Archive of Our Own ^beta

Stan yanked the living room phone cord out of the wall and drove, huffing through his nose the whole time, to Lazy Susan's house. It was twilight; her porch lights were on, and lamplight shone out past the lace curtains. Stanley stormed up the walk and knocked loudly on the door.

While he waited for an answer, he looked down at the phone and receiver clutched in his hand. His eyes grew worried. He suddenly remembered the sticker on his cheek: a beluga wearing a birthday cake on its head. He peeled it off and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

The door opened and a small creature stepped out. It had spiky black fur, one eye, and a jutting undershot jaw with one snaggly tooth sticking up. It looked up at Stan and its eye glowed in the porchlight. Stan jumped back, still holding the phone mechanism. The receiver clattered to the porch. "Aaah! It's a--oh, it's a cat."

"They're all cats!" Lazy Susan laughed, holding the door open. She wore a lilac-colored dress, a flowered apron, and had a purple oven mitt on one hand. She also carried a small, square pot holder. Stan caught a strong scent of something savory baking. "Come in, Stan! Come back inside, Mr. Cat Face."

Mr. Cat Face bounded back through the doorway into the living room. Stan followed, phone in hand, dragging the receiver. The receiver bumped and bounced over the threshold; he reeled it back in by its cord. Then he bent down and crooked a finger. "You wanna be friends, cat?"

Mr. Cat Face hissed, spat, and darted away, spiky black tail flying. Stan stood up straight again. "Well, if you hate me, why'd you come to the door to meet me? I'll never understand animals."

"Don't mind Mr. Cat Face," said Lazy Susan. "He thinks he's a rebel. I think he's just ill-tempered!"

Lazy Susan's living room had no ceiling light fixture. The four or five shaded lamps were all lit. There were two couches, one on each long side of the room, and ochre wallpaper, with ivory stripes climbed by ivory flowers. Within a few feet of the floor there were some straggling curls that had been scratched and peeled off the wall.

The walls were decorated with framed prints of watercolors, mostly of cats. Many of the pictures were of two cats, curled up, necks resting one atop the other. The cats had realistic faces showing contented expressions, but the backgrounds, and even some parts of the cats' bodies, were impressionistic, or rainbow colored blobs. Sometimes a blob was meant to be a cat in motion, with an ear or a whisker sticking out somewhere.

Susan said to Stan, "I'm surprised to see you tonight. You haven't returned my calls."

"Yeah, well, about that ..."

"Is your phone broken?"

"In a manner of speaking." The phone burdening his hand was becoming embarrassing.

"I was just about to have pot pie and coffee. Join me!"

Stan sagged. "Look, Lazy Susan, I didn't come here to visit. I came here to tell you to stop calling me."

Susan had been leading the way to the kitchen. She slowed, stopped, then turned and faced Stan again. "What? Why?"

"I hate phone calls!" Stan blurted, holding up the phone with its dangling wire and cord as if it were the severed head of a slain enemy.

There was a long pause before Lazy Susan answered, "I didn't know that."

"Well, now you know." The phone felt like hot contraband in Stan's hand. He stepped sideways over to one of the couches and shoved the phone under a cushion. A buff and white cat was occupying the cushion and refused to vacate. It gave Stan a dirty look and dug its claws into the upholstery. The cushion grew noticeably lumpy from the addition of the phone beneath. "You can, uh, guard that for me," Stan said to the cat.

Another cat sauntered over, fished the phone's wall cord out from under the cushion, and began to bat at it, giving away Stan's guilty plain-sight secret. "Do your job," Stan muttered to the cat who was perched on top of the cushion. "You, shoo," he added to the unfazed cat playing with the cord on the floor.

"Why do you hate phone calls, Stanford?"

"Why? Because!"

"Because why?"

"Because ... because I don't know! I'm no good with phone calls. I don't want to have to stop watching TV or whatever I'm doing when the phone rings. And then people want to talk, and I'm supposed to know what to say to them. Why can't you and me have all our conversations in person? You can see me at the Shack. I go to the diner pretty often, you can talk to me all you want there. But every time I eat there and we have a nice, long talk, the next thing I know, you tell me to call you! Unless it's an emergency, what could we have to talk about on the phone after we just talked in person?"

Lazy Susan's eye looked sympathetic, but Stan couldn't be certain whether she was thoughtful, or frowning, or whether this was her resting expression. Susan sometimes had a hard-to-read face, and the way she applied her lipstick didn't do anything to help.

"At this point I can't tell if you're a good listener or really angry or what so I'll just keep going. I--I pulled my phone out of the wall in a rage and drove over here. Don't worry, your mailbox is safe this time. How do I get you to stop calling me? You don't stop when I refuse to answer, so, what now?" Stan's shoulders slumped.

He had been trying to figure out how to get her to stop calling him, without letting her know how badly it bugged him. Nobody would help him, though. This was usually the way it went at the Mystery Shack when Susan called: Mabel would pick up the phone every time it rang, and have long talks with Susan and her cats. Sometimes she would put the pig on. Then she would try to hand the phone to Stan, and he had to make up excuses. "No, I can't talk on the phone right now. I'm at an ostrich race. As one of the jockeys. I'm winning."

Mabel would give him that special look she reserved for bald-faced lies. "I love you, Grunkle Stan." Then she'd inform Susan, "He's telling weird lies in emotional self-defense right now, so you'd better call back later."

Stan would moan, "I don't want her to call back later."

"But you like her!" Mabel would protest.

"That has nothing to do with it!" Stanley would shout, pounding the arm of his chair. "Get me a cola!"

He reminded himself of his father.

Stan couldn't look at Lazy Susan's face. He was surprised to hear her chuckle. "You're funny. I knit, watch TV, read, and talk on the phone all at the same time. Sometimes I have the radio on, too. You don't have to turn off the TV to take a phone call."

"You don't?"

"You never told me you don't like phone calls."

Stan made a broad, helpless gesture. "You weren't supposed to know how I felt."

"Why not? Was it a secret?"

"Ladies don't like knowing things about me."

"That's because it takes away the mystery," Susan replied with authority.

"That's a nice way of putting it." Stan sighed. "I didn't want you to know that something you like to do is something I don't like to do. That always seems to end in break-ups. In my, ah, admittedly limited experience, lots of things end in break-ups. I wanted you to feel like this--" he motioned between them "--was going really great. So maybe you would go with me for a while. I didn't want you to know that it's going badly."

"It's going badly?" Susan faltered. "How is it going badly?"

"How?" Stan frowned in puzzlement. "The phone calls are the problem. Otherwise it's going good."

"I need to take the pot pies out of the oven. We can talk in the kitchen." When Susan turned, Stan saw that she now had a tiny kitten clinging to the back of her skirt. It was a spotted kitten, but it was so fuzzy that the spots were almost entirely obscured by its long, white guard hairs. It was hanging on with three of its paws and trying with its fourth paw to grab her apron strings.

"Susan, uh, you got a little something there ..."

"Unhook her, would you, Stan? Thanks."

Stan approached with caution. The kitten craned its neck and stared up at him. Stan hesitated. "How do I unlatch a kitten?"

"Try lifting her straight up."

As soon as Stan's arm was within reach, the kitten stopped trying to catch Susan's apron strings and fastened that paw to Stan's cuff instead. Now it was twenty-five percent attached to Stan, and seventy-five percent attached to Susan. Stan tried the "lifting straight up" method. The skirt came along with the kitten. He paused to consider the problem. The kitten stuck its other forepaw to his sleeve. "Uh ... I'm half done."

Once he could think past the soulful look the kitten was giving him, Stan realized that he knew more or less how to deal with burrs, and by extension things which clung like them: one hook at a time. He started with the kitten's right back paw, and once that was dangling free of Susan's skirt, he did the other rear foot. He did not anticipate that the kitten would squeak in sudden fear at being attached only to Stan's cuff, and scrabble at thin air trying to get purchase. It ended up snagged on the bare skin of Stan's free hand. "Ouch. Hang on."

"You can put her on the floor."

