"...Okay, we're leaving!" Mrs. Pines announced as she and her husband gathered up the hefty assortment of packages. Each and every one was carefully wrapped, meticulously labeled and ready for the mail.
"Hold on, we got a couple more things!" Mabel called from upstairs. The twins hurriedly rushed down the steps with arms loaded with a few more presents to send out to various friends and family. Through a near-miracle their father managed to add them to his pile and pick the whole lot up in one ungraceful go.
"We'll see you guys in a week!" His face was just barely peeking above the tower of packages as he got in one more joke before heading out the door. Together the couple headed off to bravely face the long lines at the downtown post office.
As soon as they left, Wendy immediately felt comfortable enough to leave the guest room. The Pines matriarch hadn't looked like a very happy camper (ironically enough) when the kids all drowsily stumbled into the house after their night spent outside. So the lumberjill teen had wisely been staying out of sight and keeping a safe distance since then.
"What'd you guys need to mail?" She pried curiously while brushing the last few tangles from her long scarlet locks.
"A couple things back up your way, actually!" Mabel bounced on her toes as she explained. "A Christmas sweater for Soos…"
"And one for Melody too." Dipper added. "Plus a new tool belt and a scarf for them."
"Cookies for Candy and Grenda, and a Christmas sweater each!"
"We also got matching ties for Grunkle Stan and Ford."
"And let me guess." Wendy looked to Mabel. "Two geezer-sized Christmas sweaters?"
"Nope! A whole lot of Mabel Christmas cheer!" She then remembered. "Oh yeah, and matching sweaters too!"
"A whole lot of what?" Wendy cocked an eyebrow. "Okay, how do you send cheer exactly?"
"With a video of my almost-one woman performance of 'A Christmas Carol,' of course!" Mabel grinned. "Complete with musical numbers, special effects, and the role of the miserly yet adorable Ebenezer Scrooge played by Waddles."
"That's one weekend I won't ever get back." Dipper was feeling tired just thinking about all that camerawork that he had been forced to do. "She wanted to to do it all in one take."
"That's because it was all part of my artistic vision!" She justified. "No breaks, no pauses, just a full on-Christmas classic from start to finish! Oooh! Speaking of, I have the extended edition on my computer! You wanna see it, Wendy? It's also got director's commentary and bloopers!"
While Mabel wasn't looking, Dipper shook his head and frantically whispered a few "no's" to his friend. She assured him with a speedy wink.
"Maybe later." Wendy gently replied before craftily changing the subject. "Don't you guys still have to like, decorate the house?"
"Oh yeah! We totally got that on today's holiday agenda!" Mabel pointed to the boxes of lights that had been pulled out of the basement. "See?"
"Okay, so what's the drill here? We doing that bushes first? The door? How's this work?" She sorted through the colorful Christmas tangles.
"We try and change it up." Dipper explained. "One year we kind of outlined the front of the house, last year we strung up all the trees and the fence, and this year….well, like we said yesterday, we thought we'd wait to see if you had anything in mind."
Wendy did in fact have something in mind. Without further ado she began to pump her fists up and down as she started off a slow, steady chant. "Roof….time….roof….time….roof time…..roof time….roof time…."
It wasn't long until she expertly wound up her younger friends, and their chorused whoops soon started to ring through the house.
"...Roof time! Roof time! Roof time! Roof time! Roof time! Roof time!"
Dipper broke off from the group and started dashing off for the garage.
"Whoa dude, where are you going?" His friend demanded.
"Uh, to get the ladder?" He bemusedly answered
"Ladder? You kidding me?" Wendy scoffed. She hefted up a box of lights, beckoned them along, and the twins followed her upstairs. "I don't even know the meaning of that word."
It didn't take her long to find the perfect second-floor window from which to crawl up on top of the house. Once outside she then pull each twin up one at a time after her with with the speediest of ease for her. The next hour or so was dashing about and putting together a display, abruptly getting struck by a new burst of inspiration halfway through and starting all over again from the beginning. Their fourth plan proved to be the keeper, and when everything was in place the trio stepped back to admire their handiwork.
