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Chapter Text

The bus pulled out of the stop, leaving the two brothers standing on the curb, clutching their suitcases and wondering if anyone was coming to collect them. They had been sent off to spend the summer with their Great-Uncle (or ‘Grunkle’, as Stan said) Dipper, who they had never met. 

“Perhaps he forgot?” Ford was sceptical about their parents’ plan to ‘get them some fresh air’. There was plenty of fresh air back home in Piedmont, and he doubted that it would be radically different to the air in Gravity Falls.

“I bet the bus was early. He probably doesn’t know we’re here yet.” Stanley was sitting on the top of his wheeled suitcase and banging his legs against it. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole trip, but he hoped that he might have the chance to make some new friends, or maybe even have an epic summer romance!

“Stanley, the bus was late.”

“Well, maybe he’s busy getting everything read-” Stan was cut off by the sound of a red El Diablo narrowly avoiding crashing into a tree and then reversing until it had pulled up next to them. 

“Boo!”

“Arghhh!” Ford screamed and Stanley fell off of his suitcase.

Dipper poked his head out of the car window. It was covered by a green mask that vaguely resembled some sort of fish-monster, with yellow eyes and huge, pointed teeth.

Oh no, thought Ford.

“Grunkle Dipper!” Stan had seemingly recovered from his fall and ran towards the car. “Woah, your car is so cool!”

“Thanks, kid. Now, put your stuff in the back and hop in. I gotta open the Shack before the tourists arrive.” He had removed his mask by now, revealing silver-grey hair and a pair of black-rimmed glasses with thick lenses. 

“Errr…” said Ford. “Did you drive the whole way here wearing that mask?”

“Sure did!”

“Could you see?”

“Eh, I can barely see out of these cataracts, that mask isn’t gonna make much of a difference.” Dipper got out of the car and started helping the twins with their bags. “Hurry up, kids, we haven’t got all day.”

They arrived at the ‘Mystery Shack’ after enduring the terrifying experience of being in a car driven by Grunkle Dipper. Ford wasn’t sure he would ever fully recover. At least there had been seatbelts, but the back seat had been littered with half eaten sweets and what appeared to be pig hairs. 

It took a while to get all of their stuff upstairs - Dipper had helped for a bit, before rushing off to open the gift shop. Ford had insisted on taking as many books as possible with him, so his bag had been extremely difficult to get up the stairs, but eventually he had managed it. 

He sat on his bed on the left side of the room, organising his books into piles: sci-fi, mystery, etc. 

“This attic is so cool,” said Stan, who was pinning up all his favourite boy- and girl-band posters on his side of the room, as well as a picture that he had taken of the El Diablo (which was apparently known as the ‘Pinesmobile’). “Hey, Sixer, check out all my splinters!” He held both of his hands out to Ford, showing off all of the pieces of wood stuck into his fingers and palm.

“Do you need tweezers?”

“Nah, it’s fine. Ford, why’s there a pig over there?”

Ford turned his head to look at where Stan was pointing. In the corner was a massive pig that he had somehow failed to register the existence of before now. It was chewing contentedly at Stan’s bedsheets. 

“Hey, friend,” said Stan. “Yes, you can keep chewing on my bedsheets!”

“...Right,” said Ford. 

It took a few days to get used to all of the specifics of the Shack, as well as all of the people who worked there. Grunkle Dipper got Stan and Ford to work in the gift shop when the tourists were around. Stan didn’t mind, because he was still looking for his ‘Epic Summer Romance’, but Ford hated being around so many people whom he didn’t know, and just hid behind the counter whenever he could.

They soon got to know the three other people who were employed by Dipper: Maria, Fiddleford, and Dan.

Maria was known as ‘Ria’ by just about everyone - in fact, Ford was pretty sure he had never heard anyone call her by her real name. She was the handywoman around the Shack, and could generally be relied upon to fix anything that broke (and things broke frequently in the Shack).

Dan worked as the cashier most days. He seemed quite laid-back, and avoided doing work as often as he could without getting fired. Ford didn’t know if Dipper just had an unusually high tolerance for workers goofing off, or if Dan was just a master at not getting caught, but he knew that Dan had missed at least two days of work in the four that they had been here, and so far no repercussions had been made. 

Fiddleford didn’t seem to have a specific job, but he helped with odd jobs like sweeping the gift shop, and occasionally tried to invent robots that could make the workload easier, but so far they had all turned out to have some kind of homicidal instinct that kicked in whenever anyone went near them, and so they were either smashed or released into the woods that surrounded the Shack. Ford wasn’t really sure what to make of this, but Fiddleford shared his passion for DDmD, and so he just looked past it, and sometimes offered tips on how to make the robots a bit safer.

Right now, Ford was sitting by the till with Stan, Ria and Dan, watching Stan hide in the bobbleheads of Grunkle Dipper (of which there were far too many, in his opinion).

“She’s looking at it! She’s looking at it!” Stan whispered to him excitedly. 

Ford turned to look at the girl standing at the other end of the gift shop, reading a note that was in a recognisable handwriting. Oh no, thought Ford, not this again.

“Um…” the girl started to read the note aloud, “ ‘Do you like me? Yes? Definitely? Absolutely!!!’ ” She looked around in confusion.

Stan giggled, still in his hiding spot, “I rigged it!”

Ford sighed, and began his daily job of cleaning the merchandise, starting with the giant jar of eyeballs that stood on the counter next to him. He didn’t know if they were real or not, and he definitely didn’t want to find out. 

“Look, Stan, I know you’re going through your “Romance Crazy” phase, but you might be overdoing the crazy part a little.”

“No I’m not! Ford, this is our first summer away from home! It’s my chance to have my amazing ‘Epic Summer Romance’!”

“I doubt that you have to flirt with every person roughly our age that you meet to achieve that.”

“Mock all you want, brother, but I’ve gotta good feeling about this summer. I wouldn’t be surprised if my soulmate walked through that door right now,” Stan huffed.

Just then, Grunkle Dipper walked through the door, and burped. “Oh! Oh, not good, ouch!”

“Eww, why?!” moaned Stan, while Ford burst into laughter. 

“All right, all right, look alive, everyone,” said Dipper, holding a bundle of arrow signs that read ‘ENTER’ underneath one arm. “I need someone to go hammer up a couple of these signs in the spooky part of the forest.”

“Not it,” said Stan and Ford at the same time, neither of them wanting to go near that part of the forest. It was said to be where the robots that they had released into the wild hid out. 

Ria paused her repairs to one of the merchandise shelves. “Uh, also not it!” 

“Sorry, Ria, but nobody asked you,” said Dipper.

“I know, and I’m comfortable with that.” She fished a chocolate bar out of one of her pockets and started eating it, happy to know that she wouldn’t have to deal with another one of the homicidal robots today.

“Dan,” yelled Dipper across the shop, “Could you please put up this sign?” 

Dan was, as usual, sitting with his feet on the counter, reading a magazine. He stretched out one arm in a false pretence of reaching for the signs. “I would, but I, ugh, can’t, ugh, reach it…” He went back to reading the magazine.

Dipper sighed. “I’d fire all of you if I could. Alright, let’s make it fair… How about… eenie, meenie, miney…” He pointed at Ford. “You.”

“Aw, what?” said Ford. “Grunkle Dipper, whenever I’m in those weird woods, I feel like I’m being watched!”

“Oh, not this again.”

“I’m serious! Something really strange is going on in this town. This morning, I woke up with mosquito bites that spell the word ‘beware’.” He rolled up one of his sleeves to show Dipper the bright red marks.

Dipper inspected it for a few moments. “Ford, that says ‘bewarb’.”

Ford grimaced and looked at the floor, scratching his arm. 

“Look, kid, the whole ‘monsters in the forest’ thing is just a local myth, made up by people like me to sell stuff to people like that.” Dipper pointed to a man laughing at one of the bobbleheads like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. “So quit being so paranoid! It can’t be good for you.” He threw the signs into Ford’s arms, before shooing him out of the door.

The wind shook the tops of the ancient pine trees that dominated the spooky part of the woods as Ford walked sullenly from tree to tree, hammering nails into the trunks so that he could hang up the signs on them. He couldn’t see the point in putting them up in this part of the forest anyway - it wasn’t like anyone ever came down here, especially not tourists. 

“Ugh, Grunkle Dipper. Nobody ever believes anything I say. It’s not like I’m being unreasonable or anything! There’s definitely something out here.” He started hammering another nail into the next pine tree, only to find that it hit the trunk with the sound of metal on metal, and then refused to go in. He lowered the nail, and banged on the trunk with his hammer. It produced the same sound. There is something weird going on in this town! Ford wiped his hand across the bark, feeling for any sort of gap or hinge. He found one quite quickly, and dragged it open with both hands, revealing a hidden compartment within the tree that contained some sort of ancient machine, complete with rusty dials and levers. He gasped in amazement. What would all this be doing in some random tree in the middle of nowhere? 

Ford decided that if he was going to find out, he needed to know what this machine did. He pulled both of the small levers on the top of the machine towards him, one after the other, hoping that it wouldn’t turn out to be some sort of trap. Suddenly, he heard Waddles squeal loudly and run off back towards the Shack. He turned around, wondering what had happened. He saw that another secret compartment had now opened up in the ground. Inside it was a dusty and cobweb-coated book that had clearly been there for several years.

“What the-?” He reached in and picked up the book, rubbing the dust and cobwebs off as best as he could. Holding it up to the light, he studied the cover. It was light blue, with silver edging and a silver foil pine tree in the middle. The pine tree had a number three drawn on it. Ford glanced around suspiciously, checking that no-one was watching (or that it wasn’t some sort of mean-spirited prank), before flipping it open to the first page. There was a note that had once displayed the author’s name taped to the inside cover, but the bottom half had long ago been ripped off. A small magnifying glass lay on the next page. It was attached to a string that was tied to the spine, and Ford examined it closely before deciding that it didn’t hold much significance. He turned over the page, and began to read the handwritten text aloud.

“ ‘It’s hard to believe that it’s been six years since I began studying the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon.’ ” He began turning more pages, revealing information about all sorts of apparently mythical creatures, including gnomes and floating eyeballs (something that Ford hadn’t even heard of in legend). “What is all this? And why was it buried out here? This place is hiding something for sure!” 

He finally stopped on a page that had the words ‘TRUST NO ONE’ scrawled across the bottom of it. “ ‘Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed; I’m being watched. I must hide this book before he finds it. Remember: in Gravity Falls there is no-one that you can trust.’ ” He closed the book slowly, repeating the last few words to himself. “No-one that you can trust…” 

“HELLO!” Stan jumped out from behind a log.

“Arghhh!” Ford almost dropped the Journal in fear, before realising that it was just Stanley. He turned round to face him.

“What ya reading, Poindexter?” Stan tried to grab the Journal, but Ford quickly hid it behind his back.

“Nothing!” he said hastily, trying to position it in a way that completely hid it from Stan’s view. 

“Is it some nerd thing?”

Fiddleford popped his head up from behind the log, “Can I see?”

“Arghh!” Ford screamed in surprise again. “Please tell me you two were the only ones who were hiding behind there.”

“Don’t worry, Stanferd, it’s just us two. We’re a-lookin’ for one of mah old robots. The one that tried ta set the gift shop on fire? I thought of a way I could improve it.” 

“Er… Oh, nevermind,” Ford sighed, and brought the Journal out from behind his back. “Look, I found this in the woods just now. I’ll explain everything to you guys, I promise, but could we go somewhere private first? This place gives me the creeps.”

“Sure thing, Sixer!”

“I guess I’ll just hav’ta come back fer Kathy another time,” said Fiddleford, who had been looking through the hollow centre of the log with a flashlight. 

“Who?” asked the twins.

“Mah robot? The one that tried ta set the gift shop on-”

“Your robots have names?” asked Ford.

“Of course they have names, I can’ just not give ‘em names,” protested Fiddleford.

“Nerds,” muttered Stan.

Back in the Shack, Ford was pacing up and down the sitting room, explaining how he had found the Journal, and the mystery behind it. Stan was haphazardly placed on one of the arms of the chair, while Fiddleford was messing around with the back of the TV. 

“It’s utterly amazing,” said Ford, who could barely contain his excitement. “Grunkle Dipper just told me I was being paranoid, but according to this book, Gravity Falls has some sort of secret dark side.” He opened it up to the ‘TRUST NO ONE’ page and showed it to Stan.

“Woah! This is like, awesome. I bet there’s treasure. Do you think there’s treasure? We have to go looking for treasure.” 

Fiddleford paused his tinkering with the TV set. “Ya know, there’s always been somethin’ off about this place. An’ I should know, considerin’ that I’ve lived here mah whole life.”

“See! I knew I wasn’t being paranoid! Anyway, the whole thing gets even more mysterious. After a certain point, the pages stop being filled in, as if the person who wrote it disappeared, or something.”

Just then, the doorbell rang.

“Who’s that?” asked Ford. People didn’t often use the front door of the Shack - Dipper seemed to keep to himself as much as possible, and never really had friends over to visit. 

Stan grinned widely. “Well, while you were off in the forest discovering the nerd secrets of Gravity Falls, someone managed to get themselves a date!” He jumped off of the armchair, arranging his hair into what he thought was a more dashing style. “It’s gonna be great.”

“What? Let me get this straight-”

“More like ‘let me run this bi you’,” interrupted Stan.

“Not the time, Stanley. Anyway, you managed to find a date in half an hour? How?”

“What can I say, Sixer, I guess I’m just the handsome twin.” The doorbell rang again. “Coming!” He ran off to open the door.

“We’re identical twins! That means we look exactly the same!” Ford gave up trying to explain the logic of the situation when he realised Stan probably wasn’t listening anymore. He sat down in the armchair and began to study the Journal - he had only had time to skim read a couple of pages earlier. 

Grunkle Dipper appeared in the doorway, wearing a pink sweater with a shooting star on it over his usual white shirt, his blazer probably having been discarded on a chair somewhere in the kitchen. 

“What’cha reading there, Ford?”

Ford jumped a little, but quickly hid the Journal and exchanged it for one of the books stacked on the floor next to the armchair. 

“Um…” he glanced down at the title of the novel. “Wolfman Bare Chest?” What even is this?

“Ah, a classic. One of my favourites.” Dipper took a sip of the Pitt Cola he was holding. “If you want the rest of the series, just ask. I have all of them.”

“Hey guys,” Stan had come back with his date, a tall figure wearing a black hoodie that hid most of his face. “Say hi to my new boyfriend! Isn’t he great?” His boyfriend turned and waved, revealing a pale face that had some sort of red fluid dripping down the right side. 

“‘Sup?” he said. Ford noticed that he had grass and twigs sticking out of his hoodie. 

“Hey…?” said Ford.

“How’s it hanging?” said Dipper, making finger guns. He didn’t appear to find anything odd about Stan’s new boyfriend. 

“Hi!” said Fiddleford, from behind the TV set.

“We met at the cemetery,” explained Stan. “He’s like, super deep.” 

Ford thought that this just made the whole thing even more suspicious. “So, er, what’s your name?”

Stan’s boyfriend paused, as if trying to come up with something. “Uh… Normal. Man.” 

“He means Norman,” said Stan. 

“Norman, are you bleeding?” asked Ford, pointing to the red fluid dripping down ‘Norman’s’ face. 

Norman looked stumped for a second. “It’s…er…it’s jam,” he grunted. 

Stan gasped. “I love jam! We’re, like, soulmates!” 

“So, d’you wanna go… hold hands, or something?” asked Norman.

“Oh, oh my gosh.” Stan blushed slightly. He turned to the others, “Don’t wait up for me, guys!” Then he ran out of the house. Norman gave the others finger guns, before following Stan, bumping into the walls several times as he did so. 

“Well, that was weird,” said Fiddleford. 

Ford was sitting on the window seat in the attic, consulting the Journal on ‘Norman’. He found a page that had information corresponding to the events he had just witnessed, and began to read it aloud. 

“ ‘Known for their pale skin and bad attitudes, these creatures are often mistaken for teenagers ?! Beware Gravity Falls’ nefarious-’ ” Ford gasped. “ZOMBIE?!” 

Dipper was in the bathroom, fixing up his suit. He thought he heard someone yell from upstairs, but it didn’t sound like they were screaming for help. In fact…

“Did somebody say ‘crombie’? What’s a crombie? That’s not a word. You’re losing your mind.”

He went back to fixing his suit.

Ford was still in the attic, practically frozen in shock. He could hear grunting sounds coming from outside. Norman! He quickly swivelled to look out of the window, and saw Stan and Norman on the lawn outside. Norman was stumbling towards Stan, who was sitting on a picnic table, and he was holding his arms out, the classic image of a zombie. 

Stan was smiling, unaware of the danger. “I like you, Norman,” he said. 

“Stan!” yelled Ford, even though Stan couldn’t hear him. “Stan, look out! You’re in danger!” 

Norman kept on stumbling towards Stan. Ford screamed as loud as he could, but in vain. Norman had reached the picnic table, and put his hands around Stan’s neck. 

“Nooo! Stan!” screamed Ford. “Wait… what?”

Norman had removed his hands, revealing a daisy chain that he had placed around Stan’s neck. 

“Daisies!” said Stan. “Thanks, Norman. How did you know I like flowers? Oh, I know! DESTINY!” 

Ford got down from the window seat, realising that Stan seemed to be safe, if only just for now. But what was Norman up to?

“Hmm,” he wondered. “Is my brother actually dating a zombie, or am I just as paranoid as Grunkle Dipper says?”

“It’s a tricky situation, to be sure,” said Ria, who was standing on a stepladder and changing a light bulb.

“Argh!” Ford jumped; he hadn’t noticed her come in. “Why is everyone sneaking up on me today?”

“I don’t know, dude, but I couldn’t help but overhear you talking aloud to yourself in this empty room.”

“Ria, you’ve seen Stan’s new boyfriend, right? He has to be a zombie.”

“Hmm.” Ria considered the idea. “I’m not sure. How many brains did he eat?”

Ford sighed. “None.” 

“Look, dude,” said Ria. “I believe you. I’m always noticing weird stuff going on in town. Like the mailman? He’s, like, 100% a werewolf.” She pointed her screwdriver at Ford for emphasis. “But you gotta have evidence. Otherwise, people’ll think you’re crazy, or a major league cuckoo clock.” 

“As always, Ria, you’re right,” conceded Ford. 

Ria gravely looked off into the middle distance. “My wisdom is both a blessing and a curse.” 

“Ria! The portable toilets are clogged again! Could you clean them out?” shouted Grunkle Dipper from downstairs. 

“I am needed elsewhere,” said Ria, straightening her cap. She backed out of the room and down the darkened corridor. 

Ford resolutely snapped the Journal shut. It was time to get some evidence. 

Ford spent the next few days spying on Stan and Norman with his camcorder. He watched them playing frisbee in the park, and noted the way Norman didn’t catch the frisbee; he just stood there and it hit him in the face, causing him to fall over. He noticed how Norman didn’t use the outside doorknob to open the door to Greasy’s Diner - instead, he smashed open the window and used the inside one. And when Stan and Norman were running through the cemetery together, Norman fell into an open grave, and struggled out of it, screaming. 

Ford was pretty sure that he had almost concrete evidence of Norman’s supernaturality at this point, so he decided to confront Stan.

Ford burst into his and Stan’s shared bedroom. Stan was messing with his hair; he still didn’t think it looked ‘dashing’ enough.

“Stan, we’ve got to talk about Norman,” said Ford. 

“Isn’t he the best?” said Stan. “I told you I’d have an epic summer romance. See, check out this giant smooch mark he gave me!” He pointed to a raised red area on his right cheek. 

“Argh! What happened?” screamed Ford.

“Ha!” laughed Stan. “Gullible. Don’t worry, it was just an accident with the leaf blower.”

“With the what ? You know what, I don’t want to know. But, Stan, you have to listen to me! ‘Norman’ isn’t what he seems!” He pulled out the Journal.

Stan gasped. “You think…” he lowered his voice. “You think Norman might be a vampire? That’s AWESOME!”

“Guess again, brother.” He opened the Journal to what he thought was the right page. “Ta-DA!”

“Errr… Poindexter?”

Ford realised that he had accidentally opened it to the page about gnomes. “Oh, sorry.” He flicked through it until he reached the zombie page. 

“A zombie?” Stan was unconvinced. “Ford, this isn’t funny.” 

“Stan, I’m being serious here!” Ford began to pace, trying to think of a way to convince Stan that Norman was dangerous. “Everything adds up: the bleeding, the limp, the way he seems to walk into every single piece of furniture. He never even blinks! Have you noticed that?”

“Well, maybe he’s blinking when you’re blinking,” said Stan.

“But remember what the book said about Gravity Falls? You can’t trust anyone here, not even Norman! Especially not Norman!”

“Well what about me, Sixer? Can’t you trust me?” 

“Stan, he’s going to eat your brains!” He shook Stan to try to get him to listen. “It’s not safe!”

Stan pushed him off, finally fed up with his conspiracy theories. “Look, Ford. Norman and I are going on a date at five, I’m gonna be HANDSOME, and he’s gonna be DREAMY, and I won’t let you ruin it with one of your crazy THEORIES!” He pushed Ford out of the room, and slammed the door in his face. 

Ford sank to the ground, completely out of ideas. “What am I going to do? Stan’s in so much danger!”

The cuckoo clock chimed five as Stan ran down the stairs, pulling on a suit. “Coming!” he yelled.

He opened the door as quickly as he could, excited for his date. It was a shame that Ford was being so mean about Norman right now, but he was sure that he would come around soon. “Hey Norman, how do I look?”

“Handsome,” said Norman. See, Norman isn’t dangerous. Dangerous people don’t give you compliments.

“Aww, you always know what to say!” He grabbed Norman’s hand, and they walked off towards the forest together. 

Ford sadly watched them leave from the sitting room. 

“Oh, Ria’s right,” he said to himself, as he rewatched the recordings that he had of Norman and Stan together. “I don’t have any real evidence. I was just being paranoid. Grunkle Dipper was right about that, and I guess so was-” Suddenly, he saw Norman’s hand fall off in a recording of Norman with his arm around Stan’s shoulders. He watched as Norman surreptitiously picked it up and - screwed it back on? “WHAT?! I was RIGHT?” He tipped the armchair backwards. “Oh my god, oh my god! I have to go get Grunkle Dipper! Stan’s in danger!” 

He ran out of the house, and raced to the gift shop entrance. Dipper was outside, giving a tour. 

“Grunkle Dipper! Grunkle Dipper!”

Dipper hadn’t heard him. He was currently explaining his latest addition to the Shack. “And here we have Rock That Looks Like A Face rock: the rock that looks like a face.” He gestured to the aforementioned rock, which was on a stand near the porch. 

A tourist raised his hand. “Does it look like a rock?” he asked.

“No, it looks like a face,” said Dipper, who was getting annoyed. 

“Is it a face?” asked another. 

“No, it’s a rock that looks like a face!”

Ford tried to get his attention, but he was stuck behind all of the other tourists. “Grunkle Dipper! Grunkle Dipper!”

“For the fifth time, it’s not an actual face!”

Ford gave up.

Stan and Norman were out in the woods. 

“Finally, we’re all alone,” said Stan.

Norman walked up behind him. “Yes, alone…” he groaned. 

Back at the Shack, Ford was desperately searching for someone who could help. Grunkle Dipper clearly wasn’t listening - he was still arguing with the tourists about that stupid rock - face - thing. Then he heard the golf cart parking on the other side of the building.

“Dan!” he shouted, running over. “Dan! Dan! Dan! I need to borrow the golf cart so that I can save my brother from a zombie!” 

Dan smiled, and for a second Ford was worried he wouldn’t believe him. 

“Try not to hit any pedestrians,” grinned Dan. He handed Ford the keys, before walking off. 

Ford climbed into the golf cart. Driving can’t be too hard… right? He managed to start it, reversing it so that he could turn off into the woods. 

“Hey, Ford.”

He stopped the buggy, to see Fidds and Ria standing next to it. 

Fiddleford held out a shovel. “This is fer the zombies. Try not ta do anything too stupid.”

“Thanks, Fidds,” said Ford, taking it. 

Ria handed him a baseball bat. “This is in case you see a pinata, but you could also give it to Stan when you find him. Or if you see any of those homicidal robots and need to smash them.”

“Er, thanks, Ria.” He drove off into the woods, leaving Fiddleford and Ria to argue about whether or not it was ethical to smash sentient homicidal robots. 

In the woods, Stan and Norman were still on their date. 

“Uh, Stan,” said Norman, turning away from him, “Now that we’ve gotten to know each other a little better, there’s… something I should tell you.” He looked off into the middle distance dramatically. 

Stan shivered a little; the wind was picking up all of a sudden. “Norman, you know you can tell me anything, right?” Please be a vampire, please be a vampire. 

“Ok, just… don’t freak out. Keep an open mind, y’know, be cool!” He unzipped his hoodie and pulled it off, revealing…

…a stack of five gnomes, complete with fake hands. All of them wore pointy red hats and had beards that covered most of their faces. 

“Errr…” said Stan, trying to process what was going on. 

The top gnome pushed his hair back from his face. “Is this weird? Is this too weird? Do you want to sit down?”  

Stan stood there, frozen with shock, staring at the five gnomes that had once made up his boyfriend.

“I’ll take that as a no?” said the top gnome. “I’ll explain. Soooo… We’re gnomes. Just to, er, get that one out of the way.”

“Uh…” one of Stan’s eyelids twitched. 

“Well, I’m Jeff,” said Jeff. “And here we have Carson, Steve, Jason, and… I’m sorry, I always forget your name,” he said to the bottom left gnome, whose beard was the largest and greyest. 

“Shmebulock,” said the bottom left gnome.

Jeff snapped his fingers. “Shmebulock, yes! Anyways, long story short, us gnomes have been looking for a new ruler.”

“King! King! King!” shouted the other gnomes.

“So what d’you say, Stan?” asked Jeff. He tapped one of the others on the head, and together the gnomes moved ‘Norman’ into a kneeling position. One of the fake hands was held out towards Stan, revealing a ring with a large gemstone set on the top of it. “Will you join us in holy matrimony?”

All of the gnomes looked at Stan expectantly. 

“Look…” he said, not really sure what was going on. “I’m sorry… You guys are, like, super nice and everything, but I’m a boy, and you’re five gnomes, and it’s like, er, ‘what’?”

“We understand, Stanley,” said Jeff.

“Wait, really? That was easier than I thought it would be,” said Stan.

“And we’ll never forget you. Because we’re going to kidnap you instead.” Jeff jumped at him.

“Arghhh!” screamed Stan.

Ford drove the buggy through the woods as fast as he could, keeping an eye out for Stan or Norman as he went. “Don’t worry, Stan!” he yelled when he heard Stan screaming. “I’ll save you from that zombie!”

“Help!” screamed Stan.

“Hold on, Stan!”

Ford veered off in the direction of the sounds, going down a slope that led deep into the forest, before coming out into a tree tunnel. At the end of the tunnel he could see Stan, who was surrounded by… gnomes?  

“The more you struggle, the more awkward this is going to be for everyone,” Jeff shouted at Stan, who was fighting the gnomes as hard as he could. “Get his arm there, Steve!”

“Let go of me!” yelled Stan. He punched Steve off of his arm, and kicked a gnome away from him, causing it to throw up rainbows.

“What the heck is going on here?” said Ford, who was clutching the shovel. A gnome hissed at him as it ran past, revealing a row of sharp teeth and causing him to drop the shovel. 

“Poindexter!” shouted Stan. “Norman turned out to be a bunch of gnomes, and they’re total jerks!” A gnome started pulling on his hair. “Ow! Hair, hair!”

“Gnomes?!” said Ford, “Wow, I was way off.” He pulled out the Journal, and leafed through it until he got to the gnomes page. “ ‘Gnomes: little men of the Gravity Falls Forest. Weaknesses: unknown.’ ” He closed the book, and saw that the gnomes had managed to tie Stan to the ground. 

“Aw, come on!” complained Stan. “This wasn’t a fair fight!”

“Hey!” shouted Ford, advancing on Jeff. “Let go of my brother! You can’t just kidnap him!”

“Oh, no you’ve got it all wrong,” said Jeff nervously. “You see, we aren’t kidnapping him, per se. He’s just going to marry all 1,000 of us and become our gnome king for all eternity! Isn’t that right, dear?” He turned to Stan.

“You guys are buttfaces!” yelled Stan, but a gnome quickly put a hand over his mouth. “Mmmm-MMM!”

Ford brandished his shovel at Jeff. He’d had enough. “Give me back my brother right now, or else!”

“You think you can stop us, boy? You have no clue what we’re capable of. The gnomes are a truly powerful race! Do not trifle with the-” Jeff was cut off by Ford sticking the shovel underneath him and flinging him into the undergrowth. 

Ford ran over to Stan and cut the ropes with the shovel, allowing both of them to escape back to the golf cart. 

“He’s getting away with our king!” yelled Jeff. “Stop them!” He ran after the twins, but Ford was already reversing out of the tree tunnel. 

“You’ve messed with the wrong creatures, boy!” shouted Jeff. “Gnomes of the forest, ASSEMBLE!” Hordes of gnomes appeared, climbing together to form one gigantic creature. 

Stan and Ford drove through the forest. The sun was beginning to set as the cart raced down the winding path that led to the Shack.

“Hurry, before they come after us!” yelled Stan. “They’re more dangerous than they look!”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” answered Ford smugly. “Did you see those little legs? Those suckers are tiny!” 

Suddenly, they heard a huge crash behind them, and Ford slammed down on the brakes. The twins turned to see that the whole gnome colony had formed one giant gnome-creature that was following them up the path. 

“Dang it,” said Stan.

Jeff sat at the top of the gnome-creature, using the others’ hats as levers to control it. “Alright, teamwork, guys,” he said. “Just like we practised!” The gnome-creature raised its massive arms into the air and roared, bringing one down to smash the golf cart. 

“Move, move!” shouted Stan.

Ford pressed on the accelerator, moving the cart just before the creature’s fist came down. The gnomes lost their places when it hit the ground, but quickly reformed it, and the gnome-creature raced after the twins.

“Come back with our king!” yelled Jeff. 

“It’s getting closer!” shouted Stan. 

The gnome-creature flung several gnomes towards the cart that started destroying it and attacking Stan and Ford. Stan punched one off, and Ford banged Shmebulock into the steering wheel before throwing him out of the cart. Another gnome jumped into Ford’s face and started attacking him.

“I’ll save you, Poindexter!” yelled Stan, who punched the gnome until it fell out of the cart. 

“Thanks, Stan…” said Ford, who was dazed from being attacked by the gnome, and had a black eye. 

“Don’t mention it.”

Just then, the gnome-creature uprooted one of the massive pine trees that lined the path, and threw it at the twins. 

“Look out!” shouted Stan, as the pine tree landed in front of them, almost blocking the path. 

“Arghhhh!” screamed Ford, frantically turning the steering wheel to manoeuvre them through a small gap underneath the tree, making the cart spin round in circles. It skidded on its wheels, passing one of the signs Ford had put up earlier, before crashing right outside the Shack. 

The twins crawled out, thankfully unharmed, only to see that the gnome-creature had cornered them. 

“Stay back, or else!” yelled Ford, waving the shovel around. He threw it at the gnomes, but they punched it to the ground, roaring in anger. 

“Arghhh!” screamed the twins. They grabbed hold of each other in fear, trembling as the gnomes approached. 

“Uh, where’s Grunkle Dipper?” asked Ford, hoping that he could somehow save them. 

Inside, Dipper was showing off one of his favourite attractions. 

“Behold,” he said, pulling away a cloth and revealing a swirly optical illusion stick, “The world’s most distracting object! Just try to look away, you can’t!”

The tourists gasped in amazement. 

“I can’t even remember what I was talking about,” he said.

The gnome-creature was advancing on the twins, who were now backed up against the wall of the Shack. 

“It’s the end of the line, boys!” said Jeff. “Stan, marry us before we do something crazy!”

“There has to be something we can do!” muttered Ford, wracking his brains to try to come up with some sort of plan. 

Stan stepped forward solemnly. “I gotta do it,” he said.

“What? Stan, you can’t! Are you crazy!” spluttered Ford.

Stan looked Ford in the eyes. “Trust me,” he said.

“What?!” 

“Ford, just this once,” whispered Stan. “Trust me!” 

Ford nodded, walking back a few steps. 

Stan walked up to the gnomes. “Alright, Jeff,” he said, “I’ll marry you.”

“Hot dog!” said Jeff, directing the gnomes to stamp their foot. “Help me down there, Jason!” He clambered down the gnome-creature, giving directions as he went, and emerged from the left foot. He held out the ring to Stan, who was holding out his left hand, allowing him to slide on the ring. 

