Stanley asked for help: Anna Ramirez
[writing in here is spoken in Spanish]
Wednesday
Anna Ramirez was cautiously optimistic about Stanley Pines's attempt to turn his brother's lab into a tourist attraction. It might have been morally ambiguous, but there was little else he could do with it to earn a living.
As for his brother, good riddance, the fact that he thought saying to her face that she should lose weight and isolate one of her kids from the other if one showed potential so the lesser sibling wouldn't drag them down was all she needed to know about the man.
She still didn't know why his teeth were gold at the time.
"Vamos Mami! We're going to be late for the tour!"
Anan smiled as her daughter Mary raced ahead of her towards the crowd gathering around the run-down building. She was always interested in cryptids, aliens, and the supernatural. While other girls played with Barbies and made themselves look pretty, she would play with homemade Bigfoot action figures and horror movie makeup.
When you added that to her accent, lack of a father, Mexican food, and religion, she was the odd one out, and in school, being the odd one out meant you didn't make many friends.
Or any friends for Mary.
Lord, if you're up there, please make this place entertaining for my daughter and popular with the town. This might be the first opportunity she has had to make a friend.
As she reached the crowd, she saw Mary as the only kid. That wasn't a good sign, but maybe the parents' prohibition of this place would make the kids want to know more about it. Mary, being the only one in their grade to have been inside, could still help her make friends.
Mary was bouncing on her heels as the crowd waited outside the building.
["Mary, please calm down. I know you're excited, but I don't want you to get your hopes up too much."]
Mary faced her mami with a confused expression. ["Why Mom? It is a lab where a reclusive scientist has been experimenting for the past eight years! How could it not be filled with aliens, robots, and bigfeet?"]
Anna smiled at her daughter's enthusiasm but mentally reviewed her list of ways to let her down after it was revealed that the inside was just a lot of junk and scams.
"The door's opening!"
The door flung open, and Stanley Pines stepped out into the open. Anna was surprised to see him wearing a suit with no other decorations or props. She supposed it was because this was the first tour made with 24 hours' notice. Maybe he would spice things up next time with a hat or something.
"Hello everyone! Welcome to the first-ever tour of my brother's house. Now it's time for the first surprise. You have a chance to give me a name to call the exhibit on any road signs, merchandise, and the like. If I choose yours, then you will get this!"
He then held up a shiny piece of metal with STAN PINES carved into it.
"Whoever holds this can take the tour here for free once daily for as long as this place is running!"
Everyone began getting excited at that. Her Mary then made the cute face she did whenever she was thinking too hard about something. Not that Anna couldn't blame her; she was also thinking of anything she could throw out. If Mary enjoyed this, having to pay for only one ticket daily instead of two would be great for her finances.
Eventually, Mary called out, "Mystery Shack!"
Mr. Pines then pointed right at her with a smile on his face.
"There we go. That is the new name of this attraction. Come on up and collect your prize!"
Mary then began to grin like a maniac and ran up the stairs to him. She hugged it tight once he handed the pass over like it was her osa.
"Gracia Senor Pines."
"De nada niña. I'm making this up as I go along, so keep coming over to see how things change."
He then turned to the rest of the group, but Mary wasn't paying attention anymore. She then turned quickly towards her mami and began whispering to her.
["He knows Spanish!"]
Anna nodded her head. ["I heard Mary, but he might only know basic Spanish. It would be best if you didn't get your hopes up too much."]
"Then prepare to enter the Mystery Shack!"
They both realized the group was entering the building quickly enough to get a front-row spot.
It was much better than she expected.
There was a crystal in an examination box, the eyes and skulls of indeterminate creatures, stone tablets, artifacts, tapestries with terrifying scenes, and a Fiji Mermaid. All in all, she was impressed.
"This beauty was fished up by me and my brother on a sailing exhibition to Fejii about seven years ago."
Mr. Pines then began to artfully describe how he and his brother found such a fantastic thing. Then he moved on to the crystal and explained how it was the heart of a stone giant he and Stanford fought together in the old mines of West Virginia.
Each story he told was more colorful than the last, and her daughter looked like she was doing her best to memorize every last thing he said. Her eyes held the sparkles of hero worship beginning to form.
Anna narrowed her eyes at Stan after noting that.
