Chapter Text
Fog hung low over the lake as the S.S. MAN sped through the water. Stan, Ford, and Fiddleford stood at the bow of the ship while Dan shoveled fish food over the side of the boat. Stan played ventriloquist with a pelican, not really focusing on what he was doing. He was too excited to be searching for a monster. And if they won the photo contest, they could fix the Stan O’ War! And Dad would have to take back everything Stan said about being useless.
Dad.
Stan had forgotten about Dad. He talked so much about how children were a drain on his resources. Stan and Ford were supposed to ‘earn their keep.’ And if they won a bunch of money? That would have to go towards earning their keep. Dad would confiscate it all.
Could Stan and Ford keep it secret? Probably not, considering they’d have to give an adult’s name for the contest and Ford was a terrible liar.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Stan said in a muffled voice, moving the pelican’s mouth up and down.
“Awful, Mr. Pelican,” Stan responded as himself. “Just awful.” He looked over to Ford and Fiddleford. His brother was faced away from Dan, so much so that Stan had the strange feeling it was semi-deliberate, telling his new friend all about the encounter with the gnomes. Fiddleford was listening intently, eyes wide as he tapped his leg with one hand.
“Hey, Stan!” Ford called. Stan walked over to his brother and Fiddleford. “I was telling Fiddleford about my theory of the gnome’s relation to Homo floresiensis . He thinks that we might be able to build a machine to analyze the DNA together! D’you still have the gnome hair?”
“Uh,” Stan thought about it. He was pretty sure he’d left it in the Mystery Shack’s attic. “Yeah, it’s back at the shack.”
“Yes!” Ford said, grinning at Stan. “Imagine if we do discover a connection!”
“I have no idea what your weird science thing is,” Stan admitted.
“Oh,” Ford said, a bit put out. “Well, you see, Homo floresiensis is an archaic human species that is known for its short stature, and—”
“Hey,” Dan said. “Aren’t one of you supposed to be doing lookout?”
“Yep!” Stan said immediately, internally thanking Dan for getting him out of Ford’s inevitable biology lesson. “I’ll be doing lookout! Uh, bye!” Stan turned around just in time to see the boat crash into the shore. Ford stumbled backwards as the boat jolted to a stop, tripping and falling into Dan. He immediately scrambled away, cheeks going red. “See?” Stan called. “We’re here! I’m a lookout genius. And I wasn’t even supposed to be on lookout anyway, ‘cos Ford’s an awful captain.” He grinned. “Stan O’ War, here we come!”
Stan looked at the island before him. It was rocky, with patches of short grass growing in the sandy soil. Evergreen trees shot up from the center of the island, shadows that looked almost like spires of some creepy dark castle. The fog obscured any color, making it difficult for Stan to see more than ten feet in front of him. Well, more difficult than usual.
The four disembarked from the boat, venturing onto the island. The air was cool and heavy with moisture. Ford took the lead with the lantern, explaining something about the fog’s effect on the light. Behind him went Stan and Fiddleford, with Dan taking the rear.
“This place’s spooky,” Fiddleford muttered.
“What, you scared?” Stan asked.
“No!” Fiddleford protested. “Just…it’s spooky, I tell yah. Yah better be on yer lookout.” He stopped, a heavy silence falling over the group.
“Uh, so, you were saying something about why you liked the Telemachy section of the Odyssey?” Ford said to Dan.
“Yes!” Dan said. “I found that—”
Stan had to break this up, or else he’d end up spending forever listening to Dan be a literature nerd. Which was a disturbing thought. Stan did not need to have memories of his brother talking about some stupid Greek thing with the guy who literally called himself ‘Boyish Dan.’
“Uh, look!” Fiddleford said before Stan could interrupt the conversation. “A sign!”
Up ahead, Stan could see a large sign nailed to a tree that read ‘Scuttlebutt Island.’
“Check this out!” Stan said, covering up the ‘Scuttle’ on the sign. “Butt Island!” He laughed. Dan gave a short chuckle. Ford just stared at him, unimpressed. Stan wasn’t sure what Fiddleford was doing, but it seemed to involve examining the sign’s wood.
“This is real riddly-recent, yah see?” Fiddleford said to the rest of the group. “Look at the wood, it’s hardly rotted at all. An’ the paint looks good as new.”
Ford’s eyes widened. “With humidity like this…” He trailed off.
“It should be near rotted through by now if it was actually old,” Fiddleford said.
“But what’s to say it’s not just new?” Stan asked. “What if there’s, I dunno, a Scuttlebutt Island caretaker or something.”
“There’s a monster here, though,” Ford said. “If it kills people who get near, how’s anyone gotten near?”
“No one’s gone o’er ter the island in years,” Fiddleford said. “Other than crazy folk.”
“Like Crazy Chiu?” Dan asked.
“My grandma’s not crazy!” Fiddleford said. He sighed. “But yeah, her also. No one wants ter risk the fog and the tales o’ the monster, even if they think it’s a load o’ banjo polish. Sides, there’s nothin’ useful on the island, is there?”
Off in the distance, there was a growling noise. Ford nearly jumped out of his skin and dropped the lantern, Fiddleford began to tap on his leg, Dan struck a fighting position, and Stan peered off into the distance. He couldn’t see very well, what with the fog and his stupid eyes, but he was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone there.