“Now, let’s get you back into the forest, honey,” said Jeff, and he began to walk off, expecting Stan to follow.

“You may now kiss the groom!” proclaimed Stan.

Jeff paused. “Well, don’t mind if I do,” he said, grinning. He puckered his lips, and waited for Stan to kiss him.

Stanley, however, had absolutely zero intention of kissing Jeff (or any of the gnomes, for that matter). Instead, he whipped out the leaf blower, and pointed it right at Jeff.

“Ah!” shouted Jeff. “Hey, hey, wait a minute, honey. We can settle this reasonabl-” He was sucked into the leaf blower until only his head was sticking out. 

“That’s for lying to me,” yelled Stan. He turned up the leaf blower power. “THAT’S for breaking my heart!”

Jeff was now almost completely sucked into the leaf blower. “Ow, my face!”

“And THIS is for messing with my brother!” He looked at Ford, then aimed the leaf blower at the gnome-creature. “Wanna do the honours?” he asked.

Ford grinned. “On three!” he said.

“One, two, three!” they shouted. Then Ford turned the setting to eject, sending Jeff flying towards the other gnomes. The gnome-creature exploded, and gnomes flew everywhere. Jeff himself was sent high over the trees, and landed in the forest. 

“I’ll get you back for this!” he yelled, as he disappeared into the distance. 

Quite a few of the gnomes had landed in the yard, but without their leader they had no clue what to do. Stan was easily able to scare them off with the leaf blower. 

“Anyone else want some?” shouted Ford. The gnomes scampered off into the forest, except for one unfortunate gnome who got caught up in some rubbish and was carried off by Waddles. 

“Hey, Ford?” said Stan, as the pair walked back to the Shack. “I’m, uh, sorry for ignoring your warnings. I realise that you were just looking out for me.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” said Ford. “You’re the one who saved both our butts back there. I’d never have thought of using the leaf blower to scare them off.” 

“Eh, guess I’m just sad that my first date turned out to be a bunch of gnomes,” said Stan, downcast. 

“Well, maybe the next one really will be a vampire. In a town like this, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Oh,” Stan smiled weakly, “You’re just saying that.”

“High six?” asked Ford.

“High six.”

They high sixed, before heading into the Shack. Grunkle Dipper was counting money at the till, having closed up for the day and sending the others home. 

“Yeesh, did you two get hit by a bus or something?” he joked. Neither of them laughed, just carried on towards the stairs. “Uh, well, hey, I thought you two might wanna pick something out from the gift shop? On the house, kids.”

“Really?” asked Stan. “Thanks, Grunkle Dipper!”

Ford wandered over to a shelf stocked with notebooks that reminded him of the Journal a little. He picked out a burgundy one with gold edging. “Hmm. Grunkle Dipper, can I have this one?”

“Sure, kid! Like I said, it’s on the house,” said Dipper.

“Thanks!” Ford examined it. “This is perfect.”

Stan, meanwhile, was rooting through the boxes at the far end of the gift shop. “Hmm,” he said. “I think I’ll have… BRASS KNUCKLES!”

“Er, are you sure that’s..” Dipper paused. “Y’know what, never mind. Just try to only hit people who have it coming, kid.”

“YES!” shouted Stan, punching over a box labelled ‘FRAGILE’ with his new brass knuckles. 

Upstairs, the twins had gotten ready to go to bed. Stan was jumping up and down on his bed - the excitement of the day had made him lose all of his tiredness. Every now and then his head would hit the sloped roof, but lying down sounded boring right now. He still hadn’t taken off his brass knuckles; they were, in his opinion, the best thing he owned, and also proved that Grunkle Dipper was the greatest Grunkle ever (because he had decided that what gift shops really needed to sell was sets of brass knuckles, and because he had let Stan keep a set). 

Ford had started writing in his new ‘Journal’, as he called it. He had cut a piece of gold foil into the shape of a hand with six fingers, just like his own, and stuck it on the front. Now he would be able to record all of the mysteries of Gravity Falls, just like the Author had done. ‘The Journal told me that there was no-one in Gravity Falls that I could trust,’ he wrote, ‘But when you battle a hundred gnomes side-by-side with someone, you realise that they’ve probably always got your back.’

“Hey, Stan, could you get the light?” he asked.

“I’m on it!” answered Stan. He punched the light switch, which broke, causing the light to go out. “Oops! At least they work, though.”

The pair laughed together. 

Perhaps this isn’t so bad, thought Ford.

Unbeknownst to the twins, Grunkle Dipper was still down in the gift shop. He went over the vending machine, and quickly punched in a code. Suddenly, the vending machine swung forward, revealing a secret corridor leading deep into the ground. Dipper glanced around, before disappearing into it. 

Chapter Text

The twins were at the breakfast table, eating the pancakes that Grunkle Dipper had made for them. He had even provided a ‘Surprise Syrup Selection’ (both were brands that Ford had never even heard of before, but he supposed that a town as weird as Gravity Falls would have atypical syrup brands to match).

“Are you ready for the ultimate challenge?” said Stan, holding up the ‘Sir Syrup’ bottle and trying to make his voice as deep as possible.

“I’m always ready!” replied Ford, holding up the ‘Mountie Man’ bottle and trying (and ultimately failing) to mimic Stan’s fake deep voice. 

“Then you know what this means!” 

“SYRUP RACE!” yelled the twins. They both flicked open the lids of their syrup bottles and held them upside down over their mouths, waiting to see whose syrup would drop first.

“Go, Sir Syrup!” shouted Stan.

“Go, Mountie Man!” shouted Ford.

“Go! Go! Go!” 

“Nearly there, nearly there…” said Stan, whose syrup had almost reached his tongue. He hit the bottom of the bottle, causing the syrup to fall into his mouth. “Yes!” he coughed, “I won! Wait, is there… glitter in this syrup?” He tried to spit it out, making him cough harder. 

Ford picked up the ‘Wacky News’ magazine that was lying on the table next to him. “Woah, no way! Stan, check this out!” he said, holding the magazine out to him.

“Child-sized racing cars!” gasped Stan, reading an advertisement in the magazine. “I’m child-sized!”

“No, no, not that, Stan,” said Ford. He pointed to the advertisement on the opposite page. “This one!” The advert was about a competition that was looking for the best (and most authentic) monster photos for a prize of $1,000. “Lee, we see stuff way weirder than this every day!” he said. “You didn’t get any pictures of those gnomes, did you?”

“Nope, just horrifying memories!” answered Stan cheerfully. “Oh, and I got some beard hair off of that Shmebulock guy.” He held up a tuft of silver-grey hair that looked like it had been dragged through a bush backwards. 

“Why on earth would you keep that?” asked Ford, leaning as far away from the hair as he could.

“No idea,” said Stan.

“Hey, kids,” said Grunkle Dipper, who had just come back from changing out of his dressing gown. “Did you like the syrup? It’s my own special recipe.”

“Well, I think I almost choked to death on some glitter, but besides that, it was good,” answered Stan, putting the beard hair back into his pocket. “Hey, Grunkle Dipper, do you have anything I could use to like, keep this beard hair in?”

“Eh, I might have a few scrapbooks lying around that I haven’t used yet,” said Dipper, rooting around in the cupboard under the kitchen sink. “Oh look, here’s one. You can keep it, kid.” He handed Stan a red scrapbook that had a funny gold symbol on the front. The symbol looked a bit like a pac-man that was eating a circle. 

“Thanks, Grunkle Dipper!” said Stan, glueing the beard hair into the scrapbook. “Wow, what’s this symbol on the front?”

“Honestly, I have no clue,” Dipper answered. “But hey, never mind that. Do you two know what day it is?”

“Er…” Ford was sure that if it was anything really important he’d have been told about it beforehand. “Happy anniversary?”

“Mazel tov!” shouted Stan, waving his new scrapbook in the air.

Dipper wacked Ford on the head with the rolled up newspaper he was carrying. “No, it’s Family Fun Day, genius!” he said, walking over to the fridge and grabbing a bottle of ‘Dipper Juice’. “We’re gonna cut off work and have a day of bonding!”

“Grunkle Dipper, is this going to be anything like our last family bonding day?” asked Ford, shuddering as he remembered how Dipper had recruited them to free all of the pigs on a local farm. Needless to say, the police had not been sympathetic to Dipper’s cause. 

“The county jail was so cold,” said Stan, who was staring off into the middle distance with a haunted expression on his face. 

“Look, I know I haven’t been the best summer caretaker so far, but I swear I’ll make it up to you today. We’re gonna have some real family fun,” said Dipper, walking over to the twins and putting an arm on each of their shoulders encouragingly. “So, who wants to put on some blindfolds and get into my car?”

“Yay!” shouted Stan and Ford, throwing their hands up in the air.

Maybe this won’t be so bad , thought Ford. Wait, what did he just say?

Stan and Ford were currently sitting in the back of the Pinesmobile with blindfolds tied across their faces. Ford hugged his knees to himself as Dipper swerved round yet another bend so fast that it felt like he was actively trying to ignore the road safety laws.

“Blindfolds never lead to anything good,” he said, in what he thought was Stan’s general direction. 

Stan, however, did not share Ford’s apprehension. “It feels like all my senses are heightened,” he said. “I can see with my fingers .” He began to rub his hands over Ford’s face, causing Ford to laugh and try to push him away. Suddenly, the Pinesmobile jumped, making them fly towards the doors. Ford sent up a silent prayer for the existence of the seatbelts. He did not fancy becoming a splat on the ceiling of a sweet-littered car so close to the beginning of the summer. 

“Grunkle Dipper, you’re not wearing a blindfold, are you?” he asked cautiously. 

“Nah, but remember what I said about my cataracts,” answered Dipper from somewhere in front of him. “Can barely see a thing. Wait, what’s that up ahead, a woodpecker?” The El Diablo jolted violently, and Ford hoped that they hadn’t hit someone. 

“Argh!” screamed Stan. “What was that?!”

“Heh, don’t worry about it,” said Dipper. “It was just, like, a guardrail or something.”

“Are we even on the road anymore?” asked Ford.

“Nope.” He didn’t sound in the least bit worried. 

They had managed to reach their destination alive and mostly unscathed, by some miracle of fate, considering the fact that they had driven through a forest for about half of the journey, and driven into at least three trees and someone’s house. The twins stood, blindfolded, next to the Pinesmobile, both silently wishing that they could walk back to the Shack, rather than have to get back in the death trap that was the El Diablo.

“Ok,” said Dipper, “Open ‘em up!” The twins pulled down their blindfolds. Before them was a massive lake filled with boats belonging to the residents of Gravity Falls. Next to Grunkle Dipper was a banner that read ‘Fishing Season Opening Day’.

“Woah, cool!” exclaimed Stan. “I’ve always wanted to go fishing!”

“I guess this doesn’t sound so bad,” admitted Ford. “I mean, once we get the Stan O’War seaworthy, we’ll probably want to go fishing in it sometimes, so it couldn’t hurt to learn how to do that now.”

“Fishing?” said Dipper. “We’re not going fishing! No, I’ve got something much better in mind!”

“But… why else would we have come to the lake on the first day of the fishing season?” asked Stan.

“To do knitting, of course!” said Dipper, waving a bag filled with yarn and knitting needles at them. “I always find that the lake helps my creative juices to flow! So, we’re going to go rent out a boat and KNIT!”

The twins looked out longingly at the rest of the townsfolk, who were all out fishing on the lake. Lazy Grenda was holding a frying pan out over the water and waiting for the fish to jump into it while shouting “Get into the pan! Get into the pan!” as loud as she could. On the other side of the lake, Womanly Wendy was fishing with her three daughters.

“Er, mom, is this good?” asked one of them, holding out a fishing rod.

She grabbed the pole and snapped it over her knee. “NO!” she yelled. “I’ll show you how a real woman fishes!” Then she grabbed a fish out of the water and started punching it on the floor of the boat.

“Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!” chanted her daughters. 

“Get ‘em! Get ‘em!” chanted Tyler Cutebiker, who had rowed his boat over to them.

“But fishing looks so fun ,” complained Stan. Even worse, if he was stuck in the boat for the whole day doing nothing but knitting, he wouldn’t be able to talk to all the cool townsfolk who had turned up today. 

“Grunkle Dipper, why do you want to bond with us so much all of a sudden?” asked Ford. “We’re not leaving for another two months.”

“Come on, this’ll be great!” said Dipper, “I’ve never had knitting buddies before. Nobody wants to go with me. Apparently, I’m ‘liable to meddle with their private lives’.” He made air quotes to indicate how stupid he thought it was.

Stan leaned over to Ford. “I think he genuinely wants to knit with us,” he whispered. 

“Hey, I know what’ll cheer you guys up!” said Dipper. He brought out a pair of sweaters from behind his back. “Boom! Pines family sweaters!”

The twins inspected their sweaters. They had their names sewn onto them in yellow felt-cut letters that were half-falling off of the red background. 

“That’s hand-stitching, y’know,” added Dipper, pointing to the names on the sweaters. “Now let’s see you try ‘em on! I’m not sure if I got the sizes quite right.”

The sizes had not been got right. Both sweaters covered the twin’s hands entirely. What was worse, it was the middle of summer, and the sun was out. The twins usually just wore t-shirts, but the sweaters were insufferably hot. Ford had no clue as to how Grunkle Dipper managed to wear one day-in day-out without suffering from heatstroke. 

“Grunkle Dipper, it’s too hot,” said Stan, pulling his off. “We’ll roast!”

“Trust me, you’ll be fine!” said Dipper, pulling on his own sweater, which had a fish sewn onto it. “Now, stop complaining, ‘cause it’s just gonna be me, you, and these sweaters on a boat for ten hours straight!” He grinned, as if he had just given them the best news in the world.

“Ten hours?” repeated Ford, as the realisation of how long that was dawned on him. “Wh-what about lunch?”

“Don’t worry, I made some. I even put in extra glitter as a treat!” said Grunkle Dipper. “Oh, and I brought Dipper Juice so that we won’t get tired. It even has plastic dinosaurs in it!” He shook a bottle of Dipper Juice at them enthusiastically. 

Both of the twins shuddered. 

“There has to be a way out of this,” whispered Stan. Ford nodded.

All of a sudden, an old woman ran up the jetty towards the people milling about on the shore. “I SEEN IT!” she was shouting, as she pushed people out of her way, “I SEEN IT AGAIN!” She ran through a stand of fishing rods and overturned a table covered with buckets of fish before running up to a random man in the crowd and yelling, “The Gravity Falls Gobblewonker! Come quick before it scrapdoodles away!” Then she pushed the man aside and started dancing frantically on the spot, slapping her knees and thighs, while the confused townspeople looked on. 

“Look, she’s doing a happy jig!” said Stan.

The woman grabbed him by the shoulders. “NOOO!” she screamed. “It’s a jig of grave danger!”

“Hey, hey!” The man who ran the supplies shop ran out, holding a bottle of disinfectant with a spray nozzle. “What did I say about scaring my customers!” He sprayed her with disinfectant a few times, making her flinch and hiss.

“But I got proof this time, by gummity!” she yelled, trying to convince the man to stop spraying her with the disinfectant. She scrambled over to the jetty on all fours, at the end of which lay a smashed and sinking rowing boat. “BEHOLD!” She pointed to the boat, “It’s the Gobble-dy-wonker what done did it! It had a long neck like a gee-raffe! And wrinkly skin like… like this gentleman right here!” She gestured to Dipper, who was picking his ear, completely ignoring the whole fiasco. 

“Huh?” he asked, finger still in his ear.

“It chawed my boat up to smitheroons, and shim-shammed over to Scuttlebutt Island,” she continued, pointing at an island in the middle of the lake that was almost completely hidden by a thick bank of fog. “YOU GOTTA BELIEVE ME!” She grabbed the man who had tried to chase her away by the arm, but he quickly pulled himself away. 

“Attention all units!” said one of the local police officers, who had pulled up his boat next to the pier to watch. “We got ourselves a crazy old lady!” Everyone started laughing at her, except for the twins, Dipper, and the supplies seller, who just stood there and shook his head in disapproval. 

“Aww, donkey spittle!” cried the woman, walking past the laughing crowd. “Aw, fork fingers!” Ford and Stan watched her go - they felt bad for her, but they didn’t know what to do about it. 

“Well, that happened,” said Dipper, in an attempt to cheer them up. He took them over to the boat hire. “Now, let’s get a boat and get out on that lake!” 

Ford turned to Stan excitedly, ignoring Dipper’s negotiations with the lady running the boat hire. “Lee, did you hear what that old woman said?” 

“ ‘Aw, fork fingers!’ ” mimicked Stan, pretending to dance the ‘jig of grave danger’.

“No, not that, the other thing!” said Ford. “She said there was a lake monster! All we have to do is get a picture of it, and that prize is ours for sure! We can split it fifty-fifty.”

Stan gasped. “That’s two fifties!”

“Stan, just think of what you could do with five hundred dollars!” said Ford.

Stan gazed off into the distance, imagining what he would do with the money. He was driving down a street in his brand new racing car, as everyone gasped in amazement at his coolness. When he stopped for a traffic light, two girls with brightly coloured hair gaped at him from the curb, staring at him over the top of their sunglasses. 

“Hey, babes,” he said, waving at them. “You can look, but you can’t touch.” Then the light turned green, and he drove off, leaving them to gawk after him in wonder. 

“Awesome!” they said, sunglasses falling off their faces.

“Stan? Stan?” Stan was brought back to reality by Ford snapping his fingers in his face. “Are you ok?”

“Poindexter, I am one million thousand per cent on board with this idea!” shouted Stan. 

“Ok,” said Ford, walking over to Dipper, who had now finished getting the rowing boat out onto the lake. “Grunkle Dipper, there’s been a change of plans. We’re taking that boat over to Scuttlebutt Island to find the Gobblewonker.”

“Monster hunt! Monster hunt!” chanted the twins, while Dipper glared at them from the rowing boat. 

“But what about knitting?” he asked, holding up the bag of yarn. 

“Eh, knitting can wait, Grunkle Dipper,” said Stan. “We’ve got to find the Gobblewonker!”

This just made Dipper scowl even harder, annoyed that his nephews had chosen a monster hunt over a fun day that he had put effort into planning. However, before he could say anything else, Ria pulled up to the jetty in her motorised boat, named the ‘S.S. Cool Dude’.

“You dudes say somethin’ about a monster hunt?” she asked, leaning over the side of the boat. 

“Ria!” exclaimed Stan, clearly happy to see her. 

“Hey, don’t forget ‘bout me!” interjected Fiddleford, who was at the steering wheel.

“Hey, guys!” said Ford. 

“Whassup, hambone?” asked Ria, fistbumping first Stan and then Ford, making explosion noises both times. “Dudes, you could totally use my boat for your monster hunt! It’s got a steering wheel, and chairs, and like, normal boat stuff, y’know?”

“Alright, wait a minute,” interrupted Dipper. “Let’s think this through before we all make some rash decisions that we then regret for the foreseeable future. You kids could waste all your time on some monster hunt, or you could spend the day knitting and eating my excellent sandwich creations with your good old Great Uncle Dipper!”

The twins glanced between Ria and Fidds, along with the alluring fog-hidden banks of Scuttlebutt Island, and Grunkle Dipper, whose hired boat had several leaks and a smoking engine that looked like it might give out halfway across the lake. It was an easy decision. 

“So whaddaya say?” asked Dipper triumphantly, before realising that Stan and Ford had climbed into the S.S. Cool Dude and were speeding away across the lake without him. 

“We made the right choice!” he heard Stan shout. “This is the best!”

“Ingrates!” Dipper yelled after them, as he sat on his own in the leaky rental boat. “Eh, who needs them? I have a whole bag of yarn to keep me company.” He picked up a ball of yarn, which was now soggy from lying in the wet bottom of the boat. “It’ll dry out.”

Ford stood at the prow of Ria’s boat, one foot on the guardrail as they raced across the lake. 

“Hoist the anchor!” he shouted.

Ria dragged a seaweed-covered cinder block up out of the lake by a chain and deposited it next to the bridge. “Aye-aye, cap’n!” she cried, saluting. 

“Raise the flag!”

Stan held up a piece of fabric that read ‘TREASURE’ across the top in big yellow sharpied-on letters and waved it about, pretending that it was flapping in the wind. 

“Ahh! Fiddleford! We’re about to hit a rock!” screamed Ford, waving his arms about as Fiddleford swerved the ship into a hard right.

“Sorry!” called Fiddleford from the bridge. “I didn’t see it! I thought I saw somethin’ in the water so I wasn’ payin’ attention!”

“Er, could you maybe be a bit more careful next time?” asked Ford, who was clutching the guardrail. “Wait! Do you think you might have seen the Gobblewonker?”

“I dunno,” replied Fidds, scratching his head. “Maybe? I didn’t really get a proper look at it.”

“Nevermind,” said Ford, heading towards the stern of the boat, where Stan was peering over the railing. “Have you seen anything yet?” he asked.

“Nope!” said Stan cheerfully, popping the p. “But just you wait! We’re gonna find that Gobble-monster, and then we’re gonna win that contest!”

“Uh, do any of you dudes have sunscreen?” asked Ria, rummaging through her pockets. “I can’t find mine.”

“We’re gonna go get sunscreen!” said Stan, and Fiddleford turned the boat around. 

Beneath them, something moved through the water.

Something big…

Ford paced up and down the length of the boat. Stan, Ria, and Fidds were assembled in front of him, as he outlined his plan to get a photograph of the Gobblewonker. 

“Alright, listen up, people!” he said, still pacing. “If we’re going to win this competition, we have to do it right! We have to be prepared! Now, what’s the number one problem with most monster hunts?”

“The monster ain’t real?” asked Fiddleford.

“You’re a side character and you die within the first five minutes of the movie,” said Ria, matter-of-factly. She gasped. “Wait, dudes, am I a side character? D’you ever think about stuff like that?” Stan gave her a concerned look. 

“No, no, none of that!” said Ford. “It’s camera trouble! Say Bigfoot shows up. Ria, be Bigfoot?” 

Ria did her best Bigfoot impression, going cross-eyed and pretending that her fingers were claws.

“There she is! Bigfoot!” Ford feigned an exaggerated version of the monster hunters that he’d seen on the paranormal shows he’d spent most of the holidays so far watching. “Uh-oh, I don’t have a camera! Oh wait, here’s one! Oh no, it’s out of film!” He put the disposable camera back into his lifejacket. “Do you see what it is that I’m doing here?” he added, in his normal voice. 

The others nodded their agreement.

“That’s why I’ve bought seventeen disposable cameras,” said Ford. “Two on my ankle, three in my jacket, another three for each of you guys, and three extras in this bag. There’s no way we’ll be able to miss this.” He handed out the cameras to everybody. “Ok, let’s test them out.”

Ria took a picture of herself, but the sudden flash caused her to jump and she threw it overboard. “Oh. Sorry, dude.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Ford. “We still have sixteen. This is why I bought so many.”

A seagull swooped over Stan’s head, and he threw a camera at it. The camera landed in the lake and quickly sank to the bottom. 

“Ok, we have fifteen cameras,” said Ford, who was starting to get annoyed. “Guys, please don’t lose your cameras.”

“Wait, did you say loose the cameras?” asked Ria.

“Don’t lose the cameras!”

“Dude, I just threw two overboard,” said Ria, pointing to the two disposable cameras that were now floating on the surface of the lake.

“Ok, we have thirteen cameras,” said Ford, throwing his hands in the air. “That’s good! We still have thirt-” he brought his fist down on a cooler, only to realise that he had inadvertently crushed one of the cheap cameras. “Twelve,” he corrected. “We have twelve cameras.”

“So what’s the plan, Stanferd?” asked Fiddleford, who was so far the only person who had managed to not break or lose any of the cameras. 

“Are we throwing more cameras overboard?” asked Stan, who was currently holding one over the side of the boat for no apparent reason. 

“NO!” shouted Ford. “No. Ok, time to assign roles. Stan and Soos, you’ll be on lookout on different sides of the boat. Fidds, you keep on steering. I’ll be the captain.”

“What?!” said Stan. “How come you get to be the captain? That’s not fair. I wanna be captain. Stan-ley! Stan-ley! Stan-ley!” 

“I’m not so sure that that’s a good idea,” said Ford.

“Well, I could be co-captain instead?”

“That’s not a thing.”

“Well, that sure is a shame.” Stan tossed one of his cameras overboard.

“Alright, alright!” said Ford, grabbing Stan’s last camera before he threw that overboard as well. “You can be co-captain.”

“Uh, can I be associate co-captain?” asked Ria.

“As co-captain, I authorise that request,” said Stan.

“What ‘bout me?” asked Fiddleford from the bridge. “Don’ I get a title?”

“Fidds, you can be…” Stan tried to think of something. “You can be co-associate co-captain!”

“I’m happy with that!” said Fiddleford, before returning his attention to steering.

“Well, as first co-captain, our first order of business is to lure the monster out with bait,” said Ford, gesturing to the large barrel of fish food that Ria was standing next to.

“Permission to taste some?” asked Ria, raising her hand.

“Granted,” said Ford.

“Permission co-granted,” added Stan.

“Permission co-associate co-granted,” said Fiddleford.

“Permission associate co-granted,” said Ria, who then proceeded to lick a handful of the fish food, and gagged. “Ugh! Dude, I have no idea what I expected that to taste like, but the reality was not good!” she said, as the others laughed.

Meanwhile, Dipper was glaring at them from his own boat while he knitted a sweater. 

“Traitors!” he muttered to himself. “I’ll find my own knitting buddies.” He glanced around for anyone nearby, and spotted a boat by the far shore of the lake, near the cliffs. “See, I found some new pals already!” He started up the sputtering outboard motor, pointing the boat in their direction. 

“Hey!” he shouted. “D’you wanna be my knitting buddies?”

A woman and man stared back at him from the boat. Dipper noticed that the man had a ring box in his hand. 

“Ahhhh!” he squealed, his eyes widening. “You guys are getting engaged! That’s adorable! Can I be the bridesmaid - sorry, bridesman!”

The pair grabbed their oars and rowed away as quickly as they could in the opposite direction. 

“What?” he asked, watching them go. 

The S.S. Cool Dude was slowly approaching Scuttlebutt Island through the thick bank of fog. Ria was throwing the fish food overboard to try to attract the Gobblewonker, but so far they had had no luck. Stan was standing at the prow with a pelican, and was using ventriloquism to make it appear as if it was having a conversation with him. 

“Hey!” he said as Stan. “How’s it hanging?”

“Awesome!” he replied as the pelican, moving its beak up and down in sync with the words. “Duh dee da duh!”

“Stan, leave it alone,” said Ford. 

“I don’t mind none,” said Stan as the pelican. “Hey, wanna hear a joke? My ex-wife still misses me, but her aim is getting better!”

“Stan, you don’t have an ex-wife.”

“Who’s Stan? I’m Mr Pelican!” He switched back to his normal voice. “Hey, look, I’m drinking water!” He started pouring water into his mouth while making the pelican sing. “Twinkle, twinkle, little-” He choked on the water, causing him to let go of the pelican’s beak. It flew off. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be on lookout?” asked Ford.

“Look out!” shouted Stan. He threw a volleyball at Ford. 

“Hey! What was that for?”

Stan chuckled. “But don’t worry. Seriously. I’m on it!”

The boat ran aground onto Scuttlebutt Island. 

“See? We’re here already!” said Stan. “I’m clearly the best lookout ever. Racing car, here I come!” He walked down the length of the bowsprit, which was now tilted towards the ground. The others climbed over the gunwale. 

Ford was glad he had thought to bring a lantern. Despite the sunny day, the woods were dark and foggy, and it was clear that no-one ever really came here. They soon reached a sign nailed to a tree that read ‘Scuttlebutt Island’ in large and flaking letters. Next to it was a smaller sign reading ‘BEWARE’ in all caps. 

“Dude, check it out,” said Ria, covering up the ‘Scuttle’ on the large sign. “Butt Island.” 

Stan giggled. “Hey, why aren’t you two laughing?” he asked Ford and Fidds. “Are you scared?”

“Pssh, no!” said Ford nervously. “Of course I’m not-”

Stan poked him in the nose. “Yeah you are!”

“Hey!” said Ford, as Stan continued to poke him. “Quit it, Lee!” He dropped the lantern, using his arms as a shield. 

Suddenly, there was a growl in the distance. Stan stopped immediately, and he and Ford looked around worriedly. 

“D-did you guys hear that?” asked Fidds anxiously. 

“What was that?” asked Stan. “Ria, was it your stomach?”

“Nah,” said Ria. “My stomach usually sounds like whale noises.”

While Stan was listening to the whale noises produced by Ria’s stomach, a possum burst out of the bushes, grabbed the lantern in its mouth, and scampered off, leaving the group in the dark. Fiddleford tried to run after it, but it had already vanished into the fog, and he had to turn back before he got lost.

“Our lantern!” cried Ford. “How are we going to find the Gobblewonker when we can’t even see?”

“Dude, maybe this isn’t totally worth it,” said Ria. 

“She’s right,” agreed Fidds. “If we go any farther, we’ll get lost. I don’ think that yer Great-Uncle knows where ter find us, an’ I don’ fancy a-bein’ stuck on this island fer a night.”

“What?” said Ford. “Guys, just think about what would happen if we got that photograph! This is totally worth it!” In Ford’s mind, he was being interviewed on a talk show about his discovery. 

“Tonight we’re here with anomaly researcher Stanford Pines,” said the show host, “who bravely photographed the elusive Gobblewonker of Gravity Falls! Tell me, Ford: what’s the secret to your success?”

“Well, I run away from nothing,” answered Ford, who was dressed Indianna Jones-style, as he took a swig of his coffee. “Except for when I ran away from my annoying Grunkle Dipper, who I ditched in order to pursue that lake monster.”

“How right you were to do so,” said the host. “Now, I don’t often do this, but I feel the need to give you an award!” He put a medal around Ford’s neck as a photograph was taken. 

Just then, Stan burst through the wall in his child-sized racing car. “CHARLIE! WHY WON’T YOU INTERVIEW ME?!” he screamed, as he chased Ford and Charlie off the stage. 

Ford snapped out of his daydream. “Come on, guys!” he said.

Stan considered it. “I’m in!” he shouted, and he and Ford ran off in the general direction of the noise. 

Fiddleford and Ria stood there for a bit. 

“They’re gonna get themselves killed,” said Fiddleford.

“Yup,” said Ria.

“An’ we have ter stop ‘em from doin’ that or Mr Pines’ll murder us.”

“Yup.”

“I’m gonna regret this,” muttered Fiddleford, before running off after the twins with Ria.

They had managed to escape the worst of the fog, and were walking along the outskirts of the forest. Stan had decided that what the world needed at this specific moment in time was an improvised song with lyrics by him and a beatboxed backing track by Ria.

“My name is Stan! It rhymes with fan! It also rhymes with van! It also rhymes with…” he wracked his brains for something else that rhymed, “hand!”

“Dude, we should be writing this down!” said Ria. 

Up ahead, Ford had stopped walking. 

“Er…” Fiddleford wasn’t really sure what he was doing. “You ok, Stanferd?”

“I heard something!” Suddenly, some birds flew out of the trees ahead of them. “There!”

He grabbed Stan, and they ran off in the direction of the sound, shouting “This is it! This is it!”.

“ An’ they’re tryin’ ter get themselves killed again,” sighed Fiddleford. Ria picked up a sharpened stake that was handily lying around, and they followed the twins into the fog. 

They quickly caught up with the twins, who were standing still near the edge of the lake.

“There it is!” Ford whispered, pointing to a silhouette that rose out of the water in front of them.

They all gasped - it was the Gobblewonker! They ducked behind a log before it spotted them, giving them time to get their cameras ready. 

“Everybody ready?” asked Ford. They nodded, and pointed their cameras in the direction of the monster. “GO!” he shouted.

Ria jumped over the log and ran towards the Gobblewonker, screaming as she took photos in its general direction (she had her eyes closed, and therefore had no idea if she was aiming correctly). Fiddleford tried to follow, but tripped over the log and landed flat on his face, the camera falling out of his hands and getting lost in the undergrowth. The twins were a little more successful when it came to clearing the log, but as they neared the monster, they found that it was just half an upturned boat and some tree trunks, all of which were covered in beavers. One of them slid off the side of the boat. 

“But…” started Ford. “But this makes no sense! I swear I heard a monster noise!”

A rumbling noise sounded to their right. The trio (Fiddleford was still searching the bushes for his camera) turned towards it. On a rock near the shore was a beaver chewing on a chainsaw. Every time it chewed on it, the chainsaw would go off, making the same ‘monster’ noise that they had heard earlier.

“Sweet! A beaver with a chainsaw!” said Ria, snapping a couple of pictures. 

