Chapter Text
“Are you ready for the most important moment of your life?” Pearl held aloft a maple syrup bottle with the name Sir Surup painted on the glass.
“Always.” Grian raised his bottle with the man Mountie Man on it instead. Three kids sat around the kitchen table, Jimmy grumpily staring at his un-syrup pancakes.
“Then let the syrup race begin! Jimmy, count us down.”
“Whatever lets me use the syrup quicker. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Go!” The two combatants opened the bottles and tipped them upside down as the syrup slowly dripped above the two open mouths.
“Go, sir, syrup!” Pearl cheered
“Go Mountie Man!” Grian echoed
The two chanted until Pearl gave her bottle a little shake and got a mouth full of syrup.
“YES-” Pearl's shout of victory was short-lived as she began choking.
“That's not fair, you cheated. Your victory is one of lies!” Grian slammed his bottle on the table, and Jimmy quickly snatched it away.
“That sounds-” Pearl was still coughing a bit. “That sounds like what a loser would say. Does it sound like a loser, Jimmy?” Jimmy mumbled something through a mouth of pancake that could have been anything from ‘It totally does’ to ‘I'm losing my mind.’ “Yeah, you heard Jimmy, hand over my prize.”
“But-” Grian began but caught the look on Pearl's face and sighed, took his glasses off, and handed them to Pearl. She grinned and tucked them into her jacket pocket. Hopefully, they wouldn't get broken. The last time that happened, it took weeks to get a replacement. Grian stuck his tongue out at Pearl, and she smugly took a bit of pancakes and chewed them with great malice.
“Good morning.” Scott shuffled into the kitchen, looking half asleep and face-planted on the kitchen table after sitting down. Jimmy pushed over the extra plate of pancakes that had previously sat untouched.
“Good Morning!” Pearl's very voice echoed through the kitchen, and Scott winced.
“How are you all so awake and so loud?” Scott began pouring out some syrup.
“Eh- I guess it runs in the family. We all rise with the sun.” Jimmy shrugged. “Been that way for as long as I can remember.”
“That's the strangest thing I've ever heard.”
“Welp,” Pearl snatched her plate and dumped it in the sink. “Gem asked me to meet up early at the lake, so I'm going to head out. She's picking me up, so, G, you got the car.” Grian nodded, and Pearl walked out of the room. Moments later, the sound of a door being shut was heard. The kitchen was then silent, with the occasional ting of silver against plates. Jimmy, a bit bored, started flipping through a magazine that had been left on the table.
“Hey Scott, take a look at this.” Jimmy scooted over his chair so he and Scott sat shoulder to shoulder. ”a human-sized hamster ball? Am I still sleeping, or is that what I just read?”
”No, no, the other thing.”
”Monster photo contest,” Scott read out loud. “Win a thousand dollars.” The advertisement sported a picture of a man proudly posing in front of a creature that looked like a muppet dragged in the mud and then coated in glitter.
”Up here, we see more weird stuff than that every day! We could totally win this contest! You didn’t happen to snatch a picture of those gnomes, did you?”
”nope, unless you're talking about the awesome glowing mushrooms, but something tells me that wouldn’t make the cut.”
“yeah, you're probably right. I wonder if-”
“Good morning, Kids.” Xisuma walked into the kitchen, clothes splashed with water. “A pipe burst, and I’m not going to make it down to the lake today. If I don’t do somthing, the shop will probably flood. I'm sorry.”
“what? But it's lake day. We always go today!” Grains eyes widened
“I know, I’ve already called someone, but I need to stop this before it gets out of hand.” Xisuma glanced over at the stove, slathered covered in pancake batter. “Did Pearl get dissolved in the great batter war?”
“Nah, she left early with Gem. I think she said something about a boat yesterday?” Grian said, scraping the last bit of food into the bin under the sink. “It's okay, Dad, we can always go another time.” X’s eyes crinkled, and walked out of the room where the sound of dripping water could now be heard.
“Wait, Grian, what day is it?” Jimmy asked abruptly and with a slight panic in his eyes
“Timmy, you should really know by now that it's a fun family day. A day to take work off and have a family bonding time.”
“No, no, no, I am not going again. Last year, you tried to drown me in the lake.”
“Don't be a whiner. You're still alive, right?”
“Grian, the cops were called.”
“That was a gross exaggeration.”
“The county jail was so cold.”
