"Mr. Pines?" Wendy called from the yard as she approached the door of the gift shop. "Sorry I took so long. Was in a movie, had to turn my phone off, and I forgot to - whoa." She stopped short as she opened the door and saw the wreckage of the shop. "The heck happened here?"

"You listened to that message, didn't you?" Stan grunted as he swept pieces of shattered glass into a dustpan with his handbrush. "I told you what happened, now start helping to clean up."

"Well, yeah," Wendy said. She stepped carefully around the broken knick knacks to grab the full-sized broom standing in the corner. "I heard the message; it's just that when you said 'vandalism' I thought you meant, like, graffiti or something. Maybe a smashed window or two. This looks like a freaking train rolled through. You're paying me overtime to help, right?"

Stan glared at her. "Soos is doing it for free, you know."

Wendy smirked. "Well, I like to think I'm a tad smarter than Soos when it comes to paychecks. And hey, if he's helping where is he?"

"Out putting up a new window in the front room," Stan replied. "Dipper's cleaning the kitchen, and Mabel was just taking the last trash can out to the dumpster and bringing in a new one, but I haven't seen her for five minutes."

He shouted that last part, and Wendy could hear footsteps across the den before Mabel poked her head in. "Sorry!" she said. "The bag ripped on the front step and Waddles kept trying to play with the broken thingies."

Stan groaned and started rubbing his hand against his forehead. "Just... did you pick it all up?"

"I've started."

"Well, finish." Mabel nodded and ducked out, with Stan yelling after her, "and bring me another bag like I asked you to!"

Cautiously, Wendy started picking her way through the broken merchandise, sweeping the smaller broken pieces she could find into a pile. "Dang, Mr. Pines," she said. "So, like, when did this happen?" She bent down and picked up a mug that had managed to get by with only a chip on the handle, and, deciding it was salvageable, set it on the counter.

"Must have been earlier today or yesterday," Stan muttered. "Place was fine when we left. Ah, there we go," he added as Mabel reentered the gift shop with a big black plastic trash bag. He dumped his dustpan into it, took the bag from Mabel, and hung it on the doorknob as his niece hurried back to the porch.

"And how much did they take?" Wendy asked.

"Huh?"

"I mean, there was nearly three hundred dollars in the register when we closed up. Did they get all of it, or did they leave any?"

"Oh." Stan scratched the back of his neck. "I, uh, I didn't check." He was answered with silence, and after a few seconds, he turned to glance at Wendy, and was met by her incredulous expression, eyebrow raised, jaw agape, face practically frozen. "What?" he snapped.

Wendy collected herself with a shake of her head. "Wow. Your house gets broken into and you, Stan Pines, don't bother checking the register. You. I mean, God, didn't it at least cross your mind? Weren't the police interested. No, forget the police. Why weren't you interested?"

"Look," Stan said, "I had other things on my mind."

"Like what? I mean, money's first thing on your mind all the time! You'd think especially with a break-in - "

"It was traumatic, okay?" Stan growled. "I wasn't thinking straight."

Wendy held her hands up innocently. "Okay, dang. Don't get your fez in a twist. I'll go check the register, if you can't be bothered." She went around the front counter and pulled open the register, and her face scrunched up in confusion. "Huh."

"What's the damage?" Stan asked.

Wendy pulled the stacks of fives and tens out and flicked through them like a book. "I - huh, I don't think anything's missing. I'll check the ledger to be sure, but it looks like it's all there." Reaching down underneath the counter, she pulled a dog-eared ledger book out onto the countertop, flicked to the last entry, then turned back to the cash register and began counting the bills, moving her lips as she did, all with Stan watching on.

While she was checking the register, Soos strolled into the store. "Got the window all in place, sir," he said. "Anything else you need for now?" He glanced over to the counter, and, upon seeing Wendy holding up the stack of bills, whipped his head back to Stan. "Dude, I thought you weren't paying us for working today!"

"I'm not!" Stan said hastily. "She's just checking to make sure the money's all there."

"He's paying me," Wendy mentioned idly, not taking her eyes from the money.

"Mr. Pines!"

"She's lying!" Stan snapped. "And yeah, Soos, there is something else I need. Once I finish up with the broken glass in here, stay at the house and keep an eye on the kids, will ya? Gotta run an errand, don't want them getting into any trouble. Dipper probably'll go running off sniffing around for 'clues' if somebody doesn't stay around."

Soos gave him an eager salute. "Will do, Mr. Pines."

"Two hundred and eighty-eight, seventy-four," Wendy said, pushing the register shut. "Exactly what's in the ledger. I don't get it. Who breaks into a store and doesn't take any money at all? What's even the point of that?"

