Beginnings: Summer Three in Gravity Falls

(June 7, 2014)

At the end of the sprint, Dipper had enough left to trot off the track. He tried to scan the bleachers for Wendy and Grunkle Stan, but the cheering crowd hid them. He was grinning like an idiot, but the audience's enthusaism embarrassed him, too—as if he'd taken over for Grunkle Stan in the Shack and had told lie after lie, and the poor tourists had swallowed them all!

The whole track team, even the guys and girls not competing because they had failed to qualify, were jumping in the air and thrusting their arms overhead. Coach Dinson was laughing, but he looked as if he were on the verge of tears. "Way to go, Pines! Way to go!"

"Thanks," he managed.

It had been very, very close. Hugh Hammermill definitely seemed off his game and Dipper had passed him and pulled ahead from the beginning. Thad Greene, though, the sophomore from Lattimer, ran better than he had in the prelims—and Dipper managed to pass him almost at the finish line, and then only by half a stride. When the official times went up, Dipper posted a new personal best, 10:24, and they actually had to split it finer with Greene: 10:25.

Dipper had won by one-one hundredth of a second. "Coach," he asked, "could I go find my family? Please?"

"Yeah," Dinson said. "You did good, Pines. Hey—you'll be back on the team in the fall, right?"

"Right," Dipper said.

Dinson looked stern and aimed a finger at him. "You stay in training until then, understand?"

"No problem," Dipper told him. "I have a personal coach to keep me in line." And she's somewhere up there in the stands!

"Have a good break," Dinson said. "You're something, Pines. State champion in the JV hundred-meter, and a record time. You be there for the athletic banquet the first Friday night of the school year."

"Understood."

An anxious Dipper had been craning his neck, trying to pick out that red hair. "Hey, Mac," Dipper said to Macavoy, "did you see which section my gir—uh, Grunkle went to?"

"What's a Gurgrunkle?"

"Great-uncle. I mean Stanley, the guy with the gray hair and black-rimmed glasses, black suit, red ribbon tie."

"Ohhh." Macavoy's grin suggested he knew that wasn't at all what Dipper had started to say. "Yeah, I think they're way up in the next-to-top level up there, on the left of the steps."

"Thanks. See you next fall, man!" They slapped a high-five—though Macavoy was still four-fingered—and Dipper shook hands with Dinson and started up just as the girls' hundred-meter was getting underway. He paused halfway up the steps and turned to watch it. The Piedmont runner had not qualified for this event, and the sophomore girl from Corvia High, Jasie Duggan, won handily.

It's over so fast, but when I'm running, it seems to take forever!

The crowd cheered, and a few of them called, "Way to go, kid!" as they recognized him. He gave them shy waves in return. He slowed as he neared the section, and then he saw Mabel jumping up and down and waving to him. She was way off on the far side of the section, of course, five or six rows down from the top, and then he saw Wendy talking to his mom and dad and there too sat Stan, reclining as though he were on a beach chair, waving his big hand.

Rather than trip over about three dozen pairs of feet, Dipper went all the way to the top to cross behind the highest level of seats, most of them empty, and came down on the right set of steps. Mabel jumped up and hugged him. "You did it, you did it, you did it!"

"Yeah, I guess I kinda did," Dipper said, rubbing the back of his neck.

Wendy had turned her back to his parents and was grinning all over her face. "Congratulations, Dipper," she said in an oddly calm voice. "I see you've grown up a lot just since Christmas." Her tone was cool, but then she mimed zipping her lip, and he realized she was being all mature for the benefit of his mom and dad.

"Thank you, Wendy," he said in a formal tone.

"Hey, Dip," Stan said, "there ain't an empty seat in this row, but the top one has plenty of spaces. I'll go up there an' sit with you."

"Me too!" Mabel said.

"Be up in a minute or two," Wendy said. "I'm telling Mr. Pines how I've finally found a cam and lifter set I can afford and how I'm gonna install it." She turned back and started to talk to Dad, who looked rapt.

Dipper nodded as casually as he could and followed Grunkle Stan up to the topmost level. "You guys!" he said as he, Mabel, and Stan sat down. "Did you plan this all along?"

"We're gonna fly up, Dipper!" Mabel exclaimed. She punched the sky. "Pukin' at thirty-five thousand feet! Yes!"

"Yeah, you do that an' you'll get me started!" Stan grumbled as he settled into a seat. "I hate flyin'! Sometimes I wish Ford and McGucket hadn't pulled all them strings to get my brother an' me off the no-fly list!" The last row of seats gave them a certain sense of privacy, one of the few places where the crowd hadn't jammed the bleachers. Lowering his voice, he added, "Nah, Dipper, not exactly planned out, but Wendy was real upset that she couldn't drive you knuckleheads up, an' I found a way quiet-like to liquidate some of the goods I brought back from when me an' Ford sailed up to the Arctic—tell you more when the statute of limitations runs out—so I had more cash than I knew what to do with, an' I talked her into comin' along for the ride. We flew into Fresno early this mornin' and rented a car to get to the track meet here."

