A day out
The wound on his side wasn't as bad as he thought. Sure, it was bloody, but it wasn't deep enough for stitches nor critical damage. He found some bandages under the sink, and thanked the heavens that Mabel was out with Wendy again. She would have freaked out if she saw Dipper, bloody and bruised. He had a couple of scratches on his face from the branches, but that would be easy to cover up. His clumsy-ness was pretty well known.
As he finished up bandaging and applying medicine to each of his face scratches, he headed up stairs. He wanted to finish up looking around the book before returning it. Or maybe he wouldn't since he couldn't find the thing. Like, at all. He turned everything inside out and up side down, retracing his steps and looking through everything before coming to a conclusion. He had dropped it while running away.
He mentally and physically kicked himself. Now things were going to be even more suspicious. What if they searched for finger prints on the book? Or looked at the blood and found his DNA?!?! Dipper was now in panic mode, neither of his Grunkles had come back yet. They were probably cleaning up whatever mess was made in the fight. Or, they could be at one of the labs that they most likely had and were actually testing the DNA. If they saw that it was practically their DNA, it would be weird and then he would be questions but he was never really good at being questioned and always panicked when it came to it.
He had to breathe a bit after starting to hyperventilate. The book didn't matter because the deed was done. Lena was gone and now the town was free of, well whatever they killed her for. That saddened Dipper a bit, because no matter what you say, she really didn't do anything.
He plopped down onto the cot, looking at the decaying ceiling. He was tired and started to realize that his eye lids were heavier than he had thought. His mind was full of thoughts and he had a lot of stuff to think about. Plus, the wound on his side was throbbing. It hurt but wasn't unbearable. Before he knew it, his dreams took over. Well, almost. He didn't really dream of anything but was instead awoken by a noise. It was just barely 10:30 am.
He heard the from door open and some foot steps. It was heading to the loft so it was most likely Mabel. He checked his wounds again and sat up in his bed, making sure he didn't seem in utter pain. His body was sore and he wanted to do nothing more than sleep. Running for such a long ways through the forest really took it out of him.
The attic hatch opened up, but instead of showing the bouncing, energetic sister he knew, a head full of red hair showed up. Wendy gave a smile and waved a bit, making Dipper sit up a bit straighter and give his own weird and awkward smile.
"Mabel said you might wanna come on our adventure this time. Shes waiting at the ice cream shop for us."
"Oh, yeah sure. Ill be right down. Let me just, uh, put my stuff away." He gave a cheer in his head. Spending time with Wendy would get his mind off of things.
"Ill wait for you down stairs then." She went back down the ladder, disappearing from sight. Dipper frantically threw his blanket off of him and grabbed his vest. He did want to bring his hoodie, but there was still a big hole and blood on it from the previous day. And he did not want to explain how things got that way. How could he? 'Yeah, I just saw a witch, she tried to kill me with grape lightning, and somehow i'm still alive.'
He quickly climbed down and stepped into the kitchen, greeting Wendy as she got up from where she was sitting.
"Please tell me we're taking a vehicle." Dipper thought back to his hike up and down that hill, dread creeping its way to his stomach.
"Of course man, who would ever travel on that hill without one?" She gave a laugh and walked out. The truck they had traveled in was sitting in the worn out driveway that the church held. Weirdly, the truck had a scrape that wasn't there before. It was fairly deep too.
"What happened to the truck? It looks like it fell down the hill. " He traced the scrape, the paint peeling off at the edges of the dent, revealing the metal underneath.
"Well, uh, you know. I sorta took it too deep into the woods, so it must've caught on a tree or something." She gave a nervous laugh and opened the drivers door.
There is no way a tree had done this. If it had, it would need to be made of metal with a hook at the end. Also, why would you need to drive deep into the woods with a truck? He had seen enough stuff to know not to try and pry. It would only make him seem suspicious, or it would put Wendy in an awkward situation which he didn't want. He was already awkward as it was.
When he sat in the seat of the truck, he was greeted with a bunch of pine needles sitting at the bottom of the truck. At least she wasn't lying about the woods part.
"We're going to head down to a small ice cream shop in town. When I say small, I mean that they have only three flavors. But, they have more toppings that probably a store could hold. It can go from your classic sprinkles, all the way to cheerios. Though I don't suggest cheerios. They kinda taste bad on ice cream." She seemed so pretty in the sun. Her hair was like fire.
Dipper didn't notice himself staring at her until she actually said something.
"Do I have a bug on my face or something. You seem pretty distracted." She gave a small laugh and then went back to driving.
"Oh no I was just thinking about, uh, stuff. You know, since ill be here like all summer a lot of things have been on my mind, and such." He went to go look out his window, which oddly enough wasn't there. Like, his window was not there at all. Just an open space. He wanted to ask what happened, but he kept quiet.
The ice cream shop they went to was actually small. As in it was just a truck in a parking lot. Mabel was sitting on a bench talking to a girl with long blonde hair. They seemed to be getting along, but the blonde was doing most of the talking. When Mabel saw Dipper and Wendy pull up she got up and waved. She had that sunshine smile that blinded him. It was like she took Dippers energy and combined it with her own. A rocket ready to explode with confetti.
"Hey Dipper! Glad to see you out of the house you big grump. This is Pacifica! She's really pretty and nice. Ill go get us some ice cream, I already know what you like Dip-Dop" And with that she bounced away. He was kind of glad she took over most of the conversations. He was never really one to chat so having someone who said everything at once and then left was pretty nice. Unless it was something important, then she usually skipped over important details and left Dipper puzzled.
"Hi, I'm Pacifica. You know, for twins you guys really aren't that similar huh?" They shook hands before sitting at a nearby table while Wendy and Mabel got the ice cream.
