What Fools these Morsels Be!

(Fall 2018)


1-Nose to the Grindstone, Ear to the Ground

As September wound down, Dipper and Wendy both felt stressed about college. He was nominally a sophomore, she a junior (because she'd taken an advance year of college courses at a community college before transferring to Western Alliance University). However, Dipper was making every effort to catch up to his wife, who was making every effort to get a little ahead herself. For one thing, they were both taking an online class every Monday and Wednesday—same class, and they helped each other. But mere overloading was only the beginning.

Western Alliance University had both an exemption plan and a challenge plan. The exemption plan said a student could exempt a course if he or she or they (WAU's new effort at pronoun inclusion had kicked in that term) had relevant educational experience, even in high school, and could pass a typical midterm and final examination in the course. The challenge plan said a student with no formal experience in a course's subject could also challenge a course by completing three major assignments, taking the final, and passing an oral exam presented by three faculty members.

Dipper was good at mathematics. He successfully exempted Advanced Calculus, then in the course of four weeks challenged—and passed—Complex Analysis and Point Set Topology, though both of those made him sweat. Literature was easy for him, too. Once he'd taken care of the math courses, he decided to challenge a senior-level lit course called Supernatural Elements in British Fiction. That meant he had to read some tough material—Beowulf, four of the Canterbury Tales, Dr. Faustus, both Hamlet and Macbeth, and the only manual on combatting witches written by a king, Daemonology.

Then he faced selections from Paradise Lost, plus an astonishingly tedious gothic novel dealing with magic, demons, and incest called The Monk, and his choice of four books from a list of a dozen that carried supernatural-themed literature into the twentieth century.

Sometimes the language was almost as hard to read as one of Grunkle Ford's ciphers. There was Old English ("Hw?t. We Gardena in geardagum, / ?eodcyninga, ?rym gefrunon, / hu ?a ??elingas ellen fremedon.") and Middle English ("And whan this maister that his magyk wrought / Saugh it was tyme, he clapte his handes two, / And farewel! al oure revel was ago.").

He zipped through Hamlet and Macbeth, since he'd read both in AP English, slogged through Daemonology and The Monk, then chose books he was already familiar with—The Castle of Otranto, Wuthering Heights, Dracula, and as the twentieth-century representation, Many Dimensions. He didn't know anything about the author (Charles Williams) or his work, but Grunkle Ford's experience when the Portal dragged him into the Multiverse decided him on that work.

Twelve books, and he was determined to read two a week. It wound up taking him nearly eight weeks, but in October Dipper turned in an essay ("The Enduring Witch," a study of the treatment of witches in four of the books he'd read), took the midterm and final exam (each featuring fifty objective questions—fill-in-the-blank, matching, multiple choice, like that—and a brief essay question), and then sat before a panel of three English professors, two of whom had taught him in class, and passed with—well, not no sweat, but at least with a minimum of perspiration and flying colors.

He planned next to challenge two elective courses. One had to be in science, so he would tackle Introduction to Botany, and one had to be in social studies, and for that one he chose Geography of the Pacific Northwest. Wendy had taken classes covering both subjects, though not those exact courses, and she tutored him (it took about ten minutes of their touch telepathy at a time) and he was confident of passing both.

With the regular course load, he was taking, exempting, or challenging thirty-three semester hours—which meant that if he succeeded, considering the hours he had earned as a freshman, he would be a junior in January, catching up to Wendy. Then he'd have to start the whole grind over, doing the same thing for spring term but with harder courses.

It was some consolation that Ford had done a very similar thing in Backupsmore. In five years there, he'd earned two bachelors' degrees, two masters' and twelve doctorates, only four of them honorary. Dipper considered he had a way to go before rivalling Ford as a first-class academic nerd. Still, it was a struggle.

Wendy wasn't working quite that hard, but she was challenging three courses that were not major requirements. With any luck and some night courses in summer term, they both would be ready to graduate at the end of the fall term in 2019. Grunkle Stan was pushing them to do that.