“Did yah hear that?” Fiddleford asked, his voice squeaking.
“It was probably nothing,” Stan said. “Right, Sixer?”
“Uh, yeah. Maybe it was Dan’s stomach or something?”
“No!” Dan yelled. Ford cringed, backing away a few steps. “My stomach is louder! And more—”
“Lemme guess,” Stan said. “Manly!”
“You got it, little man!” Dan said, clapping him on the back.
An opossum picked up the fallen lantern in its mouth and skittered away into the trees, obscured by the fog.
“Our lantern!” Stan shouted. “I can’t see anything now.”
“I dunno,” Fiddleford said, eyes darting around. “Maybe this, uh, maybe this ain’t worth it.”
“Not worth it?” Ford asked. “We have to get that picture!” Stan watched his brother’s eyes glaze over as he was lost in his imagination. “We’re not letting Great Aunt Mabel’s knitting obsession stop us. I’m in. What about you? Because if you want to go back, the boat’s right there. But I’m getting a picture of this monster.”
“Monster hunts are manly,” Dan announced. “I’m in.”
“Uh, c’mon. Awesome monster hunt, or knitting with old ladies? Monster hunt, hands down,” Stan agreed.
“Uh, I don’t think—” Fiddleford began. Stan, Ford, and Dan had already hurried up ahead. “Aw, alright, I’m comin’.”
As they walked through the forest, Stan couldn’t shake the spooky feeling of the island. It seemed like the fog sucked up any sound, stealing it away before anyone even opened their mouth.
“Hey, wanna make a rap?” Stan asked.
“No,” Ford said, backing away. “Please, no.”
Dan began beatboxing.
“My name is Stan! It rhymes with ran. It also rhymes with…fan. It also rhymes with…uh…with…”
“MAN!” Dan shouted.
“Yep, bro, you got it right!”
“And we’re searchin’ for a monster to fight!” Okay, so apparently they were doing actual rhymes now. No problem. Stan could do that. Totally.
“But, ‘cos we’re bored, we’re playin’ this game.”
“And Stan’s had his fun, so let me tell you my name!”
“Let’s go!” Stan began beat-boxing as Dan took over.
“My name is Dan! It rhymes with can! It also rhymes with pan! It also rhymes with—”
“Man!” Stan shouted. A random pelican cawed along with him. Stan squinted at it. Ford also looked around, tilting his head to the side, and then shrugging. Suddenly, his eyes widened.
“Uh, guys?” Ford said, holding a camera. “You hear something?”
The same growling noise as before cut through the fog as a flock of birds fled over Stan’s head. “This is it!” Stan said excitedly. “Yes!”
“D’you really think—” Fiddleford began. But Ford grabbed his arm and pulled him along, further into the fog. Dan followed a few feet behind, now wielding a large tree branch.
A few seconds later, the party emerged from the fog. In front of them, the road took a steep downward turn, stopping abruptly a few feet above the water. And on the water sat the majestic silhouette of a large beast with a long neck and sharp teeth.
“Get your cameras ready,” Ford whispered as the group ducked behind a log. Stan turned one of his cameras on. “Ready? Go!”
Dan gave a war cry and charged towards the creature, snapping photos with a camera that Fiddleford had handed him. Stan, Ford, and an anxious Fiddleford ran after him, skidding to a stop as they reached the lake. Now that they were closer, Stan could see that the ‘Gobblewonker’ was actually the remains of a rotting old boat with a bunch of beavers living in it. The beavers cheerfully chittered to one another, two even giving and receiving a hug.
(Beaver 1, whose name in Beaver-Speak was far more complex and completely untranscribable within the English phonetic system, hopped up and down, excitement filling its tiny heart at the thought of the partially pre-made dam. That left far more time for cavorting. “I love cavorting!” It said. Beaver 2, whose name was equally impossible to write, decided that this incredibly important statement deserved a hug. The two continued cavorting, before progressing onto the rest of their schedule, which also consisted mostly of cavorting. It was a charmed life, that of a beaver.)
“But…” Ford trailed off. “But what was that noise, then? I heard a monster noise!”
The grinding, growling noise sounded again. Stan whipped around to see a beaver chewing on a rusty chainsaw.
“I can sell this!” Stan grinned, taking photos of the beaver. “Beaver with a chainsaw. No, the horrifying beaversaw creature! Nessie’s lesser-known cousin.”
“Wouldn’t that be the Gobblewonker, though?” Dan asked.
“Beavers are mammals,” Ford said. “The Gobblewonker sounds reptilian. Right, Fiddleford?” He turned to his friend. Fiddleford was looking around nervously, tapping his foot very quickly.
“I dunno,” Fiddleford said. “Maybe Grandma’s crazy after all.”
Ford sighed.
Mabel entered the shack of knitters, painting a bright smile over her face. “Hey, people! It’s me, Mabel! I’m back! Who wants some glitter?” She threw a handful of silvery glitter into the air, which fell down onto the people inside.
Three old ladies (they looked so similar that Mabel was pretty sure they were triplets), two old men that seemed about to turn into skeletons, and a middle-aged couple with a young child were sitting around and knitting.