Stan leaned down, kitten attached to one cuff and the opposite hand. A few inches above the short, loopy carpet, the kitten scrabbled again, this time in the direction of the floor. It hopped away for a few steps, then stopped to lick its fuzz into order.

Susan continued to the kitchen. Stan followed her, with a cautious backward glance at the lumpy couch cushion with his phone under it. The cat guarding the phone yawned. The cat who had been playing with the cord was now asleep on top of the wall plug. At the arched kitchen doorway, Stan felt his toe clunk into something, and there was a crunching sound from beneath his foot.

"Whoops!" said Susan. "Careful, Stan. You spilled Brownie Pumpkin's bowl. Here, I'll help you pick up all that creamer."

"I'll need a rag, or ..." Stan looked down. "Oh. The creamer is in containers?" He knelt and helped put all the miniature tubs of creamer back into the brown stoneware bowl on the floor. He had stomped one creamer tub completely, so that had to be wiped up. He used his handkerchief to soak it out of the short carpeting. Then he took the precaution of shoving the bowl further off to one side, not trusting his feet to avoid it the next time he passed through the kitchen doorway.

Susan got another container of creamer from the kitchen and placed it in the bowl. "There." She dusted off her hands and put her oven mitt back on.

"There has to be a certain number?"

"No, but I don't like to let it get empty."

"Okay. Whatever." Stan stood just inside the kitchen doorway. The space was warm from the oven. The kitchen walls were painted royal blue, decorated with vintage Pitt Cola ads and Chinese ink drawings of cats. The cabinets were also painted blue, a thick coating, as if they'd been painted over several times.

On the counter, inside an enamel pie tin, rested a flock of little ceramic birds, all of them with their heads upraised and mouths open. Most of them were black with yellow bills, some were shiny solid red, a handful bright yellow, and one was a blue on white Dutch pattern. The floor was vinyl tile, dulled where chairs around the pine table had been pulled back over and over. Above the table hung a dining-room style white chandelier. On the floor there was a cardboard box with its top cut off, containing bowls of cat kibble, but even with the barrier of the box a few kibbles had escaped onto the vinyl.

Susan removed a jelly-roll pan from the oven and set it on the countertop, across two curlicued iron trivets. The pan was full of individual baking dishes. Susan pointed at one half of the pan. "Beef." She pointed at the other half. "Chicken. I was going to freeze a bunch. You can have as many as you want."

"I'll have one of each."

"You sure that's all you want?"

"I'll start with one of each." Stan wanted nothing more than to eat pies and talk about random topics with Lazy Susan. He remembered the beluga sticker inside his breast pocket. Even if he could avoid the topic indefinitely, he wasn't going back to the Mystery Shack without this done. Stan took a step into the kitchen and his shoe crunched something underneath. He looked down and saw that he had stepped on some of the scattered kibble.

He looked to the kitchen table, thinking to take a chair, but the chairs around the table all contained cats. One contained three cats. The centerpiece was also a curled-up cat. Stanley peered, and that one seemed to be ceramic, glazed in a seafoam color. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, uncertain where to go.

Susan said, "I like phone calls."

"I knew it. You're going to insist on phone calls."

"Yes. I like to chat on the phone."

"I don't."

"We could talk on the phone about things that interest you. Maybe you would like to talk about vintage moose head-and-shoulder mounts. Don't you like those?"

"It's no use," said Stan. "I'm still going to hate it."

Susan turned toward Stan and folded her arms, still wearing her oven mitt. "I need two one-half-hour phone calls a week in order to be satisfied in a relationship."

Stan frowned and huffed, "Yeah, well, I don't need any."

They stood quietly facing each other for a minute. The only comment was made by a hopeful cat, who curled around Susan's legs and made a sound that was a cross between a meow and a chirp. Finally, Susan spoke. "Pie deal."

"What?"

"Pie deal! One coupon for a free piece of pie, your choice! As long as you choose one of the flavors I made for the diner on the day you redeem the coupon."

"Free ... pie?"

"Wait, on second thought, if you tell me ahead, I can make your favorite. I love to make special request pies for handsome men. Or, in this case, one particular handsome man. That means you, sweetheart. That's for a half-hour phone call. One piece of pie, one half-hour phone call. What do you say?"

"Pie? Free pie? Any flavor? French silk? Spinach peach ginger custard?" Stan's thoughts drifted blissfully. Then he jolted out of his dreams and protested, "I should get free pie just because we're dating."

Susan's eye narrowed. "I should get phone calls just because we're dating."

"Oooh, oh, you--you're logical," Stan accused her. "And you're probably right, aren't you? You've got this whole give-and-take relationship thing down."

"I'll call you on the phone. You try thinking about delicious pie while we chat. I'll set an oven timer for half an hour. When time's up, you've earned your pie."

Something loosened inside Stanley. His shoulders slumped, but now it was from relief instead of a sense of impending doom. "Okay." He realized that he had given in, but it didn't feel as if he had given anything up. "I don't understand why you aren't breaking up with me. Wait ... wait! Did we just resolve our differences like adults, using honest communication?"

"Yep!"

"This is a new experience for me. I feel dizzy ... need to lie down." All the kitchen chairs still contained cats.

Susan took off her oven mitt. "Come to my bedroom. I'll get you coffee and a cat."

"No cat. They hate me." Stan followed along to Susan's room, next door over from the kitchen, also adjacent to the living room. Susan's brass frame bed was made up with many deep layers of soft things. Stan sank into the comforter and leaned back into a pile of pillows covered in white, lacy shams. The shams matched the box spring cover, which was also white and lacy, and the lace decorations that climbed the brass headboard.

While Stan got settled, Lazy Susan briefly left the room. For a moment Stan thought he was alone, but then he wasn't sure. A cream-colored Siamese cat sat regally in the middle of the knick-knacks and mementos crowded atop the ornate highboy. Stan couldn't tell whether it was a live cat or a life-sized statue. Then it turned its head toward him and blinked its maroon-and-sky-blue eyes, deciding the question.

The bedroom was wallpapered in light green with white stripes. There were lots of decorations, but the clutter was less dusty than Stan's own stuff at the Mystery Shack. The white vanity had vintage greeting cards with cats on them tucked into its mirror frame. Next to the vanity was a white wicker chair, with a round white furry throw pillow.

There were two bedside tables. On the nearest one sat a heavy vintage plastic rotary telephone in translucent pink, the salmon color of the Pitt Cola logo. The phone had darker, opaque pink trim and the dial face was orange, with Pitt Cola fancily printed on it. The table furthest away, between the bed and the wall with a window, had some magazines loosely piled on it. Stan could just reach that table with his fingertips by leaning over, without having to work his way up out of the bedding. He coaxed a magazine to himself and flipped through it. There were lots of landscape pictures and ads for trail mix; also lots of close-ups of hares or rabbits.

Susan returned, carrying a loudly purring white cat with one brown ear.

"You read, um--" Stan flipped back to the magazine's cover "--Snowshoe Hare Conservationist Quarterly?"

"Sure. My dad likes hunting and wildlife magazines. He gives me a subscription to one every year as a Christmas present. That one has nice pictures and recipes." Susan dumped the cat onto the bedding beside Stan. It sank into the covers, increased the volume of its purrs and made happy feet, picking at the bedding with its claws.

"White Russian," Susan announced. "This cat likes everybody!"

"'Everybody' doesn't usually include me."

"It does now. Give me your jacket."

The cat was not hissing, snarling, nor puffing up its tail. Its back was arched, but that seemed meant only to facilitate its kneading the covers with all four paws. It had a smiling look to its face, reminding Stan of a Laughing Buddha statue. Stan tossed the magazine aside, struggled forward from the squishy pillows and wiggled out of his suitcoat, which Susan took. She left the room again, but returned in a minute and placed a mug on a crocheted coaster on the nearest bedside table. "Here's your coffee." Susan knew how every person in Gravity Falls took his or her coffee. Stan liked his coffee the way he liked his Apocalypse-preparation shelves: loaded with evaporated milk.

In another minute Susan carried a TV tray in through the bedroom doorway. The tray was already unfolded. She set it down and sat on the edge of the bed. Stan tried to sit up out of the pillows, finding that he had sunk further in since he had last moved, but Susan said, "Don't move. I'll hand you things." She gave Stan his chicken pot pie and a fork.