“Wow,” Grian and Jimmy turned to Scott. “The more I learn, the more I'm afraid to sleep at night here.”
“As it should be,” Grian grinned. “But okay, maybe that wasn't the best thing to do, but I swear that today I will not drown you, and we're going to have some real fun. Now, who wants to put on some blindfolds and get into the car!”
Jimmy and Scott stared at Grian for several beats. Jimmy's face planted on the table groanedning, and Scott rested his chin on his hand.
“Yup, more and more afraid to sleep here.”
—---
Early sunlight streamed through dense branches, shining little blotches of light onto the paved road. A deer ideally walked across the asphalt before darting away as a beat-up red car came along the path. It was moving in strange, jerky movements that were not typical in normal driving maneuvers. Jimmy and Scott sat in the back of the vehicle, with Grian in the driving seat. The two unfortunate souls in the back had on blindfolds, Jimmy because Grian had forcibly tied it on with triple nots, and Scott because ‘he didn't want to see the last moments of his life if this was how he died.’
“Why does everything seem so much worse in a blindfold?” Jimmy gripped the worn leather seat
“I don't know. This seems fun, you know, until our untimely death.” The car swerved again, throwing Scott against Jimmy, “which is fast approaching.”
“Grian, are you sure you're not wearing a blindfold?” Jimmy asked worriedly as Scott coughed and shuffled back toward his original spot.
“Nah, but without my glasses, I might as well be.” Grian was one step away from being legally blind. “Huh, is that a woodpecker?” in his distraction, the car swerved over and tore through the guardrail as everyone screamed in terror.
—-
Jimmy and Scott stood before an even more battered car, the front now adorned with twigs and leaves. The sun had fully risen now, painting the sky a picturesque blue.
“Okay, that was a disaster, but you can now open your eyes,” Grians voice called from somewhere in front of them. Scott and Jimmy pulled down their blindfolds to reveal a surprisingly nice-looking lake. “Tada, it's fishing season!”
“Finishing?” Scott's face was the picture of polite confusion.
“Grian, no. Every time we've gone fishing, it ended in a disaster.”
“Hey, I promised that I wouldn't try to drown you . . . today.”
“This still sounds like a terrible idea.”
“Hey, you're going to love it. Nearly the whole town is out here!” And it was true quite a number of boats paddled about across the lake. Most looked like they were a second from sinking, but the people seemed happy enough. Scott squinted out at the lake. Was that man. . . Punching a fish? He blinked and then decided for his sanity to look away.
“That's some quality family bonding!” Grian procamed, looking out over the lake.
“Grian, why do you want to have “family bonding” with all of a sudden? I've been here every year, and you've never seemed interested before.” Jimmy said scepticaly. “Plus, don't you always go out here with one of your friends or something?”
“Oh, come on, this will be fun!” Grian said, completely ignoring Jimmy's question.
“Jimmy, I think he actually wants to fish with us.” Scott looked to the woods behind them with deep regret he had decided to get out of bed today.
“It's just going to be the four of us, once Pearl shows up, in the boat for ten hours!”
“Ten hours?” Scott had now learned a new meaning of fear.
“And even better, I brought the joke book.” Grian produced a book that looked handmade. On the cover was displayed the text ‘Some real special stick jokes!’ A mustache and waffle stickers were cramped in the corner, along with several other doodles, all in different handwriting.
“How do we get out of this?” Jimmy whispered to Scott, both with a pained expression.
“I've seen it!” A high-pitched voice called across the lake, “I've seen it again!” The three looked over to see a man with blond hair running across the pier. The man knocked into several people before stumbling up to the lake house where most people gathered. “It's the Gravity Falls Gobblewonker! Come quick before it scaddodles away!” By this point, Jimmy and Scott had made their way to the front of the crowd. Now that they were closer, the two could see the man more clearly. His hair was spiked up, almost looking like flames, and he had red-tinted goggles on his head. He was wearing overalls covered in grease and had hands wrapped in bandages.
“Tango, are you okay?” Jimmy raised his hands placatingly.
“Ah, Jimmy, your back! Look, look over there! I actually have proof this time!” The crowd turned its attention to the end of the pier, where a small row boat rested looking like it had been torn in half. “Behold! It's the Gobble Wonker who did it! It had a long neck like an ostrich and wrinkly skin like a dolphin!” It chewedificated my boat up! And than swam over to Scuttlebutt Island.” Tango painted over to a land mass, mostly obscured by fog in the middle of the lake. “You have to believe me!” Tango whirled to the crowd with a slightly desperate look in his eyes.