“You were banned from the knitting club!” Said the woman in the center of the three triplets. “I warned you not to return!”
“What? No! That was…uh…a big mistake?” Mabel looked around hopefully.
“Go bother your own family!” One of the men said.
“But…” Mabel trailed off. Everyone stared at her. “Please?”
The kid on the floor began coughing up glitter all over the adorable dog sweater he was…well, knitting wasn’t the right word. Attempting to knit was more accurate. His mom took him by the shoulder and pulled him close, glaring at Mabel.
Mabel looked around. They didn’t want her there? Fine! She’d find someone else. The Lakeside Knitting Club would’ve been lucky to have her!
Stan kept taking pictures of the beavers, and the flash was driving Ford crazy. He looked away and sat down on a rock, watching as his brother congratulated one of the beavers on its pose.
“What’re we gonna say to Great Aunt Mabel?” Ford wondered aloud. “We ditched her over nothing. She’s gonna send us home, and we haven’t even got the money!”
“Money?” Fiddleford asked. “Oh, yeah, I remember.”
“Yeah…” Ford said. “But the monster’s not even real, it seems.” Dejectedly, he threw a stone into the lake. Suddenly, the ground began to shake as the rock beneath Ford began to sink into the water. He jumped off immediately, pulling himself onto the bank. His shoes, however, had landed in the water, and were soaking wet. A large tail attached to an even larger creature flapped out of the water, drenching Ford, Stan, Fiddleford, and Dan.
Taking a camera out of his jacket and doing his best to ignore the disgusting feeling of soggy socks, Ford watched as a shadowy underwater shape moved farther and farther away. He carefully lined up his shot and took photo after photo. But he was the only one.
Ford resisted the urge to sigh in disgust. What was wrong with Stan and the others? They were supposed to be taking pictures. “This is it!” Ford said, turning around. “Come on, this is our chance! What’s wrong with you knuckleheads?”
“Uh, Sixer?” Stan said hesitantly.
“Ford?” Fiddleford said, his voice quavering.
“Ford, man, you’re dedicated, but—”
“It’s not that hard, you see?” Ford said. “All you gotta do is point and shoot. Like this!” He turned back towards where the retreating Gobblewonker had been, squinting his eyes in confusion as he saw a strange blue-gray form, dripping with water. Slowly, he tilted the camera upwards as the shape narrowed into a neck and then—
And then the camera was pointed at a large head with two glowing green eyes, so bright they appeared almost white. It lunged at him, roaring and revealing its rows of pointy, knife-like teeth. Ford’s eyes widened. He felt his grasp on the camera nearly slip as he stared at the beast in shock. Fish-like, obviously possessing some sort of bioluminescence, but somehow integrated into its own eyes. Perhaps originally a deep-sea dweller, though probably not too deep. And it was gigantic. How did it get enough calories to take care of its biomass?
Ford felt something lift him up clean off the ground by the back of his shirt. He screamed, dropping the camera as he kicked his legs in an effort to get free. Ford had to get free. Why was he not on the ground? Who had—
His—
No—
Stan was screaming and Ford was screaming and someone big was yelling and Fiddleford was screaming too—
Fiddleford. Wait, what?
In that instant, Ford felt whoever was carrying him drop to the ground and roll. Dan. It had to be Dan. Stan and Fiddleford were up ahead, Stan shouting something about “we’ve got to get back to the boat!”
The ground shook and Dan stopped, getting up and grabbing Ford’s arm. He looked back behind him to see the Gobblewonker, racing towards them absurdly quickly by dragging itself along on the land. Right in front of Ford, a tree was lying on the ground just inches away from where he’d been a second ago. If Dan hadn’t grabbed Ford, he’d have been crushed.
Ford drew another camera from his jacket, aiming it at the Gobblewonker, and—
And Stan grasped Ford’s arm, pulling him along and making Ford trip over a root. The camera went flying through the air and landed on the ground several feet closer to the Gobblewonker. “The picture!” Ford yelled. He had put Stan and his new friends in danger—it had to be worth it. He needed a single picture. One. That was it.
“What the heck are you doing?” Stan screamed, pulling Ford along.
“We’ve got to get outta here!” Fiddleford shouted from up ahead.
“But the pictures!” Ford replied, still running. “We need to get the pictures, if we don’t get the pictures, we need to get the—” He couldn’t breathe. There was too much talking and too much running at the same time, and the life jacket digging into his throat certainly wasn’t helping.
“Stories are more manly, if it makes you feel any better,” Dan suggested.
“Why would that make me feel any better?!” Ford screamed. He doubled over, gasping for breath, already able to feel the stitch forming in his side. “I—I can’t—”
“Come on!” Dan yelled. “Ford, we’re being chased by a monster!”
Ford looked back behind him. The Gobblewonker was gaining, and fast. Its eyes were glowing, so bright they seemed to sear Ford’s retina. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t—
Someone undid the buckles on Ford’s life jacket, helping him gasp for air. “Let’s go!” Stan shouted.
Ford looked ahead and began to run once more, helped along by Stan pulling at his arm. A few more trees crashed behind the party, narrowly missing Ford and Stan. Eventually, they reached the edge of the water, where the boat was waiting.
