Sapphire Star

Chapter 2 Return to Falls

Dipper was hungry. According to Mabel, he was always hungry. It's not like he could help it if he grew nine inches in the last year he thought. He dug to the bottom of his backpack to see what he could find. Beef jerky and an energy bar, hot dang he'd struck gold! He had begun to peel the wrapper and start eating the bar when Mable looked over at him with an exasperated expression.

"Are you eating already," she said?!

I replied with a smirk, "Mom says I'm a growing boy and I need my nutrition."

"Yeah but Dad says the grocery bill is killing us," Mabled teased.

I fired back, "What good is being a kid if you can't mooch off your parents every once in a while in a time of need?"

Mabel rolled her eyes in amusement. "I'm just saying you'll survive the bus ride," she retorted. "Besides Waddles is a pig and he hasn't eaten anything on this trip."

Dipper raised an eyebrow at Mabel. "Waddle's hasn't grown nine inches in a year," he said.

"So remind me why we didn't take Charlotte to get to Gravity Falls?" Mabel said.

Charlotte was the name Dipper had given his truck. He responded, "Firstly because I'm not eighteen yet and I only have my learner's permit, and secondly because I let Grunkle Ford borrow it for hauling equipment."

Mabel then turned her attention to getting Waddles to lick a piece of candy while she took pictures with her phone. "That one's a keeper for the scrapbook," she said looking satisfied.

Meanwhile, Dipper returned to his thoughts. Piedmont had been weird the last four years and not the Gravity Falls good type of weird. The type of weird that has life coming to a close in high school. Where you're having to start thinking about jobs in the real world. Dipper couldn't help but think if he ever had to work a job in sales or marketing that it would pretty much be the culmination of an epic failure of his life personally. It's not that he resented those jobs it's just they represented an archetype of everything that was the social conformity of the box that he felt the pressure of being squeezed into for the last four years of high school. With Grunkle Ford he had begun to glimpse some of the untapped potentials of the ingenuity of the human race. Bridging inter-dimensional space with an artificial rift. The ramifications of bridging time-space without spatial limitations were unparalleled. It made the nuclear arms race look like child's play. When he looked up at the stars at night he saw so much more out there. So much potential unbound, unfettered, a horizon that blurred the border of what formed reality and what did not. Sometimes he felt like if he could just get out there all the questions that he had about the multiverse would start to be answered. He knew it sounded foolish. Somehow it was something that had formed a hope within him. Something he knew in his heart.

Though he knew he needed to start making plans for the future. It's just where do you begin to relate? How do you go back to normal after trapping ghosts in mirrors and banishing Bill an entity from the foulest pits of the deep to another dimension? You can't just do a nine to five after that. You just can't. But this was summer vacation. He didn't have to think about that. He had time to relax now. He missed Grunkle Stan, Grunkle Ford, Soos, Melody, and Wendy.

As the bus entered Gravity Falls it continued to rumble along the slightly uneven tarmac. Dipper took in the smell of the pines through the half-open bus window. The smell was crisp and antiseptic. It was cool, and refreshing, even if it was slighted by the hint of half-burned diesel fuel. Nothing could bring his spirits down now. He turned to Mable and saw she too was watching the town through the glass panes. Then as they rounded the corner he saw them. Stanley, Wendy, Grenda, and Candy waiting at the bus stop. As the bus came to a halt he gathered his bags and helped Mabel with hers. She gathered Waddles who grunted in surprise.

As they headed to the front to debark down the stairs Grunkle Stan helped them with their bags as he eyed Dipper in surprise. "What have they been feeding you Dipper?!" Dipper was close to eye level with Grunkle Stan now.

"He never stops eating," Mabel retorted.

"How's my shining star?" Grunkle Stan told Mabel. "If you get any more beautiful I am gonna have to start buying more rifles," Grunkle Stan chuckled."

Mabel turned slightly red. "Grunkle Stan!" She laughed embarrassed. They both smiled.

Wendy said "Mabel girl! You look so good without your braces!" Mabel was smiling from ears to toes.

Wendy looked both twins over with a big smile on her face. "Dipper bro what happened to you man, you got hit with the puberty stick?!" She said laughing with good nature.

"More like hit every branch on the way down," Mabel said as she snickered slyly at Dipper's awkward shuffling.

"I just can't wait to do our camping trip in the woods later! It will be like old times," Wendy said.

Mabel piped in "Road Dogs, Road Dogs!"

"Yeesh," said Grunkle Stan. "Don't let Soos hear you. Well never get him to quiet down." We all laughed.

"I can't wait to see Soos," Dipper said enthusiastically! Everyone stopped laughing and was staring at him. "What," I said? "Do I have something on my face?" Dipper asked. Candy's cheeks went red and Wendy laughed.

"Bro your voice dropped two octaves man. You just took us by surprise." "Hehe, yeah," Dipper chuckled uncomfortably as he shifted restlessly again. Thankfully Mabel steered the conversation towards what her, Grenda, and Candy's summer plans had in store. Soon we got ready to leave and all hopped into either the Stan-mobile or Wendy's truck.