"A masterpiece!" Mabel proclaimed triumphantly.
"I almost wish the sun wasn't up." Dipper admitted, wishing they could light it up already. Wendy almost sent the two of them toppling over from hearty claps on their backs.
"Alright, consider this roof officially Christmassed! Or whatever." She took the empty boxes and lazily kicked them off down into the front yard.
"Oooh, wait Wendy! Do your thing!" Mabel realized this was both the perfect opportunity and height for their friend to show off some of her famous lumberjill moves. "Your jumpy thing!"
"YEAH!" Dipper tried to walk back his explosion of overexcitement quick as he could. He coughed and scratched at the back of his neck "Uh, you don't have to, but….if you want to, you could."
"What?" She feigned ignorance. "I have no clue what you guys are even talking about."
Wendy then flung herself off with a graceful leap. In honor of the family name, there actually stood one tall skinny evergreen tree planted in the front yard. For the lumberjack's daughter it was the perfect exit down, and she rode its bending trunk all the way to the lawn with no problem at all. She cockily did a bow for her cheering friends.
"Oooh, yes! So graceful! Like...like a bit a beautiful green and red bird coming to land! " Mabel poetically gushed as she stood a little too close on the edge of the roof for Dipper's liking. Her twin grabbed her by the neck of her sweater and gently pulled her back a few inches.
"Don't try to chuck yourselves off or anything. It definitely takes time to get the hang of that." She warned from down below. "First time I tried that was the second time that I broke my arm."
A mischievous thought occurred to her. "But maybe you could hitch a ride…."
The twins could only watch as she snickered and raced back into the house.
"Where'd she go?" Mabel asked. Dipper merely shrugged as he fidgeted in anticipation. He was always eager to see what the veritable personification of cool had in mind. A thump of boots announced Wendy's return to the roof.
"Okay, Corduroy Flight 13 is set for landing in a couple minutes. Put your tray tables and up, and seat belts on." She waved a long belt she had snatched from their parents' room. "Who wants to go first?"
"Wait…." Dipper read all the clues pretty quickly. "Are you-"
"Me! Me!" His sister literally leapt at the opportunity by jumping onto their friend and hugging her hard.
"Alright! Hold on a sec, Mabes." Wendy looped the belt around and cinched it tight, binding them two together. Mabel giggled excitedly as they made their way to the edge.
"Now?" She asked impatiently.
"Now yet. Make sure you're all on me first." Wendy directed. The girl lifted her legs and was now latching onto her friend like a baby koala, leaving the redhead standing for the two of them.
"Have you ever done this before?" Dipper cautiously checked. "Like, with your brothers?"
"Nah , not even once." She cackled. "Okay, one, two, three!"
Every muscle in Dipper tensed tight as a bowstring the instant the girls left the roof. Wendy still made it down the tree and onto the front lawn with ease, although her landing was less graceful than normal thanks to the extra weight.
"YEEAAAAH!" Mabel cheered. Even when the belt was unbuckled, she still held on extra long to her friend for a happy squeeze. "Best trip EVER!"
"Glad you enjoyed it." Wendy tousled her hair, sending brown locks spilling all over the girl's rosy-cheeked face. After releasing her passenger, she bounded back into the house, through the window and crawled back onto the roof where the other twin awaited. "Okay doofus, you're next!"
"Okay, let's do this!" Dipper clapped his hand, let out a charged whoop. Right on cue his voice immediately broke a little, betraying his entirely expected anxiety.
"Demon things,, monsters shapeshifters, and ghosts are no problem for you," She teasingly fired off several examples. "But one little trip down the-"
"I know, I know." He grinned weakly. "Look, I got this, okay?"
"Alright, hop aboard." Dipper awkwardly grabbed on, only to have her shift him towards her front.
"What are you doing?"