As for Mabel, she had already exempted a bunch of arts courses at Olmsted: Intro to Black and White Design, Basic Three-D, Methods and Materials of Painting and, without even blinking, four more courses in fabric arts. And even at that, she had landed a role in the fall musical, Carnival, along with designing and building the four hand puppets used in the show—a purple walrus named Horrible Henry, a dancing diva named Marguerite, a sly fox named Reynardo, and a wistful clown called Carrot Top. Both the rest of the cast and the audiences raved about the puppets. Truth to tell, Mabel had almost given up on the fox puppet, but in the end she pushed through—and gave the fox features reminiscent of Russ, a were-fox boy who had once loved her, but that's another story.

Anyway, seeing Reynardo perform gave her misty eyes sometimes.

And much to her surprise, Mabel was cast as Lili, the lonely but optimistic orphan girl who joins a traveling carnival and then has to deal with being the object of the affections of practically every male cast member, plus three of the puppets. It wasn't that she couldn't pull it off—heck, she had played Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and Kate Monster in Avenue Q—but Lili was almost always on stage, and being in a musical did take a lot of time. Anyhow, she too found herself incredibly busy.

Which was a blessing, because that distracted her from her feelings of loneliness as she missed her fiancé, Teek O'Grady, who was off in film school in Atlanta, Georgia, of all improbable places. They face-timed twice in short sessions during the school week and then had a long conversation every Saturday or Sunday night. They missed each other and were already making plans for what they would do during the winter break, when they'd be back in Gravity Falls.

Life bumped along, as life does, with minor problems—Mabel had to put her RAV4, Black Beauty in the shop, borrowed Dipper's car for three days, and somehow dinged the driver's door, though she insisted the car must have been hit while parked, possibly by a small meteorite.

Her dog, Tripper, showed up one day in September with a friend who looked like a strange, shy youngish puppy, similar to Tripper in general layout and design, but with bigger ears and a fluffy tail and light-tan fur. Then the brilliant Tripper used his alphabet blocks to explain that the shy newcomer wasn't a friend, but "MY SNO."

OK, Tripper was brilliant but a bit dyslectic. "You've got a sno?" Mabel asked, shocked. "I mean, a son? I thought you were fixed!"

They took the puppy to a vet, who told them, "You know what you have here? This is a coydog—part dog, part coyote."

Such hybrids can be pets, they learned—but the owner had to be careful. Coydogs tend to go in one of two temperamental directions: Assertive and aggressive or rather timid, gentle, and friendly. This one, fortunately, held down the latter end of the spectrum. He was playful and winsome, loved snuggling and petted, and obeyed Tripper and usually any human. Mabel had him checked out, vaccinated, and promptly got him a license and a collar and gave him a name. Don Coyote.

Don't blame me, it was Mabel.

Tripper was clearly now the leader of the pack of two, and soon DC, as they called him, adapted to life as a pet—snoozing in the sun on the deck, coming in for meals, learning tricks (though not reading. He was bright, but not a genius like his dad).

The house owned by Grunkles Stan and Ford and inhabited by Wendy, Mabel, and Dipper for their college experience, was pretty far out in the country, so they didn't have to worry about the dogs going nuts when trick-or-treaters showing up at Halloween. None came that far.

They were even easy enough in their confidence to let the doggies stay home alone on October 27, when they went to a Halloween Dance at Olmsted.

The next morning was Sunday, and they got up late.

They were at the breakfast table with the TV on in the living-room area when the news came on. Tripper and DC were mooching for handouts, though they never legally received people food. This is not to say that Tripper, at least, did not occasionally shoplift a burger left on the table while the owner went back to the car to get her forgotten cola. But at least he always crumpled the wrapper and dropped it in the trash bin.

On TV, the news lady said, "A group of four campers seems to have become lost in central Oregon. KAAB-TV's Peter Symonds is on the spot in Gravity Falls, Oregon, to tell us about the mystery. Peter, where are you now and what do the authorities know about this strange disappearance?"

"Wait, what?" Dipper said, looking up from his stack of pancakes. "Gravity Falls is never on the news!"

