his toothbrush.
Maybe it's her frustration talking, but Mabel feels like things were simpler in summer. If she hadn't known what to do then Dipper probably had, and vice versa. The weirdness of the town was like a counterbalance to their youth; they had faced their own problems and conquered whatever the world had thrown at them. There had been no safety net, but it had been freeing; they had risen to the challenge. Everyone had been equals in the face of the apocalypse. In Gravity Falls, being twelve hadn't seemed like much of a handicap. The dangers had been no less real for them than any adult.
Now they're back in the land of grownups, where they can get grounded and can't go where they want or make decisions that are taken seriously. Being technically a teen doesn't count for much in Piedmont, and Mabel doesn't know how to help Pacifica when she can't even reach the other girl.
Well, at least Mabel can address a problem closer at hand. She stands and walks past Dipper to peek out into the hallway. Assured that both her parents are nowhere nearby, she turns back around and tugs at the hem of Dipper's shirt.
"Let's check on my masterpiece," she says.
Dipper obligingly raises his arm. He's been diligent about doing his laundry lately, partially as a means of ameliorating Mom and Dad's wrath but also to ensure he doesn't have to fall back on any of his older, smaller shirts. He's taken to wearing two at all times, tucking his undershirt into his pants. No one has commented on it because it's not new: He'd started the two-shirt habit to hide the marks of Weirdmageddon (Mabel's usual taste in clothing is enough concealment). He's had to explain away some things, most notably the oddly even dotted scars on his forearm, which he'd told their parents are from a run in with an old fence. Mabel knows they are actually from silverware.
She lifts his sleeping shirt to reveal the long red and rainbow gash along his hip. It's rainbow because she had refused to use boring old black thread (Dipper still isn't thrilled about it). Mabel has stitched many a varied thing in her time, but she'd never stitched a person before. Wendy walked her through the suture process and taught her how to make surgical knots. It hadn't been that hard, at least on Mabel's end; by the time they were finished, Dipper had been pretty pale.
"Some of my finest work," Mabel says, observing the healing wound. "You should've let me monogram it."
"You're not stitching your name into my side," he tells her.
"Not with that attitude. I think it's a little better," she says optimistically. They've been disinfecting it every night, just to be sure.
"Great," Dipper says, sounding relieved. "Good thing Wendy knows all this stuff."
"You weren't too happy about it then," Mabel recalls.
Dipper jams his toothbrush back into his mouth with determination, no doubt staving off memories of the day they'd treated his injury. "I'd like to see you sit still through that," he grumbles through a mouthful of foam.
Before Mabel sutured the wound closed Wendy had told her to sterilize the inside and make sure there wasn't any debris about to be sealed in. Mabel examined the interior of Dipper's hip with a q-tip and a flashlight while he sweated and clenched his jaw until his teeth ached. It hadn't been the best experience, but their diligence is paying off. The edges of the cut are turning a healthier pink.
Mabel lets Dipper's shirt go and trots back to the bathtub, reclaiming her perch. There still haven't been any decisions made about the other business at hand. "What if we sent her a letter?" Mabel suggests.
"If she's not allowed to talk to us, she's probably not allowed to write to us," Dipper reasons.
"So let's be sneaky!"
They spend the next day after school devising a complicated subterfuge in which they put an envelope with their actual return address inside another envelope from a fake business and send it to Pacifica in the hopes she'll realize anything she gets from Piedmont is from them. Success mostly hinges on her having access to her own mail, but it's the only thing they've thought of that might work short of the twins going to Malibu in person (which would by necessity involve stealing a credit card or two from their parents, representing a level of Trouble with a capital T that leaves both of them fearful of even imagined repercussions). All in all, even Mabel must admit it's a long shot. She brainstorms a few fake company names with Dipper—they settle on Tyrone-Wompers Manufacturing Concern—and goes to bed planning to filch a few envelopes from a kitchen cabinet when she gets home from school tomorrow.
Fortunately, it all becomes unnecessary the next morning.
Mabel awakens to find a text message on her phone, received late the previous night. It's from Pacifica.
Pacifica: My parents took my phone my mom just left again and I found it in her room
Mabel texts a quick reply asking if Pacifica is okay and then rushes to tell Dipper. He has the same message worded slightly differently. Mabel watches her phone diligently during the bus ride to school and checks it on break between classes. Her anxiety ratchets up a little notch every time she sees there's no answering message.