"Shhhh…..it's gonna be okay. Just listen to my heartbeat." She stroked his head like a mother calming a child. "There we go….niiiice and soothing, huh?"
Mabel fell down laughing at the ridiculous sight.
"Thanks. I feel so much better now.." Dipper said sarcastically as he moved to the lanky jokester's side. She cinched the belt of extra-tight.
"Sorry man, couldn't resist." She chuckled. "It's cool, I know you can totally handle this-"
Wendy proceeded to prove her point by leaping off without warning. Dipper's startled yell filled the air as they hurtled towards the tree and began the rapid slide down. Unfortunately she had been a little too hasty with her surprise take-off. After landing awkwardly on her feet, Wendy stumbled a couple paces before face planting into the lawn. After freeing himself, Dipper couldn't help but give her a big smirk the moment she raised her head from the lawn.
"How's karma feel?"
"Totally worth it." She replied shamelessly. Dipper yanked the brim of her (formerly his) blue-and-white pine tree cap down over her eyes. She responded in kind by pulling down her old hat as far as she could down his face, and for a moment the both of them had successfully rendered one another temporarily blind. Before either one could get loose Mabel threw herself onto the redheaded teenager's back with a warrior princess battle-cry, and a wrestling match quickly broke out. Like with most of their play-fights, it consisted mostly of both the twins holding out together in a desperate alliance against their friend.
"Calling in! This fight's going to Corduroy in one minute or less!" Wendy announced.
"No way!" Mabel cried as she held on tightly.
"You better watch out, Stan's been giving us tips!" Dipper warned, right before his friend sandwiched him against the ground.
"Oh yeah? What'd he tell you to do, overcharge people to fight you?" She smirkingly taunted.
"Nope! Teach us dirty tactics!" Mabel revealed, and immediately started tickling her ribs. The teen erupted with uncontrollable laughter as she tried to simultaneously shake the little brunette off and keep Dipper pinned. It was hard going, and as she tried her best it suddenly sounded like she was going too rough on the boy as she pushed down on his shoulder.
"Ow! Ow! W-Wendy!" He writhed in pain.
"Whoa, sorry!" She immediately let go. "You ok-"
He instantly dropped the act and tackled her waist. Even despite their fierce counter-attack, of course she wasn't going to go down that easily, and soon she had each arm wrapped around a squirming thirteen-year-old.
"You'll never take us alive!" Mabel cried dramatically. "Twins, unite!"
"Haha, yes! Looks like my Christmas present came early!" Wendy cackled as they tried breaking her hold. "My first worthy challenge!"
The trio kept energetically tousling in a fierce two-on-one struggle. At one point the siblings trapped Wendy down on the ground, or at least they thought they did.
"WOP!" Mabel flopped herself onto her friend's stomach and held on tight. "Gotcha!"
"Oh yeah? Boosh!" She flipped over them in a flash. "Tables turned, doofuses!"
"Is that all you got?" Dipper taunted, even as the sweat poured down his face in its usual excess.
The epic battle was abruptly cut short by the slam of a car door. They all stopped to find that the Pines parents were back, and the matriarch of the family wasn't looking too pleased. Play fights between her twins was one thing. But seeing her kids squished under a wiry-muscled teenager almost twice their size wasn't a spectacle she liked looking at.
"It's cool, they're putting up a good fight." Wendy laughed as she brushed some hair from her face. The remark failed to even get her the briefest of smiles.
"Not too rough, please." She warned exasperatedly. They took that as a clear-cut sign to knock it out. As they peeled themselves apart, Mr. Pines climbed out of the car wit a smile and a goofy crack at the ready.
"We're back! That went faster than I thought. We were only in line for two whole days."
"At least that's finally taken care of." His wife mentally checked it off the two-do list.
"Whoa! Looks like someone's been busy this morning." He stopped and marveled at the decorations.
"The S.S. Pines is prepped and ready to sail away to awesome holiday times!" Mabel jubilantly cheered. The announcement made her mother briefly brighten up.