Ford and Stan sighed, and walked back over to the log, where Fiddleford was now sitting, having given up the search for his camera. 

“Maybe that old woman was crazy after all,” said Ford.

“She did use the word ‘scrapdoodle,” agreed Stan.

“Hey!” said Fiddleford. “She ain’t that crazy… I mean ter say, she’s alrigh’, once ya get to know her.”

“Who is she?” asked Ford. “All we know is that she comes down here a lot, but the supplies man doesn’t like it.”

Fidds sighed. “She’s mah great-aunt… Well, ex-great-aunt, if yer bein’ technical, ‘cause she divorced mah great-uncle a couple ‘a decades back. He’s dead now, an’ so’s all of her family. She’s called Candy, but everyone ‘round here calls her ‘Old Lady Chiu’, an’ treats her like garbage fer no reason.”

“That’s awful ,” said Stan. “Can’t your parents do something about it?”

“Well, mah pa used ter try an’ help, but he gave up a while ago now. Ya saw him today - he don’t like her ‘cause she scares away the customers. Sometimes I go visit her down at the dump, but half the time I haven’t got anythin’ ter giver her, or she refuses whatever it is that I have bought.”

“Look, Fidds,” said Ford. “It’s not your fault. You can’t do anything more than you already are. Maybe we could ask Grunkle Dipper if he could help, when we get back?”

Fiddleford smiled. “Thanks, guys. Yer the best.”

“Hey, dudes!” shouted Ria. “Who wants to check out my pictures of that beaver with the chainsaw?”

“Look, when you’re pulling down the yarn, you need to make sure that it meets the loop, ok?” said Dipper, nudging a small boy who he had never before seen in his life.

“Uh, who are you exactly?” asked the boy nervously.

“Just call me your Grunkle Dipper!” replied Dipper, patting the boy on the head. 

“Sir! Why are you talking to our son?” shouted a woman at the other end of the boat, who was glaring at him. “If you don’t leave this instant, I’ll call the police!” 

“Er, you know what, never mind!” said Dipper, hurriedly starting his outboard motor and speeding away.

“Go bother your own kids!” the woman yelled after him.

Ria was conducting a beaver photoshoot in order to cheer the kids up. It wasn’t working, but she now had a disposable camera’s worth of awesome beaver pictures, so it was still worth it.

“Gimme another one of those, dude!” she said to the beaver standing on the stump in front of her. “Yeah, I like it!” The beaver ran away. 

“Oh, what’re we going to say to Grunkle Dipper?” said Ford, gloomily. “We ditched him over nothing.” He tossed a stone into the lake. Suddenly, the rock he was sitting on sank, and he had to be pulled ashore by the others. They watched in disbelief as the silhouette of the Gobblewonker swam away across the lake. 

Ford started taking pictures. “This is it!” he said, turning to the others. “Come on, we need pictures!” They slowly began backing away, and he realised that something was wrong. “What’s the problem? Guys?”

“Ford…?” said Stan.

“It’s not that hard, alright? All you have to do is point, shoot, and aim. Got it? You know what, I’ll just show you.” He turned back to the lake, only to be greeted with the terrifying glowing eyes and pointed teeth of the Gobblewonker. 

He dropped the camera.

“Run!” shouted Ria.

They ran.

The Gobblewonker, unfortunately, turned out to be able to walk on land as well as swim, and chased them through the trees, knocking several of them over and almost crushing the twins, who were the slowest of the group. Eventually, they managed to catch up with Fidds and Ria. 

“Get back to the boat!” yelled Ria. “Hurry, dudes!” 

The Gobblewonker almost snapped Stan up in its jaws as it closed the gap between them, so Ria grabbed him and sat him on her shoulders as they ran through the forest. Ford, however, was still trying to take pictures, even as Fiddleford dragged him away from the monster by the arm. 

“Fidds, we need to go back!” shouted Ford. “I dropped the camera with the picture on it!”

“Not a chance, Stanferd,” panted Fidds, who was struggling to both keep up with Ria and prevent Ford from running into certain death. “Yer life is worth more than that picture!”

“Dude, if it makes you feel any better,” added Ria, “I got loads of pictures of those beavers, dude!”

“Why would that make me feel any better?!” shouted Ford.

After running the whole length of the island, they managed to reach the S.S. Cool Dude without getting eaten. Ria gave them all a leg up, before climbing on herself, as the boat tipped back into the water. Fiddleford quickly retook the wheel and steered it away from the island. 

“Let’s get outta here, dudes!” shouted Ria, as the Gobblewonker followed them into the water.

Ford, meanwhile, had other priorities. “Alright, this is it!” he said to himself, taking a camera out of his life jacket. “No, the lens is cracked! Ria, get a photo, quick!”

Ria was throwing cameras at the monster in an effort to make it go away. 

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” yelled Ford.

“Don’t worry, I still have one left,” said Fiddleford. He tossed it to Ford, but he was more focused on steering, causing him to miss. It hit the gunwale, smashing on impact. 

The Goblewonker reared its head above them and roared. 

“Go! Go! Go!” shouted Ford, as Fidds pushed the throttle forwards.

Dipper had managed to get his yarn all tangled up. Usually, he could get it unknotted again quite easily, but today was getting to him, and this knot consisted of several different balls of yarn that were, for some reason, all the same colour. 

“Can you pwease tell me mo’e funny stories, Pop-Pop?” A small boy with a strange resemblance to Ford was sitting in a boat with his twin brother and grandpa a few yards away from where Dipper was. 

“Anything for my fishing buddies!” said ‘Pop-Pop’, ruffling his grandsons’ hair. 

“Pop-Pop?” said one of them. “I just wealised that… I luv you.”

“Aw, come on!” yelled Dipper. “Boo! Boo!”

“Hey, what’s the big idea?” asked Pop-Pop.

“Maybe he has no-one who luvs him, Pop-Pop,” said one of the horribly adorable children. 

“Yeah?!” shouted Dipper. “Well, I… I…”

The S.S. Cool Dude shot by, soaking him with a massive wave. Dipper threw his knitting needles into the bottom of the boat in frustration, sighing. 

“Fidds! Beavers!” shouted Ford, pointing ahead of them, to where the beaver colony was. Fiddleford attempted to swerve out of the way, but they were going to fast, and the S.S. Cool Dude smashed right into the shipwreck, sending beavers flying in all directions. Lots of them landed on the boat, and started biting their teeth into anything they could get a hold on (which primarily consisted of Ford, Stan, Ria, and Fidds). One of the beavers landed in Fiddleford’s face, and he let go of the wheel in shock. Stan quickly grabbed it, trying to steer them away from the Gobblewonker, which was so close that its nose could almost touch the stern. 

“Owowowowow!” shouted Ria, running round in circles on the deck, with beavers dripping from her like ornaments. Fiddleford had managed to get the beaver off of his face, and punched it off the side, only for another to fasten its entire mouth around his hand. 

Stan haphazardly steered the boat through the cluster of fishing boats in the middle of the lake, upturning almost all of them, including Womanly Wendy (who had a fish in a headlock) and her daughters. The fish that they had caught had been launched into the sky, and now began to rain back down on them. 

“The fish seek revenge!” yelled Womanly Wendy. “Swim, girls, swim!”

Meanwhile, the Gobblewonker was now banging the side of the boat, almost knocking it over. It smashed its head into the bridge, causing it to burst into slivers of wood. Stan had managed to duck just in time, but he still had no clue what he was doing, and Ria and Fiddleford were still fighting off the beavers. 

Up ahead, two men were transporting a large sheet of glass across the lake for no apparent reason.

“Easy… easy…” said one of them. 

“Look out!” shouted Stan. They ignored him.

The S.S. Cool Dude sped straight through the glass, but they didn’t stop to apologise; right now, they had bigger problems. 

“Where do I go?” yelled Stan to the others, as he realised that they were coming up on a dead end as they approached the waterfalls. Ford grabbed the Journal out of his life jacket and rifled through it, searching for a solution. 

“Uh, uh…” He looked for a page about the lake, anything that might be useful - the legend of the Gobblewonker, the mysterious island, the falls… “Go into the falls!” he yelled. “There might be a cave back there!”

“Might be?!” protested Stan, but he knew they didn’t have a choice. “You’d better be right about this, Sixer!”

The waterfall came closer… 

And closer…

And then…

… they were in a small cavern on the other side of the falls, and all one hundred per cent alive and in one piece (if you didn’t count Ria and Fidds, who were still being mauled by the few beavers that had managed to not get knocked off by the falls). The boat was in a much worse condition, but there was a small beach of gravelly sand that they were able to get onto quite easily.

The Gobblewonker was faring less well. The cavern entrance was far too small for it to go through, and it was now stuck, with its tail, neck, and frontal body inside, and the rest of it outside. 

“Yes! It’s stuck!” shouted Stan, dancing up and down.

“I can get my picture!” said Ford, reaching inside his jacket for a camera, only to find that there were none left. “Wait, no! I swear I had one left!”

“Don’t worry, Sixer!” said Stan. “One of us managed to keep a camera without smashing it or dropping it in the lake.” He held out a small yellow-and-purple disposable camera. 

“Stan, you’re the best!” said Ford, taking as many pictures of the monster as he could, while it snapped uselessly at him from the cave entrance. 

“Did ya get any good ones?” asked Fiddleford, who had finally managed to rid himself of beavers. He looked severely in need of some plasters. 

“They’re all good ones!” shouted Ford, happily.

The Gobblewonker roared again, shaking its head from side to side as it tried to free itself. In its struggle, it accidentally dislodged a large stalactite from the roof of the cave, which came crashing down on its head. The monster gave off a few sparks, and then its head crashed into the water, unable to support the weight of the stalactite. 

“What…?” Ford trailed off, as they stared at the Gobblewonker. “This doesn’t make any sense.” He clambered down to where the monster lay until he was close enough to touch it, and banged on it with his fist. There was a hollow clang .

“What’s up, Poindexter?” asked Stan.

Ford hoisted himself up onto the top of the ‘Gobblewonker’, using the scales as handholds. 

“Careful, dude!” called Ria. 

“Don’t worry, I got this!” said Ford. He disappeared over the side of the monster. 

There was a pause.

“Stanferd?” called Fiddleford.

“Hey, guys,” Ford re-emerged over the side of the ‘Gobblewonker’. “Come check this out!”

On the side of the monster was a hatch door wheel. Ford glanced back at the others, before tugging on it until it turned round. Then, he and Stan yanked the hatch open, revealing…

Candy Chiu, sitting at a control panel. “Work the bellows, and then-” She stopped as she realised that she had been discovered. “Aw, fork fingers!” 

“What-” Ford was stunned. “You made this? Why?!” 

“Uh…” Candy stuck her head out of the hatch. “Well, I guess… I guess I just wanted attention,” she said, sadly. 

“I still don’t understand,” said Ford. He glanced at Fiddleford, who was staring at his feet. 

“Well,” said Candy, “First I hootenannied up a a biomechanical brainwave generator, and then I taught mahself to operate a shaft stick with mah hair!”

“But why ?” asked Stan. 

“Well,” said Candy, “when you get to be an old fella like me, people stop payin’ attention to ya. I don’t got no family left anymore, except for mah nephew and mah grand-nephew, and mah nephew don’t want me hanging around here, so I gotta stay away. I figured maybe I could catch his attention with a fifteen ton aquatic robot!” She laughed maniacally. “But in retrospect, it all seems a bit contrived. You just don’t know the lengths us old-timers’d go through for a little quality time with our families.”

The twins pulled out the sweaters that Grunkle Dipper had made for them, sighing.

“Dudes, I guess the real lake monster is you two,” said Ria, chuckling. She stopped when she saw their faces. “Sorry, that just popped into my head there. Couldn’t help myself.”

“So…” said Stan, to Candy. “Did you ever talk to your nephew about how you felt?”

“Nope!” replied Candy, cheerfully. “I got straight to work on the robot! I used to make lots of ‘em. Like when mah husband left me, and I created a homicidal pterodactyl-tron, or when mah pal Grenda didn’t come to mah retirement party, and I built an eighty-ton Shame Bot that EXPLODED THE ENTIRE DOWNTOWN AREA!” She started laughing again as she disappeared back into the Gobblewonker robot. “Any of you kids got a screwdriver? I gotta work on mah death ray!” 

Fiddleford dug one out of his pockets and handed it to her. “Grauntie Candy, d’ya want ter come back to the Shack with us fer a while?” he asked. “You can have some food, if ya want?”

Candy stuck her head out of the hatch. “Don’t go worryin’ about me! Now, you go off an’ have fun with yer nice friends. They remind me of mine when I was younger.” She flipped the hatch closed. Fiddleford sighed, staring at where she had been.

“I guess that’s that,” he said, morosely.

“Yeah,” agreed Ford, who was holding the last camera in his hands. “So much for that photo competition.”

“You still have one roll of film left,” said Stan.

“What d’you want to do with it?” asked Ford. 

Dipper steered the boat back to shore just as the sun was beginning to set. Today was a disaster, he thought to himself. Can’t even let the kids enjoy themselves properly. You’ve messed up again, just like with-

“Hey! Grunkle Dipper!” 

He turned to see Ford, Stan, Ria and Fiddleford driving the battered remains of the S.S. Cool Dude over the lake towards him, waving. They stopped next to him, and Ford took a picture using one of the cheap disposable cameras that Tate had been selling. 

“Kids?” he asked. “I thought you were off playing spin the bottle with Ria and Fidds!”

“Well, we spent all day trying to find a mythical aquatic dinosaur,” said Ford.

“But, in the end we realised that the only dinosaur we want to hang out with is… you!” finished Stan. 

“Save your sympathy!” said Dipper. “I had a great time without you two! I’ve been making friends, talking to my reflection…” He counted the achievements off on his fingers. “I even had a run-in with the lake police! Guess I gotta wear this ankle bracelet now, so that’ll be fun.” Dipper gestured to the metal clamp on his ankle. 

“So… I guess there isn’t room for four more in that boat?” asked Ford.

Dipper glared at them.

The twins pulled out their sweaters and put them on over their life jackets, smiling at him, pleadingly.

Guess I can’t say no to that. 

Dipper smiled back. “You knuckleheads ever seen me knit a hat with my eyes closed?” he asked. 

“Five bucks says you can’t do it!” said Ford, jumping into the boat.

“You’re on!”

“Five more bucks says you can’t do it with your eyes closed and me singing in your ear at the top of my voice!” said Stan. 

“I like those odds!” replied Dipper. “Whoa! Ria! What happened to your shirt?!”

“Long story, dude,” said Ria, whose shirt had been devoured by the beavers, leaving her in her bra, shorts, and ill-fitting life jacket.

“Alright, everyone, get together,” said Ford, holding up the camera and shooing everyone over to the stern of the boat so that he could get a good picture. “Say knitting!”

“Knitting!” said Stan, Dipper and Fidds.

“Dude, am I in frame?” said Ria. She was not in frame.

They spent the last few hours of daylight learning how to knit, taking photos for Stan’s new scrapbook, and being chased by Sheriff Nate and Deputy Lee for stealing people’s fish. Stan turned out to be very good at knitting, unlike Ford, who kept on getting the yarn tangled up, and spent most of the time untangling it. Fiddleford had a go, but soon gave up, and he and Ria started trying to fix the sputtering engine instead (but by the end of the day, both had deemed it unfixable). 

All in all, the day was declared to be a success.

And far, far beneath them, in the dark depths of the lake, the Gobblewonker swam onwards.

Chapter Text

Stan and Ford were sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, watching Ducktective and sharing a bowl of homemade-popcorn (courtesy of Dipper, who had thankfully not put in any glitter after yesterday’s cereal incident). Stan was using his newly discovered talent for knitting to make a scarf, and Ford was examining a few of the codes in the Journal and comparing them to a code-breaking book that he had found in the library. 

“I’m afraid your services won’t be required here, sir,” said the Constable. “My men have examined the evidence, and this is clearly an accident .”

A duck wearing a tartan deerstalker hat waddled on-screen, quacking. The quacks were translated via subtitles at the bottom of the TV screen. 

Accident, constable? Or was it… murder?!

“What?!” exclaimed the constable. His head was suddenly obscured by the show’s logo, announcing that the ad break was about to start. 

Stan dropped his knitting and gasped. “That duck is a genius.”

Ford was not convinced. “Eh, I bet it’s way easier to find the clues when you’re that close to the ground,” he said.

“Are you saying that you could outsmart Ducktective?” said Stan, putting his hands on his hips and squinting sceptically at Ford. 

“Stan, I have very keen powers of observation,” said Ford smugly. “For example, just by smelling your breath, I can deduct that you have been eating…” He sniffed the air. “An entire tube of toothpaste?”

“It was so sparkly…” whispered Stan. 

Ford gave him a look of concern. “I think Grunkle Dipper is rubbing off on you.”

Suddenly Ria and Fiddleford ran in, Ria carrying a broom and Fidds holding a mop that was far too large for him. 

“Hey, dudes!” shouted Ria. “You’ll never guess what we found!”

“Was it buried treasure?” asked the twins, at the same time. 

“We were just cleanin’ up,” explained Fidds, as Ria led them down the darkened hallway, “An’ we found this sorta secret door that was hidden behind the wallpaper.” He pointed to a door that had been papered over, and had clearly not been touched in a long time, judging by the thick layer of cobwebs that covered the edges. 

“It’s crazy bonkers creepy,” added Ria. She pushed the creaking door open, revealing a room full of dusty wax figures.

“Whoa!” said Ford, shining his flashlight on the figures. “It’s a secret wax museum!”

“They’re all so lifelike,” said Stan, rubbing a thick layer of dust off of a wax Sherlock Holmes. “It’s like they’re alive!”

“Except for this one,” added Ford, pointing to a figure that’s face was obscured by darkness.

“Hello!” said the figure, cheerily.

The group screamed, until Ford pointed his torch at the figure’s head, revealing none other than Grunkle Dipper.

“What… what’s so scary?” he asked, looking over his shoulder. “Is there a bear? Wait, did you think I was a bear? Don’t worry, it’s only me!”

The others screamed again, running out of the room.

“Rude,” said Dipper, watching them leave. 

“Behold!” said Dipper, spreading his arms wide. “The Gravity Falls Wax Museum! It was one of my most popular attractions, back in the day. Until I, er… sort of forgot about it.”

He led the kids through the assortment of wax figures. 

“I got ‘em all!” he continued. “Genghis Khan, Sherlock Holmes, er…” He paused by a sculpture of a hunched TV host carrying a microphone. “I guess this is some sort of… goblin man? Eh, who cares. The point is, I have a lot of ‘em!”

Ford shuddered. “Is anyone else getting the creeps from this place?”

“A bit,” said Fiddleford, from his spot by the entrance. He didn’t trust the wax figures enough to go anywhere near them. In his opinion, the room was clearly haunted. 

“And now for my personal favourite,” continued Dipper, ignoring him. “Wax Abraham Lincoln!” He gestured to where a puddle of molten wax now lay in the light of an open window. 

“Grunkle Dipper, there’s nothing there,” said Stan. 

“What?” Dipper turned to see the puddle of molten wax. “No! Not wax Abraham Lincoln! He was the best one! Why are these blinds even open, anyway?” He knelt beside the slowly melting remains of Abraham Lincoln’s feet. “Wax John Wilkes Booth, I’m looking at you,” he added, glaring at the wax figure in question. “Ugh, it’ll take forever to fix this mess. I haven’t got the time these days to go around makin’ more a’ these things!” 

“Don’t worry, Grunkle Dipper, I’m sure we can think of something!” said Stan. “You know what, I bet I could make you a new wax figure out of all that old wax. I mean, how hard could it be?”

“Are ya sure, kid? I remember it took a lot of work to make these things,” said Dipper. 

Stan was undeterred. “Grunkle Dipper, I have made it my summer mission to master the arts and crafts! I’ve begun by sticking a glue gun to my arm.” He held up his arm, where a small glue gun was apparently permanently stuck to the sleeve of his jacket. 

“Hmm. Y’know what, you can go ahead! I like your gumption, kid.” 

“I dunno what that word means, but I’ll take it as a compliment!”

Ford walked up into the attic, carrying a Pitt Cola (another piece of Gravity Falls’s unique and extremely peculiar charm), to where Stan had now been holed up for almost a whole day, trying to encourage his ‘creative juices’ to ‘flow’. 

“Sixer!” Stan jumped out at him from where he had been working, causing Ford to swallow the pit the wrong way. “Whaddaya think of my idea for the wax sculpture?” He held up a spiral bound notepad to his brother (who was doubled over and coughing from the pit, and severely questioning why someone would even put it in a drink in the first place). “It’s part pirate, and part mermaid pirate!”

Ford spat the pit out onto the floor, and inspected Stan’s drawing. It was essentially a pirate with a mermaid’s tail. “Er… Stan, maybe you should, you know, carve something from the real world?”

“Like a waffle with big arms!” said Stan, hastily drawing one on a fresh page. 

“Or, um, something else?” said Ford, trying to steer Stan away from the idea of live waffles. “Like, er… Someone you know?” 

“Kids!” said Dipper, marching into the room. “Have you seen my sweater anywhere? I can’t find it!” He put one foot up on a briefcase in a classic explorer pose. 

“Sorry, Grunkle Dipper,” answered Ford. “I haven’t seen it. Why can’t you just wear one of your other ones? You must have hundreds of them.”

“But it’s my sweater .”

Stan, meanwhile, was taking in none of this conversation. Instead, he appeared to be babbling to the ceiling about ‘muses’ and ‘inspiration coming from strange places’.

“Uh, Ford… Does ya brother normally do this?” asked Dipper, concernedly. “I don’t think it’s healthy to talk to ceilings.”

Stan stepped back to admire the product of a day’s worth of hard work. 

“Hmm,” he murmured. “It feels like it’s missing something.”

“More glitter?” said Ria, handing him one of the giant glitter buckets that Grunkle Dipper always left lying around the Shack. Stan took it and threw its contents over the wax figure. 

“I found my sweater,” said Dipper, walking into the room. “But now my shoes have vanished. How did this even happe-” He screamed when he saw the wax figure of himself standing next to Ria and the twins, and scrambled away from it. 

“Grunkle Dipper, are you ok?” asked Stan. “Do you not like it?” 

“No, no, of course not!” said Dipper, sitting up and brushing himself off. “I mean, I was just… amazed at your skill! Yeah, that. Uh.” He paused, as if unsure of what to say next. “Kid, you know what? I think … I think that the Mystery Shack Wax Museum’s about to be back in business!” 

People were streaming into the Shack to witness the ‘Wax Museum of Mystery’s Grand Re-Opening’. It was amazing how quickly Dipper and Ria had managed to set up the new attraction, and how far the news had spread - Ria was having to direct cars to a temporary overflow car park because the usual one was full. 

Ford was working at the ticket desk with Dan, while Stan and Fidds were putting up a sign that read ‘Eighth Wonder of the Word!’ over the stage displaying the wax figures. 

“I can’t believe there’s so many people showing up,” said Ford to Dan, as they handed out tickets. 

“I bet you that your uncle bribed them,” said Dan.

“Well, he did bribe me.” Ford held up a five dollar note.

“Same here,” said Dan, holding up a note as well. 

Dipper tapped the microphone, causing it to let out a high-pitched screech that had most of the audience covering their ears. 

“You all know me, folks,” he said to the crowd. “I’m the fantastic, one-of-a-kind ‘Mr Mystery’, and boy, do I have something special to show you today! As you know, I revel in bringing this fair town oddities and buffudlements, the likes of which the world has never known! But enough about me. Behold… me!” He tugged the cloth off of the wax figure nearest to him, revealing a life-sized Wax Dipper, covered with enough glitter to fill at least five bathtubs. 

A few members of the audience slowly clapped, while Ria pressed the fanfare key on her electric sound effects keyboard. 

“And now, a few words from this town’s very own Stantonio Canova!” Dipper handed Stan the mike.

“Thank you all for coming!” said Stan, walking up to the edge of the stage. “I made this sculpture with my own two hands! It’s covered in my blood, sweat, tears, and other fluids!”

The crowd recoiled, disgusted.

Stan chuckled. “I will now take questions! You there!” he said, pointing at Candy Chiu.

“Are they alive? And can we survive the wax-figure uprising?” asked Candy.

“Er… sure!” said Stan. “Next question!”

“Thompson Determined, Gravity Falls Gossiper,” said a small man sitting in the front row. “Do you really think that this counts as a wonder of the world?” He held out a turkey baster towards Stan, as if it were a mike.

“Thompson, your microphone’s a turkey baster,” said Dipper, unimpressed. 

“It certainly is-” began Thompson.

“Tambry Valentino, a real reporter,” interrupted a woman at the back of the crowd. “Your flyers promised free pizza with admission to this event. Is this even true?”

“Uh, that was a typo,” said Dipper hastily, backing off the stage before the crowd (which was now more of a mob) could get to him. 

The audience left, several of them breaking things on their way out. Womanly Wendy even punched a hole straight through one of the posts holding up a banner over the entrance. 

“I think that went well,” said Stan, walking over to the admission table.

“Only if ya consider the fact that nobody died, Stan,” retorted Fiddleford. 

Later that night, Stan was helping Dipper to count up all of the money that they had earned that day. 

“Wow! Look at all this cash!” Stan held a bundle of notes up in the air. “And we owe it all to one person. This guy!” He pointed to Wax Dipper, who real Dipper was cleaning with a cloth. 

“Hey, give yourself some credit too, kid!” said Dipper. “I think you’ve done a better job on him than I ever could.” He ruffled Stan’s hair. “Now, get to bed. We’ve got another long day tomorrow!”

Stan ran out of the room and up the stairs, excited to tell Ford about how much money his wax figure was earning them. 

Dipper got into his armchair and turned on the TV to catch up with the latest episode of Ducktective. He hadn’t missed an episode since the show had first aired.

“Well, Ducktective, it seems you’ve really quacked the case,” said the Constable.

Don’t patronise me.

“Yeah, that was a bad pun,” agreed Dipper. “Well, I’m gonna just go use the john. You need anything, br- Er, wax me?” 

Wax Dipper said nothing. He just continued to lie next to the chair and sparkle from the industrial-sized glitter buckets that Stan had thrown over him earlier. 

“Heh, I love this guy! Don’t you go nowhere,” said real Dipper, as he left the room.

Stan and Ford were in the bathroom in their pyjamas, brushing their teeth.

“Ford, d’you wanna do a toothbrush race?” asked Stan, through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Sure,” said Ford.

“No, no, NOOOOOOOO!” 

The twins gave each other a look as they listened to Grunkle Dipper screaming downstairs, before rushing out of the bathroom. When they reached the living room, they found Dipper standing next to…

… Wax Dipper’s decapitated body.

“He’s been murdered!” cried Dipper, who was clearly on the verge of tears. “Who would do such a terrible thing!”

Stan fainted on the spot.

“I got up to use the john, right?” Dipper explained to the police officers. “And when I came back, kabam! His head was gone!”

“My expert handcrafting, besmirched!” said Stan, kneeling by Wax Dipper’s body. “ Besmiiiirched !”

“Who would do something like this?” asked Ford, as he comforted the distraught Stan. 

“What d’you think, Sheriff Nate?” said one of the police officers, who had a blond mullet and had been pretending to take notes. 

“Look, we’d love to help you folks,” said the sheriff, taking a sip of his coffee. “But let’s face it. This case is unsolvable.”

“What?!” shouted the Pines collectively.

“You take that back, Sheriff Nate!” yelled Dipper, pointing his finger at the sheriff. 

“Come on, there has to be something ,” reasoned Ford. “Evidence, motives… I could even help you guys if you like.”

“Yeah!” said Stan. “Sixer’s great at this stuff. He even managed to figure out who was eating all the tin cans!”

“All signs pointed to the goat,” said Ford, dramatically.

“Yeah, let the kid help!” said Dipper. “He’s got a brain up in that head of his.”

“Oh, would you look at that!” said Sheriff Nate, elbowing his deputy. “City boy thinks he’s gonna solve the mystery with his fancy computer phone .”

“City boy!” agreed the deputy. “City boooy!”

“You’re adorable, kid,” said Nate.

“Adorable?” asked Ford, as the pair started laughing at him. He glared at them, clenching his fists.

“Look, PJs,” continued the sheriff. “How about you leave the investigating to the grown-ups, hmm?”

“Attention, all units!” said a voice on Deputy Lee’s walkie-talkie. “Steve is about to fit an entire cantaloupe in his mouth. I repeat, an entire cantaloupe!”

“It’s a 23-16!” said Sheriff Nate, excitedly.

“Let’s move it!” added Deputy Lee, and the pair ran out of the Shack. 

“That’s it!” said Ford, resolutely. “Stan, you and I are going to find whichever jerk did this, and get that head back. Then we’ll see who’s adorable.” He sneezed.

“Awww, you sneeze like a kitten!” cooed Dipper. Ford glared at him.

The next morning, Stan, Ford, and Fidds were in the living room, examining the evidence. 

“Wax Dipper has lost his head, and it’s up to us to find it,” explained Ford to Fidds, who had been a little surprised to find a decapitated wax copy of his employer in the Shack when he turned up to work that morning (although it must be said that it was only a little ).

Stan was taking pictures of the evidence, of which there was so far none. His pictures mainly consisted of selfies with him and the remnants of Wax Dipper. He had also brought his brass knuckles along with him, just in case they found the murderer hiding out in the living room. 

“There were a lot of unhappy customers at the unveiling,” continued Ford, walking over to the suspects board that he had set up next to the armchair. “The murderer could have been anyone .”

“I suppose so,” said Fiddleford.

“And we already know that, in this town, anything is possible.” Ford took out the Journal, and leafing through it. “Ghosts, zombies, gnomes… It could be months before we find our first clue.”

“Hey, Poindexter, look!” said Stan. “I found a clue!” He pointed at the carpet.

“Footprints in the shag carpet!” gasped Ford.

“D’you know why they’ve gotta hole in ‘em?” asked Fidds, examining a set near Wax Dipper’s body.

“No, but it’s weird,” said Stan. “Might be important.”

“Now, where do they lead?” muttered Ford. He followed the footprints to the gap between the armchair and the wall. “Guys, you need to see this!” he said, excitedly. They gathered round to look.

Behind the armchair was an axe, lying on its side.

“So, what do you think?” asked Ford.

The trio had gone into the gift shop to get Ria’s perspective on the case. Stan handed Ria the axe (reluctantly, since he had become very attached to it, for the simple reason that it was a weapon, and his parents never let him have weapons).

“In my opinion, this is an axe,” said Ria, examining it. 

“Wait a minute…” said Stan, considering the information. “The lumberjack!”

“Of course!” said Ford. “She was furious when he didn’t get any free pizza!”

“Yeah, but are ya sure she was furious enough ter break into yer house and try ter kill yer uncle?” asked Fidds, sceptically.

“Well, duh ,” said Stan. “She must have been. Who else has an axe in this town, anyway?”

“Lots a’ peopl-”

“Oh, you guys mean Womanly Wendy,” interrupted Ria. “Yeah, she hangs out in this super intense biker joint downtown.”

“Then that’s where we’re going!” said Stan. Fiddleford groaned in disbelief.

“Dude, this is awesome,” said Ria. “You three are, like, the Mystery Trio!”

“Don’t call us that,” said Ford, as the three of them left the gift shop.

Outside, they found Grunkle Dipper pulling a coffin out of the back of the Pinesmobile. 

“Hey, kids!” he said, struggling with the weight of it. “Give me a hand here, will ya? I’m gonna do a memorial service for Wax Dipper. Something small but classy, y’know?” He yanked the coffin out, and before dropping it on the ground. 

“Sorry, Grunkle Dipper, but we’ve just had a huge break in the case,” said Ford. 

“Break in the case!” shouted Stan.

“We’re heading into town right now to interrogate the murderer,” he continued.

“And we have an axe!” said Stan, pulling it out of Ford’s backpack and waving it around. 

“This is not goin’ ter end well,” muttered Fiddleford, standing well out of range of Stan’s axe-waving. 

“Hmm.” Dipper considered it. “This seems like the sort of thing a responsible parent wouldn’t want you doing. Good thing I’m an uncle!” He put one foot on the coffin and waved his fist in the air. “Avenge me, kids! AVENGE ME!”

“This is the place,” whispered Ford, as he, Stan, and Fidds stuck their heads out of the bin next to the biker joint. “Lee, have you got the fake IDs?” Stan handed both Ford and Fidds one of the ID cards that he had made earlier. 

“Are ya still sure that this is really worth it?” asked Fiddleford, pushing a bin bag off of his head and adjusting his glasses nervously. “The people who come here can be a bit… violent.”

“Of course it’s worth it!” said Stan. “Now, let’s go find that murderer!”