Stan grunted his thanks. The pie dish was almost too hot in his hand. He poked the crust with his fork, and steam and gravy welled up.

"I keep meaning to ask you," Susan said as they ate, "Do you ever see Raymond Chandler around the Mystery Shack?"

"Raymond Chandler ... Raymond Chandler the writer? Hasn't he been dead for fifty years? Why do you ask?"

"It's a possibility that his shambling corpse has been visiting the Mystery Shack very often for the past thirty years or so."

"What gives you that idea?"

"The cats around the Mystery Shack purr backwards."

Stan chewed a bite of pie before he asked, "Cats' purrs have a front and a back? How can you tell that? Is it because you know so much about cats?"

"Not just that. I also hear really well."

"And a backwards purr means that Raymond Chandler's corpse has been around lately?"

"His animated corpse," Susan clarified. "That's one of the things it could mean. I wondered if you'd ever seen him."

"What else could it mean when the cats purr backwards?"

"A hole punched in time and space somewhere nearby," said Susan.

"Oh. Uh. In that case, if it's at the Mystery Shack, it's definitely the Raymond Chandler thing."

"Do you ever see Mr. Chandler? Do you think you could get an autograph? That is, if his corpse isn't falling apart too much to hold a pen. My dad is a big fan."

"Oh, well, autographs, sure thing. Send your dad by the Mystery Shack. I can get him Raymond Chandler's autograph." Stan had found that by closing his eyes and scrawling just about any celebrity's name, he could approximate an autograph to the satisfaction of a customer. If a long-dead corpse's signature was acceptable, his own version should be at least as good. "I'll give him a big discount."

"I'll tell him."

"What should I do with my dish? I want to switch pies. I want to try the beef."

"Just put it right down on the bed."

The white cat with the brown ear was still stationed in the bedding where Susan had dropped it earlier. It was smiling at Stan and switching its weight from one forepaw to the other as it curled its toes. Stan narrowed his eyes at the cat. "I know your kind. You only like me for my pot pie. Well, you're not getting it!" He went on, to Susan, "I want to finish this one later. If I put it on the bed, the cat'll eat it. Can you put it on the TV table for me?"

"I will if you want me to, but you don't need to worry. White Russian won't steal it."

"Won't steal it? What do you mean he won't steal it? He's a cat. There's a whole category of burglars named after cats. Heh, pun unintended. Category."

Lazy Susan chuckled, which pleased Stan. He went on, "T.S. Eliot wrote a poem about a couple of horrible, vandal, robber cats. Cats are the original windowsill pie-thieving knaves. Knaves! Of course he'll eat my pot pie if he gets a chance. Watch. I'll show you." Stan set his mostly-finished chicken pot pie down on the bedding and waited for the cat to take it. White Russian smiled and blinked slowly.

Stan held a hand out to Susan. "Give me the beef one." She handed it to him. Stan spent a minute eating his pie and watching White Russian do nothing but smile. Then Stan held his beef pie dish in one hand, stuck out the pointer finger of his other hand, and pushed the chicken pot pie dish forward until it butted up against the cat's round, white paws. White Russian squinted and stuck out the tip of his pink tongue. Stan waited to see if sticking out the tongue was a precursor to licking the pie dish, but it seemed that this was an end in itself.

"I'm the only one who makes a liar out of me. Take the pie!"

"He won't steal it," Lazy Susan told Stan, "but he will eat it if you feed him some on your fingers."

"That cat is unnatural," huffed Stan.

"He's polite," said Susan.

Stanley put a tiny piece of chicken on his finger and held it out to the cat, which wiggled its white whiskers, then licked off the chicken. It tickled. "Heh," said Stan.

Susan made a thoughtful sound. "You know, for a while, I was beginning to think there was a hole punched in time and space at the Mystery Shack."

"Why? There's no reason to think that."

"I've been thinking about it lately, because of the duplicated boy."

"What duplicated boy?"

"I wonder if you've seen him? Lately I've been seeing a young man in the woods around your place. Pretty often, he comes around in the evening with the raccoons and begs by the picnic tables."

"Oh, I've seen that guy. He was getting into my trash until I put a brick on the lid."

"There's more than one of him."

"Eh? That's the way it is with pests."

"At first I thought he just grew facial hair really quickly and then shaved it off in different styles. I've seen him with and without a hat. But then I saw more than one of him together! Some have facial hair and some don't, one or two have a hat. There's only one jacket vest, but I think they might share it. They're all the same boy. They wear different clothes, and the small beards, so they can tell each other apart."

"It's probably just a litter of beautiful men that someone dumped. Nothing to do with portals."

Susan said doubtfully, "They do seem almost tame. But they can't be identical brothers. They're close in age, but aren't exactly the same age. It's the same boy, only a few months apart from himself."

While Susan talked, Stan began to hear small scratching, catching noises against the bed covers, coming from the far side of the bed. He watched for the source of the noise, relieved to have a distraction from a conversation that involved brothers and space-time portals. Soon the fuzzy, invisible-spots kitten, which Stan had seen earlier on Lazy Susan's skirt, hauled itself up. It toddled across the blanket and stuck its head right into Stan's chicken pot pie dish. "That's more like it. See, not all your cats are weird. This one's a natural little thief. And a go-getter. Climbed all the way up here for my pie. Now that's a cat."

Susan smiled at the kitten, but she said, "You know what I think? Everyone knows that portals make duplicates of people, or the duplicates come from some clone world on the other side of the portal. But what if they're not always duplicates? What if sometimes they're the same person? I think that boy is trying to prevent something bad from happening, back where he came from. Only every time he tries to stop it, he's not quite at the right time. And then he escapes through the hole punched in time and space. So that's why he's almost but not quite the same age as himself."

Stan stopped watching the kitten chowing down on his pie. "There's no portal! The duplicated kid must have used a time machine."

"I've wondered, because the cats have been purring backwards all the time around your place for about thirty years. If there's no space-time hole, Mr. Chandler must shamble there frequently."

"Lately I've smelled some--what's the word--Chandleresque pipe smoke around the back porch. Very distinct. Must be him."

"I'm sure it must be." But Susan still wasn't off the subject. "Did you know, the workmen I hired wanted to put a portal into other dimensions in the diner for me? I was very patient with them and pointed out that the diner's made out of a log on a train car. We don't have a basement. And I really wanted to finally get the big dishwasher so we don't have to do them all by hand. There's only so much room in the kitchen, you can't have a hole in the fabric of space-time plus the big dishwasher. Then they wanted to put in brand new cabinets! I asked why they couldn't install unfinished, revivified cabinets from Furniture Lich. They said they could, but they didn't have insurance for the phylactery. So I asked if I could sign a waiver, and they said yes, as long as I got a priest to notarize it. I had to find a notary priest. But I saved almost ninety percent on the cabinets, and then I painted them myself. They look good!"

Stan was no longer sure Susan even knew what a hole punched in time and space was. This relaxed him. But he knew her well enough to know that part of him should be wary. Susan spoke slowly, and sometimes there were long gaps in conversations. Then, when you thought a topic was safely forgotten, you found she had been ruminating on it.

The kitten had finished Stan's chicken pot pie and was scrubbing its face with a paw, its fine, flyaway hair sticking out every which way. Stan asked, "What's the kitten's name?"

"She's so little, I haven't had time to name her. Would you like to?"

"What? Name the kitten?"

"Sure!"

"Um ... I don't ... really know how."

"Try."

"Well, um, okay. It's a girl, right? Princess ... people still name pets 'Princess'?"

"I think so."

"Princess. That's not a name. That's a title," said Stan, dissatisfied. "She needs a name for after the title. What should it be?"

"It's up to you."

"I don't know." Stan sighed in frustration.

"What kind of features does she have?"