"Uh, yeah I get that a lot. The only thing we mostly have it our looks." He gave a small chuckle, looking over to where Mabel had four bowls. One of them was over loaded with sprinkles, marshmallows, and drowned in chocolate sauce. He could guess that Mabel got a bit crazy with the toppings. He was told that there were a lot of choice, but without restrictions, she went crazy with the stuff.
His bowl just had two scoops of chocolate and some brownie chunks. He thanked the lord that there was only a handful.
"So where you guys wanna go after this." Wendy was stuffing her face with whip cream.
"Lets go to the woods! You said we could find some chipmunks by the lake right?" Mabel got all excited and looked over to Pacifica. "We can even show Pacifica them. Maybe we'll see the bunnies again too! And Dipper can get all crazy about plants!" She laughed and poked his shin with her foot.
"Sure, but finish your ice cream, i'm afraid you might choke on marshmallow if we walk." Wendy chuckled as Mabel started to shovel the rest of her bowl into her mouth.
When they got up, Mabel seemed to be in a sugar coma as she wobbled over to the garbage can, throwing her bowl away before collapsing onto Dipper.
"I feel like i'm going to die" She leaned onto him groans in pain.
"Mabel get off! Your heavy and we're both going to fall!" He was trying his best not to wince in pain. His side wound might not have been back, but it still hurt like hell.
"Oh hey, wheres your hat? You never take it off." She pointed to his hair which was pointed every which way in a sign of bed head.
"Oh, I must have left it back at the room." He must have left it in the room. Wendy did catch him right as he woke up.
"Everybody in the truck. Squeeze in if you can, we're going illegal. No seat belts." Wendy jumped in and started the engine. Mabel cheered and patted the seat next to her to Pacifica. Turns out four people in a fairly small truck was actually a super tight fit. If they weren't good friends before, they sure were now.
He was actually pretty happy that there was no window. It made room for breathing. He watched as the scene outside went from town to forest. Soon they were surrounded by the wide open trees. He was pretty happy that they were in the forest. He loved the way the air made his nose cold from being so airy. The earthy atmosphere really put him at ease. They stopped by a little stream that seemed to head toward an opening at the edge of the tree's that he assumed was the lake. The small clearing almost seemed nice enough to camp in. Beside the huge amount of smaller little streams that snaked across it. It was like a mat of vain's covering the ground.
"This place is so pretty! You think there's fish in the river?" Mabel climbed her way over Pacifica and Dipper, jumping out of the truck and bouncing around.
"Sure, I mean it is connected to a lake. There's bound to be at least some small fish." Wendy turned off the truck and got out, Dipper and Pacifica following. When Dipper took a closer look, the place was full of life. From various plants, to many bugs. It was pretty calming to just look at the little streams that poked through the ground. There must have been a whole underground water system.
"This is actually pretty nice, though there could be less, uh, flies." She swatted a couple buzzers away from her face.
"Well, this place it covered in water. Its the best place for flies to lay eggs. Mosquitoes here would be terrible." Dipper commented, standing from where he was poking at the ground and started to look around again. The mid afternoon sun shone through the trees just right. Making a warm, but not hot blanket of sunshine. A strong wind came from the lake, keeping any bugs that wanted to land, off of him. It would be nice to take a nap here, but there was still indeed, way too many bugs.
"Oh hey there kids!" All four of them turned around, Ford and Stan walking toward them. Judging but the way their pant legs were fairly wet, they came from the lake. "You guys fishing?"
"Yeah, this place is the best for fishing. Free bait all around you and no one but you." Stan said.
"Grunke Stan, isnt that illegal?" Mabel giggled and raised an eyebrow at him.
"When had anything followed the law with him." Wendy quipped and five of them laughed. Stan stared unimpressed at them.
"Hey, I do some stuff normally. Like uh, shopping?" They way he said that suggested that even he didn't believe it.
"Hey Wendy, we actually have an errand for you." Ford stared at her and both Wendy and him got tense for a moment.
"Sure, whats up." Wendy seemed to try and relax, but instead got a bit more awkward.
"The cat got out again and we need you to go get him. We last saw him around the junkyard." Well if that wasn't code then Dipper didn't know what was. He really wanted to join in but before he could make any decisions, Mabel jumped into the conversation.
"OOOhh, can I go? I love cats! And they seem to really like me too so I could be a really big help and maybe like do some weird cat calls to see if it reacts." Ford and Stan looked at each other. Obviously a tiny bit panicked.
"Maybe next time buddy, but i've got this. You guys can go back to town. If you want, you can go maybe get a game board from the library and we can have game night?" Wendy pat her on the shoulder and Mabel bounced in excitement.
"WE CAN PLAY UNO!" She grabbed Pacifica's hand and gave a big smile.
"You'll join us too right?" She gave a slight pout, giving what Dipper would call the ultimate puppy eyes. He could never escape them so Pacifica would have a hard time too.
"Uh, sure. I mean we are friends right?" Mabel gave a squeal and glared at Dipper, making him sigh and nod helplessly. It was best not to struggle under these circumstances.
"That's great guys, ill catch up with you later then." Wendy gave a small wave before heading off to where Stan and Ford had come from.
"Okay squad, lets head out!" Mabel grabbed Pacificas hand and dragged her away. Dipper headed after them, only to be stopped by Ford. Every muscle froze in his body.
"Id this yours by the way kiddo." Stan held out a hand to where Dippers hat sat. Dirtied from the day before. His stomach sank, his heart reaching his throat.
"Uh, yeah, I thought I lost it." He gave a nervous laugh and grabbed it. His stare fell to the little symbol on it. His hand rubbing off some dirt. "Where'd you find it?"