The bouncer at the door inspected the ID card closely. “Sorry,” he said eventually. “We don’t serve miners.”

“Dang nabbit!” shouted the miner, waving his pick-axe at the bouncer. He spat on the ground, and marched off angrily. 

“We’re here to interrogate Womanly Wendy about the murder of Wax Dipper,” said Stan, walking up to the bouncer. The three held up their fake IDs, which were covered with a lot of googly eyes and an extremely liberal amount of glitter. 

The bouncer shrugged. “Works for me,” he said, holding the door open for them. 

Inside, the trio discovered that Ria had been telling the truth when she had described the joint as being ‘super intense’. In fact, it was almost an understatement. Ford was beginning to have second thoughts. Stan, on the other hand, thought it was great. Fiddleford was trying to work out whether or not he could still make a break for the exit.

They cautiously made their way through the bikers, many of whom had gotten into fights, or were on the edge of one. Fidds stepped over the legs of a man who was lying on the floor. 

“He’s restin’,” he said to himself.

“Alright, guys, let’s just try to blend in,” said Ford, despite the fact that that was probably impossible.

“You got it, Sixer!” said Stan, cheerfully. He jumped up onto one of the bar stools. “Hey there, fellow bar user!” he said to the biker on the stool next to him. “Would you like to arm wrestle with me?” The biker growled at him.

In the meantime, Ford and Fidds had located Womanly Wendy at the far end of the joint. She was fighting an arm-wrestling machine which read ‘Can You Beat Biceptkus’ on the side in large Greek-style letters. Fiddleford had no doubt that she could not only do that, but break the whole machine in the process.

“Womanly Wendy, just the person I wanted to see,” said Ford, accusatorily. “What were you doing last night?”

“Punching the clock!” she yelled, continuing to fight the machine.

“You were at work?” asked Ford, confused. 

“No! I was punching that clock!” She pointed to the street outside, where a now-broken clock stood. 

“It’s at 10 o’clock, which was the time a’ the murder,” reasoned Fidds. “It couldn’ a’ bin her.”

“Hmm. So, I guess you’ve never seen this before?!” asked Ford, showing Womanly Wendy the axe. 

“Listen, little girl!” said Wendy.

“Er, I’m not a-”

“I wouldn’t pick my teeth with that axe! It’s left-handed! I only use my right hand!” She ripped the arm off of Biceptkus, and began banging it against the machine. 

“Get ‘im, get ‘im!” chanted Tyler Cutebiker, who had materialised at the scene.

“Left handed…” murmured Ford.

“Three, four, five, six,” counted Stan, opening and closing the chatterbox that he had made out of one of the drinks menus. “It says… that your wife is gonna be beautiful!”

“Yes!” said the biker, pumping his arm.

“Stan, we’ve just had a big break in the case!” said Ford, running up to them. Stan hopped off of his bar stool, and dashed after Ford and an extremely relieved Fidds.

“But will she love me?!” called the biker.

“It’s a left handed axe,” said Ford, as the trio walked down the street. “So now all we have to do is work out which one of our suspects is left-handed, and we’ve found our murderer!”

“Oh man, we’re on fire today!” declared Stan, making ray gun noises in celebration.

“I’m just glad we didn’t try ter arrest Wendy,” said Fidds. “I don’ think that she would’ve liked that very much.”

“Let’s go find that murderer!” said Ford, fistbumping Stan. 

They spent the next few hours going around town and finding out whether their suspects were left- or right-handed, and crossing them out on the list when they turned out to either be right-handed or unable to use their hands at all. Eventually, there was only one name left on the list. 

“You kids better be right about this, or you’ll never hear the end of it,” Sheriff Nate told them, as they stood outside the offices of the Gravity Falls Gossiper. It was dark, and everyone else in town had already gone home.

“The evidence is irrefutable,” said Ford, confidently. 

“ So irrefutable,” agreed Stan.

“I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” said Fiddleford, but they ignored him. 

“I’m gonna get to use my night stick!” said Deputy Lee, waving his truncheon around.

“You ready? You ready, little fella?” Nate and Lee started poking each other with their truncheons.

“Alright, on three… two… one…” Ford counted down. On one, Deputy Lee kicked the door open, and they all ran inside.

“Nobody move!” shouted Nate. “This is a raid!” The police officers shone their torches around until they located Thompson, who had fallen off of his chair in shock. 

“What is this?” he asked, as Lee knocked things over with his truncheon. “Some kind of raid?” 

“Thompson Determined, you are under arrest for the murder of Wax Grunkle Dipper,” declared Ford, striding up to him.

“You have the right to remain impressed by our awesome detective work,” added Stan, high-sixing Ford.

“Gobbling goose feathers! But I don’t understand!”

“Allow me to explain,” said Ford, smugly. “You were hoping that Grunkle Dipper’s new attraction would be the story that saved your fast-failing newspaper. But when you realised that the show was a flop, you decided to take matters into your own hands, and make a headline yourself! But you were sloppy, and all of the clues pointed to a shabby-shoed reporter who was caught left-handed.”

“Thompson Determined, you’re yesterday’s news,” said Stan. 

Thompson, however, did not seem particularly upset by any of this. “Boy, your little knees must be sore…” he said. “From jumping to conclusions! I didn’t have a thing to do with this murder!”

“I knew it!” yelled Ford. “Wait, what? That makes no sense!”

“Uh, could you repeat?” asked Stan.

Fiddleford facepalmed. 

“Then where exactly were you on the night of the break in, Thompson?” asked Sheriff Nate.

“Errr…” He inserted a security footage tape into his TV that started at around 10 o’clock last night. The group watched as he pulled a cardboard cutout out of a cupboard and started kissing it. 

“Finally, we can be alone, cardboard cutout of female news reporter Tambry Valentino,” said the Thompson on the tape.

“Eeew!” said the others, disgusted. 

“Well, the timestamp confirms it,” said Sheriff Nate. “You’re off the hook, Thompson, you freak of nature.”

“Yippee!” 

“But this makes no sense!” protested Ford. “It has to be him! Check the axe for fingerprints!”

The officers did so (it was something they should probably have done before breaking into the office, but they tended to get very excited about doing things like raids). 

“No prints,” said Nate. 

“None? But that makes even less sense!”

“Hey, you know what, kid?” said the Sheriff. “I got a headline for you: city kids waste everyone’s time.” The police officers started laughing. 

“Boy, I’d be pretty embarrassed if I was you two,” snorted Thompson Determined. 

“Kids, Ria, Fidds, lifeless wax figures… Thank you all for coming,” said Dipper, at the funeral service that he had set up in the parlour room. Wax Dipper’s body lay in a coffin next to him, his hand still in extending his perpetual thmumbs-up. “Some people might say it’s wrong for a man to love a wax figure of himself,” he continued. 

“They’re wrong!” shouted Ria, who was blowing her nose loudly.

“Easy, Ria,” said Dipper, trying to calm her down, even though he was almost crying himself. “Wax Dipper, I hope you’re picking pockets in wax heaven.” He wiped away the tears that had started to build up in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I just got some glitter in my eye!” he yelled, running down the aisle and out of the room. Ria ran out soon afterwards, sobbing. 

Ford sighed. “Those cops were right about me.”

“Don’ be like that, Stanferd,” said Fiddleford, patting him on the back. “At least ya tried. They were just goin’ ter give up.”

“Yeah,” agreed Stan. “Anyway, we’ve come so far! We can’t just give up now! I brought my brass knuckles along with me and everything.”

“But I considered everything,” said Ford, walking up to Wax Dipper’s coffin. “The weapon, the motive, the clues… Huh, Wax Dipper’s shoe has a hole in it. That’s a weird coincidence.”

“Oh, all the wax guys have those,” clarified Stan. “It’s where the pole thingy attaches to their stand dealies.”

“Wait a minute! What has a hole in its shoes and no fingerprints?” 

Fiddleford gasped. “But that means that the murderers are-”

“Standing right behind you?” said a voice with a thick upper-class British accent. The trio turned to see Wax Sherlock Holmes standing by the door, as the rest of the wax figures began to come to life, rising out of their seats and stumbling towards them. A Wax Lizzie Borden grabbed the axe from Stan, as Wax Holmes advanced on the group.

“Congratulations, my three amateur sleuths. You’ve unburied the truth, and now… we’re going to bury you ,” said Holmes, menacingly. “Bravo for discovering our little secret, by the way.” He pulled Wax Dipper’s head out from beneath his cape. “Applaud, everyone, applaud sarcastically.”

The other wax figures began to clap enthusiastically. 

“No, no, no, not like that,” corrected Wax Holmes. “That sounds far too sincere. Slow clapping, please. Ah, there we go, nice and condescending.”

“But this is impossible!” protested Ford. “You’re all made of wax!”

“Are you magic?” asked Stan.

“I’ll never understan’ how you two’re up fer the idea of a lake monster but can’ get yer heads aroun’ the idea a’ wax people,” said Fidds. 

“We’re not magic, child!” said Wax Sherlock Holmes, crossly. “We’re cursed !”

“Cursed! Cursed!” chanted the rest of the wax figures. 

“Cursed to come to life whenever the moon is waxing,” continued Wax Sherlock Holmes, who was now staring dramatically into the middle distance. “Your uncle made us many years ago using wax that he bought at an arts and crafts sale.”

“A haunted arts and crafts sale, son!” said Wax Coolio, poking Stan. 

“And so, the Mystery Shack Wax Collection was born. By day, we were forced to be the playthings of man.”

“But when your uncle went to sleep, we ruled da night.”

“It was a charmed life for us cursed beings. That is, until your uncle decided that we were no longer turning in enough profits to warrant our keeping,” said Holmes, his face darkening. “Ever since that day, ten years ago, we’ve been waiting for a chance to exact our revenge upon Dipper Pines. But when we did get that chance… we got the wrong guy.”

“Wait, you were trying to murder Grunkle Dipper for real ?!” asked Ford, shocked. 

“You were right all along, Sixer!” said Stan. “Wax people are super creepy!”

“Enough, children!” said Wax Holmes. “Now that you know our secret, you must DIE!” His eyes rolled back into his head, leaving only the whites visible. 

“I’ll admit, this is on a whole other level, even fer this weird town,” said Fidds, as the trio began to back away from the wax figures, only stopping when they reached the table under the window, where a selection of untouched food for after the funeral was laid out. 

“What are we gonna do?” asked Stan, desperately. “I don’t think that my brass knuckles are gonna work on these jerks!”

“I don’t know!” said Ford. “The Journal never mentioned anything about cursed wax people!”

Fiddleford grabbed a stack of plates and started throwing them at the advancing figures. “Sorry, Mr Pines,” he said, as they smashed on the floor, “But I’d rather I weren’t murdered by a bunch a’ wax jerks today.”

The twins quickly followed suit, throwing anything that might stop the wax figures - even the packet of biscuits, which Stan had been eyeing since the end of the funeral, but which he decided would be going towards a better cause. Soon, there was almost nothing left. Ford snatched the full pitcher of coffee and threw its contents over Wax Genghis Khan, who was about to bring his sword down on Fiddleford (and whether or not a wax sword could actually do any damage was not something that any of them were in the mood to find out).

Wax Genghis Khan screamed as his face turned brown and began to melt. He staggered backwards and fell to the floor, where the other wax figures ignored him.

The trio stared at the now-empty coffee pitcher.

“Well, that was horrifyin’,” remarked Fidds. 

“That’s it!” shouted Stan. “We can melt them with all the hotty-melty type things! Do we have any of those?”

“We have a few a’ those electric candles fer the memorial service.”

“Yes!” yelled Ford, ecstatic (as one would be) at the realisation that they would not be murdered by wax people today, or probably any day to come - although in a town like Gravity Falls, who knew? 

Stan, Ford, and Fidds each grabbed a candle, and held them out before them like swords, warning the wax figures to stay away. 

“If any of you move, and we’ll melt you down into candles,” threatened Ford, as the wax people retreated. 

“ Decorative candles,” added Stan. 

Wax Sherlock Holmes drew himself up haughtily. “Do you really think that you can defeat us? You don’t stand a chance!”

“Hey!” said Stan. “I have brass knuckles, an’ I know how to use ‘em, so you’d better watch out!”

“Honestly,” said Wax Holmes, sighing, “it’s almost funny how you think that you can actually go up against us and have even a hope of surviving. But you leave me no choice… Attack!” The wax figures lurched forwards, their eyes still pupil-less whites. Wax Lizzie Borden took a swing at Stan with her axe, but he ducked, and she ended up accidentally decapitating Wax Robin Hood instead. He ran, cutting off Wax Shakespeare’s arms and hands as he went, only for one of them to almost strangle him until he reached the doorway and opened and closed the door on it until it let go.

Ford and Fidds were facing off with Wax Larry King and Wax Groucho Marx.

“Interview this , Larry King!” yelled Ford, cutting his head off with a candle.

“My neck! My beautiful neck!” cried the head of Wax Larry King, as it hopped about on the floor. His body tried to chase after it, but ended up stumbling around and bumping into the other wax people.

Wax Groucho Marx tried to grab Fidds’s candle, but only succeeded in melting his hand. Fiddleford swiped his candle through Wax Marx’s torso, cutting him in half.

“Hah! Jokes on you, Groucho!” laughed Ford.

“I can already sense that this is goin’ ter be quite ment’lly scarrin’,” said Fiddleford, watching in a sort of horrified fascination as the top half of Wax Groucho Marx slowly slid to the floor. 

Suddenly, Wax Genghis Khan ran up behind them, roaring through the dripping remains of his face. The two jumped to the side, and he landed in the fire, causing him to melt.

“Genghis Khan, you fell harder than the… er…”

“Jin dynasty?” suggested Fiddleford. 

“Yeah!” said Ford. “The Jin dynasty! Ok, let’s go help Stan.”

Stan, however, did not seem to be requiring much help. He had chopped off Wax Coolio’s head and was using it to knock down any wax person who came near him. 

“Ford, watch out!” he yelled. 

Ford looked up from cutting off Wax Richard Nixon’s leg to see Wax Sherlock Holmes advancing on him, brandishing a sword. 

“Time’s up, boy!” he snarled, knocking the candle out of Ford’s hand. With the sword. It fractured and fell to the floor, useless. 

“Catch!” shouted Stan, throwing Ford a poker that he had heated up in the fire, so that Ford could block the sword which, he had discovered, was turning out to be very, very real. 

Oh, Grunkle Dipper, why couldn’t you have just made the weapons out of wax as well?

Wax Holmes swung the sword at him again, forcing to retreat up the stairs and into the attic, as he desperately tried to parry the sword blows. 

“Once you and your family are finally out of our way, we’ll rule the night once more!” gloated Wax Holmes, cornering Ford in front of the door to the twins’ bedroom. He raised his sword…

“Don’t count on it!” yelled Ford, ducking between Holmes’s legs, causing him to embed the sword in the wall. He dashed to the window and pushed it open, then jumped out onto the awning so that he could climb up onto the roof. Wax Holmes followed him after pulling his sword out of the wall, finally catching up with him on top of the giant ‘Mystery Shack’ sign that covered one side of the roof. 

“You can’t run forever!” he screamed, waving the sword at Ford again. Ford managed to get out of the way just in time, and Holmes dislodged the ‘S’ from the sign instead. 

“Do you really think that you have any chance of outwitting me, boy? I’m Sherlock bleeding Holmes! Have you seen the size of my magnifying glass? It’s enormous!”

Ford dropped the poker, and grabbed onto the top of the ‘Mystery’ sign with both hands, hauling himself up. Once he reached the top, he jumped over onto the other side of the roof, and slid down to the flat part over the top of one of the windows, so that he could hide behind the chimney. He glanced around, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw the roof was deserted. 

“Any last words?!” shouted Holmes, kicking him in the back. Ford scrambled away, only to realise he was trapped. He had come to the edge of the roof. Wax Holmes raised his sword for a final time.

“Uh…” said Ford. “You got any sunscreen?”

“Got any what ?” Holmes looked up as wax began to drip onto his shoulders, and gasped as he realised that the sun was already rising. “No!”

“You know,” said Ford, standing up, “letting me lead you outside probably wasn’t your sharpest decision.”

“Outsmarted by a child?! Fiddlesticks! Humbug! Butter hullabaloo!” He melted into a puddle that slowly slid off the roof. 

“Case closed!” said Ford, wiping his hands together. The dust rose up in a cloud, making him sneeze.

“Ha!” laughed Holmes. “You sneeze like a kitten! Those policemen were right; you’re adorable!” The remains of his face slid off the roof and splashed to the ground below.

“Ew,” remarked Ford, as he watched him go.

Fidds and Stan were still in the parlour, throwing the last few parts of the wax people into the fire. 

“Though our group be left in twain, man of wax shall rise agayn!” said the head of Wax Shakespeare, as Stan picked it up. 

“D’you know any limericks?” he asked. 

“Er… There once was a man from Kentucky-”

“Nope!” said Stan, throwing the head into the fire. “Ford, you’re ok!” he exclaimed, when he saw Ford coming in through the door. “I knew you’d solve the mystery in the end!”

“Well, I couldn’t have done it without my sidekicks,” said Ford, surveying the mess that the melted wax figures had made of the room. Stan had incinerated all of the larger pieces, and Fiddleford was attacking the rest of the mess with a mop. It was a valiant effort, but unsuccessful. Wax Dipper’s head had been put on the table at the far end of the room for safekeeping.

“No offence, Ford, but you’re the sidekick,” said Stan, bluntly. 

“What? No-one says that!” objected Ford. “Do people say that?” he whispered to Fiddleford. Fidds just shrugged, and returned to trying to clean a particularly stubborn bit of wax out of the carpet.

“Hot Belgian waffles!” Dipper surveyed the destruction as he walked into the room. “What happened to my parlour?!”

“Well, your wax figures turned out to be alive, and they tried to kill us, so we fought them to the death!” said Stan.

“As crazy as this all sounds, it’s mos’ unfortunately true,” confirmed Fidds. 

“I decapitated Larry King,” added Ford. 

“Ha! You kids and your imaginations!”

“But, on the bright side, look what we found,” said Ford, tossing him Wax Dipper’s head. 

“My head! I missed this guy!” said Dipper, hugging it. “You know what, I think it’s time you lined up for some affectionate noogie-ing!”

“Do we have any other choice?” asked Ford, as Dipper began to noogie them. The twins began to laugh.

“Hey, it’s the police officers!” Fiddelford pointed through the now-smashed window to where Sheriff Nate and Deputy Lee had just driven up in their police car. 

“Solved the case yet, boy?” Nate shouted to Ford. “You know what, I’m so confident that you haven’t that I’m gonna just take a long, slow sip of my coffee.”

“Actually, the answer is yes,” said Ford, holding out Wax Dipper’s head. 

Nate spat his coffee into Lee’s face. The deputy screamed, and spat it back at Nate, who spat it back at him. They continued doing this as they drove off down the road, still screaming. 

“Well, they certainly got scalded!” joked Dipper. In the distance, there was a faint crash. 

“So, did you guys get rid of all the wax figures?” Ford asked the other two.

“Pretty sure,” said Fiddleford.

“Ninety-nine percent certain!” confirmed Stan.

In the vent, Wax Larry King’s head watched on, grinning. He started to laugh, only to realise that there was a rat watching him in turn. 

“So, er, you’re a rat,” he said. “Tell me about that.”

The rat did not seem interested. Instead, it bit his ear off, and ran off down the tunnel. 

“Hey, get back here!” he shouted, hopping down the vent after it. “I’m hopping! I’m hopping after the rat that stole my ear!”

Chapter Text

“And, for tonight’s final exhibit, we have the ‘Pig of Mystery’!” said Dipper, leading the tourists inside, where Waddles was sitting on a podium, wearing a special pig sweater that Dipper had knitted himself. “When you give him money, it mysteriously disappears! Or sweets. Or anything, really. This pig is just one of a kind.”

The tourists nodded in agreement as they fed wads of cash to Waddles. 

In the sitting room, the twins were watching TV with Ria. 

“The tiger was badly injured in the explosion, but we repaired him using a fist!” declared the cheerful voice on the TV, which was now displaying a tiger punching itself with a fist that had been attached to its side. 

The group cheered.

“Tiger Fist will return after these messages.”

An advert started, showing a group of doves being released over a pale blue background.

“Hey, it’s that commercial I was telling you guys about,” said Ria, pointing. “Everybody in town’s talking about it.”

“Are you completely miserable?” asked a voice-over.

“Yes!” answered a sobbing man.

“Then you need to meet..” The voice-over dropped down to a whisper. “Bud.”

“Who on earth is Bud?” asked Ford. 

“And why’s he special?” added Stan.

“He’s psychic!” said the voice-over.

“Whaaat?” Stan cocked his head, sceptically.

The image on the screen switched to a picture of Dipper with the word ‘Fraud’ stamped over him in red block letters. “So don’t waste your time with other so-called ‘men of mystery’. Learn about it tomorrow night at Lil’ Bud’s Tent of Telepathy!” A large block of text scrolled up the screen, displaying various Ts&Cs. 

“Wow, I’m getting all curiousy inside!” said Stan. 

“Well, don’t get too curiousy, kid,” said Grunkle Dipper, walking in. “Ever since Bud and his overbearing grandpa rolled into town, I’ve had nothing but trouble. The monsters keep on stealing my parking places!”

“I don’t think you can steal parking places, Grunkle Dipper,” reasoned Ford. “They’re more of a first-come-first-serve sort of thing.”

“Yeah, well I would’ve been there first if they hadn’t beaten me to it!”

“Is he really psychic?” asked Stan. 

“I think we should go find out,” Ford said, standing up. 

“No way!” said Dipper, who had now switched his blazer for his shooting star sweater. “No-one that lives under my roof is allowed to go anywhere near Bud’s roof!”

“Do tents have roofs?” asked Ford.

“I think that we just found our loophole,” whispered Stan, as Dipper stormed out of the room. “Literally!” He held up a piece of sting with a loophole in it and flicked it into Ford’s hair. “Haha!”

“Staan!”

“What? It’s not like you wash it anyway.”

“So come down soon folks!” said the voice-over. “Bud is expecting you!”

The crowd was streaming into the Tent of Telepathy. Ford had never seen so many of Gravity Falls’s residents all in one place - he suspected that Grunkle Dipper was less angry about parking spaces and more angry about Lil’ Bud stealing all of his customers from him, something that he was doing very successfully. 

“Step right up, folks!” called a man at the entrance, who was wearing a baby-blue coloured suit and had an enormous poof of white hair that clearly contained several cans worth of hair spray. “Come and put your money into Bud’s Psychic Sack! It makes things magically disappear!” 

The twins, Ria, and Fidds sat down in the front row, as close to the stage as possible. Ford was determined to examine Lil’ Bud’s performance and determine whether or not he was actually a psychic. 

“It’s like a classy rip-off a’ the Shack,” said Fidds, handing a bucket of popcorn to Stan. 

“Yeah,” agreed Stan, grabbing a handful and stuffing it into his mouth. “It’s weird. They even have their own Ria and everything.” He pointed to a woman who looked suspiciously like Ria who was fixing a light near the back of the tent. Ria glared at her.

“Guys, it’s starting,” said Ford, tugging on Ria’s arm before the handywoman (whose name tag read ‘Mia’) noticed the glare. “Let’s see what this ‘monster’ really looks like.”

A spotlight was shone onto the blue curtains that masked the stage. It revealed the silhouette of an apparently hulking figure that was slowly advancing towards the curtains. Ford braced himself, in case ‘Lil’ Bud’ turned out to actually be one of the strange monsters of Gravity Falls. At this point, he wouldn’t be too surprised.

The curtains parted, revealing a boy who couldn’t have been any older than the twins, wearing the smaller version of the suit that the man who had been collecting the attendees’ money at the entrance had been wearing. His hairstyle was also a smaller version of the entrance man’s, but it was brown instead of white.

“He-llo America! My name is Lil’ Bud!” He clapped twice, and a flock of doves flew out of his jacket. 

The audience cheered. 

“You know, I think Dipper hasn’t really thought through the whole ‘proclaiming a child as your mortal enemy’ thing,” said Ford. 

“He’s so wittle!” cooed Ria.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is such a gift to have you here tonight! Such a gift. And I have a vision for you… I predict that you will soon all go ‘aww’.” He struck a cute pose. The audience went ‘aww’.

“It came true!” whispered Stan, excitedly.

“I’m not impressed,” said Ford. “Anyone could have done that.”

“You’re impressed,” insisted Stan.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Hit it, grandpa!” called Bud, from the stage. Gideon immediately started playing a jaunty tune on the barrel organ to the left-hand side of stage.

“Oh, I can see what others can’t see ” sang Lil’ Bud, throwing his embroidered cape into the audience, who promptly began fighting over it. “It ain’t some sideshow trick, it’s an innate ability. Where others are blind, I am futurely inclined. And you too could see, if you was widdle ol’ me! ” He started dancing towards the front of the stage. “Now, come on everybody, rise up! Y’all need to keep it going!”

As if under an enchantment, each row of the audience stood up in turn and started clapping along to the beat.

“How did he-?” Ford gasped.

“I have ta admit that this is gettin’ a bit weird,” said Fiddleford.

Up on the stage, Bud was wowing people with his ability to predict the obvious. 

“You wish your son would call you more! ” he sang to an old lady sitting in the third row, who was absolutely covered in cats. 

“He ain’t gettin’ nothing outta my will! Everything’s going to my cats!”

“I sense that you’ve been here before! ” He pointed to Sheriff Nate. The Sheriff had clearly bought at least half of the Tent of Telepathy’s gift shop, and was cradling three Lil’ Bud plushies in each arm.

“What gave it away?”

“Oh, come on,” muttered Ford.

“I’ll read your mind, if I can,” sang Bud to Stan. “I get the feeling your name’s Stan! ”

“How d’you think he did that?” Stan whispered.

“Stan, you’re literally wearing the sweater with your name on it that Grunkle Dipper made you,” said Ford, exasperated. 

“But what if it was magic?”

“Lee, no.”

“So welcome all of ye… ” Bud stretched his arms wide. “ ...to the Tent of Telepathy! ”

The crowd exploded with applause. 

“Thank you!” said Lil’ Bud. “Thank y’all very much! Just remember that you people are the real miracles here!”

“I can’t believe we actually managed to find someone who’s an even bigger fraud than Grunkle Dipper,” remarked Ford, as they filed out of the tent.

“But his dancing was so cute!” said Stan. “And his hair’s so floofy, Sixer! It’s like one giant floof!”

“You are way too easily impressed.”

“Yeah, yeah, well I guess I just appreciate the true wonders of having floofy hair, since I myself-”

“Stan, you don’t have floofy hair, no matter how much you want to.”

“I do too!”

“Poindexter!” cried Stan, running up to the table, where Ford was studying the Journal for what was probably the hundredth time. “I successfully bedazzled my face! I’m well on my way to becoming an arts and crafts master now, just like Grunkle Dipper.” He pointed to the blue, purple and pink sequins that were stuck all over his face. A few had even managed to get stuck in his hair, making him look somewhat like a living glitterball. 

“Are you still able to blink with those on?” asked Ford, incredulous.

“Yep! It hurts a lot, though.”

Ford sighed. “Stanley, do you perhaps think that this is not the best idea you’ve had?”

“Actually, I think that I’m underappreciated in my time. Grunkle Dipper agrees with me. He says that letting out your inner creativity is very important for-”

The doorbell rang loudly. Or rather, there was a small explosion. Fiddleford had replaced the old one yesterday using one of his ‘upgrades’, and Dipper hadn’t had time to switch it out for something that worked yet. 

“Could someone answer that door before the bell explodes again?” shouted Dipper from the kitchen.

“I’ve got it!” said Stan, rushing over.

“Thank you!”

He opened the door, only to find himself face to face with Lil’ Bud himself. Or, more accurately, face to hair with Lil’ Bud. If he wanted to be face to face, he would have to bend down. 

“Howdy, Stanley,” he said.

Stan gasped. “It’s widdle ol’ you!”

“My song’s that catchy, huh?” Bud grinned nervously. “Look, I know we’ve never really… formally met, or anything, but when I felt that you must be a kindred spirit.”

“Really? Is that, like, part of your special psychicness or something?” asked Stan.

“It very well may be,” said Bud, sagely. “And now that I’m here, I can see I was right! I’ve always wanted to meet someone else with a healthy appreciation for the sparkly things in life.”

“Well, sounds like me to me!” said Stan. “I’m actually training to become an arts and craft master. Usually my Grunkle Dipper would help me, but he’s busy right now.”

“Kids, who’s at the door?” Dipper yelled from the kitchen again. The sound of a blender could be heard, indicating that he was making another batch of the infamous ‘Dipper Juice’. “Whatever they’re selling, I’m not buying!”

“It’s no-one!” shouted back Stan.

“Eh? What’d you say?”

“It’s no-one!”

“Mailmen these days, always running away just because that darned doorbell keeps blowing up. It’s not even a very large explosion!”

Stan turned back to Bud, who was still standing in the doorway. 

“I appreciate your discretion,” whispered Bud. “I know that Dipper isn’t such a fan of mine. I don’t…” He paused, before rolling his sleeve up and reading something that was written on his arm. “I don’t know how a lemon so sour could be related to a peach so sweet.”

“Aww, thanks, Bud!”

“Well, I was thinking that we could go somewhere and chat a bit more?” asked Bud, hopefully. “I have so many arts and crafts things back in my dressing room.”

“Oh, cool!”

“Hey, Sixer,” said Stan, as he squeezed the massive scrapbooking kit that Lil’ Bud had lent him through the door to the sitting room. “Whatcha doin’?”

Ford looked up from his mystery novel. “Stan, why are you trying to bring a coffin through the door?” 

“It’s not a coffin, Poindexter.” Stan folded his arms indignantly. “It’s Bud’s scrapbooking set! He lent it to me.”

Ford stared. 

“What?”

“Why is it so big? I mean, how much equipment does scrapbooking require? Is it, like, hazardous or something?”

Stan sighed in mock disappointment. “Oh, brother, I can see that you, unlike me, are not a connoisseur of the fine art of scrapbooking.”

“That doesn’t answer my question at all, Lee.”

“Eh.” Stan flopped down onto the armchair next to Ford upside down and wiggled his legs in the air. “Look, Sixer, it’s like I’m walking on the ceiling!”

“Wonderful,” murmured Ford, who had returned to his book. Suddenly he looked up. “Wait. Who gave that to you?”

Stan rolled over. “Bud, remember? He’s actually pretty cool to hang out with, even though he’s probably about as tall as a nine-year-old.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“Why not?!”

“Firstly, his hair is bigger than his head. Secondly, he’s literally running a con show! We clearly can’t trust him!”

“Well, that’s not fair,” huffed Stan. “Grunkle Dipper runs a con show, and we still trust him.”

“But the hair, Stanley.”

“Well, I want to be friends with him. It’s not fair that you get to go and do nerd stuff with Fidds and all I can do is either wait for Grunkle Dipper to finish up in the shop or try to tag along and eventually zone out.”

Ford gave him an incredulous look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Just then, the doorbell blew up, and Fiddleford entered through a cloud of greenish-grey smoke. 

“Hey, Ford,” he said, waving a VHS tape in the air. “I just found an old copy of this show about interdimensional portals in my great-aunt’s cabin. Wanna come watch it with me?”

“Sure!” shouted Ford, running out of the rather charred door.

“Whoa, your family’s factory has one of the best views I’ve ever seen!” said Stan. He was sitting on the roof, next to Bud. Below them, the town was spread out like a map, nestled in the valley of Gravity Falls. Stan could even catch a glimpse of the Shack, and Dan, who was hiding by the log cupboard to avoid work. Again.

“Well, it’s a good thing we both brought our…” started Bud.

“Opera glasses!” Stan whipped out the pair that he had found in one of the kitchen cupboards. Why Grunkle Dipper even owned them in the first place, he had no idea, but they made a good alternative for binoculars.

“Stanley,” said Bud, “When I’m up here, looking down and seein’ everything lookin’ so small, I feel like I’m king. And, well, I guess that makes you king with me!”

“What?!” Stan laughed nervously. This felt like it was getting a little too serious. “Why’re you being so nice right now? Stop it!” He elbowed Bud jokingly in the stomach. 

“I can’t stop it, Stanley. I’m speaking from the heart.”

“From the where now?” asked Stan, still trying desperately to cool down the situation. 

“I-I’ve never…” Bud stuttered. “I’ve never felt this close with anyone in my life, Stanley.”

Stan looked away. “Bud, here’s the thing…” He paused. “Look, I like you, but only really in a… friend sort of way.”

Bud was undeterred. “At least give me a chance! Will you do me the honour of going out on a date with me this evening?”

“Like… a play date?”

“Nope.”

“Or a… shopping date?”