He, Wendy, and Mabel left the dining table to sit on the sofa and watch as the young blond reporter ("Hunky!") Mabel pronounced stood in front of the City Hall, microphone in hand.

He was saying, "In this quiet mountain town, the trouble began as a late-fall getaway for two couples who loved camping. Last Wednesday they went hiking in the woods. The couples were Wallace and Jane Gormley and Harold and Miranda Loquette of Bellevue, Washington. As of Friday, everything seemed normal. On Friday morning, Mrs. Gormley's sister received a call from her saying that the woods were beautiful and that the four campers hoped to visit a small geyser field that day and that she would text some photos. The photos never came. When on Saturday Mrs. Gormley's sister tried to phone but failed to reach either her sister or brother-in-law, she became alarmed and called authorities, who found this puzzling scene."

"I know where that is," Wendy said. "Not far from our hot spring, Dip."

"It's a mess, though!" exclaimed Mabel.

The footage showed a four-person tent, collapsed and partly burned, as well as scattered equipment—a small camp stove, some boots, bits and pieces of food wrappers and other debris. "The campsite, as you can see, looks abandoned. Something, possibly freak high winds, collapsed the tent, and part of it fell on the embers of a campfire. No sign of any people was found at the site."

The scene changed. "Oh, God, it's Grunkle Stan," groaned Dipper.

Stan, in a respectable blue suit and without his fez or eyepatch, stood beside Peter Symonds, who said, "I'm here with the Mayor of Gravity Falls, Stanley Pines. Mr. Pines, do the police have any leads in this case?"

"They're workin' on it," said Stan gravely. "If there are any clues to be found, we're gonna find 'em and follow 'em."

"Are these woods dangerous?"

Stan shrugged. "Eh, any wilderness area can have its perils. We do have bears and other predators, but since there's no sign of violence at the campsite, we think that most of the damage done there was probably the result of foraging raccoons. We're calling in an expert to help us perform a drone search of the whole area."

"And who is the expert?"

"President of a nearby graduate school that specializes in mysterious sciences," said Stan.

Mabel bounced on the sofa. "Grunkle Ford's in on it!"

"What are the chances of the campers being found safe?" asked Symonds.

"Well, Pete," rumbled Stan, "if the campers have experience in the wild, there's food to be found there, and shelter, and places of safety. If they can orient themselves, from most anywhere in the Valley they could head east and eventually find their way to town. And there are houses, farms, and logging roads up I there. I don't think it's time to panic. We have high hopes of bringin' 'em out safe and sound."

"We all join in those hopes," said Symonds. "Back to the studio now."

Dipper took out his phone. "Calling Stan?" asked Wendy.

"Ford," he said. "He may need help."

"Mystery Trio!" Mabel said.

"Sh. Oh, hello, Grunkle Ford. Yes, nice to hear your voice too. What's this about somebody disappearing in Gravity Falls? Yeah . . . I see . . . OK, well, if you need . . . Thanks, keep us posted."

"What did he say?" asked Wendy.

Dipper put away his phone. "Not time to panic yet. He hasn't arrived at the campsite, but his gut feeling is it's just one of those things. Nowadays Gnomes and the Multibear and the Manotaurs help out anybody who's lost. Well, the foxes and Manotaurs don't do it directly, but they let Soos or Grunkle Stan know and lead them to the lost people."

"Guys," Mabel said, "we got another mystery—right here."

They looked around. Three plates were on the floor. They had not heard a sound from the dogs. Not one trace of the pancakes remained.

"Tripper!" Dipper scolded, his hands on his hips. "Which one of you stole our breakfast?"

Tripper pointed at CD, who pointed at Tripper.

"Yep," Wendy said. "Two smart dogs, all right."

Not quite two hours later, Dipper's phone rang. It was Grunkle Ford with what he admitted was "an unreasonable request."

Dipper hung up and asked Wendy and Mabel, "Who's up for a helicopter ride to Gravity Falls?"

"Let me get a barf bag!" yelled Mabel.

"Dude," Wendy said, "I don't need touch telepathy. Ford needs us, right?"

"Ford," Dipper agreed, "says he needs us."


To Be Continued