Dan pushed the boat into the water as the other boys climbed on. The bow got a bit of a hole punched in it, but Fiddleford obviously deemed it seaworthy because within seconds he was driving the boat backwards. “Let’s scrab-a-doodle!” Fiddleford said.
Ford, meanwhile, took another camera and aimed it at the Gobblewonker. “This is it,” he muttered, snapping a picture before he realized what was wrong. “Cracked lens! Dan, get a photo!”
But Stan was throwing his cameras at the monster.
“What are you doing?” Ford screamed at the top of his lungs. He looked around for his bag, but it had fallen somewhere in the forest, the three cameras lost forever.
“Don’t worry, Ford, I’ve still got one left,” Fiddleford said, tossing a camera at Ford. But he missed, the camera hitting the wall and breaking.
“Go!” Stan shouted as the boat continued to speed away. “Faster!” The Gobblewonker dove into the water, giving chase.
Ford looked around desperately for a camera, finally pulling one out of his jacket. “What the heck are you doing?” Stan asked.
“I’m taking a picture!” Ford shouted back. Suddenly, the boat swerved to avoid another of the Gobblewonker’s attacks. For a second, he felt his heart stop, a jolt of fear running through him, as he lost his balance.
And then he plunged into the fog-covered water.
Mabel sat on the pier, bare feet dangling in the water as she knit a new sweater. It had trees on it. Oaks, not pines, but they still reminded her of—
No, Mabel wasn’t thinking about that right now. It was daylight, the sun shining over the beautiful lake on a warm summer’s day. Thoughts of her brother were reserved for sleep-deprived nights in the basement, when the Mabel Juice only made her jittery rather than excited and the darkness made the shadows that danced on the wall seem like monsters from Mabel’s childhood.
Out on the water, families in boats fished, smiling and congratulating each other. Two old siblings sat together. Mabel remembered meeting them a few times. They even went to the Mystery Shack a few times each year, bringing their grandchildren. Smipper and Smabel.
“Look,” Smipper said, tying a knot on the end of the line to attach the hook. “It holds, see?”
“Nah,” Smabel said. “I’ll show you a better...” She smiled slyly and leaned forwards, suddenly splashing Smipper in the face. “Knot!” She finished with a grin. “Get it? Not?”
“Aah!” Smipper said, waving his arms about. For a second, he looked like—
Mabel looked down at her knitting sadly.
Stan watched Ford fall into the water almost in slow motion, his arms waving wildly as he crashed into the lake. The boat kept speeding ahead, Dan oblivious to what had just occurred.
“I fixed the engine up. What’s goin’ on?” Fiddleford asked.
Stan stared at the water, unable to make a sound. Fiddleford’s eyes widened. “Stop the boat!” He screamed.
The Gobblewonker lunged for the boat, making a splash so big that the boat road on the wave. The beast waved its tail in the air.
“Ford!” Dan yelled.
Stan blinked in confusion, staring at the blurry shape.
“Look!” Fiddleford yelled. “I see Ford! He’s on the tail!”
The Gobblewonker waved its tail again and a shape went flying. Seconds later, Ford crashed into the boat, soaking wet and coughing up water. Stan rushed over to him. “Sixer!”
The boat ran full-speed ahead, past the pier where Mabel was sitting and drenching her and her knitting. She threw it down in frustration. Dan jerked the boat around, barely avoiding a crash into an island.
Ford coughed up the last of the water and stumbled to his feet, searching around in his jacket for—
“Stop searching for a stupid camera!” Stan yelled.
“Don’t make me fall off a boat!” Ford yelled.
“That’s rich!”
“If you listened to me, we’d be rich!”
“Beavers!” Fiddleford yelled.
“Your cursewords are stupid!”
“No, actual beavers!” Fiddleford clarified, just as the S.S. MAN rammed straight into the small shipwreck covered in beavers.
(“We’re still beavers,” explained the beavers in unison, for in that instant, they felt the strange urge to break the fourth wall. Being beavers, they were generally in the business of creating barricades rather than destroying them, but perhaps they desired some variety.)
The creatures went flying, many landing on the boat. Some attempted to bite into the ship’s railings while others went after the crew. One latched itself onto Fiddleford’s face.
Two beavers began attacking Stan’s fez. He punched one of them off, then the other, while Dan threw two beavers towards the Gobblewonker.
The beast dove underwater, continuing its chase.
“People!” Ford screamed as the boat ran through another fishing zone, the Gobblewonker upending boats close behind.
“The fishes are seeking revenge, or whatever!” “Wild” Wendy said, sounding almost bored. “Let’s, like, swim or something.”
The Gobblewonker snapped at the boat. Stan felt something tackle him by the legs, his back hitting the deck hard. He looked up to see the cabin missing. If he’d been where he was standing, Stan would’ve been eaten.
“Get up!” Ford yelled. Stan realized that his brother had had the presence of mind to push him away from where the Gobblewonker was attacking.
“Get it offa me!” Fiddleford shouted, still dealing with a beaver on his face.
“Look out!” Stan shouted as the S.S. MAN crashed through a sheet of glass.
Fiddleford finally managed to get the beaver off of his face, fixing his glasses and then scrambling backwards, right into Ford.
