"Remind me again why we're going to some run down town for our summer vacation," questioned Jazz, a slim, red haired girl, as she sat crammed in the back of the Fenton RV.

"Because it's haunted, or at least that's what the rumors say," replied Maddie Fenton, a blue jumpsuit-clad woman, who in appearance was obviously Jasmine's mother.

"We're going to catch some ghosts!" Jack chimed in excitedly, between sips of his soda, that was strapped to an odd helmet with a straw leading to his mouth.

"Jazz, haven't you given up arguing yet?" remarked Danny, leaning back in his seat, his messy black hair getting in the way of his face.

The RV hopped along the road, as Danny baked in the cramped back seat of the vehicle. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead; he couldn't wait to arrive at this crummy old town and get out of that sauna. A sign whizzed past the window: "Gravity Falls". Not long now...

Eventually, Jack slammed his big foot on the brake pedal, and Danny barely avoided splatting into the seat in front of him. Jazz however, was not as fortunate, and got a faceful of fake leather.

Danny lept out of the RV, taking in the pleasant breeze, quickly followed by Jazz, who was massaging her face. A tattered looking shack stood in a clearing, the crumbling letters on the front read "The Mystery Shack".

"This is where we'll be staying," announced Maddie, pealing herself from her seat. "You kids can have the guest bedroom, we'll be sleeping in the RV."

"Well, at least we have a room," sighed Jazz. Danny wasn't sure if it was possible to survive the night in that oven of an RV, so jumped on the opportunity to sleep in the shack.

"Welcome to the Mystery Shack!" shouted an overweight man with a slightly stubbly face. "Where you can see the supernatural (for a price)!"
He looked from family member to family member with his friendly face before exclaiming "Oh, You must be the Fentons, friends of Ford. Stan told me you were coming. He's not here yet, but you can come in."

They all crammed into a tacky gift shop, with a bored looking teenage girl at the til. All sorts of knick knacks adorned the messy shelves and racks. "I'll give you guys a tour," he said. "I'm Soos by the way. "

They trekked through a maze of exhibits, while Soos gave enthusiastic commentary, most of which consisted of farfetched stories of monsters. "You don't actually believe any of that, right?" asked Jazz. "Monsters like that don't actually exist."

"Monsters do exist," Soos protested. "I've seen them with my own eyes."

"Yeah Jazz, monsters totally are real, just like ghosts," Jack chimed in.

"Oh yeah, you think that's a real monster?" questioned Jazz, pointing at a collection of animal limbs glued together, clearly fed up with her orange jumpsuited father's antics.

"Um, well..." Jack started to say before being swiftly cut off by Maddie: "lighten up Jazz, this tour's just for fun."

Danny meanwhile, was inspecting what the sign said was 'Big Foot's foot', but actually seemed to be part of a gorilla costume. While Danny knew none of it was real, it was just for fun - it reminded him of a DIY haunted house he'd made before, minus some borrowed assets from the Ghost Zone, a dimension inhabited by creatures known as ghosts.

The tour continued, with Jazz a little bit behind the rest of the group, sulking. "You agree with me, right Danny?" said Jazz.

Danny begrudgingly answered her, "I'd prefer being home, with Sam and Tucker, but I don't get a choice about going on this family holiday, so I might as well make the most of it."

"So you do agree with me," said Jazz.

"No, I never said that," Danny butted in. "Just stop complaining, we're stuck in the holiday together. You never know, there might be something interesting here."

"Like what?" questioned Jazz. "A monster? Those are just stories to get tourists to come here."

Danny sighed and sped up his walking to keep up with his parents, there was no winning this argument.

After a lot of made up stories and a few bad puns, they arrived back at the gift shop. The bored red haired teen looked up momentarily from her phone to acknowledge the family, then went right back to texting.

"So when can we go to our room?" asked Jazz impatiently.

"Follow me," said Soos, as he led Jazz and Danny to a room with two beds, one of each side of the room, and a circular shape on the floor that was less worn than the rest, as though a rug had been there.

"Dibs on the window bed," shouted Danny before Jazz could protest, and jumped onto the knobbly sheets of his bed. Jazz sat down on the bed opposite and sighed.

Before either of them could even open their mouths to talk a quick and repetitive knocking came from the other side of the bedroom door. "Hi! I'm Mabel! Who are you?" said the voice of an energetic girl. Danny climbed off his bed and shuffled over to the door, opening it in with a squeak from the hinges. A girl wearing a brightly coloured jumper beamed up at him from the other side of the door, and her brother, wearing a fluffy hat, ran after her, panting.

"Uh, hi. I'm Danny, and this is my sister, Jazz," said Danny, gesturing to Jazz, who was staring at the doorway. Mabel's brother made it to the doorway, breathing heavily, only to be grabbed by his sister and held by her arm while she gleefully introduced him to Danny and Jazz, "This is my twin brother, Dipper." Dipper gave a half-hearted "hi", and pulled himself out of Mabel's grip.