Just after lunch she's sitting in Biology, scribbling down notes and some drawings of Waddles driving a race car, when her phone begins to vibrate in her pocket. She reaches under her desk and slides it out just enough to see the caller name: Pacifica. She shoves it back into her pocket and sticks her arm up into the air, waving it wildly enough to garner the teacher's attention.
"Mr. Broich, can I use the restroom?" she asks the second he turns towards her.
"I should hope so, otherwise you'll turn yellow and die," he says with amusement, which is always his groan-worthy response whenever someone asks if they 'can' go to the bathroom instead of if they 'may' go to the bathroom. Normally Mabel will play along enough to laugh or exclaim 'oh no!' but this time she takes his implied acquiescence and runs with it, practically sprinting out of the classroom.
She's too late to answer the phone call by the time she reaches the shelter of the bathroom, so she locks herself into a stall and calls back. She paces in a very small circle while it rings.
Finally, an answer. "Mabel?"
"Pacifica!" Mabel says, relieved. "Are you okay?"
Pacifica sounds tired, but there's also some sharp anger buoying up her words. "No, I'm not okay! My stupid parents took my phone away. Isn't that, like, child abuse?"
Mabel should want to laugh and agree that yeah, it's totally messed up and a girl needs her phone, but it's hard to take amusement out of it when Pacifica is outraged about being grounded from her phone but hadn't thought much about being conditioned to fear a bell. Sometimes things just aren't funny in a different context. Mabel attempts a halfhearted giggle, but it feels wrong. It's like she's laughing at Pacifica.
"I looked in my mom's room until I found it. She's not very good at hiding things," Pacifica is saying.
"So you got grounded," Mabel assumes.
"I guess. They found out you guys were here. I think they went through my phone!" Pacifica sounds like she can't believe anyone would do that. "Won't they let me have anything for myself? Ugh! I had to tell them all about the Boss-Lobster."
Mabel winces sympathetically. "Uh oh. How'd it go?"
"Horribly. First, Dad was all, 'that Pines boy brought it here,' which is a total load. I tried to tell them that you guys just came to get rid of it, but they weren't even listening to me. Mom told Dad that the monster came because he'd sided with Bill and started that whole argument again. They just screamed at each other about the same stupid junk. It's always the same," Pacifica says tiredly.
She sounds so sad and lifeless that Mabel's heart aches in empathy. "Did they say how long you're grounded for?"
"I bet Mom doesn't even remember she took my phone away. I don't know. They wouldn't stop fighting so I just left."
"So… maybe you're not grounded?" Mabel says, attempting to put a hopeful spin on things.
"I think they know I went to Piedmont. They didn't say anything about it, but I think they do."
Mabel is trying very hard to find an upside to any of this. "Tell you what: me and Dipper will probably be ungrounded pretty soon. Could we come see you?"
"Mabel, you got grounded for coming to see me," Pacifica says with an unspoken 'duh.'
"Only because it was a secret! Mom and Dad can be reasonable," Mabel says confidently.
Pacifica sighs. "Well, mine can't."
"Okay… compromise! What if you fly us to Portland? I've always wanted to go to Portland!"
"Maybe I should just do what they want. Be a perfect Northwest again," Pacifica says quietly.
Mabel slumps against the side of the stall, disappointed. "Come on, Pacifica. Don't give up," she pleads.
Pacifica huffs out a short, unamused laugh. "After what happened last summer, I don't think I can change back all the way even if I wanted to."
"We'll figure something out," Mabel pledges. "Just stay in touch, okay? Don't forget about your friends!"
Pacifica's breath audibly hitches. "Okay."
Mabel wants nothing more than to stay and keep Pacifica on the line, but she knows she's out of time. "Darn it, I have to get back to class." Which brings her up short, because it's a school day, so… "Wait, Pacifica, where are you?"
"I didn't go to school," Pacifica admits.
Mabel gasps. "Did you actually get lobster cooties?"
"No. I just don't feel like going."
"But, what about your grades?"
"Oh, sorry, Dipper. I thought I was talking to Mabel."
Mabel has plenty of arguments to make about that (including the end all argument of the horror that is summer school), but she really does have to get back to class before she gets in trouble. "You'll be hearing from him about it, believe me. You'll be hearing from both of us, about everything, all the time! Keep your phone on! Don't get grounded! Text me if you see any more Boss-Lobsters!"
"Later, weirdo," Pacifica drawls, but Mabel is happy to know her well enough now that the valley girl edge that comes back into her voice is actually a comfort.