“Dead end!” Fiddleford shouted. Sure enough, the boat was driving straight towards a gigantic waterfall, which towered over them. On either side awaited walls of sharp rock.
“There’s nowhere to go!” Dan shouted. “But we shall meet our deaths with—”
“Where’s the journal?” Ford screamed.
Stan looked around for a second before snatching it off the deck. It must’ve fallen out of Ford’s pocket during the fight.
“Uh,” Ford said, flipping through it. “Go into the falls! There might be a cave behind there. I think. Possibly. Well—”
It was too late to change course. Stan scrunched up his eyes, waiting for impact.
A harsh spray of water drenched the party, but the boat kept on sailing before hitting a bank and coming to a stop. The four were sent flying by the impact, landing on the dirt in front of them. They were in some kind of cave.
“Look!” Ford said, pointing towards the mouth of the cave. The Gobblewonker was stuck in the entrance, flailing as it tried to get loose. “It’s stuck!”
“Wait, really?” Stan asked. “Huh. It is stuck.”
“We have triumphed over this trial of manliness!” Dan announced.
“We’re a-a-alive,” Fiddleford said, seeming rather surprised at that fact.
Ford turned towards Dan, his face red as he nervously rubbed one of his arms. “Uh, you, uh, probably saved my life, when you, uh, picked me up. So, uh, thanks. Yeah. I’m, uh, just going to, uh, stop now, and—”
Stan took pity on his brother and interrupted the conversation. “Hey, Sixer, you can get a photo now!”
“Oh, right!” Ford’s face looked up. He looked around for a camera in his jacket, but he couldn’t find one.
“You’ve got a camera on yer back,” Fiddleford noted.
“Thanks, Fiddleford!” Ford smiled, taking off the camera strapped to his back. He tried to take a picture and then looked at the camera, sitting down on the ground with his head in his hands.
“What’s wrong?” Stan asked.
“The camera’s waterlogged,” Ford said. “Because you got me distract—” He cut himself off with a sigh. “Because I got distracted and fell in the water. Sorry. It wasn’t your fault, I was just…”
“Upset?” Stan asked. “Look, I’d love to have gotten that picture too. But why’re you so obsessed with it? It’s not worth anyone’s lives.”
“But we already put everyone in danger!” Ford insisted. “We’ve gotta have something to show for it.”
“You know,” Stan said, sitting down next to his brother and stretching out his legs. “That’s what people like me as Pa use in cons. You’ve already gone this far, gotta have something to show for it. On and on and on, so you never quit. Just keep digging yourself deeper and deeper. We didn’t get a photo, but we had fun.”
“Great Aunt Mabel’s gonna send us home,” Ford whispered sadly.
“I thought you wanted to go home,” Stan responded. It wasn’t like he understood it, but Ford had been very clear on that.
“I did,” Ford said. “But, uh, look around us. There’s the gnomes and the Gobblewonker, and who knows how many other secrets waiting to be unlocked? Gravity Falls is amazing. And…if Great Aunt Mabel tells Dad that we have to go home because we disobeyed her…it’s not gonna be good, Stan.” Yeah, like Stan didn’t know that. He was doing his best not to think about it, and he was still scared. “I thought Dad would say it was worth it if we got 1000 dollars, but we don’t even have that. Even if we did, we’d split it 4 ways and 250 dollars looks like a lot, but it isn’t enough. He’s gonna be so mad.”
Suddenly, the Gobblewonker roared, knocking loose a rock in the cave ceiling. It hit its head, which fell to the ground with a crackling noise.
“What the…” Stan said.
Ford walked up to the Gobblewonker and touched its side. “Huh.”
“What’s wrong?” Fiddleford asked.
But Ford had already knocked on the Gobblewonker’s side. It let out a hollow metallic clang. He began to scramble up its side, before falling back down to the ground. Ford tried again, this time climbing over the Gobblewonker and then popping up on the other side. “Hey, guys! Come look!”
Stan followed along with Dan and Fiddleford, though the latter had needed some help from the former to get onto the other side. Ford had discovered a handle that, when turned, opened up a trapdoor in the Gobblewonker. A burst of steam hit Stan straight in the face.
When it had dissipated, Stan opened his eyes to see an old woman inside the Gobblewonker, controlling a bunch of machinery that appeared to be straight out of one of Ford’s nerd books.
“I am working the bellows and the…eh?” She muttered something in Korean. Stan suspected that they were curse-words. Crazy Chiu might be crazy, but Stan really wanted to learn how to Korean curse. Teachers couldn’t give him detention if they couldn’t prove he was saying anything bad!
“What?” Fiddleford asked, eyes wide. “Yo-you? You made this? W-w-why?”
“It’s a marvel of engineering,” Ford said, peering inside the control room and looking at the machinery.
“Well…” Chiu trailed off. “I…I just wanted attention.”
“I still don’t understand,” Fiddleford said.
“I understand absolutely nothing!” Dan yelled. “It makes me angry!” He punched the side of the Gobblewonker. Fiddleford winced.
“Well,” Chiu began. “First I just created a biomechanical brain wave generator, and then I learned to operate a stick-shift with my hair.”
“Okay, yeah, sure,” Stan said. “But why would you do this?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” Fiddleford asked.