“Attention all units.” Two cops had pulled up by the doc while Tango had been speaking. One was brunet with sunglasses, and the other, blond with a black strip of cloth tied around his head, was leaning in to talk on his walkie-talkie. “We have a crazy person at the docs.”’ The tiny crowd that had gathered started laughing at the comment as Tango deflated.
“But it's real! Tango's voice trailed off, and the crowd walked away to continue doing whatever they had done before the commotion. Jimmy returned to Scott, who stood idly a couple feet from the shoreline.
“Scott, did you hear what Tango said?”
“Scadoddles?”
“No, no, the other thing about the monster! We could totally take a picture of it. We can split the prize fifty, fifty.”
“That is two fifties.” Scott's concerned expression contrasted with his joking words. “But seriously, what are we even going to do with five hundred dollars?”
“I don't know?” Jimmy shrugged. “College expenses, new car, who cares!”
“Okay, I'm in, better than fishing all day.” The two turned to where Grian had started setting up an old motorboat.
“The problem now is getting Grian to go along with this.” Jimmy squinted out to the lake.
“Doesn't this seem like something he would totally like?”
“Scott,” Jimmy placed his hands on Scott's shoulders, holding him in place, “I do not think you realize how much that man loves fishing. He becomes a different person out here, I swear. One time, we literally had to capsize a boat because he refused to leave the lake. It was so bad.”
“Ah,” Scott looked over Jimmy's shoulder and paused for a couple of seconds. “You can let go of me now, Jimmy.”
“Oh, right!” Jimmy's hands quickly fell to his sides as his face flushed. “Heyyyy, Grian!” Jimmy sat on one of the posts that made up the dock. “What would you say if we went closer to the island today?”
“That doesn't sound terrible, but why are you asking? You usually never care.” Grian barely looked up from the box he was sorting through.
“Well, here's the thing . . . do you hear Tango?”
“NO. we are not going monster hunting. We were going fishing. That is why we came here. That is always why we come here.”
“But Grian! It might be fun, but we'll have plenty of time to fish after we find the Gobblewonker!”
“Really?” Grian deadpans, “No time at all to find a make-believe monster that only children think is real. . . and Tango. Why waste our time when we can have a much better time FISHING?”
“But-”
“Did I hear someone say monster hunt?” A voice called out. A boat pulled up to the dock, and Pearl leaned out of the steering port, waving at the group.
“I don't think anyone said that,” Scott mumbled, going unheard of by anyone but Jimmy.
“PEARL!” Jimmy's eyes widened. “Where did you get that boat?”
“I stole it,” Pearl grinned. “Just kidding! I totally had you all. Nah, Gem lent it to me for the day. Her family is getting a new boat soon, so she didn't see the harm.”
“Wow,” Grian eyes the boat suspiciously, as if the rickety board he is standing on was far superior to the newer, nice-looking craft.
“But we could totally use it to go over to the island. It even has a steering wheel, chairs, and you know. Normal boat things.” Scott distantly wondered if Pearl had ever driven a boat in her life.
“Okay, okay, let's really think about this,” Grian said. “We could all go and waste our time on some ‘epic monster adventure,’ OR we could spend that day FISHING the far superior activity.” Jimmy and Scott looked at Giran looked at Pearl, looked back at Grian before shuffling their way over to Pearl
“Sorry, Grian, but we go fishing every year.” Jimmy pleaded, “Can we do this, just for a couple of hours, then come back?”
“I- we-” Grian shifted he wight back and forth, face scrunched up. “OKAY! But only for two hours, and then we'll come right back here! No exceptions!”
“Works for me!” Pearl grinned. After comparing the notebook Gem had left for her and the instrument panel, the crew all piled into the motorboat, and Pearl started up the boat and steered towards the island.
“We're going to find that Gobblewonker!” Jimmy called out, Grians scoff accompanying it
“We're going to win that photo contest!” Scott joined in Jimmy's call.
“Hey, uhh, did we bring sunscreen?” Pearl asked
“We're going to go get sunscreen!” Jimmy decided. The rest of the crew gave a half-hearted cheer, and Pearl turned the boat around and went back to the dock. To begin their journey