“Nope. Look, it’ll just be one date. I swear it on my lucky tie!”

“Well… I guess? So long as it’s only one.”

Bud beamed. “Stanley Pines, you have just made me the happiest boy in the whole world!”

“It’s not like it’s a date-date, ok?” said Stan, as he and Ford sat on the armchair together, playing an old video game they had found in the attic. “I just didn’t want to hurt his feelings. And anyway, he promised we’d only go on one.”

“He’ll fall in love with you,” said Ford, matter-of-factly. 

“Pfff. Even I’m not that lovable.” He finished destroying the last of Ford’s army. “Kaboom! Yeah!”

“Ok, we agree on something here.”

The doorbell blew up.

“Ugh, not again,” groaned Ford. “Why is everyone stopping by the Shack today? I swear we never get this many visitors.”

Stan got up to answer the door before the doorbell exploded again. He screamed.

“Hello, m’lord,” said Bud, from where he was perched precariously atop the horse that was now standing in the crumbling doorway. “A night of enchantment awaits!” He attempted to doff his baby-blue cowboy hat, but ended up dropping it onto the ground. He spent a few moments stretching his arms uselessly. “Er. Could you be so kind as to-?” He gestured to the hat.

“I can’t believe they let us bring your horse in here!” said Stan, as he gazed around the lavishly decorated restaurant. He had to admit, Bud had clearly pulled out all the stops to try and impress him; he’d never seen anywhere so fancy.

“Well, people have a hard time saying no to me,” said Bud. He twisted in his seat until he could reach the very end of his feet up onto the table. 

“Ah, Monsieur Gleeful,” said a waiter in a thick French accent. “Ze feet on ze table - an excellent choice!” He skillfully poured water into their glasses, and then departed.

Stan pressed his face up against his glass. “The water has bubbles in it! Ooh la la, oui oui,” he added, in a rather butchered French accent.

“Oh, parlez-vous français?” asked Bud.

“Er…” Stan gave up. “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

“Hey, hey!” shouted Dipper, as he walked into the gift shop, only to see his nephew’s face emblazoned across the front cover of the Gravity Falls Gossiper, which Ria was flicking through as she leaned against the counter. “What’s Stan doing in the paper next to that crazy kid Lil’ Bud? I thought I told you that you weren’t to go anywhere near him or his creepy grandfather.”

“They went on a date tonight,” said Dan. “It’s kinda a big deal.”

“What?! That little fraud is dating my great-nephew!” He grabbed the magazine from Ria and crumpled it into a ball.

“I wonder what their ship name will be,” said Ria, who didn’t seem to mind the loss of her magazine. “Stanbud? Budstan? Ooh…” She gasped. “What about Stabudan!”

Dipper marched over to the coat hook and pulled on his suit.

“I didn’t know!” called Ford. “I didn’t hear about it! And I told him not to go!”

“Yeah, well it ends tonight,” said Dipper, ignoring him. “I’m going right down to that little skunk’s house, and this is gonna stop right now!” He strode out of the Shack, slamming the door shut behind him. 

“Dudes, wouldn’t it be funny if that was a closet, and he had to walk back out again and go out of the real door?” said Ria. 

The other two looked at her blankly. 

Ria went over to the door and opened it. “Nope. ‘S a real door.”

Dipper slammed his foot down on the brakes, and the Pinesmobile screeched to a halt outside Gideon’s house. There was a billboard with a picture of Bud plastered across it, next to the words ‘Home of Lil’ Bud, National Treasure’. 

“National menace, more like,” snorted Dipper, as he marched over to the front door. “Open up, Gideon, you punk! Why is your son dating my nephew! I demand answers!” He banged on the door, tearing off the floral ‘Pardon This Garden’ sign in his anger. “I will pardon nothing!” 

Suddenly, the door flew open. 

“Gideon Gleeful,” snarled Dipper. “Where’s my nephew?”

“Well, that’s certainly no way to greet an old friend,” said Gideon, putting an arm around Dipper’s shoulders. “Now, why don’t you come on inside, and we can have some coffee, hmm?”

“But I-” protested Dipper.

“No buts!” said Gideon, pushing him inside. “It’s specially imported, all the way from Columbia!”

“Wow,” said Dipper, impressed. “I went to jail there once. But that doesn’t change anything!” He started suddenly, noticing one of the old photographs that were framed on the wall. “Hey, why’ve you still got a picture of my sister, Gideon?” he asked angrily.

“Well, she was always such a beauty…” said Gideon, bringing over two cups of coffee. “I must admit that I never really moved on. It is such a shame that she died so young.”

“That’s not a compliment, that’s creepy! Take it down!”

“Now, now, Mr Pines,” Gideon said consolingly, patting Dipper on the back. “Why don’t you just try to calm down a little, and I can explain why you really should not break up the blossoming romance between our two young charges, hmm?”

Dipper grumbled, but sat down nonetheless.

“You see, the reason your dear nephew didn’t tell you about all of this was because he just knew that you would react exactly like this,” said Gideon. “And isn’t it such a beautiful love story? Two young children, defying the resentment that their families have for one another to be together. Don’t tell me that you would separate them.”

Dipper stared at Gideon for a few seconds, before bursting into tears. “It’s… so… sweet!” he sobbed. “Who am I to break them up?”

Gideon offered him a tissue box. Dipper grabbed the whole box and buried his face in it.

“And so I said, er…” Bud paused. “Oh yeah, I said, ‘autograph your own head, short lady’!” He laughed nervously at his own (rather lacking) joke.

“Um, yeah,” said Stan. He was having to fight off the extremely aggressive live lobster on his plate with his fork. It was not going well.

“Well, Stanley, I think that tonight’s date was a complete success!” said Bud, confidently. “And tomorrow’s promises to top this one in every way possible!”

“Wait, what?” Stan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You said it was only one!”

“Oh, er, what a surprise!” said Bud, in the most staged act of surprise that one could possibly perform. “It’s a red-crested South American rainbow macaw!” A huge bird flew out from the nearby curtains and landed on Bud’s arm, making him tilt sideways slightly.

“Ahh!” shouted Stan. He grabbed the lobster and waved it at the bird in an effort to defend himself. 

“One, two, three, four,” said Bud. “Now!”

“STANLEY! WILL! YOU! ACCOMPANY! BUD! TO! THE! BALLROOM! DANCE! THIS! THURBDAY!” squawked the macaw. Bud shook it. “THURSDAY!” It coughed up a letter enclosed in a bright pink envelope before flying off lopsidedly. 

“Oh, so adorable,” cooed a woman at another table.

“Bud’s got a boyfriend!” said the chef.

“They’re expectin’ us,” whispered Bud, holding the letter out to Stan. “Please say you’ll go?”

Stan glanced around at the group of people who had gathered around the table, hanging on their every word. “Look, Bud, I’m really sorry, but I’m going to have to-”

“I’m on the edge of my seat,” said Sheriff Nate.

“This is gonna be adorable,” agreed Tyler Cutebiker.

An old lady clasped her hands together. “If he says no, I’ll die of sadness.”

“I can verify that that will indeed happen,” said a doctor, who was standing to her right.

Stan sat there worriedly, as the whole crowd began to urge him to say yes.

“Hey, Stan!” said Ford, as Stan walked past him despondently. “How’d it go?” he asked cheerily - he had failed to notice Stan’s disquiet.

“I don’t know, but I guess I have a lobster now.” He opened the lid to the aquarium tank in the corner and dropped the lobster inside. 

“Well, at least it’s over and you won’t ever have to go out with him again, right?” said Ford, confidently. He frowned when Stan didn’t respond, instead opting to occupy himself with staring at the lobster. “It is over, Stanley? Stanley?”

“Blargh!” shouted Stan, turning round. “He asked me out again, and everyone wanted me to say yes, so I didn’t know how to say no!”

“Like this! ‘No’!”

“It’s not that easy, Sixer! ‘Cause I do like Bud, but only as a friend slash little brother, so I don’t wanna hurt his feelings!” Stan sighed. “I just need things to go back to how they used to be. You know, friends.”

“Boatin’ at night, boatin’ at night!” chuckled Candy, as she rowed Bud and Stan out into the middle of the lake. 

“You know, I kinda thought that the dancing was gonna be the end of the evening, right?” joked Stan, nervously. 

“But don’t you want this evening to last, my sweet?” asked Bud, taking Stan’s hands in his. 

“No!” Stan quickly pulled away. “I mean, yes. I mean, I’m always happy to hang out with a friend , or like, a buddy, pal, chum, er, what’s another word for friend…”

“Pal?” suggested Candy.

“No, I already said that,” said Stan. “Uh, mate?”

“How about… soulmate?” whispered Bud.

Stan heard the sound of fireworks going off, and looked up in horror to see his name framed by a giant red heart displayed in the sky over the lake.

“Well, ya can’t say no to that,” said Candy, matter-of-factly.

“He’s been so nice, but I can’t keep doing this!” Stan was pacing circles in the living room, clearly fretting over last night’s ‘date’. “But I can’t break his heart, either! Ugh, why does this have to be so hard !”

“Woah, what the heck happened last night?” asked Ford, walking into the room once he realised the distress Stan was in.

“I don’t know! I was in the friend zone, but then, before I knew what was going on, I was pulled into the romance zone!” said Stan, dramatically. “It was like quicksand! Chubby quicksand! ” he hissed.

Ford put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Lee. It’s not like you have to marry him or anything.”

At that moment, Dipper burst into the living room wearing a ‘Team Stabudan’ t-shirt. “Good news, kid! I’ve already started planning you and Bud’s wedding!”

“What?!” shrieked Stan.

“Look, I know you’ll have to wait, but Gideon Gleeful convinced me that you two’re destined to end up together, so I thought, why not start now? I even made this t-shirt!”

Stan stared at him for a few moments, before running out of the room, screaming.

“Huh. Thought you’d be more excited.”

The door to the twins’ attic bedroom creaked slightly as Ford eased it open.

 “Oh no.” He could see Stan curled up in a ball in the corner, shirt pulled up over his head so that no-one could see his face. “Stan?”

“Stan’s not here. He’s in Shirt City.”

“Well,” said Ford hopefully, as he walked over. “Are you going to come out of Shirt City?”

Stan considered it, before shaking his head emphatically. 

“Ok. What if I broke up with Bud for you?

“You would do that?” asked Stan, peeking out over the collar of his shirt.

Ford nodded.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” said Stan happily, as he pulled his shirt down and hugged Ford as tightly as he could. “You’re the best, Poindexter!”

Ford walked into the club nervously, looking around at the entrance for any sign of Bud. The place was so packed full of people that it took him a while to spot him in amongst all of the couples, but he eventually located him in a large club-shaped chair at the back of the room. Trust Bud to book the table with the biggest chair, he thought to himself as he crossed the shiny chequered floor.

“Oh, Stanford Pines, how are you?” asked Bud, putting down the menu which appeared to be almost twice his size. “You look good.”

“Oh, er, thanks…” Ford rubbed the back of his head worriedly. “Look, Bud, we’ve got to talk. Stan… er, well, Stan kind of sort of doesn;t want to date you anymore, you know how it is…” He laughed nervously, and made a feeble set of finger guns in an attempt to lighten the mood a little. “You aren’t going to freak out or anything like that, are you?”

Bud said nothing for a while, his face remaining largely expressionless. Suddenly, he burst into a wide smile. “Why, of course not, Stanford. These things do happen, you know!”

“Oh.” Ford was rather surprised by how easy that had been. “Ok. Cool.” He started backing away, conscious that Bud might still become angry about his rejection. “Uh, then again, sorry, dude, but hey, thumbs up, huh?” 

“So, how’d it go?” asked Stan, as soon as he got outside. “Was he mad? Did he try to read your mind with his psychic powers?”

“Don’t worry, Lee; he’s just a kid. He can’t do anything. And he seemed to be taking it well just now.”

“Er… Dad?” asked Bud cautiously, peering round the door into Gideon’s room. “So, you know Stan…”

“Yes? I trust that everything went well on your date?” Gideon got up from the desk where he had been examining an old book. “You know how important it is that we keep close relations with the Pines family.”

Bud fidgeted with the lapel of his jacket. “Actually, Stan didn’t come.” He paused, hoping that Gideon wasn’t mad at him. “Stanford told me that he didn’t want to go out with me anymore.”

There was silence for a moment. Gideon sighed. “Well, I suppose that there’s nothing we can do. You can leave now.”

Bud quickly slipped out of the room. Once he had gone, Gideon slammed his fist onto the table.

“You’ve just made the biggest mistake of your life, Stanford Pines !”

“Hit me, dudes!” said Ria. The twins charged, bouncing off of the pillow stuffed under her Mystery Shack t-shirt, and lay on the ground, laughing. “Feels good.”

“I’m just so glad that everything’s finally back to normal,” said Stan, sitting up. “Bud even called me this morning and asked if we could still be friends!” The telephone rang shrilly. “Your turn,” he added, quickly.

“Your…” started Ford. “Aw, man,” he complained, making his way over to the gift shop. “Hello?”

“Thompson Determined, Gravity Falls Gossiper!”

“Oh, hey man. Sorry for incorrectly accusing you of murder last week. We were kind of caught up in the moment.”

“Water under the bridge,” said Thompson casually. “But here’s the thing: we wanna interview you about whether you’ve seen anything unusual in this town since you’ve arrived.”

“Oh yes, finally! I thought nobody would ever ask!” Ford grabbed a notebook out of his jacket pocket. “I have notes and ideas and theories…! Uh huh, uh huh,” he murmured, writing down the address Thompson gave to him. “412 Gopher Road. Tonight? Got it.” 

On the other end of the line, Thompson Determined put the phone back down. “There,” he said to the man sitting across the desk from him. “I did your dirty work. Now it’s time for you to pay up your end of the bargain.” The man slid a slip of paper over the desk. “Tambry Valentino’s phone number! Bless you, Gideon!”

Ford pushed open one of the large iron doors of 412 Gopher Road. To say that he was surprised to find out that the meeting was taking place in an old, very much abandoned warehouse was putting it lightly. He was starting to get suspicious, his apprehension only deepening when he realised that none of the lights were on in the warehouse when he arrived.

“Hello?” he called out, his voice bouncing off the walls. No reply came. Ford sighed, and turned back towards the doors. I guess not even Thompson Determined cares about what I have to say.

Suddenly, the doors flew shut. He tried to pull them open again, but it was useless. 

“Hello, friend .”

Ford whipped round. At the other end of the warehouse sat Gideon Gleeful, hatred gleaming in his eyes. “Gideon? What’re you doing here?”

“Stanford Pines, just how long have you been living in this town?” he asked, completely ignoring Ford’s question. “One week? Two weeks? D’you like it here? Enjoying the scenery?”

“What do you want from me, Gideon?” 

Gideon clutched the arms of the chair. “Listen carefully, boy. There are secrets hidden in this town that you could never even begin to comprehend!”

“Is this about how Stan broke up with Bud? Look, he doesn’t like him, ok?”

“You LIAR!” screamed Gideon. “You turned Stanley against my grandson!” He clutched the blue-green gemstone hanging around his neck as he strode towards Ford. “You Pineses, you’re all the same!”

“Uh, Gideon, we can talk about this, right?” said Ford hopefully. “I mean, I’m sure that-” He gasped as Gideon raised one hand into the air, causing him to be lifted off of the ground and flung into a pile of Lil’ Bud stuffed toys. “Bu-but your show’s fake!” he stuttered.

Gideon raised his hand, commanding the assorted merchandise to rise up into the air and filling the warehouse with a blue-green glow. 

“Oh tell me, Stanford Pines: is this fake?”

Stan was sitting on the front porch, chewing on a blade of grass. He couldn’t shake the feeling that, even though Bud seemed to be completely fine with everything that had happened, sending Ford to break up with him had been at least a little… mean .

“How’s that grass tastin’, buddy?” said Dan, coming out of the shop to sit down next to him.

Stan sighed. “Dan, I need some advice. You’ve broken up with people, right?”

“Oh, yeah: Rebecca Durham, Eliza Hall, Stoney Davidson…” He counted them off on his fingers.

“Ugh, I just don’t know what’s wrong with me! I thought that everything had finally gone back to normal, but I still feel kinda… gross inside, y’know?”

“...Michelle Worley, Natalie Holt, oh, and there was that one gal with all the tattoos…”

“Maybe letting Ford tell Bud I was breaking up with him for me was a mistake. He deserves my honesty.”

“...Daniella Feldman, Mary Epston… Oh man, I don’t think I ever actually broke up with her. No wonder she keeps on calling.”

“I know what I’ve gotta do,” said Stanley, standing up. “Thanks for talking it through with me, Dan!” He grabbed his bike and cycled off to the old warehouse, which he knew was Bud’s favourite place to hang out.

Dan’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He fished it out, flipped it open to see that Mary Epston was calling him yet again, and quickly tapped on the ‘ignore’ button.

“She’ll figure it out. Eventually.”

Ford sprinted across the warehouse floor, dodging the clocks and mugs that Gideon was relentlessly sending flying in his direction. He rolled out of the way as a cabinet was almost brought crashing down on top of him, causing him to hit the wall. 

“Grunkle Dipper was right about you,” he shouted, while Gideon laughed. “You are a monster!”

“And you are an annoying little brat who needs to keep his nose out of other people’s business,” said Gideon, smugly. 

Ford quickly scanned the piles of merchandise for anything that he could use to defend himself, noticing that there was a baseball bat in a box lying near him. Determinedly, he picked it up, and charged.

“Oh no you don’t,” said Gideon. He clenched his left hand into a fist, making Ford drop the bat and rise up in the air once more.

“Stan doesn’t wanna date your grandson! Why is that so hard for you to let go of?! It’s not even your life!”

Gideon smiled cruelly. “Well, I think it’s time I made sure that you can never interfere with my business.” With his other hand, he levitated a pair of scissors. “ Permanently .”

Stan tripped over the crossbar of his bike in his hurry to get off. Once he had seen the glowing light coming out of the windows of the old warehouse, he knew that something strange was up, and he had cycled the rest of the way up the hill as fast as he could. 

He scrambled up to the windows, only to see Ford about to be cut in half by a giant pair of scissors. “Sixer! Hang on in there, I’m coming!” Desperately, he tugged on the doors to the warehouse. They refused to budge, and Stan suspected that Gideon had used his magic to stick them shut. 

“This way.”

Stan turned around, and saw a very distressed Bud Gleeful waving at him round the corner of the warehouse. “Bud! Look, man, I’m sorry about-”

Bud shook his head. “There’s no time! And in any case, I didn’t want to date you anyway. My grandpa said I had to.”

“What?” Stan followed Bud round the corner, where he saw that there was a small side-door that was usually locked. “Why would he do that?”

Bud procured a key. “It’s very important that we keep close connections with your family,” he said. “I don’t know why, though.” The door swung open.

Stan ran in and barreled straight into Gideon, knocking him off balance and making him drop the scissors. “Bud, get his amulet-thingy!”

“Don’t you dare!” snarled Gideon, who was, surprisingly, struggling to keep Stan away without proper control of his powers.

“I’ve got it!” yelled Ford, who had also managed to break free of the spell once Gideon’s focus was elsewhere. He swooped in and grabbed it from around Gideon’s neck. “Looks like you aren’t quite so powerful without this, are you?”

Gideon, having finally managed to throw Stan off him, screamed in rage. He charged at Ford, sending them both flying through the window and over the cliff, down towards the forests below.

Ford screamed as he was about to hit the ground. I’m going to die I’mgoingtodieI’mgoingtodieeeeee… And then stopped, as he realised he was floating a few inches above it, surrounded by the blue-green glow. Gideon was floating too, struggling to right himself. 

Ford glanced up, and saw Bud and Stan floating down from the cliff, holding the amulet together. 

“It’s over, Gideon,” said Stan. “I don’t want to date Bud, and he doesn’t want to date me, so we aren’t going to.”

“Yeah!” agreed Bud, having gained some confidence now that his grandpa was no longer in possession of his powers. 

The pair reached the ground, and released Ford and Gideon. They nodded to each other, before throwing the amulet down onto a rock, shattering it instantly. 

“My powers!” wailed Gideon. “Oh, this isn’t the last you’ll see of me, I promise you.” And with that, he backed off into the forest. 

“Do you think he knows about all those murder robots that we had to let loose here?” whispered Stan.

“Do you wanna tell him?” said Ford. He realised that Bud was standing awkwardly to the side, clearly unsure about what to do. “By the way, if you need somewhere to stay tonight, you could probably come back to the Shack with us. If you wanted.”

“Yeah, I’m sure Grunkle Dipper wouldn’t mind.”

Bud’s face lit up. “Oh, yes please!”

“What happened to you three?” asked Dipper, walking into the living room to find the three of them lying in the armchair. “Do ya need me to get you some first aid?”

“Nah, we’re good,” said Stan. “Gideon went kind of berserk when he found out me and Bud didn’t want to date anymore.”

“Eh, that clocks in. Good thing I stole this clown painting from his house then!” Dipper gestured to the picture of a very sad clown hanging up near the side table. “Sorry for breaking into your house, by the way,” he said to Bud.

“It’s fine. I always hated that painting.”

“It is truly hideous,” agreed Ford.

“Hey, I happen to like it! Anyway, Gideon sorta swore vengeance on our whole family, blah blah blah.”

Ford laughed. “Wonder how he’s gonna destroy us now, huh? Maybe he’ll try to guess what number we’re thinking of.”

“Hah! Well, he’ll never guess my number. Go on, try to guess!” said Stan. “It’s NEGATIVE EIGHT!” he shouted, before anyone could answer. “No-one ever guesses negative numbers!”

“My number’s a decimal!” giggled Bud. “A negative decimal!”

Dipper had fallen over backwards from laughing so hard. “Be careful, I’ll bet he’s planning our destruction right now!”

Back in his room, Gideon sat at his desk, flipping through the pages of an old book.

 “I’ll have my revenge,” he whispered. “They have no idea what’s coming to them.” He got up, closing the book, the front cover of which was decorated with a silver pine tree.

In the foil of the pine tree was stamped a number two.

Chapter Text

“Stan, do you believe in ghosts?” asked Ford, who was, once again, studying the Journal.

His brother was spinning round on the big globe on the counter, trying to see how long he could keep it up before getting too dizzy to keep on spinning. “I believe that you’re a big dork,” he laughed. Ford stuck his pencil into the globe, making it stop spinning, and Stan fell off. “Hey! I was close to beating my record that time!”

Ford sighed, and snapped the Journal shut. “Have you heard anything from Bud yet?”

“No,” said Stan. “But, I mean it’s only been a day, right? He’ll probably call us… soon. It’s a shame he couldn’t stay with us, though.”

“I don’t think Grunkle Dipper could legally keep him here.”

“Even so.”

“Ria! Dan!” called Grunkle Dipper, marching into the gift shop. 

“What’s up, Mr Pines?” Ria ran over from where she had been cleaning the merchandise. 

“I’m going out,” said Dipper. “Could you two possibly clean the bathrooms while I’m gone?”

“Yes, sir!” Ria saluted.

“Not a chance,” said Dan, doing the same.

“Thanks, guys!” Dipper said, as he left the gift shop. “Try to stay out of trouble!”

“Hey, guys,” said Dan, as soon as Dipper was out of sight. “Look at this!” He pulled back a curtain in the corner of the shop. “A secret roof ladder! You wanna come up?”

“Uh, I’m not sure Mr Pines would like us doing that,” said Ria, nervously. “He did just say we had to clean out the bathrooms.”

“Huh?” said Dan, pretending not to hear her.

“Uhhh.”

“Huh?”

Ria clenched her baseball cap with both hands. “You’re freaking me out here, dude.”

“Can we actually go up there?” asked Ford, excitedly. 

“Sure we can!” said Dan. He pumped his fists in the air. “Roof time! Roof time!”

“Roof time!” chanted the twins, climbing up the ladder behind him. 

Once up on the roof, they followed Dan over the ridge of the roof and down onto the side facing into the woods, while Ria watched worriedly from the downstairs window. 

“Alright, check it out!” said Dan, and the twins saw that he had set up a deck chair and umbrella on the flat ledge over one of the windows.

“Wow!” said Stanley. He ran over to the ice-box and started rooting around inside.

Ford was equally impressed. “This is so cool! Did you put all this up here yourself?”

“I may or may not sneak up here during work,” responded Dan, nonchalantly. “All the time, everyday. Y’know how it is.”

“Um, sure? I mean, of course, yes, I do know how it is.”

Dan picked up a pine-cone from the bucket that he had placed on the edge of the ledge and threw it at the totem pole that Dipper had impulse-bought a few years back. “Yeah!” he shouted, as it hit the bullseye taped to the centre. 

The twins grinned at each other, before grabbing as many pine cones as they could and hurling them in the totem pole’s general direction, missing each time. Ford, however, did manage to hit one of the cars parked outside the Shack, setting off its alarm. He blushed as he realised that Dan might think his ability to miss so badly might make him ‘uncool’. He wanted Dan to be impressed, not think that he was a noodle armed twelve-year-old who couldn’t aim.

“Jackpot! High five!” said Dan, holding up his hand. Ford stared. “Come on, don’t leave me hangin’ here.”

“Yeah!” Ford high-fived him once he worked out that Dan actually was impressed by his hitting the car.

“Oh hey, it’s my friends!” said Dan, as a new van pulled up by the totem pole.

“Wendy!” shouted the driver, waving his arm out of the window. 

“Coming!” Dan walked towards the edge of the ledge. “Uh, you guys won’t tell Dipper about me cutting work, will you?” he asked, turning back towards the twins.

Ford zipped his lips and mimed throwing the key away.

“Heh,” laughed Dan, doing the same. “Welp, later dorks!” And with that, he jumped onto the pine tree nearest the Shack, leaping to the next one as it bent forwards. He did this until he reached the last tree, and slid onto the ground, before running into the open van.

“Let’s get out of here!” shouted someone from inside, as they drove off.

“Later, Dan,” called Ford. “Heh. Good times.”

“Uh oh!”

“What?”

“Someone has a crush!” teased Stan, poking Ford. “You looove him.”

“Yeah, right ,” said Ford, dismissively. “I just think Dan’s kinda cool, y’know? It’s not like I lie awake at night thinking about him or anything!”

Later that night, Ford was lying in bed, awake. Thinking about Dan.

“Oh no,” he whispered.

“Random dance party for no reason!” shouted Stan, turning on the radio in the gift shop. 

“Go! Go! Go!” chanted Dan, joining in.

On the other side of the shop, Ford was checking the inventory with Grunkle Dipper’s unicorn clipboard. ‘I am pretending to write something down’ he wrote, as he watched Dan dancing.

“Ford!” said Dan.

Ford almost dropped his clipboard in surprise and excitement (he got excited whenever Dan talked to him). “Er, what, yes?” he stuttered.

“Aren’t you gonna get in on this?”

“Oh, I don’t really-”

“Yeah you do,” interrupted Stan. “Mom used to dress him up in this lamb costume and make him do… The Lamby Dance.”

“Now is really not the time to talk about that,” said Ford, through gritted teeth. 

“Lamb costume?” asked Dan, curious. “Did it have a tail? Or little ears?” he continued, jokingly.

“Well, there, I mean…”

Stan produced a picture that he had clearly been carrying around in preparation for the day on which he could finally tell someone else about the Lamby Dance. “Oh, Sixer only had to, like, prance around the room singing a song about grazing.”

“Huh.” Dan inspected the photograph, which showed Ford as a toddler wearing a lamb costume, which was adorned with a huge pink bow to top it all off. Suddenly, the cuckoo clock chimed the hour. “Oh, hey, would you look at that. Quittin’ time for me! The gang’s waiting.” He dumped his name tag on the desk and headed for the door. 

“Wait!” said Ford. Dan stopped, looking at him questioningly. “Er, what I mean to say is, why don’t I, or, er, we, come with you?” he stammered. Well done, Ford. He won’t suspect a thing.

“Hmm.” Dan considered it for a moment. “I dunno. The thing is, my friends can be pretty intense. How old are you guys again?”

“We’re thirteen,” lied Ford. “So, technically teens.”

“Well, alright. I like your moxie, kid!” said Dan. “I’m gonna go get my stuff.” 

“Since when are we thirteen?” asked Stan, after he had gone. “Is this a leap year?”

“Come on, Stanley. This is our chance to hang with kids who are actually, y’know, cool! And Dan or whatever,” he added hurriedly, as if he was half hoping Stan wouldn't hear him say it.

“I knew it!” shouted Stan, leaping over the counter. “You do love him! Love love love love looove!” He danced round Ford, poking him as he did so.

“Hey, what’s that?” asked Ford, pointing in the other direction.

“What’s what?” Stan turned, and Ford grabbed one of the Mystery Shack caps and pulled it down over his eyes. “Blep blap,” Stan spat.

“In the belly! In the belly!” chanted the two teens holding another up by the legs. Across from them, a girl with a guitar slung over her shoulder and wearing a black hoodie with a bleeding heart embroidered on it threw jelly beans at his stomach, aiming for his belly-button. She aimed again, only to look around in surprise when someone behind her hit the teen right on point with a jelly bean.

“Dan!” chorused the group. 

“Hey, guys,” said Dan. “These are my new pals from work.” He gestured to the twins. “Stan and Ford.”

“I chewed on my gum and now it looks like a brain!” said Stan. He stuck out his tongue, revealing a lump of pink gum. 

“He’s not much for first impressions,” interrupted Ford. “Unlike this guy! ” He pointed to himself. Dan’s friends did not give him his expected reactions of ‘wow’ and ‘so cool’ , and he was left awkwardly standing there, pointing at himself. “This guy…” he whispered, while he slowly withered from the embarrassment.

“So, are you, like, babysitting, or…” said the teen with the guitar to Dan.

“Ugh, come on, Shandra!” said Dan. “Ok, guys,” he said to the twins. “So those two are Greg and Janice.” He pointed to the two teens who had been holding the other one up by the ankles. “That’s Susan.” He pointed to a girl with dark blue hair who appeared to be chronically on her phone. “Toby, who once ate a runover waffle for 50 cents.”

“Don’t tell them that,” said Toby, who was the boy Shandra had been throwing jelly beans at.

“And, lastly, Shandra. You can probably figure her out on your own.”

“Yeah,” said Shandra, as she strummed her guitar. “I’m the one who spray-painted the water tower.”

“Oh, do you mean that giant muffin?” asked Ford.

“It’s an explosion , actually.”

The group turned to look at the water tower.

“Hah!” laughed Greg. “It actually kinda does look like a muffin!” He and Janice started laughing together.

Shandra glared at Ford.

“Let’s hurry up, guys!” said Dan, pushing them towards the van. “I got some real big plans for tonight!”

The teens all clambered in, clearly used to driving around town in the vehicle. Ford decided that the best way to show the others that he was actually ‘cool’ was by sitting in the seat next to the driver, but as he made his way over, the door was pulled shut.

“Sorry, kid,” said Shandra, in the most unsorry voice Ford had ever heard. “I ride shotgun, alright?”

Ford sighed, and got into the back row of seats, next to Stan.

“Um, by the way,” said Toby, “my mom said you guys shouldn’t punch the roof anymore, so…”

The others looked at him for a moment, before punching the roof in unison, chanting, “Toby! Toby! Toby!”

Toby gave up, and started the car.

In the back, Stan was examining the graffiti which was scrawled over the doors and roof of the car. Noticing the crudely written ‘you stink’ on his door in all-caps, he swiped the pen that Ford was nervously chewing on and used it to cross it out, writing ‘you look great today’ in its place. He giggled. “This is gonna blow someone’s mind!”

“Stan, please,” said Ford, elbowing him to get him to stop talking.

“What,” retorted Stan. “Am I embarrassing you in front of your new GIRLF-”

Ford quickly put his hand over Stan’s mouth before he could make things any worse. “Ew! Did you just lick my hand?”

Back in the Mystery Shack, Dipper was sitting in front of the TV.

“You’re watching the out-of-date incorrect physics theories boring documentary channel,” said the announcer, who sounded like they hadn’t slept in a week.

“Kids!” shouted Dipper. This was supposed to be a relaxing evening. “I can’t find the remote, and I refuse to stand up!”

“Stay tuned for the Friday night documentary, Is There Life On Mars? , with your presenters Dr. Albedo Effect and Professor Principal Focus.”

“Kids! No! Nooo!”

“There it is, guys,” whispered Dan, as the group peered through the chain link fence. “The condemned Dusk 2 Dawn.”

“Woah,” said Janice, seconded by Greg’s cry of ‘awesome!’.

“Neato dorito!” said Stan. 

Ford was far less excited. “Er, why exactly did they shut it down? Was it, like, some kind of health code violation, orrr…”

“Try murder ,” answered Janice.