Stan just shook his head. Nerds were crazy.
“Well,” Candy Chiu said. “When you become an old woman, nobody pays attention to you anymore. My own son-in-law has not visited me in months! So I made giant robot. It is very contrived, yes, but he called me crazy when I showed him my fork-fingers.”
“Fork fingers?” Stan muttered.
“Don’t a—aaaaah!” Fiddleford advised, before his words turned into a scream. He scrambled backwards, just as a flock of pelicans entered the cave, cawing so loudly that Ford clapped his hands over his ears.
“They’ve come for me!” Chiu screamed.
“I understand…none of this,” Stan said. A pelican landed on top of his head and began snapping at him with its beak. Stan punched it off, but there were so many pelicans.
“My creations!” Chiu tried to steer the Gobblewonker, but it was too wrecked to move. Through the storm of pelicans, Stan could see Ford on the ground, covered in the birds.
“Ford!” He screamed, rushing towards his brother and waving his arms wildly to fend off the pelicans. When he reached Ford, he tried punching at them, but they were far too hard. His knuckles ached and he cried out in pain after a particularly hard punch.
“They’re metal!” Ford shouted, gasping for air. More pelicans surrounded the twins, preventing them from escaping. Stan winced in pain as the pelicans snapped at him, beaks razor-sharp. They didn’t seem to be trying to kill, but they hurt. “Stan, we have to get to the Gobble—agh!” Ford screamed.
Stan reached through the pelicans to grab Ford’s hand, hauling him through the barrage and into the water. The pelicans continued to attack them, blocking their way to Chiu.
Suddenly, Stan saw Ford rising above the fight, carried by several pelicans. They were pulling him away, towards the entrance to the cave.
“Come back with my brother!” Stan screamed, fighting his way towards Ford.
“Stan, do something!”
“I—” Stan didn’t know what to do. A bunch of pelicans—a bunch of metal pelicans judging by the way his hand felt when he punched them—were trying to steal away his brother, and Stan had no clue how to save him.
What had Chiu said, just as the attack began?
“My creations.”
“They’re robots!” Stan yelled. “They’re robots!”
“I know!” Ford screamed.
“Well, got any genius ideas?” Stan punched another pelican, but it didn’t even flinch.
“They’re sentient!” Ford shouted, struggling against the pelicans. “They’re sentient, how’re they sentient?”
“I do not know!” Chiu’s voice said. “Take cover in the Gobble-dy-wonker!”
“We can’t!” Dan shouted.
“Did you program them to be sentient?” Ford asked.
“No, I did not, I did not! They were not deathbots! They were not sentient! Just nodes in a network, of programmable robots. I do not know how they went cr-razily-razy!”
“I do!” The sound of Fiddleford’s voice came through, muffled by the pelican-bots in the way. “We just’ve gotta tap into their network—”
“Whatever you’re doing, do it quickly!” Stan shouted as Ford disappeared beyond the cave. The pelicans were surrounding him, slamming into his head and shoulders and arms and everywhere. Stan felt dizzy, stumbling uselessly through the sea of robot birds.
Suddenly, all of the pelicans paused and fell to the ground, inert. Outside the cave, there was a scream and a splash. Stan rushed towards the entrance to see Ford struggling through the water, head and arms covered in scratches. Stan helped him onto the banks and they collapsed amongst the deactivated pelicans.
“What was that?” Stan asked.
“My pelican-bots turned on me!” Chiu announced. “I built them a while ago, but just as I was planning to give up on the Gobblewonker—they began attacking me! This island was the only place that was safe…”
“Until it wasn’t,” Ford said. His voice sounded awful, and he coughed up water as he spoke.
“That’s why you came here so often!” Fiddleford realized.
“Yes,” Chiu said sadly.
“But how did they become sentient?” Ford asked.
“Fidds?” Chiu turned to Fiddleford.
“Well,” Fiddleford said, rubbing his neck. “Like she said, the pelican-bots were nodes in her network of robot spies.”
Chiu cackled at that. “They were clever little spies!”
“But not alive, not thinking,” Ford said. “So how—oh.”
“You see?”
“I don’t see!” Dan shouted, dripping water. He must’ve followed Ford out of the cave, Stan realized, and then swam back in. He felt a little bad that he hadn’t helped Dan, but he seemed like he was fine. Stan looked over at his brother, who was staring at Dan. Immediately, Ford’s eyes widened and he turned away from the teenager and towards Fiddleford and Chiu.
“The brain has a lot of cells that communicate with each other,” Ford said, “which is how thoughts form. The pelicans were on a wireless network, sending signals to one another. Just like the brain. Wait, if they were spy robots, wouldn’t they have a central control? Somewhere that stored the information?”
“I think they did,” Candy said. “But I cannot remember where it would be.”
Stan frowned. “How could you not remember where your robot pelicans send info to?”
Candy shrugged. “My memory is not very good, sometimes.”
Stan resisted the urge to call her crazy again. He looked around the cave, trying to remember the pelican attack. Most of them had come from
Most of them had come from the outside, but some had seemed to originate from somewhere else. Slowly, Stan turned around until a large gaping hole in the wall caught his eye. “Neato!” He said, running over to it. The others followed him, even Candy. When he reached the stone surface, he found a dark tunnel that had enough room for all of them to fit through if they went single-file.