"And we're flying from Fresno to Oakland, and then to Gravity Falls!" Mabel exclaimed. "Yahoo! Two flights in one day!"

"But—our stuff—we have to pack!"

"You're packed, brobro!" Mabel said. "You've been packed since last week! You had like three checklists and you've checked them so much you can't check 'em anyplace else!"

"Yeah," Dipper said, pausing as the crowd cheered for the winner of the 110-hurdle event—Piedmont came in third in that one. Then he resumed, "Yeah, but all our stuff's at home!"

"Is it?" Stan asked with a wicked grin.

"Uh—yes?" Dipper said.

Mabel sounded an imaginary buzzer. "BZZZZT! Wrong-oh, Dippity Do! Grunkle Stan called mom an' dad, and they packed everything in the trunk of the car! All we have to do now is get it to the airport!"

"My guitar too?"

"Yeah, dummy! Everything! Nearly!"

"Guitar?" Stan asked. "I thought you played that cockamamie tuba thing."

"Sousaphone," Dipper corrected. "But, yeah, I kinda been taking guitar lessons."

"So he can serenade Wendy!" Mabel announced to the world, twirling like a ballerina.

"Hey, Dip," Stan said when Dipper shook his head frantically. "Don't let her get to ya. You're growin' up, kid. I noticed your hands right off. How's it feel?"

"Still a little weird," Dipper said. "But I'm getting used to it."

"Yeah, Wendy got her pinkies a couple-three weeks ago."

Dipper looked down. Wendy and his folks were intent on the 400-meter race. "I wish Wendy would come up."

"Don't sweat it, kid," Stan said. "She's snake-charmin' your folks. Guess that's the wrong way to put it. She's ingratiating herself with your mom an' dad. You two got all summer. Listen, though—you're at a kinda dangerous age, y'know? So don't be surprised if I keep a closer eye on you two than usual."

"Aw, Grunkle Stan—"

"Hah! Messin' with ya, kid. Just messin' with ya."

The guitar was there, and Dipper's "Piedmont" duffel bag and suitcase, and Mabel's overnight bag and four suitcases (more sweaters every year!), but as Grunkle Stan explained, a few bulkier things his parents had already shipped up to Soos in the Mystery Shack. They should be waiting for the twins in Gravity Falls.

After the meet ended that afternoon (the twins' high school took in two first place wins, Dipper's in the Junior Varsity and one in the Varsity girls' 1600 meter, with a few second and third-place awards, too), Dipper and Mabel said their goodbyes to Mom and Dad. Stan arranged all the luggage in the trunk of his rental Chrysler 300—everything fit, amazingly—and then reached into the backseat to retrieve something. "Oh, yeah. Ford wanted me to give you this, Dipper."

He handed Dipper an oversized manila envelope. When he opened it, he found himself holding a slick magazine about the size of a National Geographic. Its logo identified it as the Journal of Zetetic Botany, though, and on the cover—

"The picture I took of the woodpecker trap tree!" Dipper exclaimed. It was the Summer 2014 issue, and the cover story on "The Carnivorous Tree of Central Oregon," by Stanford Pines and M.D. Pines, was the one that Ford had written from Dipper's notes, including three more photos he had taken. In fact, a credit at the end said, "Cover illustration and all photographs in this article copyright 2014 by M. D. Pines."

"You're famous, dude!" Wendy chuckled.

Dipper grinned sheepishly. "Well, maybe. Among cryptobotanists, anyway!"

"Yeah, that's like nearly half a dozen people. Time's a-wastin'!" Stan said, opening the passenger-side doors on the Chrysler. "Pile in! We're off to the Falls!"

Mabel considerately yelled, "Shotgun!"

And that left the backseat all to Wendy and Dipper. They sang stupid songs as Stan drove them from Clovis, which had hosted the state meet, to Fresno Yosemite Airport. There they checked all the luggage except for Mabel's overnight bag and Dipper's duffel—"Bet ya ten bucks at least one of 'em goes missin'," Grunkle Stan grumbled, and Mabel chirped, "I'll take a piece of that action!"

"I'm in, dude!" Wendy chimed in.

Dipper, now showered and dressed again in shorts, red shirt, and vest, grinned self-consciously. "Uh—I didn't bring any money. Didn't know we'd be leaving from here."

"'S'all right," Stan said as he eased onto a seat in the waiting area. "Gimme your marker for the ten, and I'll spot ya that much. You'll make it back—Soos pays you kids ridiculous money for the little work you do."

"And that's why he's such a good boss!" Mabel proclaimed. "That's the Soos difference!"

As they waited for their plane to board, Wendy held Dipper's hand—not in a mushy way, but studying his pink new little finger. "How'd it feel?" she asked.

"Well, for the last couple of weeks, when just a thin membrane of skin held it to my ring finger, it was like wearing a weird kind of glove."

"I know, right?" she asked. "Same with me! And then the skin got all dry an' flaky."

"Yeah, that's what it was like. Mom had us put olive oil on it."

