Forest of Riddles (Reverse Falls, S1)

MI: Part Three

When eleven o'clock struck the town of Gravity Falls, Gideon pushed the front door of the Mystery Shack wide open, blinking in the bright morning sun. Robbie was leaning on one of the roof's support beams, dangling the keychain he had swiped earlier in front of his face.

"Heyo!" Gideon said, joining Robbie. "I'm here!"

Robbie grinned at Gideon and pocketed his keychain. "Sweet! I can keep track of ideas on my phone. Let's go."

The two started walking towards town. "Okay," Robbie began, "what does Paz like to do?"

"Hmm . . ." Gideon started to count off on his fingers. "She likes to read, watch Ducktective, and go on adventures."

"Okay." Robbie typed that on his phone.

"Is there a bookstore around here?"

"There's a library," Robbie offered. "We could head there."

"Perfect." Gideon pumped his fist into the air and started to run down the hill that led into the town. "Onward to the library!"

"Wait up!" Robbie called, shoving his phone in his back pocket and running after Gideon.

~

True to his word, Dipper and Mabel were in the town square no less than ten minutes after his phone call. Mabel had her arms crossed, her hand clutching the compact mirror in one hand, and Dipper had a hand shielding his eyes from the sun. They were of course very well-known throughout the town (Mabel was the great Mabel Marvelous and Dipper was a Gleeful, how could they not be famous?) and because of this several people came up to them.

One boy ran up to Mabel. "Miss Marvelous, when will your show open up again?" he begged. "I didn't get a chance to see it!"

Another boy held out a bouquet of flowers to Mabel. "I got you flowers, Mabel Marvelous."

Mabel smiled as a small crowd of boys gathered around her. "I'll make sure you get a chance to see it," she said to one boy. "Oh, these are lovely!" she exclaimed to the next, taking a flower from the bouquet and inhaling its scent.

Dipper rolled his eyes. Girls didn't really flock around him like boys did to Mabel, and for that he was grateful.

He was about to walk ahead before he bumped into someone.

And that someone was Wendy.

"Yo!" she said, grinning. "There you are!"

Girls all around Dipper were giving Wendy jealous looks. Dipper didn't care - there was only one girl he liked and it wasn't any of them.

"Ready?" Wendy readjusted her backpack strap and stuck her hands into her pockets.

"Hold up." Dipper gestured to the crowd of boys around Mabel. Then he turned around and pushed boys out of his way, grabbed his sister's wrist, and said to everyone, "We need to go, thank you very much."

The boys all frowned, crossed their arms, or glared at Dipper, but, once again, he didn't care.

"Mason!" Mabel said, exasperated.

Dipper ignored his sister and joined Wendy. "Okay, where to?"

"Library." Wendy smiled. "There's a nice wall near it where I can paint there."

"Let's go, then." He grinned back. Finally, something to do. He cast a glance at his sister; she was trying to open her compact mirror with only one hand and her teeth, but to no avail.

"Oh no you don't." Dipper plucked the mirror out of his sister's hands and stuffed it in his pocket. "You can have it back once we get to the library."