"Hair. Tiny-ness. Pointy burr-hook claws. Sorta severe cuteness. More hair." Stan squinted at the kitten. Its head was again buried in Stan's pie dish, and its purr was a puttery whirring, like that of a miniature music box. The kitten's hair, when rendered blurry by squinting, could resemble a dandelion's fluff. Also some kind of distressingly huge hairy bug. Maybe, possibly, the tail sticking up with hairs springing from it could look like a lit sparkler. "Sparkler," said Stan. "Princess ... Sparkler. Now it's too long."

"You can shorten it."

"Sparky," said Stan without thinking.

Susan gave him a long look from a narrowed eye. Then with her fingertips she half-lifted her droopy eyelid. "Are you sure you don't know how to name cats?"

"Positive." Stan held his hands up in a defensive posture. "I have no idea what I'm doing."

"You're a natural."

"That's it? She's named?"

"She's named!"

"How many times am I going to have uses for that talent?"

"You might be surprised," said Susan. "I've had to name cats almost as often as I've had to fix the pie carousel at the diner."

"Well, now my chicken pot pie dish can just stay in the bedding. It's been totally cleaned out by the kitten ... I mean by Sparky. Here, Russian cat, you can lick this bowl." White Russian ducked his head and promptly, assiduously cleaned Stan's beef pot pie dish, as if he were just as greedy as any normal cat. "This time he listened to me! That's weirder than leaving my pie alone in the first place. Animals never listen to me."

"He's a good kitty."

Having finished her share of Stan's leftovers, Sparky climbed down the comforter backwards, making pricking noises as her claws snagged and unhooked methodically on the way down. Off the bedding she hopped, and toddled out of the room. White Russian left the bed in one leap. He followed the kitten in a stately manner, with his tail held almost straight up--only the tip tilted slightly. "He might be a typical cat, after all," said Stan. "No more pie, no more cat. Off he goes."

Susan touched Stan's knee briefly. "Stay the night. I want to get into my nightie and cuddle."

"And more?" Stan asked hopefully.

"That depends on what you can put me in the mood for! How do you feel now that you've had some pie?"

"The pie was good, as always. I'm still stunned that you didn't break up with me."

"Were you really so afraid I was going to break up with you if you told me the truth?"

"What truth? I wasn't going to tell--oh. You mean about the phone calls. Yeah, I was afraid you'd break up with me. Not just afraid. I was sure of it. It was a rotten feeling."

"What made you go through with telling me how you feel?"

Stan picked the beluga sticker out of his shirt pocket and held it up. "Mabel."

"You respect her a lot."

"Yeah, I do."

"What happened?"

Stan put the sticker back and patted his pocket. "Me and Mabel have gotten into some ... discussions about you. Lively discussions. When you'd call, she'd want me to talk to you."

Stanley told Susan how he had worn out even Mabel’s patience:

Every time Stan demanded a cola, and Mabel, frowning, brought him one, he felt terrible, even though the beverage was refreshing. And each time, Mabel patted his hand, and left.

She came back, though. She always came back after their disagreements, with envelopes, plastic sleeves, and books full of stickers. She pulled out a sticker and held it up. "Say you're sorry."

Stan said gruffly, "I'm sorry I yelled."

He received a sticker on his cheek. Mabel always identified the sticker for him: "Pig in a crown"; "White Terrier in a plaid hat"; or "Skunks with a surfboard". After she had pressed the sticker into place on his cheek, she always said, "This is to remind you to do better next time."

Sometimes Stan left the sticker on his cheek for the next several hours, even if he was minding the gift shop.

Susan inevitably called back soon, and Mabel insisted on trying to get Stan to take the phone. He lost his temper, and Mabel later forgave him with a sticker.

That afternoon, though, Mabel hadn't come back. Stan hadn't given it a thought until Dipper walked through the shop covered in stickers, some of them beginning to curl up at the edges. They were stuck all over his cap, his face, nose, arms, and even on the backs of his pant legs and the tops of his shoes.

"What happened to you? Some kind of freak stationery storm?"

"Ugh. I got into this huge fight with Mabel. We made up. It was a big fight, so I needed a lot of make-up stickers. It was ... I made her really upset. I hope I've been make-up stickered enough. I hope this means she's all right now."

"Hey," Stan realized then, "I didn't get a sticker."

He found Mabel in the twins' room. "What gives, kid? How come you never came back and made me apologize?"

Mabel was listlessly playing with piles of stickers while the pig rolled on the floor next to her. "I forgot."

Stan sat down on the floor amongst the stickers. "You can give me my sticker now."

Mabel peeled one off of its backing and patted it onto his cheek. "Beluga with a birthday cake on his head." She did not smile.

"What kind of fight did you and Dipper get into?"

Mabel stirred the stickers on the floor with her fingers. "I told him I was tired of trying to get you to talk to Lazy Susan. Then he said I should just give up." She cleared her throat. "He said you were a lost cause."

"Dipper was right. I'm a chronic lost cause."

"No, you're not. So I screamed at him! Then he said that he only meant that getting you to take the phone calls was impossible. He said he didn't mean you were a lost cause. So I gave him some of my stickers, and he's going to wear them until they fall off."

"Aren't you going to tell me what my sticker is for? To remind me to do better next time?"

"That's okay, Grunkle Stan. I understand. It's hard for you. You don't have to do better next time."

Stan frowned and paused. He stretched his arms out in front of himself, interlaced his fingers and pushed his palms forward. Then he shook out and sighed. "I got so mad at myself that I stomped all the way down to the living room, grabbed the phone out of the wall and drove over here. I don't believe I can do better, either, and she's ... she's right not to believe in me. But I liked it that she did believe. I would have liked it if she were wrong about me for the whole summer. I was going to come here and talk to you, then go home and tell Mabel you'd broken up with me, but that I had done the right thing."

"Mabel's a sweetheart. I'm glad you decided to come and talk to me. And you have good news for Mabel. You and I didn't break up."

"Good news for me, too," said Stan. He covered Susan's hand with his own.

Susan rubbed her thumb along the base of Stan's thumb. "Do you want my makeup on or off?"

"Take it off," said Stan.

As usual, Susan's big hairdo had been falling down over her shoulders as her hairpins lost their hold, throughout the day and into the evening. Now, she gathered the hair on one side and pulled it back over one ear, slid a hairpin out from her hairdo, and pinned the gathered section loosely again. After Susan had haphazardly pinned the hair back, Stan could glimpse a black patch in her blue-grey hair. He wasn't paying much attention, until Susan pushed the long lock of hair back further and pinned it tighter.

Stan glanced toward where the black patch had seemed to be, over the top of her ear. It was not part of her hair. There was a furry black tassel sticking straight up from the top of her ear. "Ah! I mean, ahem." Stan collected himself. "That's some, er, aggressive ear hair you've got going on. All black, and kind of sticking up ... and for some reason growing from the outside of your ear."

"Oh, haven't you noticed that before?" Susan gathered more loose, long hair on the opposite side, and felt for a pin. Her other ear also had stiffly upstanding black hairs on top.

"Uh, of course I have. It's very, er, classy."

"I suppose it is almost always covered up. But when I take off my make-up, I just pin my hair any old way, to get it out of my face."

"What's the cause of this ear ... fluff?"

"I'm a lycanthrope."

"What?"

"I have lycanthropy."

"What? Like, what is that, you're a werewolf?"

"Guess!"

"Guess?"

"You know what lycanthropy is, but I'm not a wolf. Guess the kind."

"Gecko. Unicorn elk? Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig? You're not related to Mabel's pet, are you?"

"Come on, Stan." Susan pushed Stan's knee teasingly. "I already gave you a tip." She brushed a finger over her right ear, flicking the stiff black hairs. "It's a clue."

"Oh, uh, some kinda great horned owl or something?"

"Were-lynx!"

"Were-lynx. Really? Eh, I've seen weirder. Can I touch the fur?"

"Sure."

Stan flicked his fingertip back and forth across the tuft. It tickled the side of his finger, and made Susan wrinkle her nose. "Lycanthropy ... is that catching?"

Susan giggled. "You have nothing to worry about."

"I gotta ask, because of the kids. I can't have you visiting the Mystery Shack if you, y'know, bite."

"That's responsible of you. I like that. The children are safe. I never bite people."

Stan sighed. "Oh, good."