"Maybe the crook just wanted to smash things up, you know?" Soos suggested. "Like, not steal anything, just, like, send a message, dude."

"What message?" Wendy asked. "'I hate your merchandise'? 'You need better security'? Speaking of security, how come you didn't get the perps on video, Stan?"

Stan looked away uncomfortably. "I, uh, I sold the cameras back. You know, they weren't provin' all that useful..."

Wendy rolled her eyes, and Soos's face suddenly lit up. "Oh! Dude!" he said. "What if the people who smashed up this place are the same who got into Gideon's tent? Like, someone's really got a bone to pick with tourist locales. I could see that. 'The Terrible Tourist', the newspapers could call him." He chuckled. "Dude, I should be a reporter, way I can come up with headlines."

After taking a moment to stare at the handyman, Wendy shook her head. "Nah, I mean, who could possibly have such a beef with tourism stuff that they'd go felon for it?" She shivered suddenly. "But, dang, if it was the same person, I'm sure glad no one was here, what with it not ending too well for Gideon."

Stan cleared his throat, and both of his employees turned to him. "People should be able to walk through here more or less safely now," he said as he dumped the contents of his dustpan into the garbage bag on the door. "So, Soos, you're in charge 'til I get back from my errand."

"No problem, Mr. Pines," Soos said with a keen nod. "Sure you don't want me to just run the errand for - ?

"No!" Stan snapped. At Soos's shocked look and Wendy's mildly surprised one, he backtracked. "Erm, no need. I can do it just fine. Just... just watch the kids, got it?"

He strode out of the gift shop, attempting to slam the door, but it didn't have quite the correct effect when the door was barely hanging on to its hinges. With a scowl, he made his way to his car and, forgoing the seatbelt, stomped on the gas pedal and began careening up the drive toward town.

The area in the center of town that had been sanctioned off as the site of the Midsummer Festival had nearly been cleaned out over the weekend the Pines family had been gone. The bare skeletons of a few booths that hadn't yet been moved stood out oddly against the reopened storefronts and parking lots, as did the debris that had, instead of being cleaned up properly, been merely swept up against the curb - stray, stale popcorn kernels; plastic cup lids, some still with red-striped straws poking out of them; orange ride tickets that kids must have dropped along the way, most likely infuriating the parents who had to pay through the nose for each minute of cheap, rickety thrills.

Stan gripped the steering wheel tightly as the car bounced jarringly across the grassy lot that had housed the myriad trailers during festival week, and was far from surprised to recognize one of the few that remained. He got up out of the car, banging the door hard enough behind him that the whole vehicle rocked with the movement. Face set, he approached the trailer and began slamming repeatedly on the metal door with the side of his fist. "Rosalind!" he shouted over the sound of his knocking. "Rosalind! Open up right now! I know you're in there, Rosalind!"

This knocking and shouting went on for a solid minute before Stan could hear - barely, over all the noise he was making himself - a throat being cleared behind him. He turned and narrowed his eyes at the slim blonde woman in a ponytail, with the "Gravity Falls Midsummer Festival" T-shirt and the faded jeans, who had just appeared from around the corner of the trailer. After a moment, he recognized her from Mabel's pictures of the magic show, and went straight to the point. "Where's Rosalind?" he demanded.

Joanne raised an eyebrow at him coolly. "Who?" she asked.

Stan sucked a breath of frustration through his teeth and jabbed a finger toward the logo on the side of the trailer. "Fine, Rose," he said. "I know you work for her. Where is she?"

With no change in expression, Joanne leaned lazily up against the side of the trailer and crossed her arms. "Out," she answered simply.

Stan could feel himself resisting the urge to grind his dentures together as he scowled at the hard-nosed young woman. "Out where?"

Joanne shrugged. "Just out. Can I take a message?"

"Yeah, sure, you can take a message," Stan growled. "Tell her when she gets back, Stan needs to have a word with her. Immediately."

Joanne nodded. "Okay, I'll pass it along. Now, get away from that trailer and knock off that racket, or I'll call festival security."

Stan snorted. "There's no festival security."

"Then I'll call the police. I'm not picky."

Stan shot her another furious look, but he relented and returned to his car, pulling out of the grass lot and driving off with all the grace of a twister. Joanne watched him go, letting her impudent stance and demeanour drop with a bone-weary sigh.

A/N: Wow, how long has it been since I last updated anything? I can't explain in words how much crap I've been working through the past few weeks: personal crap, family crap, health crap, school crap, job crap. Basically, name a crap, I've been dealing with it. But, hey, I'm not yet dead. So, don't forget to favorite, follow, review, and check on those cookies you put in the oven. Yeah, you completely forgot about those, didn't you? Good thing I didn't let them burn.