"Oh, the lights are up? Wow, thank you for taking care of…." Mrs. Pines took her first good look at her roof. The lights had been painstakingly shaped to form the large, bold and simple message of "Pines Rule!" on top of the house for all the neighborhood to see. Surrounding this message were three figures all done up in surprisingly recognizable detail thanks to Mabel's excellent art skills (Dipper's representation stood out in particular thanks to accurately skimpy limbs). Suffice to say, this wasn't what she was expecting.
"Well that's something different." Mr. Pines burst out chuckling.
"Uh…." Mrs. Pines was still processing. This was a lot to take in at once.
Before she could pass any judgement though, everyone was suddenly soundly spooked by the shrill blare of a siren followed closely by the shrill screech of tires. They all whirled around and found a police cruised halfway pulled up on the sidewalk.
"Is everyone okay?" An officer asked as she and her partner scrambled from their car. Mere moments later another police car arrived and emptied two more officers onto the scene.
"Wha….." As her property was swarmed, Mrs. Pines was swiftly reduced to a flustered mess. "What happened?"
Three of the police officers carefully scoured the yard as another explained. "Just investigating a call. We had a report from a neighbor who said she spotted kids falling off a roof. We're just making sure that everything's okay here."
"Wait….falling off the…" Immediately she fixed her attention on Wendy.
The teen didn't notice her. Wendy was too distracted by the surrounding spectacle. She now fidgeted anxiously as she watched the stern-faced officers scan the area. After growing up with nothing to worry about except for the buffoons in Gravity Falls Sheriff's Department, she was unused to such hard professionalism.
Dipper cleared his throat as he stepped into the center. "Uh, officer? Ma'am? Excuse me?"
Her inquisitive stare shot down towards him, causing the boy to flinch reflexively. He coughed again and slapped up a convincingly reassuring grin. "Sorry, but I think there's been a big misunderstanding here. See, we were just putting up lights on the house, and….and…."
The boy's mind raced at a hundred miles an hour as he brainstormed a believable cover-up. "We got a sort of….uh, got careless with the ladder."
"Ladder?" The officer looked around.
"We just put it away a few minutes ago, right before you got here." Dipper hurriedly explained. "Anyways, we were sliding down it."
"Oh, right!" Mabel chimed in to add some credibility. "Yeah, we were being totally responsible going up there and walking around, but when we came back down, we decided we wanted to be all like, ZOOM! Zooooooom!"
"You know, when you put your feet and hands on the sides and you just slide down?" Dipper explained with a nervous chuckle. "I guess we were going a little too fast. Wait, what am I saying? I mean, if it looked like we were flying off of the house, then of course we had to….right? Anyways, uh…..sorry."
"Super-sorry!" Mabel turned up the charm to level eleven with the biggest, toothiest, most adorable brace-filled smile she could muster. The officer silently looked from twin to earnest-looking twin and then over to Wendy before waving her colleagues over.
"It's nothing. False alarm" She shook her head. "Some kids try and horse around a little and someone has to go and lose their mind…. jeez, some people. Alright, thanks for clearing that up for us. Didn't mean to cause you any alarm."
"Oh, uh, it's no problem." Mr. Pines quickly forgave them in spite of his ongoing bemusement. The officer got down on one knee in front of the twins.
"Before I head out, just remember this. Make sure to be more careful. No one wants to spend their holiday in the hospital." She dutifully reminded them.
"Of course! Lesson learned, one million percent!" Mabel chirped sweetly, and managed to successfully get a grin out of the stern woman. The officers quickly left, leaving the family in peace once again.
"Yikes, now who do you think called that in?" Mr. Pines started curiously scanning up and down the street. "Miss Henderson?"
His wife ignored his musing. Instead she fixed her attention right onto the ginger lumberjill and inquired suspiciously, "So…..sliding down the ladder?"
"Yeah, totally."Wendy put on the straightest face that she physically could. The twins backed her up with a pair of vigorous nods. "You'd be surprised by how much speed you can pick up on those things…."