Susan smiled at him, then stood up and went to sit at her vanity. She dipped a cotton ball in a tub of cold cream. "If you're going to be a mysterious man of mysterious mystery, you should wear your eyepatch to my place sometimes."

"No. You don't want that. It's just an act, it's for show. For my job. It's silly."

"It's not silly. It's sexy roleplay."

"Okay, if you say so. I guess I could do it sometime, for a little while."

"Thank you. I look forward to it." She applied cold cream and slowly wiped it all off.

A sandy-colored cat jumped onto the vanity and dunked its paw in the tub of cold cream. Then it patted Susan's face. "Sandy," Susan admonished the cat, "you're late. I've already wiped it off. Now I need another tissue." She wiped her face again, while Sandy flicked his tail across her cheek and under her nose. "Give me your paw." When Susan tried to wipe the cold cream off of the cat, it made an indignant noise and yanked its foot away. "Then you have to lick it off yourself. I didn't think you liked cold cream!"

The cat clearly did not like cold cream, but on principle was against having its paw held and cleaned. It gave one surly lick of its foot, made a face, then stalked out of the room, flicking its dampened paw with each step. It left a one-footprint trail of cold cream.

Susan was taking out hairpins again and letting all of her hair down. "You can get the living room lights," she said.

"Sure," said Stan, and started struggling up out of the bedding. By the time his shoes hit the floor, the light coming in through the living room door had dimmed. One of the lamps had been turned off. Stan hadn't yet made it to the door before the light dimmed further. Then quickly another lamp was turned out, so the only light remaining was from the lamps in Susan's room. "Are the lights automatic?"

"No, it's not electric. It's my brownie."

"So, you taught one of the cats a trick. How does it do that?"

"What? Turn out the lights? I didn't teach a cat to turn out the lights. It's Brownie Pumpkin." Susan added, "You can get the door now."

The door slowly closed and latched on its own; Stan thought a cat had pushed it. "Were you talking to a cat, not to me?" He opened the door again and peered around it. No cats were to be seen nearby. The only cat in view was the one that Stan had left in charge of his phone. It was sitting far across the living room on the lumpy couch cushion, absorbed in licking its toes clean. Its pale fur shone dimly in the blue evening light from a front window.

Stan turned to Susan and hazarded, "Witch?"

Susan chuckled. "No, I'm not a witch."

"But Brownie isn't a cat? I'm getting confused."

"This house has a brownie. He does little things, like shut off the lights."

The door closed behind Stan again. He heard it latch. He turned swiftly and tried the knob--it turned easily. He took one last look for any cat close enough to push the door closed, and, seeing none, closed and latched it himself this time. "Have you seen it in action?"

"No. Brownies don't care for being seen."

"I don't know how familiar you are with the kinds of things that live in Gravity Falls--besides were-lynxes and celebrity shambling corpses, that is. But just because somebody turns out your lights for you, and is invisible, doesn't necessarily mean it's a friendly brownie. For instance, a boggart could be shutting off the lights. Boggarts are nasty, and they blow out lamps with their foul fae breath."

"No, he's not a boggart. He's a simple little brownie. He comes out after sundown, and picks up spilled pie weights from under the stove. He also gets the cats' rabbit-fur mice and jingle balls out from under the refrigerator. I don't see him. But I hear him scraping his little cane around under the furniture, and I find the things in a covered kettle later. He does that for me so the cats won't knock them down again."

Stan wasn't comfortable with the idea of a woman living by herself with an unseen supernatural creature. "But boggarts are giant brownies with halitosis and bad manners. If you never see him, how can you be sure of the difference?"

"He has good manners. If it were a boggart, the cats would hate it, and I'd have a lot of cats with their hackles up, hiding under my bed."

"Are you sure all you have is a harmless house elf? You haven't laid eyes on it."

Susan said stoutly, "He takes the creamer I leave out for him."

Stan was not satisfied yet. "How do you know your cats aren't just taking the creamer, biting it open, and hiding the packaging under the couches?"

"They do hide a lot of things under the couches, that's true. But, the packaging from the creamer always ends up in the living room trash can. I haven't seen my cats put their trash in a trash can! Well, except Donald, and she always fishes it out again. Most of the cats would be more likely to put it on my bed."

"But he picks up small objects. And then there's the only being active at night thing."

Susan knew what he meant. She tilted her head and let him look. "I haven't been bitten by a vampire in years."

Stan chuckled, leaned in and kissed her on the neck. "You were never bitten by a vampire. Right? You're joking, right?"

"I was, really! But it was only a nip on the hand. My bad. I thought he was done with his plate. You should never get between a vampire and his pancakes."

"Never get between a vampire ..."

"And his pancakes!"

"Where'd you learn that?"

"Mostly I learned at the diner. Serving pancakes. And my dad knows a lot about vampires. He taught me some rules. "

"Dipper will be so excited to hear this."

"Really? Why?"

"One of those journal pages is damaged. He's been going crazy trying to figure out how to end a sentence beginning with 'Never get between a vampire'. You should hear him. He's driving me crazy. He'll pace a groove in the floor, saying things like: 'Never get between a vampire ... and her cubs? Never get between a vampire ... and a pirate? Never get between a vampire, never get between a vampire--' he goes on like that. Then he asks it like a question. 'Never get between a vampire? Does nothing come later? What is it, some kind of Zen thing?' The kid uses the word Zen. But imagine it with pen-clicking and lots of voice cracking. He's exhausting!"

"I think he's adorable."

"You don't live with him."

"But you think he's adorable, don't you, Stan?"

"He's tolerable."

Susan grinned. Stan stroked her shoulder with his thumb and gave a squeeze with his fingertips.

Then, what Stan had thought was a white fake-fur throw pillow on a white wicker chair turned out to be a curled up, sleeping white Persian cat. The Persian stretched, yawned, and scratched lightly at the door and waited, swishing its tail and staring at the doorknob. Stan had closed the door himself, so he knew it had been firmly latched. As if in response to the Persian's scratching, it swung halfway open. The Persian stepped out, and immediately Sandy darted, and Sparky hopped, back into the bedroom. And the door closed again. The latch clicked. Stan eyed the closed door and pressed his lips together nervously. "Your brownie wouldn't lock us in, would he?"

"No, Brownie Pumpkin would never do anything like that. He likes half and half too much. And this house. He seems to love this house as much as I do. He's been here since my dad owned the house."

"How did you find out his name?"

"Brownie is what kind of creature he is, and Pumpkin is a cute nickname I gave him. I don't know how to pronounce his fairy given name. One time, he wrote it out along one wall of the parlor for me, in fairy dust. But all those things on top of the letters--what do you call those dots and little hills?"

"Accents?"

"Right, accents. It's hard enough pronouncing all the letters that go into his full name. That's without everything that goes on top of, through, and beside all the letters. So I hoped he would be okay with it if I nicknamed him something cute. I had a cute nickname when I was a little girl."

"Oh, yeah? What did they call you?"

"Don't tease, Stan, but my ears used to stick out. My dad said that when my lynx tufts came in, I looked like a hairy caterpillar. So he named me 'Caterpillar'. Isn't that cute?"

"Heh. That is kinda cute, I guess. If shaggy, creepy, crawly things are cute in your dad's opinion."

"Some caterpillars can give you rashes."

"I'll take your word for that."

"What about you? Didn't you have a cute nickname when you were growing up?"

"Well. Not really. It's not cute. Sometimes my dad called me 'the other one'."

"The other one of what?"

"Never mind. It's kind of an inside family joke. I did finally get a good nickname. The kids call me Grunkle Stan."

Another cat leapt up onto the vanity. Stan wasn't even sure whether it was one he had already seen. Susan ran her hairbrush once over the cat, from nose to tail, while it lifted its chin and arched its back in pleasure. Susan said, "'Grunkle' is cute ... you know what? I should make a brownie pumpkin pie. What do you think it should be like, Stanford? Traditional pie crust, then a brownie layer, then pumpkin pie filling on top?"

"What about regular pie crust, but with brownie-flavored pumpkin filling?"

"I bet he would like that. I think I should make a pie he likes, if it's going to be named for him."