“Cool,” Ford said.
“This here’s a sect-secret passegem,” Fiddleford added.
“Yeah, we got that,” Stan said. “C’mon, what’re you waiting for, knuckleheads?” He climbed up into the passage and began his walk into the darkness, hand trailing along the wall. Looking back, he saw Ford and Dan following him, but Fiddleford was still waiting by Candy.
“Hey, Ford,” Stan said. “Your buddy’s, afraid of the passageways.”
“Fiddleford!” Ford called. “Come and explore with us.”
“I dunno,” Fiddleford said nervously. “Looks pretty dark.”
“Go explore with your friends, Fiddleford,” Candy said. Looking back at his grandma, Fiddleford climbed reluctantly into the passageway. Stan grinned. Now everyone was here.
The walk wasn’t that long, but it felt like an eternity. Stan could hear water drip-drip-dripping down from the ceiling to coat the wet walls and plink onto the floor. A couple of slimy drops landed in his hair.
Eventually, Stan stumbled, losing his footing and falling flat on his face. He groaned as he stood up. The others followed him, jumping down about a foot down into the room.
Stan could only see shadows, the vague forms of his brother and friends behind him along with some shapes in the room.
“Where are we?” Fiddleford asked.
“Somewhere dark!” Dan added unhelpfully.
“I wonder if there’s a light switch,” Ford said.
“Why would there be a light switch?” Stan asked him skeptically.
“We should go back,” Fiddleford whispered.
“You scared?” Stan asked.
“N-n-n-no.”
“Yep, scaredy-cat.”
“Stop making fun of him!” Ford said. “We’re in a dark, enclosed space. Is it enclosed? I wonder. What if it—”
Stan bumped into something that felt like a corner of a table and felt around, hands falling onto a book of some sort. “Hey, nerds, look!”
“We can’t look, Stanley,” Ford said.
“Hahaha, very funny,” Stan said, pushing him playfully.
But Ford lost his footing and stumbled backwards, bumping into the wall. Suddenly, several electric lights turned on, illuminating the room.
The chamber was fairly large, carved into the cliff rock. Its walls were of stone, though not much of them could be seen beneath the green-gray screens and black cabinets without doors or drawers that surrounded the room. In the center sat several wooden tables with three scattered chairs. The tables were covered in dusty lab equipment, some with brightly-colored residue, as well as several books that appeared to be on physics. On the ground lay about twelve deactivated pelican-bots. There was a door made of red metal in the corner, but it was sealed with a welded frame that even Dan couldn’t remove.
Stan watched as his twin immediately ran over to the books, eyes widening at the titles. “Multi-Dimensional Quantum Dynamics and Motion, Energy Flow in Instantaneous Data Transfer, Advanced Energy Sourcing and Obtaining...wow, these are super advanced.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s a bunch of nerd books,” Stan said.
“These are all on theoretical physics,” Ford said, opening up their covers. “And all from the 1970s, except this one, from the 60’s. Over here,” he said, walking over to another pile of books, “seems to all be mechanical. Fiddleford, what do you think?”
Stan groaned as Fiddleford rushed over. He’d never be able to pull the nerds out of their science books. “These are mightily interestin’,” Fiddleford said, flipping through one of them. Stan could see a bunch of complicated diagrams.
“Whoah, nerd cave,” Dan said, leaning against one of the black cabinets.
Stan turned to Candy, who had followed them in. “You spend tons of time around Scuttlebutt Island, right? You ever seen this place?”
Candy shook her head. “It looks familiar...but I do not remember here.” Stan’s gaze fell on one of the screens, which, unlike the others, was lit up. Below it sat a bunch of bright, flashing lights.
“These are old timey computers, aren’t they?” He said to no one in particular.
“Yeah, I think so,” Dan agreed.
“And this one’s the center. You made this, Candy.”
“Did I?” Candy asked.
“Must’ve,” Stan told her. “Hey, Ford!” He bounded over to his brother. “What’cha lookin’ at?”
“These books are all old, but they don’t seem to be outdated. I’ve never heard of them before, though.”
“You should take them and add them to your nerd collection,” Stan said.
Ford shook his head. “That’d be like stealing.”
“No one’s been here in so long!” Stan said. “Other than Candy, and she doesn’t remember it.”
“I think this place belonged to the author of the journal,” Ford said.
Stan shrugged. “That’d fit. He certainly seems like a nerd.”
“We can’t steal from the Author!” Ford protested.
“He mysteriously disappeared, remember? And if we ever find him, you can just give the books back. You know that Dad would never buy you a book that expensive—doesn’t even buy you books in general .”
“Well…” Ford trailed off. “I do suppose the author would think that knowledge is important and agree that, in the name of science, the books should be read.”
“There you go, Sixer! Real good at rationalizing things.” Stan grinned. He meant it as a compliment, but as soon as he said it, he realized it didn’t sound that way. Ford constantly worried if he was doing something wrong, and this certainly wouldn’t help. “I mean, you...you know what I mean, right?”
“Right,” Ford said. He sat down, leaning against the table. “Do you think Candy found this place and then scavenged the computer for her pelican bots?” Stan looked over to see Candy cackling and tapping the wall with a long fingernail.