"Are you single?" said Mabel, out of nowhere, as Dipper seemed to be internally face palming.

"Um, what?" stammered Danny, looking to Jazz for help.

"Just ignore her," Dipper said hastily. "She does this with every boy she meets."

"Is it true that your family are ghost hunters?" enquired Dipper, his eyes lighting up with excitement as he did.

"Well, yes," said Danny hesitantly, only to be cut off mid-sentence by Jazz: "Our parents are. I'm not."

"That's so cool!" Dipper half-shouted with joy. "What do you know about ghosts? Where do they come from? Do you have ghost hunting equipment here? What do you use to hunt ghosts?"

Danny recoiled a bit from the bombardment of questions, and began what he expected to be a long explanation. "Ghosts are from a dimension known as the Ghost Zone, it's really different to our reality. We have a ghost portal that can access the ghost zone-"

"Wow, we have a dimensional portal too, not sure where it leads to though. Grunkle Ford went through it, we should get him to tell you about it," Dipper excitedly jabbered. This explanation was going to be a lot easier than Danny had expected, Dipper already knew about other dimensions.

"Knowing my parents, we definitely have some ghost hunting weapons with us. They wanted to come here because they heard that it's supposedly haunted," explained Danny.

"I don't know about Gravity Falls being haunted, we've only seen a few ghosts, but we have lots of monsters," said Dipper. "Like gnomes!" Mabel interrupted, her jumper glittering as she energetically moved around.

Danny glanced over at Jazz, who was now absorbed in the pages of a book, trying to ignore the talk of ghosts and monsters. The sun was beginning to set outside, turning the sky a bold, burning orange. The sounds of voices came from outside, and Dipper and Mabel quickly turned and ran to the entrance of the house.

"Grunkle Stan! Grunkle Ford!" Mabel and Dipper shouted at a duo of shuffling footsteps.

Danny followed in their footsteps towards the entrance. A pair of old men were hugging the twins, bags on the ground at their feet. Both were bespectacled with oversized ears and noses. One of the duo had a crack in his glasses , a stubbly face and, most interestingly, six fingers on each hand, while the other had the typical five fingers and a full grey beard.

The bearded man picked up Mabel in a friendly, enthusiastic hug as she laughed, while the other gave Dipper a more controlled hug. Soos somehow made his way into a hug with the bearded man as well, wrapping himself around him and Mabel.

Maddie and Jack emerged from the shack, and the six fingered man looked up from his hug. "Hello Ford," said Maddie, walking past Danny, who was now standing between the group and the shack, to go and shake the six fingered man's hand.

"Hello, how was the journey here?" asked Ford in a friendly tone, trying to make conversation.

"It was fine. But Jazz was complaining, she didn't want to come here, she thinks it's a waste of time," said Maddie, with a tone of disappointment.

Stan gave a snicker, Mabel and Soos still clinging to him. "Dipper and Mabel didn't want to come here at first, but now they love it here, didn't want to leave," he said. "I'm sure she'll love it here in no time." Ford nodded in agreement. This seemed to reassure Maddie a bit.

Jack walked up behind Danny and gave him a little nudge towards the group, encouraging him to introduce himself. Danny reluctantly walked towards Dipper and Ford. "And this is our son Danny," said Jack. Danny was secretly glad that he didn't have to introduce himself and politely greeted the old men: "Hi, my parents have told me a lot about you, nice to meet you."

The group walked into the shack, seating themselves around a living room. Danny sat on the floor, as all the seats were taken at that point, while Stan sat in a ragged armchair, which Danny assumed was his usual spot. A box of magazines was placed next to the chair, the magazine on the top reading 'Gold Chains for Old Men'.

"So how have your adventures been?" asked Jack, failing to conceal his child-like curiosity and excitement.

Stan and Ford told stories of sea monsters and incredible phenomena, often interrupting each other mid sentence to add to the stories, while everyone else listened attentively.

"Wow, it's getting late," commented Stan glancing at the clock, which read 10:30. "We should probably get some sleep." He stood up and stretched, his back cricking more than Danny thought was healthy. Maddy and Jack agreed, while Dipper and Mabel complained, saying it was too early. Danny wasn't tired in the slightest, but complied, heading up to his room, tailed by Mabel and Dipper, who were excitedly discussing the stories their grunkles had told them.

Danny wished them a good night, and closed the door to the room behind him. He plopped himself on the bed and began texting his best friends Sam and Tucker. Some time later Jack poked his head and broad shoulders through the doorway: "It's time to sleep, you two. We'll be up bright and early in the morning to do family stuff together with the Pines." Danny and Jazz groaned, family stuff usually meant ghost hunting, and in all honesty, Danny was too used to ghost hunting to be thrilled by the idea. After using the bathroom and getting changed into their pyjamas, the children and adults alike went to bed. "Good night, little brother," said Jazz, switching off the orange-tinted light with a click.

"'Night," Danny replied as he loosely covered himself with a thin sheet.