“Some folks died in there a while back, and it’s been haunted ever since!” added Greg. He didn’t seem particularly troubled by this fact.

“Wow!” said Stan. “This town has such a cool history!”

“Wait, what? Are you guys… being serious right now?” asked Ford.

“Yeah! We’re all gonna die!” said Dan sarcastically. “Chill out, man! It’s not as bad as it looks, I swear.” He gave Ford a friendly punch on the arm.

Ford glanced up at the ‘No Trespassing’ sign attached to the fence. Someone had painted over the ‘Violators Will Be Prosecuted’ in large red letters, changing the final word to ‘DEAD!’.

“Come on, Ford!” shouted Dan, from where he stood on the other side of the fence, surrounded by the rest of the teens.

“Don’t worry, I, I, I’ll be down soon, just gotta, y’know, get a foothold,” stuttered Ford, as he clung to the top of the fence. Come on, I can do this! How did everyone else make it look so easy?

“Dude, your brother did it!” said Shandra, pointing to where Stan was running round in circles, pretending to be an aeroplane.

“Hey, you know what?” said Greg, climbing back up the fence. “Just…” He picked Ford up and dropped him off of the fence. “There you go.” Greg started laughing a little, before stopping himself. “Er, sorry dude.”

“Oh, good job throwing the kid off of a fence, genius!” said Janice, as Greg jumped off the fence to join the others.

“Your mom ’s a genius.”

Ford dusted himself off, and followed the teens towards the shop, where Shandra was trying to break the doors open using pure strength (which she did not have).

“Woah,” said Dan, peering inside. “This place looks amazing!”

“Ugh, I think the door’s stuck,” said Shandra, still trying to pull it open.

Ford spotted his chance. “Let me have a go!”

“Oh, yeah ,” said Shandra. “So I can’t get in, but I’m sure that Junior over here’s gonna break it down like Hercules.”

“Hey, lay off him, Shandra,” objected Dan. “He’s just a little kid, ok?”

Ford felt a little wounded at this off-hand comment, but determinedly walked round to where the dustbins were, jumping on top of them in order to climb onto the roof. Once he was up there, he climbed up to the vent entrance, ignoring the calls of the others, and punched it until it broke and there was a hole large enough for him to crawl into.

“Go, Poindexter!” shouted Stan. “Punch that stupid metal thingy!”

“Hey, Ford, take it easy!” said Dan, worried that Ford was going to get himself hurt just to impress a group of teenagers.

“Hah!” laughed Shandra. “Who wants to bet the kid doesn’t make it?”

Suddenly, Ford came out through the main doors of the shop. “Voila,” he said, and gestured for the others to come in.

“Good call inviting this little maniac,” said Greg, as he walked inside.

“Your new name is Dr. Funtimes,” added Janice.

“High five!” said Stan, as he ran past, still pretending to be an aeroplane.

Ford sighed happily, knowing that his stunt had paid off.

“Hey,” said Dan, from behind him.

Ford jumped.

“Nice work.” Dan punched him on the shoulder again, and walked inside.

“Do you guys really think it’s haunted?” whispered Toby.

“Not a chance!” said Janice. “Honestly, Toby, you can’t believe everything you hear.”
Unbeknownst to them, the ‘We’re Open’ sign on the two front doors slowly switched over to say ‘Get Lost! We’re Closed’.

“Wow!” said Dan, as he, Shandra, and Ford headed off down one of the long-abandoned side aisles. “This place is even creepier than I imagined.”

Ford picked up an old newspaper and wiped it clean. It was dated to 1995.

Stan brushed the cobwebs out of his way as he wandered down an aisle. “Hmm,” he murmured, brushing off an old slot machine. He put his fingers in his mouth. “Yup! That’s dust, alright.”

“Hey, dude,” said Greg. “Where d’you think they keep all the dead bodies?”

Janice laughed, and shoved him playfully. “Oh, shut up, man. Obviously it’s in the freezers.”

“Guys, check it out!” called Dan, from by the old light switches. “D’you think these things still work?” He flicked them up, one by one.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the store lit up in flickering fluorescent lights. The surveillance cameras turned on and the freezers and fridges started buzzing as they switched back on, casting a harsh white light over everything.

Ford had to admit, the shop felt a lot less worrying once the lights had been turned back on.

“Jackpot!” said Stan, looking around him in excitement.

“So, what do we do now?” asked Ford.

“Anything we want to,” said Dan, coolly.

The twins grinned.

The group spent the next few hours raiding the store for food to use in food fights across the aisles of the shop, creating explosions with bottles of Pitt Cola and mints, and attacking each other with the huge bags of cat food which were piled by the doors. Stan kept on trying to drink the Cola which rained down on them when they put the mints in (something they had done until they ran out of bottles), and Ford was happy that the teens seemed to be treating him as a part of their group.

“Oh my gosh!” said Stan, as he and Ford ran round a corner during the second fight of the food war. “It’s Smile Dip! Grunkle Dipper said it’s this amazing thing, but it’s banned in America now!”

“Uhh, you do know that they might have had a good reason to do that,” said Ford. “I mean, should we really be trusting the food advice of someone who drinks a whole cup of Dipper Juice at breakfast each morning?” Suddenly, he was hit in the face by a balloon filled with melting ice-cream, and ran off to carry out his counter-attack plan.

“Hmm.” Stan wasn’t sure if he could trust the food advice of Grunkle Dipper. On the other hand, the Smile Dip did look very tasty… Shrugging, he ripped open the packet and poured the entire contents into his mouth.

Ford and Dan were sitting on the top of one of the shelves, eating ice lollies that had been preserved by the freezing conditions of an unheated shop for over twenty years.

“Come here, man!” called Janice, below them. “We just got it ready!”

“Whatever it is, I’ll do it!” shouted Toby, running past.

Dan laughed. “Ford, I have to admit, this night is legendary .”

“Really?”

“Just look around! Everyone’s bonding.” He gestured to where Shandra and Janice were filling Toby’s trousers with ice. “I’ve never seen Susan look up from her phone for so long at a time.” 

Susan was briefly glancing up from the texts she was sending to watch the shenanigans of the others.

“And your brother seems to be going nuts for that Smile Dip over there.”

Stan was lying by the Smile Dip stand, covered in pink powder. “Maybe I’ve had too much,” he said, faintly. “What do you think?”

In his hallucination land, a giant yellow dog stood next to him as he lay in a river of smile dip.

“Elknurg… tsurtsid… tsum!” it barked.

A second, larger yellow dog walked over.

“Would you like to taste my candy paws?” it said.

“Of course, you little angel!” murmured Stan. He grabbed one of the paws and started chewing on it. To the others, it looked like he was just chewing on the air as he stretched his arms out. His pupils were dilated to a worryingly large size.

“You know, Ford,” said Dan, trying to forget what he had just seen. “I wasn’t quite sure if you’d be able to hang with the crew at first, but I guess it turns out you’re surprisingly mature for your age.”

“Yes,” said Ford, as he tried and failed to eat his ice lolly with his eyes looking in the other direction, squishing it onto his cheek instead. “Yes I am.”

“Hey, guys!” shouted Greg. “We need more ice!”

Ford looked down, to see that Greg and Janice had run out of ice to fill Toby’s trousers with. “I’m on it!” He jumped down and opened the ice freezer, grabbing one of the giant bags that were still somehow intact. Just as he was about to close the door, he heard something moving above him.

Don’t look up don’t look up don’t look up.

He looked up.

Above him, glowing with a strange blue light, was some sort of monster, consisting of a brain, two eyes, and a set of dentures. Ford screamed, and slammed the door shut as the two eyes began to extend towards him, dropping the packet of ice as he did so. He stood there for a few moments, until he had calmed down enough to look at whatever it was that was in the freezer without screaming again. Ford braced himself, and opened the door…

There was nothing there.

“What was that,” said Greg, walking over. “I thought I heard some old lady screaming back here.”

“Are you freakin’ out, kid?” added Janice.

“Uh, no!” said Ford, who was, in fact, freaking out. “I’m cool! Everything’s cool over here by this totally unhaunted freezer!”

“Then what’s this mess about?” asked Shandra, pointing to the bag of dropped ice, which had split, leaving the floor covered in melting ice cubes.

“It’s, er, it’s…” Ford spotted something in the far corner of the shop. “Oh, look! It’s Dancy Pants Revolution, the game that tricks people into exercising!” He pointed to a brightly light purple machine, and the teens rushed off to go and try it out. “Haha, yeah, let’s all go play that…” mumbled Ford. He checked the freezer one last time, before running off to join the others.

Toby was playing Dancy Pants Revolution while the others cheered him on, somehow managing to hit just enough of the dance moves to stay in the game.

“Dance!” said the machine. “Hurry up!”

“Go! Go! Go!” chanted Greg and Janice.

Dan nudged Ford. “Wow. He’s really terrible at this.”

Ford laughed nervously. “Yeah, yeah… That’s great…” He glanced at the doors again, wondering how much longer he would have to stay here. Fiord gasped; all of a sudden, the reflections of himself and the others became skeletons, as if they had died. 

Ok, so maybe I’m not just seeing things. Although, I really wish I was.

He blinked, and the reflections became normal again.

“I’ll be right back.” He ran off.

“Come on, Grunkle Dipper, pick up!” said Ford, as the shop’s payphone rang. “What on Earth could he possibly be doing that’s this interesting?”

Back in the Mystery Shack, Dipper was still watching the out-of-date incorrect physics theories boring documentary channel. 

“And that is why we think that there may actually be some sort of extraterrestrial life on Mars,” said Dr Albedo Effect, pointing to a screen of confusing statistics.

Dipper gasped. “I knew it! I knew there were aliens!” He took another bite of the ice-cream that he had fetched from the kitchen during the ad-break.

“And that they’re coming to Earth to harvest our teeth to power a time machine!” added Professor Principal Focus. 

“Wow,” said Dipper. “That is something I did not expect. But I guess this is a documentary, so it must be true.”

Having given up his attempts to call Grunkle Dipper, Ford decided to consult Stan.

“Lee, I need your advice,” he said, pacing the floor. “We seem to be hanging out in a haunted convenience store, I can’t get a hold of Grunkle Dipper, and I’m worried that if I try to say something to any of Dan’s friends they’ll just think I’m a scared little kid!”

Stan only made some sort of strangled-gurgling sound. Ford gave him a closer look, and realised that his irises had turned green and his pupils had contracted. He was also covered in Smile Dip.

“Oh no.”

In the land of Smile Dip hallucinations, Stan was riding a giant dolphin with huge, muscled arms through a yellow and purple sky.

“The future is in the past!” he shouted. “Onwards, Aoshima!”

On his command, Aoshima's head spun around until two more arms and a second head appeared, which then opened to spit rainbow streamers into the sky.

“To the waffle stars!”

“Stan! Stanley?!” Ford shook his brother, trying to get him to respond at the very least. “How many of those things did you eat?”

“Beleven… teen…” mumbled Stan.

“Oh man oh man oh man.” Ford dropped Stan and rushed over to the others.

Shandra accidentally knocked the quarter she was using to scratch old lottery tickets onto the floor while reaching for a new set. She reached down to get it, only to see that it had rolled onto a white chalk line that was drawn behind the counter.

“Whoa! Guys, you might wanna see this.”

The others gathered round, having gotten bored of watching Toby fail at playing Dancy Pants Revolution. 

On the floor were two white outlines.

“So the rumours are true!” said Greg.

“Dude, I dare you to lie down in one of ‘em,” said Shandra.

“Good idea!” He nudged Janice. “Go lie down in it.”

Janice seemed perfectly fine with this idea. “Look, I’m a dead body!” she said, as she walked over.

Just as she was about to put her foot down on one of the markings, Ford interjected. “Wait! How about we… do something else!”

“This guy’s scared!” teased Greg.

“All I’m saying is, why tempt the fates?” continued Ford. “What if this place is actually haunted?”

The others booed.

“Oh, take it down a notch, Captain Buzzkill,” said Shandra.

“But… I thought I was Dr Funtimes?”

“Well, you’re acting like a Captain Buzzkill just now. Right, guys?” Shandra looked to the others to back her up. They nodded.

Dan seemed more hesitant.

“Right?” she repeated.

“Yeah, a little bit,” said Dan.

“Status Update,” said Susan, still glued to her phone. “Trapped in store with insane nine-year-old.”

Ford could feel all of his hard work trying to fit in slipping away. “I’m not nine!” he said. “I’m thirteen! Which is technically a teen!” And with that, he lay down in one of the chalk markings.

All of a sudden, the chalk lit up in an eerie green colour. The fluorescent lights flickered off, and the whole shop was bathed in a green-blue glow.

Susan, who was ignoring this in favour of her phone, vanished.

The teens gasped, and Ford picked up her phone - which was the only thing left behind. 

“Status Update: Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!” he read. As he did so, the CCTV system switched back on. Trapped inside the screen was a screaming Susan, banging on inside of the glass in an effort to get out.

They screamed.

“Susan! Susan,” shouted Dan. “What happened?!”

“Can you hear us?!” yelled Ford.

On the screen, Susan was glancing around, clearly unable to see any of them.

“What are we supposed to do?” asked Janice.

“I don’t know, man!” said Greg. “I don’t know!”

“Let’s just go already!” said Shandra, who was shaking uncontrollably.

“Toby!” shouted Dan. Toby was still playing the Dancy Pants game, despite the fact that the shop was clearly haunted and therefore unsafe.

“In a minute!” he panted. “I’ve almost reached the high score!” 

Suddenly, he vanished, just as Susan had, and reappeared inside the game. 

“Wh-what’s going on?” he cried. “Guys?”

“It’s time to shake what your mama gave you!” announced the machine, as arrows started to fall down the screen, hitting Toby.

“No! Help! So many arrows!”

“You’re a dance machine!” continued the game’s automated voice.

“No!” said Toby, who was now covered in neon arrows. “ You’re a dance machine!” He curled up in a ball and started crying.

“Oh no!” said Ford.

“Toby!” shouted Dan. He tried banging on the screen, but nothing happened. None of them wanted to risk turning the game on and off again, in case Toby got lost somewhere inside.

“Forget him!” screamed Shandra. “Let’s just go!”

The doors slammed shut. Dan pulled on them as hard as he could, but they wouldn’t budge.

“Guys, it’s locked!”

“Out of my way!” Shandra grabbed the cash register and hurled it at the doors, only for it to dissolve into a green light that enveloped the whole shop.

Ford frowned. Something about this whole thing felt… off. “Everybody, wait!” he yelled, trying to get the others to listen. “Whatever is doing all this has to have some kind of reason!” He pulled out the Journal, and flipped to the page he had been studying earlier - the one about ghosts. “Maybe if we just figure out what it is and address it, they’ll let us out of here!”

“ ‘Oh, they’ll let us out of here’,” imitated Shandra. “And that makes so much sense, doesn’t it?”

“I dunno guys, maybe he has a point?” said Dan.

Greg was unconvinced. “Oh, right, I’m sure that the ghost just wants to talk about their feelings, and that’s why they’re literally attacking us! ” Suddenly, he was lifted up in the air and vanished, reappearing on the front of a cereal box.

“I’m bonkers for eating you alive!” crowed the Toucan mascot on the front of the box.

“No!” screamed Greg.

“Greg! Ok, kid, I’m with you, one hundred percent!” said Janice, backing away, towards the counter.

“Welcome,” said a deep voice. The group turned, and saw Stan floating in the air, his eyes white, surrounded by the strange glow. 

“They got Stanley!” shouted Ford. Oh, why did I just leave him on his own? He was barely conscious!

“Welcome to your graves, young trespassers,” continued the ghost possessing Stan, laughing.

“We’re super, super sorry for hanging out in your convenience store!” said Dan, in an attempt to de-escalate the situation.

“Yeah!” added Ford. “Can we just go now and leave forever? We promise not to come back.”

“Well… Ok,” said Possessed Stan. The doors opened. “You’re free to go.”

That was… surprisingly easy.

Possessed Stan flew over to the hot dog machine behind the counter. “But before you do leave, hot dogs are now half off. I know it might be crazy, but you gotta try these dogs!”

Janice and Shandra glanced at each other, before running for the exit, screaming. They slammed shut, and the two teens ran straight into them.

“Just kidding about the hot dog sale!” spat Possessed Stan.

Janice started forward, only for Shandra to hold her back before she could do anything stupid. “Just let us out of here already!” she shouted.

Possessed Stan’s eyes glowed angrily. “I don’t like your tone, young lady!” He lifted her up into the air, and she vanished.

Suddenly, she reappeared… as a hot dog on the stove.

“What?” she said. “No! I don’t wanna be a hot dog! ”

“And so it begins,” said Possessed Stan, ignoring her screams. He levitated everything in the store, including Ford, Dan, and Shandra, so that they were on the ceiling. Ford jumped out of the way as the CCTV screen, with Susan still trapped inside, crashed into the ceiling. “Welcome to your home for all eternity!”

“Ford, what do we do?” shouted Dan.

“Duck!” Ford pulled Dan out of the way as the slushie machine flew past. 

Dan spotted a cupboard lying on its side, one door still open. “Quick, in there!”

The pair ran towards it, getting inside and pulling the door shut before they could be attacked by the various food items whizzing around.

“What do they want from us?” asked Dan, as they lay in the dark.

“Revenge, I guess,” said Ford.

“But what did we do wrong?”

“Ok, let’s try to figure out the pattern here,” said Ford. “Why was each person taken? Susan was texting, Toby was playing a video game, Greg was just being sarcastic… It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Yeah! I mean, all of those things are what teenagers normally do!”

Ford considered the problem. Why would someone get mad because people were acting like… wait a second!

“Dan, say that last part again.”

“What teenagers normally do?” repeated Dan, confusedly.

“Of course! Stay here until I get back,” he added, before crawling out of the cupboard.

“Dude, what are you doing?!” called Dan, as Ford dodged the flying food and furniture and slowly made his way towards Possessed Stan.

“Hey, ghost!” yelled Ford, once he was close enough to the maelstrom of food swirling around his brother.

Possessed Stan twisted his head round so that he was facing Ford, and began to levitate him off of the ground (which was technically the ceiling, but Ford wasn’t very worried about that at the moment).

“I’ve got something to tell you!” he continued. “I’m not a teenager!” 

As soon as he said this, the food stopped flying around, and dropped to the ceiling, along with him. In front of him, two elderly looking ghosts (a man and a woman) appeared in front of him, one of them holding Stan up by the hair.

The one holding Stan chuckled. “Well, why didn’t you say so sooner?” He dropped Stan - who had, thankfully, returned from the land of Smile Dip - into the pile of food that had built up beneath him. “How old did you say you were?”

“I’m-” Ford glanced over to where Dan was, and sighed. “I’m twelve. Technically not a teen.”

“When we were alive, teenagers were a scourge on our store,” said the woman (whose name tag read ‘Ma’).

“Always sassafrassin’ customers with their boomy boxes and disrespectful short pants!” continued the ghost who had possessed Stan.  “So one day, we decided to up and ban them! But they retaliated with their new fangled rap music.”

Ma hugged him. “The lyrics were so awfully hateful! We were so shocked that we were stricken down with double heart attacks. And that’s why we hate teeangers so much, don’t we, honey?” She and Pa rubbed noses.

“But they’re my friends,” said Ford, desperately. “Isn’t there anything I can do to help them?”

“Well, there is one thing,” said Pa. “Do you know any funny little dances?”

Ford glanced at Dan again. There was only so much embarrassment he could take in one evening. “Er, is there anything else I can do?”

“ Nooooo! ” screamed Pa, as flames lit up around him.

“Ok, ok!” said Ford, hurriedly. “Um, I do know… the Lamby Lamby Dance. But I can’t really do that without a lamb costume, which I, er, don’t happen to have on me, so, y’know…” He folded his arms, confident that he had escaped their demands.

Pa snapped his fingers, and Ford was suddenly wearing a lamb costume adorned with a big pink bow on the front.

“Oh, well, there it is,” said Ford. He took a deep breath.

“ Well, who wants a lamby lamby lamby? ” he sang. “ I do! I do! So go up and greet your mammy mammy mammy! Hi there! Hi there! ”

“Yes, yes, more!” said Pa, clasping his hands together in joy.

“ So march march march around the daisies! ” continued Ford, prancing around in a circle.

Still hiding inside the cupboard, Dan smiled as he watched Ford do the cutest dance he had ever seen.

“ Don’t don’t don’t you forget about the babies! ” Ford posed as he finally finished the dance (which felt like it had been going on for an eternity).

“That was some fine old girly dancin’, boy!” said Pa. “Your friends are free.”

At that, the doors to the store swung open.

“Well, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about us coming back,” said Ford, relieved to be back in his normal clothes. “So…” He noticed that the two ghosts had vanished, the shop lights returning to their normal harsh white. And that he was still standing upside-down on the ceiling. “Oh no.”

The teens (who had all been freed) screamed as they fell to the floor, surrounded by the upturned contents of the store. 

“Ugh…” groaned Stan, who was lying in the crumpled remains of the Smile Dip stand. “I’m never gonna eat or do anything ever again.”

Ford picked up a single pink packet. “Hey, look,” he said, “there’s still some left.”

“ Evil! ” screeched Stan, slapping the packet out of his hand. 

Over by the remains of the Dancy Pants machine, Dan was explaining to the others what had happened.

“You’re not going to believe it!” he said. “The ghosts appeared, and Ford had to, uh…” He glanced over to Ford. “He, er, just, y’know, grabbed a bat, and started beating ghosts down, left and right. And then the ghosts got all scared, because it was totally awesome, and just ran away! It was insane!”

“Alright!” said Janice. “Dr Funtimes!”

While the teens were chatting amongst themselves, Dan turned to Ford, zipped his lips, and threw away the key. 

Ford did the same, grinning.

“Well, I’m probably scarred for life,” said Dan, as they climbed back into Toby’s van. 

“Yeah, that was pretty crazy,” said Ford, nervously. 

“I think that I’m just gonna go and stare at a wall and rethink everything . Hey, next time we hang out, let’s just stay at the Mystery Shack, ok?”

“Next time…” Ford stood there for a moment as the words slowly sunk in. “Next time, yeah, at the Shack, got it!” He repeated, as he got into the back of the van, making shaky fingers at Dan as he did so.

Toby (who was one of the few people still awake) started the engine, and they drove off, hopefully never to return.

Stan still had not recovered from the Smile Dip, and was lying on the backseat next to Ford, clutching his stomach. He glanced at the ‘you look great today’ that he had scrawled on the door earlier that day. “What kind of sick joke is this?” he whispered.

“And that’s why we don’t trust Grunkle Dipper’s food advice,” sighed Ford. 

In the Shack, Dipper was still watching the Mars documentary. He had learnt all about the aliens living on Mars, their society, ideals, and how they were going to invade the Earth later that year in some sort of armageddon-type event. 

“Well, I have to admit, that was less of a waste of my time than I thought it would be,” he said, as the credits rolled.

“Unfortunately, none of this documentary is considered factual,” announced a voice-over, “due to scientific advancements made in the last few years. But we can still admire their creativity .”

“What? I just spent three hours on this thing, and you’re telling me it’s fake? You can’t do this!” 

The twins walked back to the Shack, glad that they would finally be able to relax after a long day of narrowly avoiding an eternity trapped in a haunted convenience store. Just as they were about to pass the sitting room window, the TV flew out of it.

Or, rather, was thrown out of it.

“Er, I couldn’t find the remote,” mumbled Dipper, before disappearing back inside.

Chapter Text

“I like to get my Christmas shopping done early,” said Tyler Cutebiker, examining the gift shop merchandise. “Do you happen to have anything in the spirit of the season?”

Dipper was currently manning the till. “Tyler, it’s June,” he said, massaging his forehead. “I mean, if you really want something, I guess we have some… er…” He dug around in the arts and crafts basket he kept under the counter for when he got bored, “er… How about a diy Christmas tree kit! Now 50% off, because I can’t find the instructions, but you can figure it out.” He pulled up a bag of green card and some homemade ‘glitter’.

“Ooh, the glitter looks like ground-up glass!” said Tyler.

Dipper immediately snatched it away. “What are you, the art police?” he said, defensively. However, Tyler had been distracted by the singing salmon on the other side of the shop.

“What is this new thing?” he asked, pressing the button and watching it flap around. Dipper sighed. This was the fourth time this week someone had been distracted from a potential purchase by the damned thing, but he still couldn’t bring himself to sell it. He had found it in the Shack just after-

“Grunkle Dipper, Grunkle Dipper!” yelled Stan, running in through the front door, followed by a rather more cautious looking Ford. He paused for breath for a few moments. “Whew. That was a long way. Anyway, we were wondering if we could go to the diner in town? We’re soooo hungry.”

“Affirmative,” said Ford. “And you did promise. Admittedly it was almost midnight and you were mainly saying it to get us to go to bed, but still a promise.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Dipper, relieved at the distraction. “Just as soon as this yahoo makes up his mind.” The twins glanced over to where Tyler was now testing the fur on a trout stuck to the wall.

“Do you have this in another colour?” he asked. “Or maybe just another animal. I don’t like trout.”

“I’m fine locking him inside if you are,” whispered Dipper, and both Stan and Ford nodded quickly. 

They ran out to the Pinesmobile, bolting the door shut from the outside. Tyler, who was too busy deciding which shirt to wear, didn’t even notice them leave.

Ford narrowly dodged the waitress’s broom as he entered Greasy’s Diner with Stan and Dipper, and watched as she attempted to rid the diner of the various animals destroying the wooden walls and floorboards. The customers didn’t seem to mind, however, and he noted the people sitting at the bar, enjoying the food. 

At the far end, Candy Chiu was drinking as much espresso as she could possibly afford, followed by Dan (who he was definitely not staring at, oh no, why would anyone think such a thing?) and his mother, and, opposite the table they were ushered to by the very stressed waitress, Nate and Lee having some sort of pancake eating competition. 

As soon as they sat down, Stan grabbed a spoon and stuck it on his nose. 

“Lazy Grenda, my best pal!” said Dipper, as Lazy Grenda, one eye shut, walked up to their table. “Didn’t see you around yesterday, where were you?”

“I got hit by a bus,” said Grenda.

“Ha! You always did have the best sense of humour, Grenda,” said Dipper. Grenda said nothing. “Wait, you weren’t joking? Grenda, are you ok?”

“The bus isn’t,” she said.

“Er, well…” Dipper examined the menu in an effort to avoid eye contact. “Do you do split plates?”

“Maybe.” Lazy Grenda pulled up the eyelid of her closed eye. “Wink!”

“Great! We’ll all split a one-fourth of the number seven, with ketchup for the boys.”

Stan tugged on his sleeve as Lazy Grenda headed off to the kitchens. “But I want pancakes,” he said.

“With the fancy flour they use these days?” asked Dipper. “It’ll cost more than the Shack!”

Stan sighed sadly.

Ford peered round him, spotting a pile of unattended pancakes in the corner of the diner. He could easily sneak over and take them… Or perhaps he wouldn’t have to. 

Over the pancake stack was a sign pointing to a self-proclaimed ‘Manliness Tester’, which offered them to whoever could beat the game.

“Don’t worry, guys,” said Ford confidently, cracking his knuckles. “Pancakes are on me. I’m just gonna win some by beating that manliness tester over there.”

“Manliness tester?” repeated Stan.

“Beating?” continued Dipper.

Ford looked at them in concern. “Um, yeah? Did you not-” He was abruptly cut off when the pair burst out laughing. “Hey, what’s so funny?”

“No offence, Sixer,” said Stan, “but you aren’t exactly Manly Mannington or anything.”

“I am too Manly… Manny? Look, it doesn’t matter, my point still stands.” He folded his arms indignantly.

“Kid, you have to face the music,” said Dipper, still wiping tears from his eyes. “You have no muscles, smell like baby wipes, and let’s not forget last Tuesday’s… er, ‘incident’.”

Ford reflected on that for a moment. Last week, he had decided that he needed kissing practice, and since he had no-one to practise on, he had built a kissing machine with a rubix cube for a mouth. Unfortunately for him, just as he had started the preliminary testing (which did, yes, involve smooching a rubix cube attached to a dummy head) Grunkle Dipper had barged in, interrupting his research.

“Did you really think snogging a game for nerds was gonna help you kiss Dan?” asked Stan, far too loudly.

“No!” said Ford, quickly shushing him. “And it’s not important. So not important that you are never bringing it up ever again .”

“Fine,” said Stan, as insincerely as possible. Ford glared at him. He was going to have to be extra careful when it came to leaving Stan alone with Dan over the next few days - otherwise his chances might be ruined.

“Look, guys, I’m plenty masculine,” he continued. “You see this chest hair?” He pulled down his shirt, revealing a bare, white chest. 

“Put it away, put it away!” said Dipper.

“Aah, my eyes! It’s too smooth!” screamed Stan.

“Oh, man,” said Ford, covering his chest back up.

As soon as he had done so, the other two started laughing again. 

“Have it your way, family of little faith,” said Ford. He felt a little ridiculous, but he didn’t care. “But get ready to eat your words. And a plate of delicious pancakes.” With that, he got out of his seat and walked melodramatically up to the Manliness Tester. As he did so, the other customers at the diner swivelled in their seats to watch him. Ford gulped as he realised Dan was among them, but continued going anyway. 

“Alright,” he said to himself, “time to manhandle this… man handle?” Ford glanced up at the different levels on the machine, sweating as he realised that this might not be quite as easy as he initially thought.

“Quit stalling!” yelled someone behind him.

He grabbed the handle with both hands and started pulling it down, sighing in relief as the bulbs next the levels lit up one by one. However, he couldn’t keep up the pressure, and his hands began to slip off the handle from the sweat. The quickly receded, leaving only one lit up, declaring him as a ‘wimp’.

“Aw, man,” he said, as the machine spat out a pink piece of paper with the words ‘you are a cutie patootie’ written on it. “This thing must be broken, y’know,” he spluttered. “It’s totally broken guys. I bet it’s, like, a million years old, probably runs on steam power or somethin-”

He was cut off by Womanly Wendy pushing him out of the way with such force that he fell flat on the floor. She cracked her neck as she approached the machine.

“It’s rickety, man,” continued Ford, trying to dissuade her. “You shouldn’t even-”

She pushed the lever down with her pinky finger.

Ford stared. How. How the heck. Just how. 

Suddenly, all of the lights lit up in one go, and the machine exploded, causing pancakes to rain down on everyone in the diner. “Yes!” shouted Womanly Wendy. “There shall be free pancakes for everyone!”

Ford watched as everyone cheered, seemingly having forgotten about his feeble attempt at ‘manliness’. He saw that Stan and Dipper, however, were laughing. This isn’t some sort of joke!

“I need to get some chest hair,” he said to himself, “and fast.” With that, he ran out of the diner, tripping over a rogue beaver in the floorboards as he did so. “I’m fine!” he called out to Grunkle Dipper, as he vanished through the door. “Everything is a-ok, no problems here whatsoever!”

“Yeesh,” said Dipper, watching him leave. “Not really sure how I ended up related to that, but I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“Oh come on, Grunkle Dipper,” said Stan. He patted his arm in what he thought was a reassuring gesture. “I’m sure that you have a soft side as well.”

“Says the kid who spent a whole week drinking nothing but hot chocolate with food colouring to make it look like black coffee.”

“Well I thought I looked pretty cool.”

“Food!” interrupted Lazy Grenda, slamming the tray down on the table. “For you, sugar pot!”

“Er, thanks?” said Dipper, confused at the compliment, as she marched away. Stan nudged him. “What?”

“She likes you,” he said, in a sing-song voice. “She has a crush on you!”

Dipper laughed awkwardly. “Pfft, no she doesn’t! That’s silly. You’re being silly.”

“Don’t worry, Grunkle Dipper,” continued Stan. “I know you’re nervous because you probably haven’t dated anyone in years-”

“Actually, no, that’s not i-”

“But I will help you get together with this classy lady-” He pointed to Grenda, who was thumping the broken pie trolley. “-even though you are gross, weird old man, because nothing is stronger than the power of…”

“Love?” asked Dipper.

“Stanley. To victory!” he shouted, causing several people in the diner to turn around to look at him. He grabbed the packet of ketchup, ripped it open, and sucked out the contents. 

“And I thought drinking the salad dressing was strange,” mused Dipper.

“Not manly enough,” muttered Ford, as he walked down the high street, his shoulders hunched. “I’ll show them. Stupid diner, stupid lumberja-” He was cut off by the water hydrant exploding in his face, soaking him to the skin. 

“Another hydrant destroyed,” he heard Sheriff Nate saying.

“Wanna take off our uniforms and run around in circles?” asked Deputy Lee. 

“Quit readin’ my mind,” said Nate, who had already taken his shirt off.