"Old family remedy," Stan observed from across the aisle, where he sprawled in his plastic chair. "Lotsa people use fancy-shmancy 'moisturizers' these days, but olive oil does the trick every time."

"Well, I used my normal moisturizer," Wendy said. "But I scrubbed it into the crevice with an old toothbrush. Gross, the amount of dried skin crud I swept outa there."

"That was my favorite part!" Mabel said. "I put my skin membrane sweepings into a little baggie and pasted them in my scrapbook."

Dipper made a face. "Yech. Then when it split, it started from up near the nail and just cracked open over two or three minutes. Didn't hurt at all, but the dead skin peeled and flaked off for days, and man, was it itchy. We've only had these for about a week now. When did yours come in?"

"Last month, 'bout a week before my birthday. Hey, that reminds me, thanks again, you guys, for sendin' me the present! Dad thought it was crazy, but man, I love playin' with that monster-sized RC Sherman tank!"

"Yeah, just don't get behind the wheel of another full sized one," Stan said, yawning. "I don't think the town could afford the street repairs again."

"Where's Grunkle Ford?" Mabel asked, sitting on her knees in the chair next to Stan.

"Poindexter's in San Jose," Stanley said, waving a dismissive hand. "Investigatin'."

"Oh," Dipper said, and his enthusiasm faded. The Westminster Mystery House. "I—I hope he'll be OK."

"No worries about that. Braniac is in his element," Stan said with a wink.

The clerk at the boarding desk called for first-class passengers to board Flight 1132 for Oakland, and Stan stood, handing out boarding passes. "That's us."

They made the short flight up to Oakland and landed at six-thirty, but couldn't board the connecting flight for Portland until 9:20 p.m. They had dinner in the Oakland airport (to be fair, Mabel had two).

Then they waited. Their plane took off on time, but it didn't arrive in Oregon until just after eleven that night. Then the drive to Gravity Falls in the Stanleymobile took another couple of hours, so it was close to two in the morning when they rolled into the courtyard of the McGucket mansion, where Stan and Ford lived in a section Fiddleford had essentially given to them. "Little Soos is cranky if he wakes up in the early mornin'," Grunkle Stan explained. "So you're sleepin' here tonight and goin' to the Shack tomorrow at a decent hour, just so's we don't stir the little guy up."

"I'm stayin' over, too," Wendy announced. "Too late to come bargin' in at home—Dad'd wake up and think I was like a wolverine or something and come at me with an axe. He says wolverines are good eatin'." She grinned at Mabel, who was only semiconscious. "Hey, Mabes! Mind if I share your room tonight, dude? Girls' sleepover?"

"That's fine, Waddles," Mabel mumbled without fully waking up. " I mean Widdly. Wendy, I mean."

Dipper didn't bother opening his suitcases, but he did unzip his duffel in the room Stan gave him, took something from it, and then found Wendy next door, spreading a blanket on the queen-sized bed where Mabel was already snoring. "Hey," he said quietly.

She jerked her head toward the hall and turned off the light as they stepped out. "Hey yourself. Man, you have grown even more since last time I saw you." She rested both arms on his shoulders, looking at him almost eye to eye. He could smell the freshness of her, the fragrance of forests and growing things. "So proud of you out there today, Dip. I could tell you put your heart into that sprint. Hey, you bring your campin' stuff I gave you at Christmas?"

"I packed it all in a footlocker. That's one of the things that Stan says my folks are supposed to ship. Should be here in a day or two."

"Then I'll teach you the ins and outs of campin' this summer," she said, stepping back and holding both his hands and smiling warmly. "I can't get enough of the sight of you, man! You look older than fourteen now!"

He shrugged. "I'm nearly fifteen."

"And surprisingly mature for your age," she said with a grin. "Whatcha got there?"

He had tucked it into his belt. "Wanted to give this back to you," he said.

She took the trapper's hat. "Hey, let's do the exchange tomorrow, OK? At the Shack?" She reached up and touched the brim of Dipper's pine-tree trucker's hat, which she still wore. "I dunno, it just feels right to do it there."

"You're right. That's best, but I wanted you to—well, just take a look at it for now."

She held up the fur trapper's hat. "What's this?" she asked. A gleaming bronze five-pointed star in a circle had been pinned to the front. "Number 1?"

Dipper said shyly, "My award for winning my first race."

Wendy sighed. "Aw, man, that's sweet, but it's yours! I can't—"

He put his hand on her arm. "No, it's yours. I did it for you, Wendy."

She held the hat, smiling, looking down at it, and she touched the bronze star. "Wow. Thanks so much, man. Means a lot to me."

"You mean a lot to me," Dipper said.

She kissed him. "Back at you. You go on to bed, now." she told him. "Get some sleep. Rest up. It's going to be a great summer."

"I can't wait."

She handed the fur hat back to him. "Tomorrow," she said. She reached out to touch his cheek. "'Night, Dip."

"Goodnight."

He went back to his room, and as he slipped into bed, for the first time in a long time, Dipper felt happy and whole.

The End