the victory of flight
Wow, that is one big rat, Dipper thinks.
He starts to wonder whether this rat wandered too close to one of the height-altering crystals or if there have just always been gigantic rats tunneling below ground. But he puts the brakes on that thought because the rat is barreling towards him. Fast. Like, really, really fast. In fact, it's about to trample him. This would be a good moment for his survival instincts to kick in.
He doesn't have the time for finesse. He throws himself to the side, rolling across clacking stones as the enormous rat roars past like a scrabbling, squealing freight train. It disappears deeper into the tunnels.
Dipper stays down for a moment, trying to catch his breath.
"Well," he finally says, pushing himself into a sitting position, "I think we figured out what collapsed that road."
"Please tell me you're not dead," Pacifica says from somewhere in the settling dust.
"I'm not dead. Just… dusty."
"That rat really smells like pee," Mabel coughs.
This is the upside of being a local celebrity: easy access to supernatural sightings. He hadn't even been looking for something like this today, content to visit the Summerween Superstore with Pacifica and Mabel (under the assumption that saving the world had rescinded the Pines family ban). Next thing he knew, he was pulled aside by Mayor Cutebiker and asked to investigate, in the Mayor's own words, 'some strange transpirings.'
It's only now, after he's narrowly avoided being pancaked by a giant rat, that it occurs to him that he probably should have told Great-Uncle Ford. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and notes that, yep, he just cracked the screen and has no signal. Not surprising, being underground and all. The smart move would be to turn around and come back better equipped to deal with a rodent of such unusual size. It's become academic, however, as the rat has collapsed the tunnel behind them. The only way out is through.
He stands up and dusts himself off. Mabel and Pacifica are ahead, peering down the sloping tunnel. He's encouraged by the light that's emanating from somewhere in that direction, too bright and steady to be the reflected glow of the girls' flashlights.
"It went that way," Pacifica says when Dipper catches up. She points towards the path that curves to the right. It's where the light is coming from.
"That rat is fast," Dipper remarks, making sure to note that in his journal. "It'll be hard to catch."
"Yeah, or, rats are gross and we shouldn't go anywhere near it."
"Come on, where's your sense of adventure?" Dipper cajoles.
The look she gives him is dire. "I don't know. Maybe I left it with all my clean clothes that don't smell like rat pee."
Dipper is sweaty and covered in dirt and it's true that either he or the tunnel stinks heavily of rat urine (he's guessing both). Also, in the process of looking down at himself he sees that his right foot is planted in what he hopes is mud but, really, he knows is rat feces.
"Alright, this adventure is a little grosser than usual," he concedes. "But we accepted a mission from the Mayor, and that is a sacred charge."
"We are so heroic right now!" Mabel exclaims.
Pacifica pulls her hair back into a ponytail (using, Dipper notes, a blue scrunchy that is no doubt calibrated to match her eyes), her expression one of grim resignation.
They advance slowly, hampered by the uneven tunnel floor. It zigs and zags but always keeps going in a general direction that Dipper's compass tells him is northeast. The light becomes gradually brighter. Fresher air wafts through, licking at their faces. Soon, the tunnel ends, and they are standing at the edge of a cave shaped like an upside-down bowl, an amphitheater with a stalactite-laden ceiling porous with cracks and wide gaps where hanging curtains of moss descend in shafts of pearlescent light.
"It's beautiful," Mabel breathes.
"It's… okay. It's all right or whatever," Pacifica says, her wide eyes belying her verbal dismissal.
"We might be the first people to ever see this place," Dipper tells them. He starts sketching in his journal, trying to capture the natural majesty.
Mabel grins. "Dipper, we get to name it!" She straightens up and raises her arms in grand benediction. "I name you… Spike-Ceiling… Cave Place!"
Dipper keeps drawing. "Or, anything but that."
"Gross Rat Cavern," Pacifica offers.
"Okay, maybe not anything."
Something splashes up ahead. Dipper tucks his journal away and peers into the gloom. There's a sizable pool of water in the middle of the cavern. The giant rat is drinking from it, its disturbingly big pink tongue darting out with rapid speed to lap at the collected rainwater. It begins to preen itself, combing its whiskers and biting at the matted parts of its fur.
Dipper looks upward. There's a network of vines around the ceiling, mingled with the moss and tracing the walls of the cavern. The tangle is thick enough that a plan begins to form in his mind.
"Look up there," he says, pointing towards the twisted plant mass. "If we can cut enough of that loose, I bet the weight could work like a trap! It would be trapped like a… a… I don't know, some kind of animal that gets trapped."
Mabel is instantly on board. "Mystery Trio!"
Pacifica is less enthused—about the name, anyway. "Don't call us that."
"Mystery… Bunch!" Mabel says with an awkward swing of her arm.
"That's even worse."
"Mystery Triplets!"
"NO!" Pacifica and Dipper bark simultaneously.
"Oh, yeah, no," Mabel realizes. "That would be weird."
