Not Quite Lost (Gravity Falls Fanfiction)

Chapter Eleven

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the alarm clock. 2:47 p.m. Wow, he slept in quite a bit. He hesitantly sat up and stretched. When he finished, he noticed Mabel was gone. He got up and walked downstairs, expecting to see Mabel eating breakfast (or lunch, whatever). Instead, he saw Stan, eating some scrambled eggs at the table. "Hey, champ," Stan greeted his great nephew.

   "Morning," he replied, rubbing his eyes. "Where are the girls?"

   "Oh," he finished his eggs and sipped some of his coffee. "they went out into town just to walk around."

   "Oh." He remembered Mabel telling him about the secret passageway the night before and couldn't help himself. "Hey, Um, Stan. Can I ask you something?"

   "Sure, kid." He stood up to put his plate in the sink.

   Dipper didn't know what to say. "Um, is there some kind of machine downstairs behind a secret passageway in the Shack?"

   He could hear a plate drop and break. "Who told you that?" Stan finally answered, turned away from him.

    "Mabel." He felt as if Stan's reaction was quite odd and suspicious. "Is it true?"

    Finally, Stan seemed to be back to normal. "Of course not, champ. That'd be ridiculous." He started laughing hysterically. "I mean, there's some creepy stuff in this town but me with a secret lair. HA! I would spend most of my time there if I had it." 

   He nodded and sighed. Yeah, I guess the idea was kind of silly.

    Meanwhile, the girls were going to turn around and head back to the Shack. "You didn't tell Dipper about yesterday, right?" Quinn asked seriously.

   She sighed, the guilt consumed her. "I can't do this anymore."

   Quinn looked worried. "Oh, no." She said. "What are you talking about?"

    Her friend held her face in her hands. "I told him."

    She rolled her eyes. "I kind of figured that out. But, why?"

    "Because I'm not good at keeping secrets." She whimpered. "Which is why I can't keep this anymore." She took out the paper from her pocket and threw it to her.

   Quinn knelt down and picked it off her shoe. "What's this?" She started opening it.

   "It's from Dipper's journal."

   She quickly closed it and shoved it in her pocket. "Why'd you take that out of his private journal?" Her voice was calm and collected,  no hint of anger was found in it.

   "It was so cute and adorable I had no choice." She looked up to see Quinn, looking straight ahead and still walking down the dirt path. "You're not mad?"

   "Oh, I'm very mad." She replied, her voice still calm. "I'm just not one to yell and make a scene."

   Mabel didn't say anything. They continued walking until they reached the front entrance of the Mystery Shack. There sat Dipper, staring at his private journal. "Mabel," he started immediately. "Why is there a page missing out of my journal?"

   He felt something hit his arm. It was a page of paper faded into quarters. "We didn't look at it, I promise." Quinn said. "It fell out yesterday while you were gone, so we just held on to it."

   He opened the paper and read it to confirm it was the page he was missing; it was. He thew it into his vest pocket and stood up. "Hey Mabel. Can I talk to Quinn alone for a minute?"

   Mabel nodded and walked through the door and shut the door behind her. Dipper sighed and looked at his friend. "Quinn," he started.

   "Am I in trouble?" She asked right away, seemingly worried.

   "What? No. No, no, no. Of course not. I just- I just have a question to ask you."

   That made her even more worried. "...Okay..."

   He breathed in deeply and asked her, "Was Mabel telling the truth? Did you actually find a secret passageway in the Shack?"