Apprentice {Gravity Falls}

Mystery (and Nonstop Fun)

A/n: This is based on the "Dipper & Mabel's Guide to Mystery and Nonstop Fun," book, so it may contain spoilers for the book, but much of it is covered in the show anyway!

As Ford was helping Stan clean up some of the Mystery Shack, he stumbled across a small journal. This journal was much different from his own journal, yet it was still similar. He turned the book around so he could read the title, which read "Dipper & Mabel's Guide to Mystery and Nonstop Fun." The parts Mabel wrote were in glitter glue and stickers covered much of the front.

"Hey Stanley," Stan glanced over at him, "What's this?" Ford asked, holding up the book.

Stan's eyes widened, "Oh! That book they made over the summer!" He answered, "Mabel must've left it here when they returned home."

Ford glanced through the first few pages, "You don't think the kids will mind if I read it, will they?"

Stan shrugged, "They made it to be read. I think there's like, specific activities they put in it like quizzes and stuff to make sure the reader wasn't too bored!"

Ford smiled, "I see," he replied. "Guess I have some reading to do," he chuckled, and headed to his private study to read the book.

As Stan said, there were a lot of little things for the reader to do. Mabel's activites were silly, such as writing about your favorite band or seeing how many times you could write one word. Dipper, on the other hand, his information was rather informative. He had information on everything from other weird locations in the world, to deciphering codes. Even his quizzes were educational. Although, Ford did have to give Mabel credit for keeping the book more entertaining.

There was something that caught his attention however! On pages 142-143 a weird stain took the place of whatever Dipper wanted to write, stumping the boy. Ford could see some symbols from the cipher wheel, including a pine tree, shooting star, and his hand (which Dipper commented the figure above looked like Stanley.)

Although Mabel admitted on page 146, it was just an ink stain she accidentally created while creating art, Dipper didn't see this right away and wrote about his theory on the next page. It read as follows:

Hey everyone, Dipper here. I haven't written in this book for a while, but I think I'm onto something with that mysterious blobby image that appered in this very book! My theory is that there was once a librarian who visited Gravity Falls around fifty years ago. While he was in town, he accidentally slipped through a trans-dimensional tear in reality, and he has been trapped in another dimension parallel to this one! Over the years, he has slowly learned how to communicate through multiple dimensions, but his methods are crude and messy-probably because he's developing a whole new type of technology as he goes along!

Ford kept reading. Dipper went to read what Mabel wrote, and immediately came to the conclusion that he wasted three days of his life staring at an ink blot. That was further from the truth! In fact, Dipper came incredibly close to predicting who the author of the journals was!

*   *   *

"Do you recognize this?" Ford asked, showing Dipper the book he found.

"Oh!" Dipper looked at it, "That's the book Mabel and I made over the summer!" He smiled, but that smile soon turned to shock, "...what did you read?"

Ford smiled softly, "I actually wanted to talk with you about yout theory about the librarian,"

Dipper laughed him off, "Yeah. Mabel accidentally spilled some ink in our book and I thought it was a secret code. Spent three days just staring at it too."

"No, look!" Ford opened the page to the ink spot, "Look closely!"

Dipper gazed intently at the blob, "There's... a pine tree... and that's you and your six-fingered hand! That's why the figure looks like Stan... and is that Stan's face? And a shooting star-" Dipper explained, "This did mean something after all!?" He exclaimed.

"Not only that," Ford smiled, "Read your theory again. It's close to correct,"

Dipper skimmed over the theory, "There was a tear in reality you accidentally fell into... but it was thirty years ago, not fifty years ago."

Ford smiled, "You didn't waste those three days at all, my boy! Actually, I'm surprised you could come to that theory based on one image! I'm impressed!"

Dipper beamed, "Wow! Thanks Grunkle Ford!"

"Why don't you take this back for now?" Ford handed him the book, "We can show Mabel next time we visit, or she visits! Either one!" Ford suggested, starting to leave the room.

Dipper flipped through the book's pages, curious on what he and Mabel wrote, and to see if he could find anything else that jumped out at him now that he knew more about Gravity Falls.

Surprisingly, something caught his attention in Mabel's section. At the back of the book, Mabel asked the reader about their favorite pastime, and lines to put in a response. This section was now covered with Ford's handwriting. Dipper read the excerpt.

My favorite pastime is spending time with my apprentice, Dipper Pines. I started mentoring him around November of last year, and he's grown so much in such a short amount of time. I can always count on him to come up with new ideas and discover new things about Gravity Falls. Even if we're not doing work, I enjoy just hanging out with him! I'm having fun playing his favorite video game and shopping with him! He's an amazing apprentice and awesome nephew!

Below the paragraph was a drawing Ford did of the two of them together. Dipper wiped something out of his eye, touched by his grunkle's words.