Dipper sees that despite the noise everyone is making the giant rat is unperturbed. It must feel safe here. All they need to do is trap it long enough for him to go and get a height-altering crystal; he thinks it's safe to assume the rat is the result of a crystal encounter, given that rats aren't solitary creatures and it didn't retreat to a giant rat nest. He needs to talk to Great-Uncle Ford about setting up some kind of perimeter around the crystals, because this is the third time they've caused trouble and it's starting to become a trend.
"Here's what we'll do," he says, crouching to draw on the dirt floor of the tunnel. "I'll go left and circle around to the other side. Pacifica, you follow me but then you go up that wall; you should be able to climb right up the vines. Mabel, you do the same on the right side. Once we cut enough of the vines loose, the whole thing should fall. Then we just have to go get a crystal and shrink the rat."
They split up, ghosting along the walls of the cavern, keeping the maximum amount of distance between themselves and the rat. There's no way it doesn't see them, but it doesn't seem to care. Dipper finds a tightly-webbed portion of the crawling vines and begins to climb. He's about halfway up the wall when it occurs to him that the vines might be something like poison ivy. His skin isn't burning, so he takes that as a good sign.
There are roots intertwined with the vines, vast tendrils of the dense forest above. Some of them are as thick as tree trunks and just as sturdy. Dipper pushes himself along one of them, cutting the vines at intervals. With the girls doing the same on their sides, the whole net begins to sag in the middle as more and more weight falls on the load-bearing vines at the center of the cave. They rustle and snap loudly when they separate. The giant rat is still drinking and preening down below. It's so tranquil that Dipper starts to wonder if it knows something he doesn't.
Through the shadows of the stalactites he can see Pacifica sawing away at a thick rope of vegetation with her pocketknife. It's a gift from Dipper, bundled with a flashlight and a bunch of other adventuring necessities. He'd had the thought, on the way up to Oregon, that she would be spending most of her time at the Shack, unwilling to partake in anything too dangerous or disgusting. He'd been wrong. He's still not sure if it's a stubborn unwillingness to be left out or a burgeoning taste for adventure—knowing her, probably both.
Last summer, Dipper often explored alone or with only Mabel for company. Some of the bigger events—like finding Ford's doomsday bunker or the dinosaur caves—had been with various friends and family, but Dipper had spent countless hours of his summer just wandering the forests of Gravity Falls with Journal 3 in hand.
He doesn't remember it being lonely. Funny how it seems that way looking back at it now.
He's done a little of that again, but this summer Mabel has stuck to his side like glue. She's been dedicated to his search for adventure with unerring commitment, wholly invested, always ready to go with a smile and a backpack full of snack cakes. Maybe all that's happened gives her an increased appreciation for monster hunting; or maybe just a new appreciation for family.
But Dipper has this nagging thought that there's more going on. There's a conversation on the horizon, like a storm cloud dogging his heels. Something about birthdays and apprenticeships and make-believe kingdoms, sock operas and a button that went un-pressed. A lot of unspoken stuff that needs to be dug up before they can bury it.
He doesn't need her guilt. He has to find a way to tell her that.
The vine under his knife gives way; the snap brings his thoughts back to the here and now. The tangle on his portion of the cavern roof is loose, dangling around the edges of the room like a low tent canopy. It looks like the girls have had similar success. But there's still a portion in the middle that's hanging by a few tenacious strands.
It looks like there's a way over to it but the roots in that area won't hold his weight. If he supports himself with the vines, he'll just fall with them. However, there's a thick root that runs out towards the middle before twisting away, and not too far from it a gnarled extension from Mabel's perch. If he can get close enough, he can cut the thickest vine as he jumps to catch hold of the next root over. It'll be close, but Mabel is there, and she can grab him if she needs to.
He looks over at her and sees that she's looking right back at him, eyes bright and wide. He hadn't been lying when he'd told Wendy that he and Mabel don't have telepathy, but sometimes they have the same thought so clearly that nothing needs to be said. This is one of those moments; they are perfectly in sync; in her expression, he perceives identical determination. He knows she'll be right there to catch him when he needs it.
This is what makes them the Mystery Twins.
He stands and runs, the root shaking beneath his footfalls, raining sheets of dust. He reaches the end and launches himself towards the next root, Mabel already waiting with her arm outstretched. His knife cuts cleanly through the heaviest strand and the net of vines begins to strip off the walls, collapsing under its own weight.
It's perfect. Mabel grabs her root and leans out on a collision course. Dipper sails through the air and has the fleeting wish that someone would photograph this. He's doing it Indiana Jones style. If only Great-Uncle Ford could see him now.
He reaches out and Mabel's hand comes in towards his for the ultimate high five—
—and his hand passes through the air, centimeters from the tips of her fingers.
He misses.
He has time for two thoughts as the floor rushes up to meet him:
1. His new height brings new weight, which means the root had bent beneath him significantly more than he had accounted for.
2. …This is really going to hurt.
He hears Mabel and Pacifica screaming his name, or about half of it. Then there's a burst of hard pain.
Then nothing.
The Victory of Flight by Twelve Hour Turn (No Idea, 1999)