"I guess you have to finish brushing your hair and everything. I'm going to sit on the end of the bed and watch."

"I'm flattered that you like my hair." Susan drew one handful of her hair forward at a time and brushed the ends. Next, she brushed from the top of her head back and down, over and over.

Stan blinked slowly, slouched, and rested his chin in his hand. The bedroom window was open a crack. From out past the backyard, in the dark trees and long grass, came the buzzing of bugs and cheeping of frogs, and the scent of a distant skunk. Stan listened to the sweep of Susan's brush.

Susan cleaned her brush. Then she went to her closet and brought out two nightgowns on hangers. She held one in her hand and draped the other over her forearm. "Which one is your favorite, Stanford? The mint green? Or the dark red?"

"Don't call me Stanford," Stan said absently. Then he heard himself, sat bolt upright and pointed frantically at a nightgown. "Red, red! See, I'm an attentive boyfriend! We weren't talking about anything else! Just nightgowns!"

Susan laid the red nightgown on her vanity chair. She approached Stan, turned her back to him and tucked her hair to one side, off of her neck. "Did I hear you right, Stan? Do you not like to be called by your full name? Do my buttons, please."

"I didn't say anything!" Stan rose and nervously ran his fingers across Susan's nape. "I think it was the wind you heard. Or a cat. Cats are handy excuses in this house, right? They make noises, right? They meow and things."

The Siamese on top of the highboy yawned luxuriously, ending with an obliging meearp noise. Stan pointed over Susan's shoulder and waggled his finger at the Siamese. "That guy. Very talkative. Sounds like he could be mistaken for me."

The cat blinked, then stared at Stan, as if surprised at the accusation. With the attention directed off of himself and onto a cat, Stan felt safe in beginning to slowly undo Susan's buttons for her. He scoffed at the affronted-looking Siamese: "Oh, like you don't have secrets. Like you haven't faked your own death. What is it, nine lives? I bet you haven't even finished one yet! You're not fooling anyone!"

"Tut is a reincarnated Egyptian pharaoh," said Susan.

"Sure," said Stan. "That's what he wants you to think."

"I don't know why he should. It's not like cats who were kings in past lives get special treatment. He gets the same bunny meat, salmon, and moose liver as the other cats."

Stan rubbed his hand across Susan's shoulder to let her know he was done with the buttons. Susan worked her way out of her dress sleeves, then rolled her dress off over her hips. Stan returned to the head of the bed, lounged in the pillows and watched as Susan hung her dress in the closet. He tried to appear completely relaxed. "So was he the real Tut, or what? If he was, I need him to do a special appearance at the Mystery Shack. He could wear that fancy gold death mask--I mean a gold painted replica. Do you think you could teach him to hold a king’s rod or wand or whatever? Heck, even if he is a fraud, I could charge probably-not-a-real-reincarnated-pharaoh rates. But it's better if he's a real reincarnated pharaoh. I bet I have a sarcophagus somewhere that he could step out of."

Susan lifted the red nightgown over her head, dropped it over her arms and shrugged it into place on her shoulders and ribcage. Then she gave one wiggle to smooth it out all the way down. "He already knows how to hold a staff. I don't know if he was the real King Toot-on-kom-en. Or is it Tut-en-kam-oon? I can never pronounce all the pharaohs' names without a dictionary to help me. I don't know which one he used to be. I call him Tut because it's easier." She again sat down at her vanity and put some of her hair back up, pulling a shiny, straight lock on one side into a barrette.

"Yeah? What makes you think he was a pharaoh?"

"Well, whenever he scratches the furniture, the marks look like Egyptian cartoons ... what are those called ..."

"Hieroglyphics."

"Yes, those. His scratches look just like hair-ah-glyphics. There were some on the highboy, but it's too nice to let a cat destroy it. So, I refinished it. But his scratches in the walls of the bathroom, and on the legs of the living room furniture, are still there. He plucked the back of one of the couches' upholstery until the snagged places look like the bird-god."

"Horus."

Susan pondered a moment before replying. "No, the other bird-god."

"Dang. I don't remember the other bird-god. Now that's going to bug me."

"We could pull the couch away from the wall and look at the picture, if that would help."

Stan thought about getting up, but when he moved, one of his knees gave a small pop and one of his hips creaked, and he leaned back again into the enveloping pillows. "Nah, I'm too comfortable. It's the god that looks like an ibis, though, I'm pretty sure. I'll look it up later. Will Tut let strangers pet him?" Stan was involved in the current conversation, but he was also alert to whether Susan was going to return to the earlier topic of his name. She hadn't said anything more about it so far, but in addition to not being a quick speaker, she was busy with her hair.

"I don't know. He mostly comes to people for treats," said Susan. "When you touch him, the audience is over."

"That might add to his appeal. We can tell people that he's a king and is above being touched. We could charge them to feed him canned salmon. Is it okay if I glue some things to him?"

Susan bent slightly and took one last look in the mirror, then patted at her hair, though it was perfectly smooth as far as Stan could see. He felt relieved as she approached the bed; now cuddling would begin and talking would be over.

Susan sat down; the mattress bounced as she moved over, until she settled with her hip against Stan's. Stan tucked his hand in between Susan's back and the soft, wrinkled pillowcases. She leaned forward a little, and Stan put his arm all the way across her back and stroked her side. Susan leaned her head against Stan’s cheek.

Sparky had been exploring the room at floor level, bobbing her head toward things which interested her and pulling back just before her nose would have touched them. Now she climbed the bedding again, tail flailing. She stepped across the covers, listing where the comforter was bunched up, and returned to the pie dish she had earlier licked clean. She gave it a scrub with her tongue.

"Those bowls aren't neverending sources of pie, you know," Stan said to the kitten. "Too bad."

Sparky drew her tongue along the edge of the bowl a few more times. She wiped her face, then hovered her paw and stared at Stan, as if she had only that moment heard what he’d said, and as if it were something astonishing. Then she climbed on him. She walked right up him as if he were a road, her head and tail carried high, until she came to his chest, where she promptly curled up and half-closed her eyes. After a minute, Stan could barely hear a whirring sound. "This kitten makes less noise than my wristwatch. Is she purring forward?"

"Yes. All my cats purr normally. We're not too close to the Mystery Shack."

"But if Raymond Chandler's reanimated corpse shambled by, she'd purr backwards?"

"Or if I had an interdimensional portal put in."

"Don't do that. Don't get yourself into that kind of mess."

"Stanley. Is that your real name?"

Stan found it hard to scramble sideways when he was sitting deep in bedding with his back against the pillows. The kitten jostled on his chest. "No! Yes! There's no such person as Stanley. I mean he's dead."

"Why do you say there's no Stanley Pines? Is Stanley the name you want to be called? Your name is Stanford, isn't it?" Susan hadn't forgotten the name question. She'd just waited to bring it up again until he was trapped, ignominiously pinned against the pillows by a forward-purring kitten.

"Sure, yeah, it's ... I have a fetish ... for the name Stanley."

"That could be why, when you write me a bad check at the diner, at first you sign it Stanley Pines. Then you strike out the ley and put in ford instead."

"Yeah. Uh, don't call me Stanford ... in your bedroom! When we're alone, call me Stan ley. But in public, call me Stanford."

Susan looked at him steadily for long seconds.

Stan adeptly brought the subject back to Susan's womanly preparations for bed, and the potential for romance. "Why did you bother to fuss over how smooth your hair is? I'm just going to mess it up again anyway." He tried to sound airy. He put a hand on her thigh, but knew his face was conveying terror rather than passion. He tried for a middle-of-the-road friendly smile, which was not his strong suit.

Susan held his hand only long enough to remove it from her thigh and make him place it back on the bed. "Which twin are you?"

Stan startled so violently that the kitten squeaked and dug her claws through his shirt and into his skin to keep her place on his chest. Sometimes Stan could come up with a lie while stalling. "Can you repeat the question?"

Susan looked Stan in the eye and touched his chin with one hand, keeping his eye contact. With her other hand she lifted her left eyelid. "Stanley ... Is that your real name? I have two kinds of intuition: woman's and lycanthrope's. I sense with both of my intuitions that there's something you're not telling me."