She might need to have a talk with Stan on how to behave around her.
Eventually, the alarm clock on the nearby shelf went off.
"Well, we are almost done with the tour, folks. Remember, I'm still figuring out what to put on display and cleaning up the building. More exhibits and possibly rooms will become available, so keep coming to see the newest additions. The only thing left is our final surprise!"
Stan then went to the side and pulled out a pile of scrolls.
"These are scrolls detailing the history of me and my brother and everything I know about what happened to him. May these remind all of you to look for him. I'll have a large one on the wall later, but the ones I give out today to those who take the tour will be the only ones I give out to people.
"Plus, there are scrolls! Those are cool, on principle."
Given that Mary turned anything she wrote into scroll format, if she could, Anna could see her daughter treasuring that and maybe asking her help to mount it on the wall.
She eagerly waited in line for her scroll while her mami looked at Stanley suspiciously.
When they reached him, Stan hesitated when he saw them.
"If you want, I can try to make one in Spanish. It'll take a while, but you can hold onto this and trade it in later."
…
Mary then immediately latched herself onto Stan's leg in a massive hug.
"GraciaGraciaGracia-"
"Hay, kid! Watch the suit! It's the only one I got, and I still have the rest of the day to do performances."
Eventually, she got Mary to release Stanley's leg and turned to him.
"Sorry about that, but we will take you up on the Spanish scroll. How about I read this and write up a Spanish translation for you to use tomorrow and drop it off around noon on Friday?"
Stan nodded gratefully.
"Yes, please. I only know enough Spanish to order at a restaurant and flirt with women."
Mary was too excited to pay attention to the conversation and was reading her scroll, which she thought contained the universe's secrets.
["Can we come back tomorrow, Mom?"]
There are no ifs or maybes; she will talk with Stanley Pines about appropriate behavior around her daughter tomorrow.
And she was bringing her la chance with her.
Friday
Stan was sitting down for his lunch break on the second day of the Shack's operation, savoring the taste of food he bought with money he earned. The independence and lack of consequences looming over the horizon for his actions triangled the taste of the sandwich.
Or pentagramed, or rectangled. Squared! That was the word.
A knock on the front door broke Stan's musings on the proper terms from Math class. He sighed, picked up a small lantern, and walked over to it, calling out as he did so.
"We're closed for lunch! Come back at 12:30!"
Stan then turned around to head back to his lunch when an accented voice entered through the door.
"Mr. Pines? It's Mrs. Ramirez. I have the Spanish translation of the scroll with me. I also wanted to hammer out some details about my daughter's daily visits to the Mystery Shack with you."
Stan looked at the table with his sandwich before sighing and turning back to the door. As annoying as it was, he would rather deal with this now than during business hours.
He opened the Shack's front door for the plump Hispanic woman with a small purse.
"Do you want to do this here, or can we sit at the table so I can finish my lunch?"
She smiled at him. "Let's go to the table. I don't want to deprive you of your lunch, and I might have some information you would like."
Stan's eyes widened, and hope began to fill him. As he guided her to the kitchen, his mind started to produce dozens of ideas of what she could have to tell him. Did she know about the journals? Did she know about Fiddleford? Did she know about the portal?
When they sat down, Stan was so worked up he couldn't eat.
"Ok, where is the translation, and what must you tell me?"
She smiled sweetly at him before pulling out a silenced pistol and leveling it at him.
Stan immediately threw himself out of the chair before rolling into an adjacent hallway while cradling the lantern to avoid the bullets that were sure to follow. He then lumped back to his feet and flattened against the wall as he reached for a bat he had laid against the wall earlier while cleaning.
"I don't know who sent you, but I just came into a lot of money. We can go to the bank together and show you that I am paying them back as soon as the paperwork is written up!"
Stan realized that the gun hadn't fired yet seconds before he heard a small sigh.
"I'm not here on behalf of anyone. I'm here because I decided to leave my life of violence behind to raise my kids in peace. This gun is to make a point of what will happen if you do anything I disapprove of to my daughter."
Stan sighed in relief and headed over to the table. He continued talking as he sat up his chair again and put the lantern on the table.
"Ok, that I can respect. I had similar conversations with a few jerks at school that bullied Ford. Granted, that was more knuckledusters and fewer guns, but the principal is the same.