“I dunno. Probably. She doesn’t remember it, though.”
“She seems to have some form of dementia,” Ford said. “Although it doesn’t really fit any symptoms I know of…but she needs medical help.”
“But she doesn’t have any money.”
“Yeah,” Ford said. “I just feel bad, is all.” Stan followed his gaze to see Fiddleford standing next to Candy, talking to her.
“Yah know, not a soul’s figured out how to do this sentient network thingamajig, yet,” Fiddleford said, nodding. “Grandma, yah could be rich, sellin’ the patent’s an’ stuff!”
“I just did it for the attention,” Chiu shrugged. “And it worked. You just do not know the lengths us old people will go through for a little time with family.”
Stan looked down at the sweater Grauntie Mabel had knitted him. He felt bad, all of a sudden. But it was too late anyway. She’d be sending them home on the first bus available. And for once, this was trouble that Stan would be unable to keep Ford out of. Though maybe if he said that he forced Ford to come along, threatened to punch him or something…
“We made a mistake,” Ford said sadly.
“Yeah,” Stan agreed.
“I said, you do not know the lengths us old people will go through a little time with family,” Chiu repeated, going over to them. Ford and Stan stood up. “I do not know what mistake you made. If it was a giant homicidal pterodactyl-tron, I can get behind that. But if it was not, it does not matter. I am sure that Mabel would still love to knit with you. Oh. I am not sure why I am sure of that. I will go work on the death ray now! Any of you kids have a screwdriver?”
Stan, Ford, and Dan shook their heads. Fiddleford procured one, handing it over to his grandma.
“Thank you, Fiddleford. Are these your friends?” Chiu asked.
“I…think so?” Fiddleford said. He looked scared, almost like Ford did when he knew some kid was about to make fun of his hands.
Stan swung a hand around Fiddleford’s shoulders. “Yeah!” He said enthusiastically. “Fiddleford here is one of us.”
“What do we do now?” Dan asked. “Is there something else to punch?”
“Uh…no?” Stan said.
“Do you think…do you think Mrs. Chiu was right?” Ford asked. “Would Great Aunt Mabel be…not upset…if we went knitting with her?”
Stan shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. Besides, it’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”
Mabel had finally dried out the oak-tree sweater, and was in the process of finishing it. Despite the bright summer’s day, she felt like she was sitting in shadows.
“Hey!” Someone yelled. “Over here!”
Mabel looked up to see a beat-up S.S. MAN chugging towards her. On the boat sat Stan and Ford, along with Dan and…and Candy’s grandson, that Fiddleford boy.
“What?” Mabel asked in shock. “Kids? I thought you two were off playing ‘Spin the Bottle’ with Dan!” The kids looked at each other and then stepped off the boat and onto the pier. Mabel stood up, and the twins backed away a little, as if scared.
“We…we’re sorry,” Ford said quietly.
“It was, uh, it was my fault,” Stan said.
“No it wasn’t!” Ford protested. “I’m the one who—”
“But you—”
“You can’t keep—”
“It’s not the same—”
“Okay, calm down,” Mabel said, laughing. They looked adorable, bickering with each other over who did what. “One at a time.”
Ford and Stan exchanged glances, and then Ford stepped forward. “We, we spent all day trying to find a ‘legendary’ dinosaur.”
“But we realized,” Stan continued. “The only dinosaur we wanna hang out with is right here.”
“It’s alright,” Mabel said. “You don’t have to give me your sympathy. You’re kids, you want to go on a monster hunt. Fine with me! I’ve been having a great time without you! Making friends, talking to my reflection—I—I knitted a sweater…”
“So…” Ford said quietly. “I guess you don’t have the time for two knitting pupils?”
Mabel laughed shortly. She knew it sounded faked, but she was trying, okay?
The twins glanced at each other, and then pulled on their sweaters.
Mabel felt her expression soften. The twins reminded her of Dipper and herself, before…before everything. Practically a single entity, and yet so different. And they looked really precious in those sweaters.
“Three, actually!” Dan said. “Making clothes is a survival skill! Survival is manly!”
“Uh, I’d like to join too, if ya don’t mind, Ms. Pines,” the McGucket boy said. Mabel had met him a few times—it was inevitable in such a small town—but she tried to stay away from anyone related to the Chius. “It’s…uh…I kinda need an alibi, y’see.”
Mabel grinned. “You guys ever seen me knit a hat with my eyes closed?”
“Five bucks says you can’t!” Dan said.
“You’re on,” Mabel smirked.
“Five more bucks says you can’t do it with your eyes closed, plus me singing at the top of my lungs!” Stan announced.
“I like those odds!” Mabel agreed.
“Uh, Stan, do you even have five dollars?” Ford asked.
“Shut up, Sixer,” Stan said.
It was…
It wasn’t perfect. Mabel’s heart still ached when she watched Stan and Ford arguing over whether or not to do matching sweaters. Dan’s handiwork was disturbingly plaid. And Mabel was still barred from the Lakeside Knitting Club. But it was good.
Underneath the lake, a camera sank to the bottom of the water. A shadowy form swam past, opening its mouth to consume its prey.