"There's lots of things I'm not telling you! I'm a dishonest man."

"But you came here tonight in the first place to admit you don't like phone calls. This is progress!"

"I don't want to make progress. When I make progress, I start telling people things. Then they know stuff. After that, it gets awkward."

"You're much too creative to change your name by only one syllable. Is Stanford Pines your brother's name?"

Stan answered easily, "My brother's name is Sherman." He stroked Sparky's back to show his relaxed confidence.

"Is Sherman your twin?"

"No, why would Shermie be my twin?"

"I want to know if Stanford is your twin brother's name."

Stan couldn't deny having a twin. He could deny the existence of his own self, that is, Stanley Pines, but he could not and would not deny the existence of Ford. He clambered out of bed, saying, "Gotta go home and check on that illegal yak importation deal I got going."

The kitten was still entrenched in Stan's shirt. He didn't want to stop and do a careful unlatching; he hoped the kitten would fall off, like a full tick, if he ran away. But Sparky looked up at him; her fine, white eyebrow-whiskers rose fuzzily, and she gave a pitiful meow. So, Stan had to stop and try to unlatch her. "I'm sorry, kid--kitten. I don't want to leave. It's just that there are little lies, and then there are life and death secrets."

Stan supported the kitten's behind in order to help her down. He had one of her forepaws unhooked, also one of her rear paws, but not their opposites. When she made a stretch to try to get over his shoulder he decided to let her launch herself over his back and onto the bed. She landed, shook herself off from head to tail, then started working her way off the bed again. Backwards she went down the covers, craning to see the floor over her shoulder.

Stan headed for the door. On the way he heard the tiny click of a lock. "Can't be locked," he muttered, and tried the door. It was locked. Stan jiggled the doorknob. Then he gave it a sharp push. "You said your house elf wouldn't lock us in!"

"I never thought he'd do such a thing."

"Can you get him to unlock it? Do you have a key?"

Susan was still sitting down, as if she didn't mind being locked in. "I can try. Stan, are you sure you can't stay another minute and talk?"

Stan gave the doorknob a shove. He kicked the bottom of the door with his toe and jerked the knob side to side as far as it would go. Nothing gave. He decided not to break down Susan's bedroom door. It was time to change escape routes. "You know what? I heard some beavers rummaging in your trash earlier. I'd better go scare them off for you. Your trash can is outside near this window, right?" Stan turned from the useless door and crossed toward the window. "I'll just hop out the window and take care of that for you."

Sparky startled Stan when she jumped on his shoe. He had forgotten that she had been heading for the floor again last time he saw her. She grabbed onto his shoe and stuck there. Stan took a long, deliberate step. Sparky gnawed his shoelace and didn't seem to notice she was being moved; her fuzzy butt swayed as if she were balancing automatically. Stan gave his foot a cautious shake. The kitten spit out his shoelace and held on with all four paws. He could hear the miniscule scrape of her claws losing purchase in the leather, and the prick of them finding it again in a seam.

Stan looked to Susan and pointed at the kitten. "What is this?"

"She wants to play with you."

"Why would she want to play with me?"

"She's a kitten."

"What do I do about it?"

"Just a minute." Susan moved sideways in the bed, bouncing a couple of times until she reached the edge and stood up. She crossed the room, plucked a peacock feather out of a vase next to her mirror, and held it out to Stan. "Here. Tease her with this."

With the kitten attached to his shoe, Stan could not in good conscience leap out of the window. He sighed, frowned, and accepted the feather. He brushed the floor with the peacock eye, and the kitten launched herself off of his toe and onto the feather. Now he could drop the toy and make his escape.

The feather swayed to the floor. Stan headed for the window, felt that he was dragging something, looked down and found Sparky had her teeth and front claws punched through the lower back of his pant leg.

"She likes you better than she likes the feather," Susan told him. "Move the feather so she chases it again."

Stan got down on one knee, retrieved the feather and dragged it across the floor. Sparky followed it with a wild-eyed look and a stomping gait; she was so lightweight that her footsteps made no sound.

Susan sat down on the edge of the bed again. She said, as if their conversation had not been interrupted, "I'm wondering about the Mystery Man from the Shack."

Without looking up, Stan answered, "I'm Mister Mystery."

"You're Mister Mystery. I've been wondering about the mysterious man who's missing. The one who brought all that science equipment there to begin with."

Stan frowned at Susan over his shoulder. "What do you mean, 'missing?'. There's no missing scientist. I'm the science man."

"But you're not the scientist who built the Mystery Shack."

Stan sputtered.

"When you invited a bunch of us in from town to see your place, you didn't understand all of the fancy equipment. You didn't understand how that little scientific gizmo worked. The one that shocked my eye."

Stan grunted quietly as he stood up straight again. "Susan ... that wasn't supposed to be permanent." Sparky leapt and stretched to catch the eye of the feather. Stan lowered it to her level, but he watched Susan with worry in his eyes. He stepped over to the bed, trailing the feather, and reached out with his free hand to touch the lashes on Susan's drooped eyelid. He ran his thumb over her cheekbone.

Susan touched the back of Stan's hand. "It's only been thirty years. It's not permanent yet." She smiled fondly. "But my point is, honey, you didn't know how the machinery worked."

Sparky climbed halfway up Stan's pant leg and then leapt down onto the peacock feather.

"That doesn't mean anything," Stan said. "I could have built that stuff myself. If you've watched any late-night sci-fi movies, you know scientists can never control their own creations."

Susan took firm hold of Stanley's hand. "Is that what happened to him?"

Stan avoided eye contact. "Is what what happened to who?"

"Did the original scientist's creations grow more powerful than he could control?"

Stan hedged. "There are some creations at the Shack that are much more powerful than anyone could have imagined, scientist or otherwise."

"Is that how he got stuck in another dimension?" Susan still had a firm hold on Stan's hand.

"No, I was fighting with him, and we--" Stan stopped in terror. Susan didn't let up her grip, not even to lift her eyelid to look at him with both eyes. She was looking at him hard enough with just the one. "This is a secret, Susan. You understand, right? This is not like my shows at the Mystery Shack."

Susan relaxed her hold on his hand, so he could easily have pulled away. "I know what a secret is, Stan."

Stan thought of running again. Sparky wasn't currently hooked on him. He turned from window to door in distress, but his feet stayed planted. He really didn't want to leave now. There would be no salvaging this night if he fled out the window this late in the evening. Besides, he didn't want to stop being touched. Susan pulled him toward her by the arm, then took hold of his other arm, and he dropped the peacock feather and climbed onto the bed with her. He wouldn't look at Susan as he began talking. "Mabel and Dipper's parents don't even know that they sent their kids to stay with me. I mean with me. With--with Stanley. That's me. They think the kids are staying with Ford, but ... Ford is gone. I was there when it happened. And if Mabel and Dipper's parents find out that I lost my brother inside that thing --" Stan frowned deeply and worked his jaw.

"Yes?"

"They'll take the kids away from me."

"Oh, no! Honey. That would be terrible. We have to make sure their parents don't find out. At least not until the end of the summer."

Stan blinked rapidly at her. "But you--you trust me with the kids."

"The kids trust you with the kids. Besides, you have me and Soos, and everyone else in town, to help take care of kids, if you need us."

"Thanks," Stan said gruffly. He cleared his throat. "Susan, I'm keeping those kids safe. You know that, right? That's why I'm asking you to keep a secret like this. Since you mostly guessed it anyway, somehow. That, and--I don't know if I can go back to working on this all by myself. Even though the kids don't know, I need them there with me."

"I know that. Everyone's got secrets. They have to be safe with somebody." She put an arm around his shoulder and squeezed warmly.

"Oh, yeah? If everyone has secrets, that means you have secrets. I find that hard to believe. You're so ... normal." Stan went through with this statement even though, as he spoke, Lazy Susan poured several individually packaged creamer servings into her emptied coffee mug. Sandy, the cat who had earlier left with cold cream on his paw, leapt nimbly up onto the center of the TV table, barely jarring it, and began lapping.