Ford shielded his face as the two policemen ran around the hydrant, waving their uniforms in the air. He backed away, accidentally bumping into a woman standing on the sidewalk. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the woman. “I was looking for the mailman?”

“What, are you trying to say I’m not a ‘male man’?” said Ford. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me? That I’m not male? I’m not a man? Is that what you’re getting at?”

The woman looked at him in concern. “Are you crying?”

“No!” he shouted, running off into the woods before she could ask him any more questions.

“Two…” squeaked Ford, lifting the branch over his head. “Three… Four…” He dropped the branch, and tossed it to one side, admitting defeat. “Hmm.” He lifted up his shirt. “No chest hair yet. Is it physical, is it mental? What’s the secret?”

Ford dug a packet of ‘Real Man Jerky’ out of his jacket pocket. The label on the front read ‘You’re Inadequate!’. “You said it, brother,” he said, putting it down. “I need help.”

Suddenly, the forest floor started to rumble and shake. Ford jumped out of the way as a herd of deer raced past, followed by huge flocks of birds, all running from some unknown danger. 

“For the love of all that’s holy,” shouted Womanly Wendy, running with them, “ run! ”

He turned to follow her, but was cut off by a falling tree, tripping over it in his haste to get away from whatever horrifying creature had managed to scare Womanly Wendy , of all people. The footsteps grew closer, and Ford squinted up in terror.

He screamed. “Wait, sorry,” he muttered, when he realised how high-pitched it was, and corrected himself with a deep throated scream that made him cough. 

The creature didn’t seem to have noticed him, or perhaps thought that it had more important things to do and Ford was too scrawny to be a good enough meal for anything larger than a rabbit. It had a huge muscled chest, a brown shaggy beard, the hooves of a cow, and two horns sticking out on either side of its head. Ford held his breath as it opened its mouth, and… yawned?

He frowned. Perhaps it wasn’t as scary as he had initially thought? However, Ford decided that this creature was definitely not to be trifled with when it pulled a fully grown stag out of the bushes and used it as a backscratcher. He was so tied up in trying to gauge how strong it was that he didn’t notice it come up from behind him and grab him by the back of his jacket.

“Please don’t eat me!” he pleaded. I’m certainly not manly any more , if I ever was. “I haven’t, er, actually showered, in, like, a week, so I’d taste super bad. And I’m all elbows! Elbows and gristle!”

“You!” said the creature, in a deep booming voice, “gonna finish that?”

“Huh?” said Ford, before realising that he was still holding the packet of jerky. “No.”

The creature took it and ripped it open in one go, setting Ford gently back onto the ground as he did so. Ford took this as a chance to further examine him. “Hmm. So, you’re part animal, part human,” he murmured. “Are you some kind of minotaur?”

“I’m a manotaur!” boomed the manotaur. “Half man! Half, uh, taur!”

“So did I, like, summon you or-”

“The smell of jerky summoned me! Jerky! ” At this, the manotaur grabbed a boulder and smashed it over his head. “ Yeah!” Suddenly, he started sniffing the air. “I smell… emotional issues.”

Ford sighed. “I have problems, manotaur. Man related problems.”

The manotaur sat down, causing the ground to shake slightly. “I’m listening.”

“Well, my own uncle called me a wimp, and I sorta failed this manliness video game thing - that last part is kinda weird now I say it out loud, but you get the idea…”

“Mm-hmm,” said the manotaur, who was actually turning out to be quite a good listener.

Ford had an idea. “You know…” he said, “you seem pretty manly. Maybe you could give me some pointers?”

“Very well,” said the manotaur. “Climb atop my back hair, small child.”

“Uh, ok.” Ford shivered. The back hair did not look like a fun place to be. 

Ford didn’t so much mind the speed at which the manotaur was running as the fact that he seemed to be actively running into everything the forest had to offer, which included trees, ravines, and bird’s nests. It was like Grunkle Dipper’s driving, but worse , because there were no seatbelts and he had to put up with all of the flies that were congregating in the manotaur’s back hair. 

“Dude, watch out!” he shouted, as yet another branch hit him right across the face. Or perhaps he was supposed to enjoy this? He had said himself that manotaur was manly, and therefore manlier than him. 

The manotaur ignored him, leaping right over a ravine and through the side of a mountain without even flinching. Ford, on the other hand, screamed his head off.

“Oh,” he said, once he opened his eyes again to find that he was somehow still alive and fully functioning. And in some sort of… manotaur cave? “Wow, this place is amazing!” The manotaur set him down on the ground, and he stared around at all of the others, who were exercising, playing games, and just generally being manly.

“The gnomes live in the trees, and the merpeople live in the water,” said the manotaur, sagely. “‘Cause they’re total losers. But we manotaurs crash in the man cave !” He sounded a huge golden gong that had been set up in the far corner. “Beasts, I have brought you a hairless child!”

“S’up,” whispered Ford. 

The manotaur proceeded to point out the others to him. “That’s Pubetaur, Testosteraur and Pituitaur, and I’m Chutzpar. And you are?”

“My name’s Ford.” The manotaurs booed. “Um, the Fearless?” They nodded in agreement.

Chutzpar banged on the gong again, causing Ford to shield his ears from the noise. “Ford the Fearless wants us to teach him the secrets to our manliness!” he announced. 

“I need your help. Look at this, guys!” Ford pulled down his shirt, revealing his bare chest. “Look at this!”

“Hmm,” said Testosteraur, stroking his beard. “I must confer with the High Council.” At this, the manotaurs huddled together. “So, do we teach him our man secrets or what?” Ford heard him ask.

“I don’t like him; he’s a human,” said Pituitaur.

“Well, I don’t like your face!” shouted Testosteraur, punching him. The huddle quickly dissolved into an all-out brawl.

Ford watched them fight; he had clearly chosen the right place to learn the secrets of manliness. Grunkle Dipper would be proud.

Back in the Shack, Dipper was shuffling a deck of cards while wondering whether or not it was a good idea to let your twelve-year-old emotionally distressed nephew run off into the woods on his own with no way of contacting you. So far he had arrived at ‘yes, so long as he isn’t the type to do anything stupid’. Unfortunately, he wasn’t quite sure if this was the case. 

“Ok, Grunkle Dipper,” said Stan. “Welcome to the first day of whatever’s left of your life! First, a before picture.” He snapped a picture of Dipper using a flash camera, making him jump in shock. “As you have wisely taught me, I never miss a scrapbookertunity,” he continued, opening the scrapbook Dipper had given him soon after his arrival. “Doop de doop, memories. Now, let’s start off with some roleplaying. Ria is playing Lazy Grenda.”

“I am soft,” said Ria, who had bright blue eyeshadow on, along with Grenda’s signature yellow apron dress. 

“Grunkle Dipper, show me how you would approach a woman. Remember, this is a safe, non-judgemental environment. Me, Dan and Fidds will be right off to the side judging you on a scale of one to ten.”

Dipper tugged at the collar of his sweater nervously as he walked up to Ria. Maybe if he pretended to be really, really bad at this, he could get out of it? “Er, could I borrow some money?” he asked.

“Cut!” shouted Stan. “Oh, boy, this is gonna be harder than I thought.”

“After a lot of punching,” said Testosteraur, “we have decided to deny your request to learn our manly secrets.”

“Denied!” agreed Pituitaur, punching himself in the face. 

Ford considered this. It couldn’t be too hard to get them to change their minds, if he just insulted the right thing… “Well, that’s ok with me. Obviously you guys think that it would be too hard to train me. Even, perhaps, that you’re not man enough to try.”

Testosterone gasped. “Not man enough?!” he boomed. “Not man enough?! ”

“He didn’t mean it,” reasoned Chutzpar. 

“I have three Y chromosomes, six adam’s apples, pecs on my abs, and fists for nipples!”

Ford folded his arms. “Seems to me like you’re too scared to teach me how to be a man,” he said, flippantly. “Hey, guys, d’you hear that… sounds kinda like… a bunch of chickens!”

This time, all of the manotaurs gasped, and returned to their huddle. 

“I feel all weird,” said Testosteraur.

Pubetor agreed with him. “He must be using some sort of brain magic!” At that, the huddle broke up (luckily without a fight this time).

“After a second round of deliberation, we have decided to help you become a man!” announced Testosteraur, punching the air. 

The others followed, punching the air in unison. “Man! Man! Man!” they chanted.

“Great!” Ford couldn't believe that his tactic had worked so well. Maybe there was still some hope that he could become a true man, after all. “Whatever it is, guys, I promise that I will not let you down!”

“Being a man is about conquering your fears,” explained Chutzpar. 

“For your first man task, you must plunge your fist into… the pain hole! ” said Testosteraur, pointing to a nearby hole. The other manotaurs winced. 

“The what now?” asked Ford, as Testosteraur walked over to it and stuck his entire fist inside.

At first, he seemed fine. “Pain hole, schmain ho- argghhh!” he screamed, slapping himself in the face before running off when the pain proved to be too much. 

Ford gulped as he walked up to the hole. This did not look fun. “Are you sure that this really, absolutely , necessary?”

“You want to be a man, don’t you?” asked Chutzpar. The other manotaurs started chanting again, punching each other as they did so. 

Come on, Ford. What would Stanley do?

He stuck his hand in the pain hole, and screamed.

“Alright, let’s try to get some of that inner beauty on the outside,” said Stan. Dipper had come to the conclusion that Stan didn’t really know what he was doing, and was just giving him random bits of advice from Dipper’s old stash of health and wellbeing magazines.

He sighed, and tried to make the most unconvincing smile he could. 

“Harder!” said Stan. He smiled harder. “Perfect. Ria!”

“‘Sup, hambone,” said Ria, walking up with a sandwich. 

Wait, thought Dipper, that’s my sandwich.

“So,” continued Stan, “what d’ya think?”

Ria took one look at Dipper’s strained smile and ran out of the Shack, screaming. The sandwich was thrown up at the ceiling and stuck there, slowly dripping mayonnaise onto the floor. Waste of a good sandwich.

Stan sighed. “This is gonna take some really great training music. Good thing I had one prepared in case this ever happened.” He held up a CD labelled ‘Stan’s awesome tracks’. “Well, it was more for if this ever happened to Sixer, but it’ll probably work for you too.”

Ford and the manotaurs were relaxing in a hot spring. He had completed all the man tasks but one, but he was sure that he could take whatever they threw at him. “Guys, I just wanna say that these last few hours have been…” he said. “Well, I feel like there’s really been some growth.”

“I have a growth,” said a manotaur.

“Oh, Glurk, you are being hilarious today,” said Ford, laughing. He sighed. “It’s just, you guys have been so supportive, taking me under your wing and everything.”

“Oh, stop,” said Chutzpar, waving away the praise. 

“No, you know what? You really have been. I think I’m finally becoming a man here, despite what everyone said.”

“Not yet, Fearless,” cautioned Chutzpar. “One final task remains, and it’s the deadliest trial of them all.”

Ford, however, was not to be discouraged. “I’ve survived forty-nine other trials,” he said. “Whatever it is, bring it on!”

“Yeah!” cried the other manotaurs.

The man-cave had been lit with torches after all of the manotaur entrance holes had been blocked, creating a rather dramatic effect. Ford held out his arm, so that Chutzpar could finish applying the temporary ‘coolness tattoos’, and gazed out at the row upon row of manotaurs standing before him.

“Rise, Ford the Fearless,” said Chutzpar, once he had applied the last tattoo, which read ‘Rad Dude’. “And behold our leader, Leaderaur!”

Ford turned to see an extremely frail and greying manotaur strolling down the cavern tunnel towards them. “Is he, er, the oldest or wisest or…?” he asked.

“Greetings, young-” started the elderly manotaur, leaning on his staff for support. Before he could finish his sentence, however, a larger manotaur snatched him up in its jaws and swallowed him whole. 

Chutzpar seemed unaffected by this. “Nah,” he said. “He’s just the offering. That is Leaderaur.” He pointed to the absolutely huge, black-furred manotaur that was currently using the offering’s staff as a toothpick.

“You!” he boomed. “You wish to be a man?!”

Ford repeated the greeting the manotaurs had taught him, grunting and banging on his chest. It reminded him of the call made by Silverback gorillas to intimidate their enemies. He wasn’t sure if it worked with people.

The manotaurs, on the other hand, clearly thought it was a sign of manliness, and started cheering him on from the sidelines.

Leaderaur continued. “Then you must do heroic act. Go to highest mountain and…” Here, he paused to pull a bone handled spear from his chest. “And bring back head of… the Multi-Bear!” At that, he threw the spear down at Ford’s feet. 

“The Multi-Bear?” asked Ford. “I’m guessing that’s some kind of bear, right?”

“He is our sworn enemy!” said Leaderaur. “Conquer him, and your mansformation will be complete!”

“Conquer?” This felt… off, to say the least. “I don’t know if this is worth it, guys…”

“Fearless?” asked Chutzpar, and Ford turned to see him rummaging through his backpack. Oh no, not in there! I forgot to bury that thing earlier! “Is this yours?” He held up the incomplete kissing machine. How could he have forgotten about it?

“Er, no!” He said hurriedly, grabbing it from Chutzpar. “I don’t know whose it is, cause, like, obviously it’s not mine, just a friend’s, know how it is?” Ford hid it behind his back in an attempt to conceal it from the rest of the manotaurs.

Unfortunately, his efforts were clearly in vain, as they started murmuring about whether or not he was truly ready to become a man, and if they should have trusted him with their closely-held secrets after all. 

“Uh…” Ford could only see one way out of this. He picked up the spear and brandished it in the air, shouting, “I shall conquer the Multi-Bear!” 

He sighed in relief as the manotaurs started cheering their approval. He had made the right choice.

Right?

Ford ran through the forest, jumping over fallen logs, dodging branches, and giving any of Fiddleford’s loose murder robots. Not even a manotaur would want to mess with one of those. 

He spotted a tree, and climbed it, in order to get a better view of his destination: the cave of the Multi-Bear. It was deep in the side of a mountain that loomed ominously in the distance, beneath rolling grey thunderclouds. Ford glanced down at the forest spread out before him - this would be a tough journey, but the destination would surely be worth it.

Soon, he arrived at the cave of the Multi-Bear. The dark mouth of the cavern lay before him, promising hopes of glory and honour. 

And shame.

No, no shame. This was the right thing to do. The manotaurs wouldn’t tell him to do anything like this if it was wrong , would they?

He went in, spear held at the ready. Ready for whatever monstrous beast came for him, to which he would serve righteous justice, so that he could become a true man.

Right?

Right.

“Alright, Grunkle Dipper,” said Stan, sitting on the couch with the others. “You started like this…” He held up a picture of Before-Dipper. “...But you became this! ” He looked at Dipper, and realised that his experiment had very much backfired. “How is it possible for you to look worse after I gave you a super-awesome-Stanley makeover?!” he wailed, slouching back on the sofa.

Dipper felt kind of bad for him. Most of the advice he had been given had been… questionable, at best, but he was still trying. “Look, kid,” he said, “it’s not all your fault. I just… don’t really want to go out with Lazy Grenda.”

“But you’d look so cute together!” said Stan. “I just want someone to have an epic summer romance, even if it can’t be me!”

Dipper sighed. “Well, maybe someday I’ll have one, and if I do, you’ll be the first person I’ll tell.”

Stan instantly brightened up. “Really?”

“Same here,” said Dan, who was currently managing to safely balance himself on the arm of the chair and still look like he was comfortable. 

Fiddleford nodded in agreement, and Ria patted him on the back. “Dude, do you, like, think you could give me dating tips sometime? I’m super bad at it,” she said.

“And, y’know, Stan,” continued Dipper, “maybe some of your advice could still come in useful after all. I mean, I still have to let Grenda know I’m not interested. I’m not sure she’ll take the hint otherwise.”

“Yes!” shouted Stan. “Of course I can do that! Follow me, Grunkle Dipper, we gotta go now!” He ran out the front door, slamming it shut behind him.

“Well, I’ve never seen anyone quite so keen ta break someone’s heart, but there’s a firs’ time fer everythin’,” said Fiddleford, after he’d gone.

A thought had just occurred to Ford, as made his way through the darkness of the cave. “What is a Multi-Bear?” he asked himself.

Might be a little late to be considering that. Still, you could always just-

No! I have to do this!

As wrapped up in his thoughts as he was, Ford didn’t notice when he stepped on one of the stripped clean bones lying on the floor, snapping it in two with a resounding crack! He paused. Hopefully it hadn’t heard him?

Suddenly, there was a growling sound behind him. Ford turned to see a bear, with heads stuck in seemingly random places all over its body, rise, and make its way towards him.

“Well I guess that answers that question,” he squeaked.

“Child,” said the main head of the Multi-Bear. “What brings you to this place?”

Ford brandished his spear once more. “Multi-Bear, I seek your head!” He realised that that statement probably needed a bit more clarification. “Or one of them, anyway? There’s, like, six or seven, I don’t think I need all of them.”

“This is foolish. Leave now, or die!”

Ford held his gaze. There was no way he was backing down now, not after he’d come so far.

The Multi-Bear sighed. “So be it,” he said, dropping down onto all fours and charging at Ford.

However, Ford had had the good luck of studying ancient battle tactics last night when he was supposed to be asleep (for, um, research purposes), and feinted to the right, causing the Multi-Bear to run right past him and towards the mouth of the cave. Unfortunately, it reversed just in time, and swatted one of the piles of bones at him. Ford ducked behind a rock, pausing for breath. 

What now? 

Suddenly, he had an idea. When the Multi-Bear got close enough, Ford leapt over the rock and ran up its back, using its many heads as footholds. Before the bear could react, he had his spear around its neck and had unbalanced it so badly that it fell over backwards. Ford dodged out of the way and pointed his spear at its neck, effectively keeping it pinned in place. 

“A real man shows no mercy!” he shouted, raising the spear. 

The Multi-Bear sighed. “Very well, warrior,” it said. “But will you grant a magical beast one last request?”

Ford didn’t see any reason not to. “Um, ok.”

“After I die, there’s something I’d like you to bury for me. It’s in the bag over there.” The Multi-Bear nodded towards a canvas bag lying against the wall. Ford walked over to it and took out the object inside.

It was… a kissing machine?

“Where’d you get this?”

The bear shook his head. “I made it. You see, I’m not very good at talking to other people, and I thought that perhaps if I was better at being like them, then I could possibly attract… a mate? It must sound silly to you, I know, but the manotaurs made fun of me for it. I don’t want anyone else to find out after I’m gone.”

“Whoa.” Ford couldn’t believe it. “You too, huh.”

“What? I thought I was the only one.”

Ford started laughing. “This is crazy! Finally someone who actually understands! Oh.” The realisation hit him, and the doubt, all at once. “I guess I’m supposed to kill you, or I’ll never be a man…”

The Multi-Bear turned his head so that his neck was exposed. “I shall accept my fate.”

“No!” He paused. “Really?”

“I suppose it’s for the best,” said the Multi-Bear. “But I do have one last thing to say. Is this really the kind of man you want to be?”

Is it?

Is it really?

“I’m not gonna do it!” yelled Ford, plunging his spear into the floor of the man-cave. 

“You were told,” said Leaderaur, leaning forward on his throne. “The price of manhood is the Multi-Bear’s head!”

“Listen up, Leaderaur, alright? And you too, Testosteraur, Pubertaur and, er… is it Beardy?”

The rather generic looking manotaur nodded. “It is Beardy.”

“You all keep telling me that being a man means doing all these tests, and being aggro all the time, but I’m starting to think that that stuff’s a load of nonsense!” he shouted, pausing for the words to sink in. “Yeah, you heard me right, it’s nonsense! So I might not have muscles, or hair in certain places, and I built a kissing machine because I’m so socially awkward I can’t so much as look at my crush without going red in the face! But that doesn’t make me not a man!”

Chutzpar cut in. “Fearless, what are you saying? Listen to yourself!”

“No! You listen to your selves! You want me to go kill the Multi-Bear just because you don’t like him, but he’s a super nice guy if you just give him the time of day. You’re just a bunch of jerks if you think that’s right!”

Leaderaur had had enough. He stood up, knocking the spear to one side, and leaned down so that he was eye-level with Ford.

Ford didn’t even flinch.

“Kill the Multi-Bear, or never be a man,” growled Leaderaur. 

“Then I guess I’ll never be a man,” he said simply.

The manotaurs were unimpressed by the fact that Ford had shown actual bravery for the first time all day, and booed him. 

“Hey, guys,” said Chutzpar. “Who wants to go build something and then knock it down again?”

They cheered, chanting as they left the arena, leaving Ford to stand there on his own. 

A man.

“Spin, spin!” shouted Lazy Grenda, thumping the pie trolley. The top was starting to dent a little.

The bell tinkled as an over-excited Stan bounded in, dragging Grunkle Dipper behind him. “Lazy Grenda,” he said. “It has come to my, er… Actually, I’m probably not doing this right. Um, er… Ah, yes! We kind of sort of noticed that you maybe might have a crush on my Grunkle here but the thing is that he possibly probably doesn’t like you back and therefore all your hopes and dreams are now dead.”

Grenda said nothing. Dipper stared at Stanley. Somehow, when he thought of ‘things one shouldn’t when telling someone you aren’t interested’, Stan had managed to incorporate just about all of them into a single sentence. Time to intervene.

“Look, Grenda,” he said. “I know you like me, but I only really see you as a friend? And, like, I don’t want to lose that friendship, because it’s important to me, but I don’t want to date you either. If that’s alright?”

“Oh, and by the way, my Grunkle is really not what you should be looking for in a partner,” Stan butted in. “Like, honestly, raise your standards.”

“Ouch.”

Grenda considered this all. “Hmm,” she said. “Fine. I guess I can still attract just about any other man I want. But have some pie! For a friend!” She hurried off into the kitchen.

“Well, that went… better than expected,” said Dipper, making his way over to one of the tables.

“Yeah!” said Stan, as Grenda reappeared, pie in hand. “I should give breakup advice to people! As, like, an internet service. We could buy a phone, and people could call, and we c-”

“Stan, Stan, just let your Grunkle Dipper enjoy his pie in peace, ok?” asked Dipper. He had to admit, it really was an excellent pie. Luckily, Stan was quickly distracted when he spotted Ford through the window.

Good thing to know he’s alive. Man, I should really put some tracking devices on these kids. Were young people always so fast ?

“Sixer!” shouted Stan, standing on the table. “It’s me, Stanley! I’m looking at you through this glass, and this is my voice! I’m talking to you from inside!”

Ford nodded and made his way into the diner, sitting down opposite Stan. 

“Did you see me through th-”

“Yes,” said Ford, dejectedly. Dipper stopped eating. Something was clearly up.

Stan beat him to it. “What’s wrong, Poindexter?”

“Er, it’s kind of a long story…”

“I looove long stories. I looooooove them. Tell me the story, please please please!”

Ford sighed. “Well, I was hanging out with these, like, half human half bull creatures, but then they told me I had to do this really tough, horrible thing, and it wasn’t right. So I said no.”

“You were your own man and you stood up for yourself,” said Dipper, once he had finished. 

“Huh?”

“Ya see, you did what was right even though no-one agreed with ya. Sounds pretty manly to me.” He swallowed a piece of pie. “But what do I know?”

Ford smiled, and before Dipper could ask what exactly it was that these strange people he had met in the woods this morning and never seen before had asked him to do, Stan said, “Wait a minute!”

“What?” asked Ford.

“You have a chest hair! Look!” 

Ford pulled down his shirt, revealing a single strand of brown hair. “You’re right, I do! Haha, this is amazing! Take that, Pituitaur!”

“Pituitaur?” Now Dipper really did have questions.

“This guy has a chest hair!” announced Ford proudly, only for Stan to quickly pluck it out with a pair of tweezers. 

“It’s time for a scrapbookortunity!” he said. 

Dipper laughed. “I have taught you well, my student.”

“But what about my chest hair?”

“It’ll grow back.”

“But when?”

“I dunno, later. I thought the point was that it didn’t matter.”

Chapter Text

“Oh no, guys, I don’t feel so good,” said Ford, clutching his stomach in mock pain. “I- blarghhhhhh!” He pretended to throw up on Stan and Fidds, spraying them with pink silly string as he did so. 

“Grunkle Dipper, what did you feed us?!” added Stan, spraying Ford back. “Blarghhhhh!”

“Whatever it is, it’s turnin’ my insides inta cheap paper ribbons,” said Fiddleford, joining in.

“Blarghhhh!”

“Blarghhhh!”

“Blarghhhh!”

“Guys, guys, stop!” said Dan, running over. “Something terrible just happened!” The trio looked at him in confusion, only for him to spray them with a silly string can he had hidden behind his back. “Blarghhhhh!” They all starting laughing hysterically, covered in multi-coloured string. 

“Comedy gold!” shouted Stan. He grabbed a bag of gold confetti and threw it at Dan, accidentally covering Dipper (who was putting up balloons) with a generous amount in the process.

Dipper sighed and took the bag from him. “Alright, party supplies are now off limits, or we’ll run out before the thing actually has a chance to get started.”

“Mr Pines, whose birthday is it again?” asked Ria, from where she was tying up the bunting. 

“These two gremlins finally turned thirteen,” said Dipper. “Plus, it’s a great way to get kids to spend money at the Shack.”

Ria gave him a thumbs up. “Nice. Happy birthday, dudes.”

“The kids of this town want fun?” continued Dipper. “Then I’ll smother ‘em in fun! In a good way, of course.”

“Maybe comments like that are why kids don’t go to the Mystery Shack,” said Ford, pouring Stan some Pitt Cola. 

“Hey, hey!” Dipper quickly pulled the bottle away. “I told you, just because it’s your birthday doesn’t mean you get to use up my carefully curated collection of party materials in less than an hour! If you want, you could go copy these flyers for me.”

Ford groaned, but Stan beamed. “Yes! The more of these we have, the more we can put up around town, and the more friends I get!”

“Stan, you already have friends,” said Ford, reluctantly taking some of the flyers from Grunkle Dipper.

“Sixer, we’re twins. It’s impossible for us not to be friends.” Dipper flinched slightly at that, but none of them were paying enough attention to notice. “Bud isn’t answering my phone calls, and Fiddleford’s… well, he’s cool and all, but I kinda want some friends who aren’t quite so nerdy. Just to balance it out, y’know?”

Fiddleford gave him an offended look. “I’m not that much of a nerd.”

“Fidds, I hate to break it to you, but you’re literally fixing robotic wheels to the table.”

“It makes it more practical,” he huffed. 

“Fiddleford, what did I say about adding wheels to the furniture?” asked Dipper, sighing. “Now, go get those flyers copied or no-one’ll turn up, alright?”

“Yes!” Stan punched the air. “Time to go to the copier store!”

“Calendars, mugs, t-shirts and more,” sang Ria. “They’ve got it all at the copier store!” She paused. “That’s not their slogan, I just really feel that way about the copier store.”

“Save yourselves the trouble. I finally got around to fixing up the old copier in my office, and now it’s as good as new.”

“I don’ think Mr Pines knows how technology works,” said Fiddleford, shivering. They had quickly discovered that the old copier was not, in any way whatsoever, ‘as good as new’. It was largely smashed, missing several parts, and had managed to acquire an infestation of insects in the lower paper trays. “Perhaps I coul-”

“Fidds, as much as I appreciate the idea, I don’t think Grunkle Dipper wants you adding anything to the furniture anymore,” said Ford. “Although I do agree that it is quite horrifying to look at.”

Stan pushed past them and started pressing random buttons in the hope of getting it to turn on. Nothing happened. “Well, guess this thing doesn’t work anymore,” he said, resting his arm on the screen. “I’m assuming that you two technology nerds will want to hold some sort of funeral for it, thou- Huh?” Stan pulled his arm away once he realised that it had managed to turn on after all, and was scanning it.

The copier crackled with blue electricity, before ejecting a piece of paper with a scan of Stan’s arm on it in a cloud of putrid black smoke. 

Stan grabbed it. “Success!” he cried. He noticed that the others didn’t seem quite as happy about the copier being alive as they should be. “What?”

“Stan, it’s… movin’,” said Fiddleford, quietly.

“What d’you me-” Stan dropped the paper as the arm printed on it began to wiggle, before detaching itself entirely and crawling across the floor towards him. “Arghh! It’s alive! Why is it alive?!”

“I don’ know,” whispered Fiddleford, who was clutching Ford’s arm. 

“Stay back!” shouted Ford. He grabbed Stan’s drink and threw it at the arm, causing it to suddenly dissolve into a bubbling puddle on the floor. 

There was silence.

“Well, that was horrifyin’,” said Fiddleford. “Maybe we should jus’ go ter the copier store instead a’ usin’ this thing again.”

“Good idea,” agreed Ford. “I don’t think we should use the machine that can apparently copy human beings more than we have to.”

Stan laughed. The others looked at him quizzically. “Oh, right, so I just thought of a joke,” he said, when he realised they were staring. “It goes like this: that copier sure was strange, but I think we’ve dis armed it!”

“And?” asked Ford.

Stanley sighed. “Sixer, that was the joke.”

“Alright, party people,” said Dipper, addressing the group, his pink party organiser clipboard clutched in one hand. “And Ford, I guess. It’s time to talk business. Ria, because you offered to work for free, and you begged me, you can be the DJ.”

“You won’t regret it, Mr Pines,” said Ria. “I got this book on how to DJ r-r-right!” She held up a neon blue book with a teenage boy displayed on the front.

Dipper grinned. “I like your enthusiasm, Ria. Now, Dan and Fiddleford can work the ticket stand, ok?”

“But, Mr Pines, Stan said he’d help me make some friends!” complained Fiddleford. “Can’t I go to the party too?”

Ford saw his chance. “Uh, I could work with Dan?” he suggested, in a totally subtle and inconspicuous way.

“Hmm.” Dipper peered at him over the top of his clipboard. “You do understand that, if you do, you gotta commit to it. That means staying at the stand with Dan, no getting out of it. Just the two of you, alone, all night. ” He winked. 

Ford, however, didn’t notice the wink. He was far too busy thinking about how handsome Dan looked right now, and how this night was his best shot at, well, anything. “I promise.”

Ford adjusted his bowtie in the mirror before grabbing the spray deodorant from the bedside table. It wasn’t often that he remembered to put it on (or even shower, for that matter) but today was going to be special. And not just because it was his birthday.

“Ah!” He dropped the bottle when he turned back to the mirror to find Stan had somehow materialised next to him. “What is it?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Stan. “But, I dunno, maybe, uh, uh, I could work at the counter with you, Dan! Let’s kiss now!” He made exaggerated kissy faces. 

“Yeah, yeah, laugh all you want,” said Ford, returning to the adjustment of his bowtie (somehow, he just couldn’t get it to sit quite right). “But I’ve devised a plan to make sure my night with Dan goes perfectly .”

“Plan? You aren’t making one of those over-complicated listy things, are you?”

Ford chuckled. “Overcomplicated? It’s not overcomplicated. I’ll show you.” He dug the tightly folded piece of paper out of one of his pockets and opened it up, revealing a list that trailed all the way to the floor. “Now, let’s see… Step One: getting to know each other with playful banter. Banter is like talking, but smarter,” he added.

“That sounds like a dumb idea for stupid people.”

“Yeah, this isn’t banter. This is what I want to avoid with Dan. Ok, so the final step is to ask him to dance with me, and if I follow steps one to eleven perfectly, then nothing will be able to mess this up!”

Stan sighed. “Ford, you’re gonna be the one to mess this up. Why can’t you just walk up and talk to him like a normal person?”

“That’s Step Nine, brother,” said Ford, pointing to it on the list.

Stan rolled his eyes. Every day, his brother found more ways to surprise him by demonstrating his inability to perform average social interactions.

Stan and Fiddleford looked down on the party, trying to spot any potential new friends.

“Doo de doo,” sang Dipper, dancing up to them. “Now, can I throw a party or what?”

The pair nodded, before resuming their search. Ria was currently trying to work out how to use the electric keyboard sound effects, and was searching for the lightning key. So far, she had only found the dog noises, a selection of quacks, and a randomly placed ‘yeah!’. 

“And, if anyone wants to leave, there’s an exit fee of five bucks each!” he added, proudly. “That’s to pay for your presents,” he whispered to Stan. 

Down below, Greg and Janice quickly searched their pockets. “I’ve only got three!” said Janice.

“We’re trapped!” Greg began banging the morse code for S.O.S. on the stained glass. “Help!”

“Step One: casual banter,” said Ford, checking over his plan as he sat at the ticket stall with Dan. So far, there hadn’t been much of an opportunity to talk, but the line of guests was starting to thin out. Ford seized his chance.

“So, here’s a casual question,” he squeaked. “What’s your favourite type of… snack food?”

Dan leaned back in his chair. “Oh man, I can’t just pick one.”

