Gravity Falls: Dipper's Return

Chapter 4

Dipper awoke the next day to his phone ringing and nearly vibrating off the desk by his bed.

"Hello, Dipper Pines." Dipper answered groggily.

"Yo bro-bro," Mabel's chipper up-at-the-crack-of-dawn voice came from the other end of the call, "The Grunkles sent me out shopping for the Shack. What cereal do you want?"

"Anything not made by the creators of Smile-Dip," Dipper answered as he sat up in bed, "We don't need a repeat of last time."

"Fine." Mabel dragged out the word before continuing, "Anything else you need? Anything specific? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge."

"No, nothing specific Mabes, thanks" Dipper chuckled as he hobbled his way to the bathroom trying to wake up his legs in the process.

"No problemo." Mabel responded, "By the way, I bumped into Wendy while I was here, and she said she wants to meet for lunch today."

"Did you actually bump into her or are you trying to give me advice?" Dipper asked with a smirk as he got ready to brush his teeth.

"Brosive, I can't help it if I'm such a good people person." Mabel replied, "And I didn't say it was you she wanted to have lunch with, now did I?"

Dipper stopped brushing for second.

"Not trying to sound paranoid, but why would she want to have lunch with you?" Dipper asked.

"Not sure, but I'll let you know how it goes." Mabel replied before the two shared goodbyes and hung up.

Dipper stood for a minute, confused as to Wendy's reasoning for lunch with Mabel. Sure, they were friends and it probably wasn't uncommon before Dipper got back to town, but having it the day after the movie last night seemed a bit odd.

He couldn't spend anymore time thinking about it though, Soos had hired Dipper on as temporary handyman for the Shack until Dipper's friend from Piedmont could get moved up to Gravity Falls and they could move the app company with him. Today, Dipper had to fix the air-conditioning system in the gift shop before one of the hottest weeks of the summer turned into the coldest week of sales for the Shack.

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Two hours later, Dipper stood on a ladder with the upper half of his body inside the vent system in the ceiling trying to get one of Stan's getaway bags - about twelve had been stashed throughout the Shack when Stan ran the Shack, and only six had been found including this one - out of the main air-duct to the gift shop.

As Dipper had continued to work, the heat from himself as well as the weather built up in the ducts causing him to take off the official Mystery Shack employee shirt - Soos's addition to running the Shack - and drape it over the stabilizing bar on the opposite side of the ladder. The metal in the duct wasn't hot yet, at least not painfully say, so Dipper was leaned against one side of the vertical duct to reach into the horizontal one to pull out the bag.

Barely hearing the bell ring for the door to the shop, Dipper leaned back and down to yell down the vent shaft.

"Sorry, we're closed for maintenance." Dipper yelled down as he moved back to his work.

"How convenient? That's exactly what I'm here for." Called a very familiar voice which caused Dipper to smile.

"I'll be right down in a sec, Wendy." Dipper yelled down as the bag began to budge.

"Take your time." Wendy yelled back as she took her old seat behind the register.

Getting firm footing on the ladder and getting a good grip with his right hand on the bag and the other on the vertical duct as support, Dipper brought his right arm back fast and hard enough to pull the bag free of the duct - and to let loose a torrent of dust and cobwebs. Dipper bent down and dropped the bag to the floor as he coughed and then started his descent down the ladder.