"Of course. I have many secrets. Silly man."

"Yeah? What are they?"

"You know some of them. Remember? One of my cats is a reincarnated Egyptian king."

"Everyone is going to know that 'secret' as soon as I set up an exhibit so I can exploit it, at the Mystery Shack."

"Nobody knows what Brownie Pumpkin looks like, and hardly anybody knows I even have a house elf."

"Okay, kinda creepy, kinda secret. What about big secrets?"

"Lycanthropy doesn't count, Stan?"

"Eh, I know about that now. What else you got? And not pie ingredients or other cooking secrets like that. I don't know how to cook."

Susan hummed thoughtfully. "Did I tell you all of my were-lynx powers yet?"

"Being a were-lynx gives you super powers and stuff? Aside from turning into a cat--I mean specifically a lynx?"

"Some!"

"Are they good powers? Worth having lycanthropy for?"

"I couldn't say. I was born with it, so I have nothing to compare it to."

"What are they?"

Susan lifted her left eyelid at him and batted the lashes of her functional right eyelid. "I'll tell you on the phone."

"Bah! You're just trying to make me curious so I'll have to pay attention during phone calls."

"If it works out that way."

Stan noticed that the round, white furry throw pillow was back in its place on the wicker chair. That didn't make sense, because he was sure the throw pillow had turned out to be a Persian cat, and that the Persian had left the room before the door was locked. Then he noticed that the door was now half-open. Seeing the door open made him feel secure. It made it much easier to tell Susan: "I'm getting Ford back."

"Do you want to get to the other side of the hole in time and space where he is, and stay there, or are you trying to bring him back here?"

"I'm going to bring him back here."

"You haven't told me which twin you are. There's always an evil and a good."

"Evil. No question."

"Then we must be on the banished side of the portal?"

"Banished ..?"

"Sometimes evil twins get banished. Have you been banished yet?"

"Feels like that sometimes."

"I'm sorry to hear that, sweetheart. Don't worry. A banished twin never stays banished forever. You come by whenever you need cheering up, or some hot soup, or pie, or to listen to some radio shows."

"Or sex," Stan hinted subtly.

Susan laid her palm on his cheek. "You race right past flirting, don't you."

"I've flirted with you! I give compliments! For instance, your eye is a nice color. Eyes. Both of them. I usually only see the one. They're both nice."

"Thank you." Susan smiled so pleasantly that Stan kissed her for it. They lingered; Stan could smell Susan's cold cream, and, underneath that, her own scent.

They parted and looked at each other for a moment. Then Susan went on, "I know you probably won't have a lot of advance notice, unless you're the plotting kind of Evil Twin. But if you do know ahead when you'll be going to get your brother, be sure and let me know the day before. That way I can send a whole pie along with you. Something that keeps well, like pecan."

"I like pecan," said Stan, holding Susan's hand, caressing the middle of her palm, stroking her fingers and playing with her long, bright-painted fingernails. "I like it better when there's chocolate in it, or caramel on top."

"I can do either of those. Or both in the same pie."

"You do pie sorcery. Sure you're not a witch?"

Susan smiled. "I'm sure I'm not a witch."

"Not judging, if you are one," said Stan. He coaxed Susan to curl her fingers into a loose fist, then raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. "Anyway, the plan is for me to stay here on this side, at the Mystery Shack, and get the portal to let Ford out on this side. In that case, I won't need a pie for the road. Hypothetically, do I still get pie here?"

Susan opened her fist and stroked Stan's chin. "What's the real Stanford's favorite pie?"

"Strawberry."

"You can have two pies. One all for the good twin, and one all for you."

Stan startled when the vintage Pitt Cola telephone rang resoundingly.

Sparky had been carrying the peacock feather's eye in her mouth, dragging the shaft behind her, heading for the Persian in the white wicker chair. When the phone rang, Sparky leapt, hiccuped, and turned toward the noise, hair poofed in a long mane from her neck to her tail. She kept her widened eyes on the source of the sound while she dipped her head and felt for the feather with her mouth. She edged away slowly, taking the feather with her. Her hair gently lay back down.

Stan still felt rattled. Susan picked up the phone. "He's right here, Mabel." She handed the phone to Stanley.

"You're at Lazy Susan's!" Mabel shouted.

Stan winced and tilted his ear away from the receiver. "Yeah, I am."

"What happened? Was it as bad as you thought? It wasn't as bad as you thought, right?"

Stan considered. "It's going good. We made a pie deal."

"Okay! Pie is good."

"I have to talk on the phone with Susan. At least twice a week," Stan explained, with the tone of one describing the community service he has to do. "Then she's going to write me out a coupon that says, 'Stan was good on the phone and needs pie'."

"Grunkle Stan! I'm so proud of you!"

"You--you are?"

"Here, Soos wants to talk to you."

"Stan, dude, I would head home about now. But all the kids are here, and you're not here, so what do you want me to do about adult supervision? Should I stay the night at the Shack?"

"I want to stay at Lazy Susan's tonight. You stay there, or the kids can go to Grenda's."

"Okay, I'll stay here." Then Soos shouted, away from the receiver, but Stan could hear him: "Kids! Stan says we can play roller yak polo on the museum floor!"

"Soos, wait. I didn't give my permission--"

Soos was answered by general background cheers, amongst which Grenda could be easily heard. "I'm going Tibet that my team will win! Get it?"

"I didn't say you could ..! He hung up." Stan gave the phone back to Susan and she hung it up for him. "Oh, well, as long as they have adult supervision, they'll be fine. Maybe they can figure out which is supposed to wear the roller skates--the riders or the yaks."

Susan chuckled.

"You have a nice laugh," said Stan.

"Thank you."

Stan lay back with his head pillowed in his arms, which were pillowed on pillows. "You must have been able to hear Grenda's little joke. The scary thing is, right after she said it, I'm sure I heard Dipper start laughing. As in, falling down laughing. I'm beginning to worry about Dipper. He thinks puns are funny. What will his parents think if I send him home thinking puns are funny? They'll think I taught him that."

"You made a cat pun, earlier. It was funny."

Stan waved that off. "I don't pun like that in front of the kids. I hope he just has a crush on Grenda."

"That was very good use of the phone, Stan."

"Ugh. Are you expecting me to be good on the phone, after this? How quality do these phone calls have to be? How convincing do I have to be at sounding interested, to get pie? Do I have to act happy when you call? Just to be clear, I'm happy to see you in person. That's not faked. But are you going to tell me right away, when your oven timer goes off, if the phone call was good enough for me to get a pie coupon? If I get free pie, that also means we don't break up, right?"

Susan had not finished all of her beef pot pie; it was still sitting on the TV tray. Before Susan had a chance to answer Stan, Mr. Cat Face crawled out from under the bed, climbed up onto the bedding, reached over and balanced against the TV table with his forepaws. He stuck his nose in Susan's cooled pie dish, snorting as he rooted around, and pulled out a gravy-covered piece of beef. He brought it to Susan's lap, dropped it onto her nightgown and started to gnaw on it.

"Has that thing--er--cat been under the bed this whole time?"

"He's very creepy," Susan said to Stan. "No stealing," she admonished Mr. Cat Face. She plucked the beef from the cat's jaws and ate it herself. The cat watched its prize disappear, then nosed at the nightgown, where the beef had been. He found a spot left by the gravy and licked noisily at it with his rough tongue.

Susan rubbed Stan's back, through his shirt. "You worry too much, Mister Mystery. I only want you to pick up the phone and let me talk to you. As long as we connect, I'm not fussy."

Stan leaned into Susan’s touch, then addressed the cat on her lap. "Hie away, cat. Git!" He gave it a shove on the behind. The cat hunched his shoulders, flattened his ears, and stayed put. He let out a roiling snarl and tilted his head to give Stan the full effect of his one balefully expressive eye. "You can't intimidate me, but I can't hug her with you on her lap. Beat it."

Mr. Cat Face flounced and hopped to the floor.

"Thank you," Stanley said to Susan. He hugged her around the waist and leaned his head on her chest. "Thank you for not being fussy."

The End