“No way! Mine too!”

“What?” asked Dan, looking at him in confusion. Ford started sweating. He had most definitely messed up.

Maybe I could just run away and live in the woods for forever and ever. Or leave the dimension. Then I would never have to deal with this mess of a conversation that I have started. 

“Uhh… I mean… I mean…” He grabbed a handful of popcorn from the bowl in front of him and stuffed it in his mouth, stalling for time. Dan started handing out tickets again, giving Ford the chance to check his plan, which looked like it was in need of a few extra steps with the way things were going.

“New topic, new topic,” he whispered. 

“Alright, here goes nothing,” whispered Dipper. He could see them in the corner, laughing together. Surely it couldn’t be too hard? They’d been friends for years before everything fell apart.

They think you’re dead, idiot. They only know Dipper, and not very well at that. Heck, Grenda had a crush on you up until a few days ago!

He went up to them anyway. 

“Hi, guys,” he said nervously. Candy and Grenda turned to look at him. It felt like a hollow greeting compared to the way things used to be. God, how he wished things could go back to the way they used to be. “Sooo, I was thinking, I’ve seen you guys around town, and it was time we got to know each other a bit better? Right?”

There was silence for a while, before Candy stuck out her hand and gave him a lopsided grin that had several teeth missing. “Nice ta meet ya! What’s yer name again?”

“Oh, it’s, er, Dipper. Dipper Pines. You’re Fiddleford’s grauntie, right?”

“I’m not sure what a ‘grauntie’ is, but I like the word. Very creative! Mebbe I’ll use it mahself.” She laughed, and Dipper laughed too. It was still awkward, but it wasn’t awful.

He noticed that Grenda hadn’t said anything yet. “And I know you! You run the diner. Very nice place. My nephews insist on us going there as often as possible, y’know.”

“I make good food,” said Grenda, assuredly. “People like it.”

“So, er…” Dipper found himself at a loss for what to say. Why is this so hard? You’re supposed to be the people twin! “Um…”

“Say, I heard ya had some board games stowed up in ‘ere somewhere!” said Candy. “Could I try some a them? I do love mahself a good board game.”

Dipper grinned. “Yes! Let’s all go and play some board games!”

“Go, go!” shouted Stan. He was trying to teach Fiddleford to dance, and the results were certainly… interesting. “You stay here; I’m gonna go check out those guys in the corner.”

“Wait, you aren’t gonna jus’ leave m-” said Fiddleford, but before he could finish his sentence Stan had already gone.

Stanley sat down on the row of chairs lining the room, next to two other kids who seemed to be about his age. He quickly noticed that the one closest to him had a small lizard sitting on his shoulder. 

“Wow!” he said. “You have an animal on your body! I’m Stan, by the way.”

“Hi,” said the boy. “I’m Daryl. That’s Edwin.” Daryl gestured to the skinny boy sitting next to him, with forks taped to his fingers. 

“Why d’you have forks stuck to your hand?” asked Stan, intrigued. 

Edwin stuck his hand in the bowl of popcorn sitting between them. “This way, I can get more food in my mouth at once.” He showed him the kernels stuck to the forks on his fingers. 

Stan gasped. “That’s so cool!” He watched as Daryl fed some of the popcorn to the lizard sitting on his shoulder. 

Just then, Fiddleford walked up to him, having retreated from the dance floor. “Er, d’ya think you could introduce me ta them?” he whispered nervously.

“Sure! Guys,” said Stan, “meet my friend Fidd-”

“Remember, dudes!” shouted Ria, from the DJ turntables. “Whoever parties hardest gets the ultimate prize: the party crown!” She held up the golden crown that Ford had found left over in the parlour from the fight with the wax figures. “Most applause at the end of the night wins!”

“Whoa!” Stan gasped, and Daryl and Edwin grinned at each other. “We have to get that crown.”

Before he could start to come up with some sort of plan, however, a blond boy in a dark blue tuxedo marched up to Ria, flanked by a girl and a boy about the same age. 

“I’ll take that crown, if you don’t mind,” he said, holding out his hand for the crown while checking his face in a pocket mirror. “Sounds like it belongs to me.”

“Who’s that?” whispered Stan. 

Daryl scratched his head. “The most popular kid in town: Preston Northwest.”

“I always feel bad about myself around her,” said Edwin, nodding.

Back at the turntables, Ria was not having a good time. “I can’t just give you the crown. It’s sort of, like, a competition thing.”

Preston laughed, as if Ria had just said something ridiculously stupid. “And who, exactly, is going to try to compete against me?” he said, turning to the party goers. “Fork boy? Lizard man?”

“Hold me, Edwin,” said Daryl, hugging him. 

“Our kind ain’t welcome here,” said Edwin. 

Stan watched them sadly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Fiddleford edge backwards, towards the corner of the room. 

Is everyone here scared of Preston?

“I’ll do it!” he shouted, running up to the platform. “I’ll compete! I’m Stanley, by the way,” he said to Preston.

He smirked. “That sounds like a fat old man’s name.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Well, may the better partier win, I guess,” said Preston, walking away. “Which, of course, means me.”

“Nice meeting you!” called Stan, as he disappeared into the crowd. “Oh, he is so going down.”

“Whoa, sounds like the party’s getting nuts,” remarked Dan, handing out tickets. He pressed his face up against the window, watching as Stan and Preston dance-battled it out for the prized party crown. “I gotta get in there. Cover for me?” 

“Um, well…” Ford did not want his only attempt at conversation with Dan tonight to have been a botched starter question about snack foods. “I mean…”

“Thanks, man,” said Dan, before running inside to join the party. 

Ford stared from the outside as his carefully conducted plan fell to pieces. This was not good. He checked his list again, then carefully folded it away; it was time to improvise. 

“I’ll be back shortly,” he said to the queue of people, before rushing off after Dan. “I’m sure Dipper won’t mind if I’m gone for just a few minutes,” he muttered. 

“Hey!” Ford turned round. It was Dipper. “Ford, I know it’s your birthday, but I need someone running the ticket stand, and you said you’d do it.”

“Did I, though?”

Dipper looked unimpressed. “If you’re going to try to lie to me, at least make it halfway believable.”

Ford sighed, and went back to the desk, where the crowd immediately resumed clamouring to be let in. “If only I could be in two places at once- Hang on a second!” Ford grabbed a pen from his pocket and started scribbling down a new plan on the back on his original list, working through all every possible liability, before resulting with a probability of success at around 52%. He guessed it was better than absolute zero, but the odds were definitely going down.

“Now, all I need is someone to cover me for a few minutes…” he murmured, subconsciously chewing on the end of the pen. “Hmmm.” 

He quickly spotted Fiddleford backing a hasty retreat from the party. 

“Fidds!” he shouted, ignoring the people who by now were practically throwing their money at him. “I need your help!”

“What for?” asked Fiddleford, waking over. “If yer askin’ about Stan, he’s currently tryin’ ta out-party the richest kid in town. He kept on tryin’ ta get ta dance.”

“What…? Oh, never mind.” Ford quickly wrote off the Stan-typical behaviour, and began explaining the situation. “I need to go inside for a bit, but I can’t leave the stand on its own, so could you, like, cover for me? Please? It is my birthday, and I swear I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

Fiddleford saluted him. “Yer ticket stand is safe with me.”

“I wonder if this is a good idea,” said Ford, to no-one in particular, as he climbed on top of the old photo-copying machine. “Now, how do I-” His foot nudged the power button, and a bright green light swept over him as he was scanned.

The copier spat out a piece of paper with a black-and-white image of Ford printed on it, which fluttered to the floor. For a few seconds, nothing happened, until the image started to move.

Ford gulped. Perhaps this really wasn’t a good idea; he had absolutely no idea what sort of personality this copy would have. Cloning his physical appearance was possible, but what about his psychological aspects?

Before he could do anything, the clone struggled out of the paper. Stanford saw that his colours looked a little faded - a reasonable side effect, he supposed. “Wow,” he whispered. “I have a really big head. Is that normal?”

The clone turned to look at him. There was a deafening silence. 

“So, uh…” they both started, laughing when they realised that this sort of thing was probably inevitable. “Sorry, you first. Hey, stop copying me!”

The clone ( Stanford 2.0? Double Ford? ) ended up laughing so hard that he banged his elbow on the copier machine. “Ow, ow! Funny bone!” While he was busy rubbing his elbow, Ford grabbed a pen and drew a large black two on the front of his t-shirt.

“There,” he said. “You shall be Number Two.”

Number Two gave him an unimpressed look. “You and I both know you can do better than that. How about that name I’ve always wanted?”

“Tyrone,” said the pair, waggling their eyebrows up and down, or at least attempting to.

“Ok, Tyrone, let’s get down to business. I’m thinking you go down to the ticket stand, tell Fidds you can take over, and leave me free to go ask Dan to dance.”

“I know the plan, buddy.” Tyrone pulled out an identical version of Ford's hastily corrected plan. 

Ford narrowed his eyes. This copier might have worked a little too well. “Hey,” he said, trying to sound casual. “There’s no chance of us getting jealous and turning on each other like the clones in movies, is there?”

“Stanford, please. This is you you’re talking about. Plus, you could always just disintegrate me with water.”

“Yeah,” they said together, tapping each other’s foreheads. “Yeah.”

“Ok, so Candy, you rolled a six,” explained Dipper, as the three sat in front of a game of snakes and ladders at the kitchen table. “That means you get to move along six spaces, but you land on a snake, so you have to move down again.”

“Hmm.” Candy examined the board closely. “These snakes are slippery fellas.”

“Now, Grenda, it’s your turn.”

Grenada rolled a three, but landed on a ladder that took her halfway up the board. “Yes! I’m winning!” she shouted. “Do I get a prize?”

“Huh.” Dipper thought about this. “I hadn’t thought about that. You guys fancy anything specific?”

“Sugar,” said Candy and Grenda, almost immediately.

“Sugar it is.”

Tyrone was manning the ticket stand with Fiddleford, who had decided that this was probably better than going inside and getting involved in the madness that was Stan’s party battle. Tyrone quickly went along with it once he realised that this reduced the chances of him going inside to find that there were actually two Fords present. That was not a mess they needed to have to explain.

While Fidds was busy talking to a customer, he signalled Ford with a thumbs up. 

Ford returned the gesture as he made his way over to Dan.

“Great news, Dan!” he said, awkwardly dancing his way over. “I got someone to cover the concessions for me!”

Dan smiled. “That’s awesome! Now you can hang out with me and Shandra. Shandra, you remember Ford, from the convenience store?”

“Uh, no,” said Shandra quickly, rolling her eyes. Ford glared at her. His plan was, yet again, falling apart.

Ignoring Ford’s very much un-threatening stare, Shandra opened the guitar case leaning against the wall next to her. “Yo, Dan, check out my new guitar.” She played a fancy riff, grinning as she did so.

“Woah, cool,” said Dan. “How’d you learn?”

“I don’t like telling people this, but I think I’m just naturally talented, y’know?” said Shandra. “Always have been.”

Ford gasped. This was getting worse, worse, and worse again. Dan was falling for Shandra’s fancy guitar tricks and black eyeliner, and he couldn’t do anything to stop it. In his mind, he had already failed; Dan and Shandra would be dancing together by the end of the night, and he would have lost his chance forever.

Suddenly, the walkie-talkie in his pocket started speaking. He excused himself and made his way over to a corner so that no-one could overhear him having a conversation with someone who was technically an exact copy of himself. 

“Hey, buddy it’s me, you. I just had the same jealousy fantasy,” whispered Tyrone. 

“We have to get rid of Shandra if I ever want to dance with Dan!”

“Ford, we’re gonna go sit on the couch,” called Dan. “Meet us when you’re done.”

“Or don’t!” added Shandra, as soon as he was out of earshot, before hurrying after him.

“Tyrone, they’re sitting on the couch! We gotta think of something quick!” Ford glanced round, spotting Shandra’s bike propped up against the wall. “I have an idea!”

“I just had the same one, but we’re going to need some help.”

“And that’s where you come in, Number Three,” said Ford, drawing a three on his shirt. 

“But what if Shandra catches me? I won’t have any backup.”

Ford considered it. “Good point. Four Fords it is. This is a four Ford plan.” He scanned himself again. 

The paper immediately got stuck in the machine. “Oh no, looks like a paper jam,” said Tyrone, tugging it loose and laying it out on the floor. “Well, it seems fi-”

“Nya nya nya nya naaaaa!” screamed the paper jam clone. He rose out of the paper and jumped at Tyrone, knocking him over. “Nyaaaaa!”

“Well maybe not quite fine , but you can still work with him, right?” asked Tyrone. He quickly overpowered the Paper Jam Ford, who was still screaming at him through his squashed mouth.

“Not a chance.”

Tyrone gave him an offended glare. “Don’t be rude.” He turned back to Paper Jam Ford. “Hey, buddy, it’s ok.”

Paper Jam Ford did not seem to think it was ok, and increased the volume of his screaming. 

Well, I guess it’s a good thing Ria’s DJ-ing is so loud, thought Ford. How can this thing produce so much noise when it doesn’t even have a fully formed mouth?

“Ok,” he said out loud. “One more clone. And then no more.”

“Always… means… foreverrrrrr,” sang Preston, clutching the microphone to his chest. “Alwayyyyyyys!” 

“I used to sing like that,” said Daryl, “before my voice changed.” The trio watched as Preston strode off stage, the audience applauding him madly.

“Preston is pulling ahead!” shouted Ria, in the most passive-aggressive voice she could manage. “Because of course he is. He’s rich!”

Preston either didn’t notice Ria’s tone, or didn’t care, instead walking up to Stanley and dumping the mike in his hands. “Try to top that. Oh, and Daryl, you sound like a professional wrestler. Just thought you ought to know.”

“I wanna put him in a headlock and make him feel pain!” said Daryl, as soon as he was out of earshot. 

“It’s not over ‘till it’s over, brothers!” yelled Stan, running up onto the platform. “Ria, give me the 80-ist, crowd pleasing-ist, rock ballady-ist song you’ve got!”

Ria saluted him. “Already on it.” She clicked a button on the remote to the fancy new karaoke machine that Dipper had insisted on buying, the opening notes of ‘Don’t Start Un-Believing’ playing over the chatter of the crowd. 

“Perfect.” Stan took a deep breath, before belting out the lyrics to the song at the top of his lungs. People could probably hear him all the way over in town. “Don’t start un-believing! Never don’t not feel your feelings!”

Heads turned towards the source of the sound, and people started cheering. Stan grinned; this felt awesome. He grabbed the microphone cord and twirled it around in the air, exciting more whoops from the guests. 

“Now I’m gonna do a flip!” he yelled, tripping over his own feet and falling flat on his face as he tried to do so. “That was for you guys!”

Preston looked on, unimpressed, as the crowd continued to go wild. “Fools,” he muttered, narrowly dodging a teenager falling from the mirror ball. “All of them.”

While all of this was going on, Ford quickly darted up to Ria and whispered in her ear.

“Dudes, would the owner of a black and silver stunt bike please report outside? It’s being stolen, like, right now,” she said into the microphone. “The quicker the better, really.”

Shandra leapt off the couch. “Wait, what?” She ran over to the window, only to see two children (whose outfits bore a striking resemblance to Ford’s) cycling away on her prized bicycle. “Hey, come back here!” she shouted, chasing after them.

Ford walked over to Dan, who was now alone on the sofa, in what he believed to be a nonchalant and uncontrived way. “Oh, tough break,” he said, once he was close enough. “I wonder who those guys are.” Dan seemed preoccupied with watching Shandra run off into the forest. “Who totally aren’t me,” he added. “Because I’m right here. Definitely not clones or anything like that…” He laughed nervously.

“Now we’re gonna bring it down for a minute,” said Ria. “Guys, gals, and non-binary pals, now’s your time.” She adjusted the music accordingly, and soon almost everyone had paired off and begun to dance.

“Oh snap, I love this song,” said Dan, swaying in time with the music. 

Ford just sat there awkwardly. What am I supposed to do now? Just… talk to him?

“Psst!” said someone next to him. He startled, before realising it was just Stan. “Sixer, now’s your chance to ask Da-” Ford quickly clapped a hand over his mouth, only removing it once they were far enough away that Dan wouldn’t be able to hear what they were saying.

“Stanley, you need to be quiet!” he hissed. 

“Geez, Poindexter, chill a bit,” said Stan, though thankfully he was a little quieter this time. “But as I was saying, now’s the perfect time to ask Dan for a dance! You just have to take a chance, alright?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea…” Ford pulled out his list. Asking Dan to dance now would mean skipping out several key steps, and probably some sort of improvisation.  

Stanley, however, had already started pushing Ford in Dan’s direction. “C’mon! Go and talk to him!”

“I, er…” Ford trailed off. Perhaps this could be a good idea? “Um…” Twisting out of Stan’s grip, he dashed off towards the stairs. “I’ll be right back!”

Perhaps not.

“Oh, I agree with you,” said Tyrone, as the pair paced up and down in the twins’ room. “You can’t just go and ask to dance with him.”

“The dance floor is a minefield, Tyrone,” said Ford. “Danger at every turn.”

Tyrone nodded. “What if there’s a glitch in the sound system?”

“What if Dipper gets in the way?”

“What if Shandra comes back?”

“There’s far too many variables at play,” finished Ford. “We need help.”

Six more Fords later, and the plan was back on. 

“Alright, guys!” called Ford, trying to make himself heard over the noise of the busy room. “Gather round; now’s the time! Are you all clear on what you have to do?”

The clones nodded in unison, holding up their identical copies of Ford’s (heavily-adjusted) plan.

“Then let’s get this metaphorical show on the road!”

“Hey, Ria!” said Ford Number Ten, walking up to her DJ-station. “Did you know that there’s a glowing dot behind you?” He flicked on a green laser pointer and aimed it at the wall behind her.

Ria looked round. “Oh man, I’m so glad I turned my head,” she said, utterly transfixed by it. “That dot really does not disappoint.”

While she was distracted, Ten inserted a CD labelled ‘Dan Mix’ into her computer. He gave a thumbs up to Seven, who was sitting in the rafters, adjusting the lighting. Next to him, Number Eight reeled out a fishing line with a bag of Smile Dip attached to it so that it was dangling in front of Dipper’s face.

“Right, like I’m gonna fall for that,” said Dipper, continuing to fill up his plate with marshmallows for Candy and Grenda. Suddenly, he jumped at it, knocking the table over. “Give me that Smile Dip!” he yelled, chasing after the packet. 

Watching from a corner, Ford Number Six pulled on the bell rope, sending a signal to Ford and Tyrone.

“That’s your cue,” said Tyrone, as the bell rang in the attic. “We’ve crafted the perfect opportunity for you to ask Dan to dance. Good luck, me!”

“I don’t need luck,” said Ford. “I have a plan. ” At that, he ran out of the room and down the stairs.

Before he could reach the party room, however, he came across Dan leaning against a wall in the hallway. “Ah!” He immediately stopped in his tracks, at a loss for what to do.

“Oh hey, man,” said Dan. “What’s up?”

“W-what are you doing here? I mean, wouldn’t you rather be out on the dance floor in, uh, exactly 42 seconds?”

If Dan had noticed that he seemed stressed, he didn’t mention it. “I’m just waiting for the bathroom.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” He pulled out his plan, checking it hurriedly. “Small talk, small talk, small talk…” he whispered.

“So, hey, let’s say everyone at this party gets stuck on a desert island. Who do you think the leader would be?”

“I, uh…” Ford wracked his brains for something to say.

“I think I’d go with that lunatic,” continued Dan, gesturing to the dance floor, where a man was aggressively punching in the air in an attempt at ‘dancing’.

Ford laughed. “I’d probably go for Stretch over there.” He pointed to a tall man who was moonwalking rather badly. “Er, because tall people can reach coconuts?”

Now it was Dan’s turn to laugh. “Oh, and speaking of tall, want to see something?” He pulled a picture out of his pocket, his thumb covering the figure on the far right. “So, these are my sisters, and then…” He lifted his thumb, revealing a gangly child version of himself standing next to his average-sized sisters.

“Ha! You were a freak,” Ford blurted out, before he could stop himself. As soon as he realised what he had said, he clapped his hands over his mouth. 

“Yep,” said Dan, coolly. 

“Er, you know, kids actually used to make fun of my fingers sometimes. I’m not very good at hiding them, but keeping them out of sight usually works.”

“Fingers?”

Ford froze, quickly hiding both hands behind his back. Why did I say that why did I say that whydidIsaythat?! “What? Ha, it’s nothing, really, just, like-”

“No way, dude!” said Dan. “Now you just have to show me. Show me! Show me!”

Ford pulled his hands out from behind his back and showed them to him. 

“Woah, you have six fingers?” 

He nodded, waiting for the inevitable reproach of ‘weirdo’ or ‘freak’ that he had become accustomed to. 

It didn’t come. 

“That’s so cool, dude! And I know how you got your nickname now, so it’s a double win. I guess we’re both freaks together, then.” Before Ford could respond, the bathroom door slammed open and Preston marched out. “Wait here?”

“Of course,” said Ford. This felt… Well, this felt totally awesome , to put it like Stan. If Dan was so willing to accept him, then maybe there were more people out there who didn’t think being different was such a bad thing. Maybe he could even-

“Hey!” called Tyrone, startling him from his thoughts. “What are you still doing up here? Number Ten has been distracting Ria for fifteen minutes now; she’s going to get bored of chasing that dot eventually!”

“Never!” shouted Ria from the dance floor.

“Guys, you won’t believe it,” said Ford, eager to explain his newfound hope. “I bumped into Dan by accident and things are actually going great!”

Tyrone folded his arms. “That’s nice, but it’s not the plan. Remember?”

“Well, maybe we don’t need the plan anymore, alright? We could do what Stan said, and go and talk to him like a normal person.”

The clones gave a unanimous gasp.

“If you’re not gonna stick to the plan,” said Number Five, “then maybe you shouldn't be the Ford who gets to dance with Dan!”

Ford narrowed his eyes. “Guys, I thought we agreed not to turn on each other.”

“I think we all knew we were lying,” said Tyrone. Ford found himself surrounded by five identical copies of himself. He tried to fight them, but strength had never really been his forte, and even if it had, they were him. How was he supposed to overpower five people who were all equally matched to him?

Ford found himself thrown in the closet on the top landing, falling in an ungainly heap by Dipper’s pile of unmendable sweaters (though he still insisted that he was going to mend them, at some point).

He decided that his best option was to outthink them. He’d always been top of the class back in Piedmont, so it shouldn’t be all that hard, everything considered.

“Ahh, I can’t breathe in here!” he called out. “I think I’m going to suffocate!”

“Yes you can,” said Tyrone. “We even gave you some snacks and a sci-fi novel.”

Right. Tyrone was also him, and therefore also technically top of the Piedmont class. Ford sighed, grabbed a cracker, and chewed on it as angrily as he could. 

Outside of the closet, the clones were discussing their next plan of action, since the last one had so obviously failed. Again. 

“Ok, so now that Original Ford, or ‘Ford Classic’, is no longer fit for it, I’ve nominated myself to dance with Dan instead,” said Tyrone. “I’m the one who’s been around the longest, so it should be me. When you think about it logically.”

Number Ten nodded. “Fair point, fair point. But counterpoint: maybe I should get to dance with Dan because I’m the one who’s been around him the least.”

“That makes absolutely no sense,” objected Five. 

“You make zero sense!” shouted Ten, pushing him backwards.

“Hey, watch it!” Five responded in kind, knocking him to the floor.

“Don’t shove people!” yelled Six, shoving him.

Paper Jam Ford let out one of his shrill garbled screams. The others turned to face him; Paper Jam Ford was a source of strange fascination to them - though he served more as a reminder that Dipper couldn’t fix a piece of office equipment to save his life than anything else.

“Hey, you want some cheese and crackers, buddy?” asked Tyrone softly. Paper Jam Ford made a ‘ksksks’ sound which they had come to recognise as a yes. Tyrone attempted to feed him one of the crackers, before realising that he had no mouth and giving up. “Yikes. By the way, what would you guys do if you were trapped in a closet by multiple clones of yourself?”

“Break out,” they answered as one. “Oh.” The Fords turned their heads to see the door swinging wide open, and Ford Classic long since gone.

“Dan!” shouted Ford, running to the balcony overlooking the dance floor. His cries for help were suddenly cut off by five or six clones grabbing him and dragging him backwards. “Hey, let me go!”

“C’mon, Ford Classic,” said Tyrone. “Give it up. You and I both know you’re overpowered.”

“Hold on a second, guys,” said Ford, stalling for time. “We’re exact equals in every regard; if we start fighting, it’ll just carry on for infinity.”

The clones started murmuring among themselves, debating whether or not this was in fact a fair point. 

Ford took his chance, and punched Tyrone square in the nose. He wasn’t quite strong enough to break it, but he could tell it was going to be sore for a while.

There was silence as Tyrone stood there, glaring at him. 

“Clone fight!” yelled Number Nine. The clones all jumped at each other, unable to recognise who was who in all the chaos.

Ford found himself being slapped in the face by Number Five, who was chanting, “Quit hitting myself! Quit hitting myself!”, before another Ford pushed him over and they started fighting instead. Now free of any attacking clones, Ford was able to crawl out of the melee. He had almost reached the balcony when…

“Hey!” called Number Ten. “Classic Ford’s getting away!”

Luckily, Ford had already prepared himself for such a situation. He quickly stuck a piece of paper reading ‘7’ to the front of his shirt. “No, friends,” he said calmly. “It’s me. Number Seven.”

Seven, who was currently being pinned to the floor by Number Nine, piped up. “That’s not me, guys. That’s not me!”

The paper fluttered to the floor. 

“Get him!” yelled Nine. Once again, the Fords advanced, but this time, Ford had no way out. He was, both literally and figuratively, cornered. 

“Stay back!” he shouted, brandishing a lone party popper in front of him. “I will not hesitate to use this highly dangerous, homemade party popper on you guys!”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’ll do all that much,” said Ten. 

Ford pulled a little tighter on the string. “I warned you…” He fired it at them, causing somewhat burnt sprinkles to rain down on the clones. Dipper’s homemade party supplies could certainly never be labelled as ‘boring’.

Unfortunately, as un-boring as the party popper had been, it didn’t seem to have affected the clones in any way other than a few hands placed over ears at the initial bang. 

Except for the smoke…

Another thing that needed to be mentioned about Dipper’s party poppers (apart from their rather interesting components) was that they released copious levels of black smoke whenever they were set off. And Ford knew for a fact that Ria had fitted this corridor with new fire-safety sprinklers last week.

Which were suddenly set off, spraying the clones with water. They melted into puddles of ink and vanished, muttering about the lameness of their demise as they did so.

And then they were gone. 

“Huh,” he said. “How about that?”

“You!” shouted someone behind him.

He turned and saw Tyrone standing there, nostrils flared and fists clenched.

Uh oh.

Stan, meanwhile, was having the time of his life. He’d always wanted to show off his prized ability to do the worm, and now he got to do it with his brand new friends on his birthday with people actually cheering him on. It would have been much more fun if Preston hadn’t been giving him a death stare for half an hour straight, but he supposed you couldn’t have everything.

“One more song, dudes! And then, it’s time for the bestowing of the highly sought-after party crown!” Ria was also having the time of her life, which had also been somewhat ruined by the fact that Preston kept on trying to bribe her into giving him the prize. “It’s gonna be the-” She pressed the explosion sound on her keyboard. “Nailed it!”

“Preston, I just wanna say that whoever wins, it’s been a super fun party,” said Stan, after he had finished his freestyle dance routine. 

“Aww, it thinks it’s gonna win,” said Preston, sarcastically. “Hey, did you hear that? People clapping for the weird kids? Yeah, me neither.” At that, he strode off into the crowd.

“Say it!” yelled Tyrone, holding a struggling Ford in a chokehold. “Say that I can dance with Dan!”

“Never!” Ford somehow managed to escape his grip and put Tyrone in a chokehold himself. “Now-”

The pair stopped in their struggle at the sound of laughter drifting across the dance floor. “Dan!” they gasped, running over to the balcony. 

On the other side of the room, they could see Dan and Shandra, standing in a corner and having a playful conversation. They sighed, sinking to the floor in unison.

“Guess we blew it, then,” said Ford forlornly. 

Tyrone let out another sigh. “Yeah. D’you wanna go grab a couple of sodas or something?”

“Sure.”

“Let the party crown voting commence!” announced Ria, ringing the bell on her keyboard. 

Preston leaned forward so that Stan could see his face. “Good luck, Stanley,” he sneered. “You’ll need it.”

“Applaud to vote for Stan!” said Ria. The crowd applauded wildly, and Stan smiled to see Daryl and Ed standing in the front line with Fiddleford, who had decided to retreat from the ticket stand once Ford hadn’t come back. “Let’s check the applause-o-meter,” continued Ria, raising her arm to reflect the amount of appreciation Stan was receiving. “And now the next contestant: Preston.”

Only a few people clapped this time, until Preston glared at them so hard that most of the others soon joined in out of pure fear. 

Ria frowned. “Looks like we got a tie. This has actually, uh, never happened before…”

Preston somehow managed to look even angrier than he had already. While Ria was busy consulting her book he snuck down off the stage and up to Fiddleford, who had shifted to hovering nervously by a wall.

“Hey,” he said, without any warmth in his voice. “You know, I would have thought you’d be clapping for me, not some out-of-town idiot you barely know.”

Fiddleford hesitated. “I mean, but, Stan’s… He’s mah friend.”

“Yes, well, he’s not the one who’s going to tell your dad about your little secret if you don’t start clapping right now,” said Preston, inspecting his fingernails. “Have a nice evening,” he added, before walking back off to the stage. 

Stanley and Ria, however, did not notice this, too busy consulting the DJ handbook and trying to figure out if it was a feasible idea to cut the crown in two and give each contestant half. So when Stan saw Fiddleford start clapping, not for him, but for Preston, he felt more than a little betrayed.

“Uh, partiers, it looks like we- we have a winner,” said Ria, in a faltering voice. “The party crown goes to… Preston Northwest.”

Preston snatched the crown from her and placed it on his head. “Thank you, everyone! This means so much to me, really! Now, let’s all go to the after-party on my parents’ yacht!”

He was carried off by the cheering crowd, leaving Stan, Ria, Daryl and Ed alone in the room. Fiddleford had slipped out of the door and headed home as soon as the winner was announced, and Dipper was showing Grenda and Candy out via the gift shop. 

Stan sighed. He guessed he wasn’t getting any answers out of Fidds tonight, and he had already disappointed his new friends. Today was turning out to be a terrible birthday. “Sorry I let you guys down,” he said to Daryl and Ed. “I understand if you wanna leave now.”

“But then we’d miss the sleepover,” said Daryl. 

“The what now?”

“We’re gonna call our moms and see if we can sleep over here with you!” said Ed. “You’re a total rock star!”

Daryl dug around in his backpack. “I have magazine girls. And boys too, if you like.”

“Really?” Maybe today wasn’t that bad after all. “You guys!”

“Maybe we don’t have as many friends as Preston, but we got each other,” said Daryl. “And I think that’s pretty good.”

“Ria!” shouted Stan. “I need you to put on another song! This thing’s gonna go all night!”

Ria was already pulling out a new record. “Way ahead of you, hambone.”

“Some night, huh?” asked Tyrone, as he and Ford sat on the roof, watching the stars. 

“You think we even really have a chance with Dan?” asked Ford. He opened his can of Pitt Soda, Tyrone following suit. He was pretty eager to try food and drink for what was technically the first time. “I mean, he’s fifteen, and we’re only just thirteen.”

“I don’t know. I hope so, but you have to admit, we’re making absolutely no progress the way we’re doing it. The only time you had a good conversation with him was when you didn’t do any of that list-y stuff.”

“Stan was right,” mused Ford. “I do get in my own way.”

“Literally!” they said in unison, grinning. They clinked sodas, before each taking a sip. 

“Oh boy, don’t look now,” said Tyrone, worriedly. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

Ford looked. “Tyrone! You’re melting!”

“It’s ok, dude; I had a good run. Remember what we talked about.” Tyrone was almost entirely gone now. 

“Uh, of course,” said Ford. 

“Hey, and quit being such a wimp around Dan, alright? For my sak-” 

And then he was gone. 

“Tyrone!” shouted Ford, even though he knew no-one would answer. “You were the only one who understood.” 

Downstairs, he was surprised to find that the party was still going. Although, knowing Stan, he probably shouldn’t have been. It was mostly just the Shack staff, minus Fiddleford, plus two kids he didn’t know. Maybe Stan had gotten his birthday wish and made some new friends after all.

He paused on the top step, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out the list. It didn’t seem all that necessary any more. He took a deep breath, ripped it in half, and walked inside.