Weirder Things: Lost Legends

CHAPTER TWO: RETURN TO SCHOOL

I'm cowboyalchemist on Discord. Come on over if you want to chat and talk about ideas. If you want an invite to join my Discord server, you only have to ask me.

And I just need to say this. If you are one of the many "artists" that have contacted me or any other writers about commissioning you for comics, drawings, or even animation based on our work, fuck off. You don't get to come to us and try to force us to do shit. I am so sick and tired of getting the same message every time. I didn't come to you. You don't have any power over us. And we didn't even approach you about what you're offering.

So, no soliciting. Stay away from me. If you come offering "the offer of a lifetime," I'm going to tell you to go fuck yourself.

Sorry, everyone. I had to say it. Onto the short story!

No kid liked going back to school after the summer break. It meant having to say goodbye to a long period of freedom and fun. And then it would mean going back to all the hardships and troubles you've been trying to forget. That's what summer was for, right? Family time, barbeque, and taking life easy.

At least, that's what Patrick thought this past summer would be like. It instead became something greater than he could have ever imagined. However, all good things must come to an end.

When Patrick woke up, he expected to see the old wooden, slanted ceiling of the Mystery Shack. To wake up to a town so weird and yet so magical and dangerous in its mystery and strangeness. He would get out of bed and go downstairs to see his cousins waiting for him with breakfast. Then Patrick would go into the gift shop, say good morning to Soos, deal with Stan's shenanigans as well as Ford's newest creature that got loose, and then kiss his girlfriend.

Why was it so alien to wake back up in your bed—at your own home? It was familiar and comfortable, and it smelled better than a house attic. This was the same feeling for his first few nights at Gravity Falls. Why here? Perhaps he'd been in Gravity Falls for so long that a nice and clean house was alien to him.

Being back home was strange to him, yet going back to school was something that he dreaded.

Patrick sighed and said, "Alright, this is it, Patrick. You're going back to school." He sat up and rubbed his head. "A new school, for that matter."

Rolling out of bed, he took a quick shower to wake up and returned to his room to put on his normal clothes, including his sweater and, most importantly, Wendy's hat. Brushing his hand gently on it, he smiled and kissed it. An act he'd been doing every morning and night before he went to bed.

Walking downstairs, he kissed his mother's cheek in the kitchen. "Morning, Mom," Patrick said as he grabbed a cup of coffee and started eating a muffin on the table.

He then smiled and kissed his new baby sister, Sally, on the head as she sat in her highchair.

"And morning to you, my little baby sister!" The baby girl giggled and reached for her big brother. Patrick happily picked Sally up and hugged her.

"Morning, my favorite mystery solver," Nora said with a smile as she kissed her son on the cheek. "Are you ready for your first day at a new school?"

Patrick sighed and placed Sally back down in her seat. "I guess," he said, but the truth was that he wasn't. Maybe it was the idea of going back to the mundaneness of school, or that he didn't always have a good time at school, or the idea of being at a new school, but Patrick wasn't looking forward to going.

Nora looked at him worriedly. "Is everything okay," she asked.

"It's just...going to be so strange. Being at a new school," Patrick said, not sure how else to say it to his mom. "Everything would be so different. So much had changed over the summer. I've changed so much, I just..."