"If you hurt the people I care about, I'll give you cement shoes and throw you off the dock."
The two criminals gave each other matching predatory grins as they shared an understanding.
"Well, now that we got that out of the way, how about we hammer out the logistics of my daughter coming over? I'm a single mom with two kids, so keeping one of them entertained every day for fifteen minutes would work wonders for my scheduling."
Stan just shrugged. "I don't see much we have to go over. She shows up, joins one of the tours, then leaves."
Miss. Ramirez shot him a look.
"You don't see anything wrong with letting a 10-year-old girl walk to the house of a strange man alone every day?"
…
"I want to say no, but your tone with that gun is saying I should say something else."
She sighed and put the pistol back in her purse.
"Ok, how about this. You have the pass count for her, and one other person is free for the tour. She brings someone along to ensure nothing happens. Ok?"
Stan thought about it for a minute.
"Counterpoint, the pass is free for the holder and half off for a friend."
"Throw in a free snack for both of them, and you got yourself a deal."
They then shook hands on the arrangement.
Sucker, we never agreed on what kind of snacks I'd give them.
Estúpido, now I won't have to worry about providing after-school snacks.
They moved on with both, thinking they got the upper hand in the deal.
"Now, what is that info you said you had that I would be interested in?"
Miss. Ramirez smiled at him. "Your brother's assistant and I talked several times. I don't know where he is now since he used to live in this shack with your brother, but I do know a lot about him and his family."
Stan narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "I would ask what you want in exchange. Money? Babysitting your daughter? Babysitting your other kid?"
He then grimaced. "Please don't let it be anything puberty-related."
Miss. Ramirez recoiled at that.
"NO! I am not letting a man who has been in town for five days have that talk with my son! Also, he's eight and won't need that for a long time."
Stan sagged into his chair with relief at that.
"Ok, what do you want?"
She gave him a 'mom glare' that gave Stan flashbacks to his childhood. Somehow, this was worse than the gun.
"I want you to not bring outside law enforcement or criminal elements into this town. I have worked hard to keep myself and my kids safe from my past, and I don't need you mucking it up."
Stan nodded. "The only contact I plan to have with those groups is to pay them off with the moose head's money so they will have no reason to come after me."
She smiled at him. "All right, here's what I know about him.
"He grew up on a pig farm in Tennessee where he learned to play the banjo and hambone. He went to Backsupmore with your brother, who was his roommate. After college, he got married and had a son. He left them and his projects to help Stanford with whatever he had been doing for the past seven months. They are still in Palo Alto, California, but I don't know their address or phone number. He was nervous about whatever Ford was doing and tried several times to get him to stop but kept helping him anyway."
She then sighed. "If he didn't end up with your brother, he would have joined a cult."
Stan frowned but wrote down what she said anyway.
"I haven't seen anything in the Shack about Fiddleford yet, but there is a lot of stuff to go through. I'll keep looking. If we find anything about him or how to contact his family, we'll let the other know, ok?"
With that, they shook hands, and Miss. Ramirez turned and looked at the lantern on the table.
"What is that, and why did you take it with you when you ran from me?"
Stan shrugged at her.
"This is a new exhibit I'm doing. An ever-burning candle that will never go out."
She rolled her eyes at the story and got up to leave.
"Oh, one more thing, Miss Ramirez. What did you do before settling down in Gravity Falls?"
She smiled and turned to face him.
"I was a Sicarios for the azúcar en polvo cartel.
"I went by the name of Axolotl."
With that, she left the building as Stan stood there in frozen terror.
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To celebrate the upcoming "Book of Bill," I have decided to make this a Gravity Falls summer! This means I plan to post a chapter of this fanfic once a week, every Friday morning until
August 30th. I have almost 20 pre-written chapters, so I don't know when this will stop.
I have a if you want to support me and my New Year's resolution of posting one fanfic of 2k words or more weekly. This is also being posted on , AO3, and Tumbler.
: user?u=10132890
: s/14051718/1/luz-appreciation-week-2022-from-1228248
AO3: /works/52823413/chapters/133608991
Tumbler: blog/brianedner
I am also doing fanfic info dumps, which are like wiki articles that go one episode at a time, with some compilations at the end on certain topics that are sorted by episode.
Fanfic info dumps here: 1228248/gallery