After settling into this den of weirdness, Dipper and Mabel were in the Mystery Shack’s dining room having just completed an epic syrup race. Mabel had won, much to her regret, and Dipper was reading the towns’ newspaper; scaled down for minizora of course.
“Hey Mabel. Look at this.”
The bigger – but not older – sibling peered down at the tiny article. “Human sized hamster ball. Wait a minute… I’m human sized!” She sucked in a shocked breath. “And so are you! But with a regular hamster ball. We can be hamster ball twins!”
Dipper rolled his eyes and pointed to what he actually wanted to show her. It was a contest for photos of monsters. The winner got $1000. “We see weirder stuff than that every day. Did we get any photos of those gnomes?”
“Nope. Just memories.” Mabel waited a second before holding up a tuft of white hair. “And this beard hair.”
“Why did you save that?” asked Dipper, backing away in revulsion.
Speaking of revulsion, that was when Grunkle Stan came in dressed in a pair of boxers and a night shirt with stains that were better left not thought about. The old man wanted to close the shop early and have a bonding day with the family. He promised that this would be nothing like the last time in which they made counterfeit money, which was followed up by a trip to the freezing county jail. With assurances like that, how could they refuse?
After a harrowing blindfolded drive across town, the twins were finally allowed to uncover their eyes and behold the lake, where apparently fishing season had opened. Said lake was positively lousy with the town’s colorful denizens doing all sorts of wacky antics. Watching some of the rougher antics led to Mabel grabbing Dipper and setting him on her shoulder for safe keeping. But just as Grunkle Stan was finishing his less than stellar sales pitch for fishing for the next ten hours, that’s when another old man started going off about some monster called the Gobblewonker.
“Aww,” Mabel cooed. “He’s doing a happy jig.”
That’s when old man McGucket grabbed her shoulders and started screaming. “No. It’s a jig of grave danger!” warned the guy who had earned the title of town kook. He gave a far more convincing pitch for why the gobblewonker was real, pointing a boat that looked to have been bitten in half and offering a pretty detailed description of the creature. Alas, everyone else was entirely dismissive of his claims and soon the crowd dispersed, including his own son.
“Mabel, did you hear what he said?” Dipper asked excitedly.
“Aww, donkey spittle,” she said in approximation of the old man’s funny way of talking.
“No, the other thing. The monster. If we can snag a photo, we can split the prize fifty-fifty.”
“That’s two fifties!”
“Imagine what you could do with $500,” Dipper encouraged, not bothering to correct her math. He then sat back as his sister’s pupils went wide. Clearly she’d been kidnapped by her own imagination again and it was just a matter of waiting for her to come back.
“Dipper. I am one million percent on board with this!”
Once again, Grunkle Stan delivered an inferior sales pitch for fishing, although this time he lost to Soos who’d just driven up in a far superior boat. It wasn’t a hard choice.
“We’re gonna find that gobblewonker!”
“We’re gonna win that prize!”
Once the excitement tempered a bit, the team of a pair of twins and the pair shaped chipmunk faced guy set about their plan. They’d gone and bought an excessive amount of disposable cameras, which made a lot of sense given that none of them wanted to risk their expensive phones. As the boat neared Scuttlebutt Island, an ominous fog descended upon them. The island itself was just as creepy, but spirits were still high.
“So, do you carry him around with you everywhere?” Soos asked.
Mabel shrugged. “Not everywhere. Just most wheres. Hehe. Saves him the trouble of getting lost.”
“Me, lost? You once got lost on the way to the bathroom.”
“The point is that it’s just easier this way,” Mabel insisted. “He’s like a knight riding atop his elegant and beautiful steed.”
“She’s absolutely right,” agreed Dipper. “The real steed’s at the shop for repairs, so they gave me this,” he gestured with his thumb, “cheap rental.”
“Heh. Good one, dude.”
“Cheap? I’ll have you know that I’m about to be a five hundred-naire.”
“Yeah? Well so am I.”
“I’m just happy to tag along,” Soos offered. “Speaking of tagging, I’ve never really known a minizora before. What’s it like being so small?”
“Terrible. No matter what I do, I can always look up people’s noses and see the horrors that lie within.” That got everyone chuckling. “But seriously, it’s not too bad. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve got a nice steed to take me places.”
“See. He admits I’m a steed.”
“It’s just easier than saying rented mule-ow!” Dipper groaned as his head was pinched. “Somebody help! A pair of sausage fingers are crushing my head!”
“You sure that’s safe, dude?” Soos asked.
“Oh he’s fine,” assured Mabel. “First day here that lumberjack guy stepped on him and he just walked it off. This,” she tightened her pinch, “is nothing.”
Dipper finally stopped yelling, showing that he was just putting on a show. “Yeah, she’s right. There’s a reason so many stunt men are minizora, you know. We can handle just about anything.”
“Anything?”
“Anything,” Dipper affirmed.
“How much can you bench-press?”
“I once saw him lift up a whole pizza crust.”
“Wow, dude. You’re like a super hero. Got the proportionate strength of an ant, only you’re already pretty small, so it’s not that impressive, but it’s still pretty cool.”
“Wow. Thanks a lot, Soos,” Dipper said, feeling genuinely moved. Part of why he was the bookish type was because most kids his own age just made fun of him for being small. It was a refreshing change of pace to actually hear praise.
Mabel grinned from ear-to-ear. She’d already liked Soos. They got each other’s humor. But in seeing how nice he was to Dipper, Mabel knew she’d made a new friend for life.
That’s when a roar echoed through the woods. Birds were sent cawing in terror as the team finally had a direction.
“This is it. This is it!” Dipper said in whispered excitement. Still sitting on his sister’s shoulder, he kicked at her through her sweater and urged her onward. “Ya, mule! Ya-ya, mule!”
“Dude. That’d be so offensive… if it weren’t so hilariously accurate,” commented Soos as he grabbed a long and sharp stick. Perfect for stabbing.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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