Mabel raised her
eyebrows at her boyfriend of two months. Lazy Susan had closed up the diner to
throw a Halloween party, and half the town had somehow crammed themselves into
the tiny log shaped building.
She wrapped her arms
around his waist, her head butting into his lower chest.
“No one else can
either,” she pointed out.
This was true. Uncle
Dan and Uncle Tyler were attempting to two-step and instead spent the majority
of the dance stepping on each other’s toes instead. Stan and Soos’ Abuela were
doing a weird sway walk across the floor, and Grenda and her fiancé Marius were
doing…something. Henry wasn’t sure what but it involved lots of chest bumping.
He looked down at Mabel’s
head.
“I’ve….I’ve never
danced before,” he admitted shyly.
Mabel did not loudly
exclaim at this, or immediately start reeling off dance steps or asking
questions he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer at ten pm at the pancake shop.
All she did was put one
of his hands on her shoulder and the other around her waist, before placing
both of hers on his hips.
“Just follow my lead
and remember-“
She beamed up at him
and it was perfect, she was perfect
and he was reminded once again how there was no one else in the world he wanted
to be with than her.
“You can’t be any worse
than Toby and that weird cardboard cutout he’s macking on.”
Henry snorted, and they
began to slowly sway as the Monster Mack came on the jukebox.
Mabel groaned as she once again, flicked another mosquito off her nose. Scratching the spot, she hoped that is hadn’t bit her. She didn’t need an ugly red splotch on her nose to ruin her cuteness, after all.
“Ugh, I though living out in a gross motel could be fun, like in the movies, but this is terrible!” She complained, rolling around on her bed.
Dipper cocked an eyebrow at her, floating easily and relaxed in the air. “What movies have you been seeing?”
Mabel didn’t answer her brother’s questioning gaze, content to continue rolling around. “I hope Waddles is doing okay.” She added in as a second thought.
“I’m sure Soos is taking care of him perfectly fine.” Dipper reassured her, turning his head to watch a fat fly bump against the window multiple times, listening to the large thunks it’s body made. “Besides, we just went and visited him. I doubt half and hour is going to change anything.”
“Oh, but on the contrary, Dipping-dot.” Mabel started dramatically with a terribly fake English accent. “Many much things can happen in thirty minutes. An entire episode of Ducktective, for instance. Or even better, Why You Ackin’ So Cray-Cray?”
Dipper gave her a look. “I don’t think ‘many much’ is proper grammar.”
There was blood mixed in with the glitter in her hair.
Mabel pushed a stray lock back out of her eyes, sticking out her tongue at the goop that coated the back of her hand. Kelpie blood, it turned out, was black, and tarry, and she’d be lucky if she got out of this without having to chop all of her beautiful long hair off.
“Hang on, I’ve almost got you!” she shouted at the terrified boy sitting on the kelpie’s back, clearly sunk far enough into the creature’s flesh that he wouldn’t be getting free on his own. He shot her a wild-eyed look, and Mabel could practically hear the disbelief running through his head. She grinned a little wider, ignoring the kelpie’s snorts and the tossing of its head as it galloped full-speed down the boardwalk, headed for the ocean.
Mabel gritted her teeth, let go of the handlebars of the motorcycle she’d…commandeered, and, in one smooth movement that she’d spent hours practicing with Wendy, pulled the chainsaw from where it was strapped to her back. The boy’s eyes widened, and the kelpie let out a scream that sounded like no horse Mabel had ever heard, although, to be fair, Mabel hadn’t heard that many horses.
“Why is your chainsaw bedazzled?!” the boy screamed, and Mabel frowned as she pulled the cord and the chainsaw roared to life.
“Why is that your first question?” She carefully balanced herself, and stood up on the motorcycle, nearly knocking it over as she ducked to avoid the kelpie’s attempt to bite her with its decidedly un-horse-like fangs. “Don’t move!”
The end of the boardwalk was speeding towards them. Mabel narrowed her eyes, took aim, and swung.
The chainsaw met brief resistance, and then the kelpie crumpled, minus its head. Mabel flung the chainsaw aside and leapt clear of the motorcycle as it flew off the boardwalk and into the water. She took a deep breath in the instant before she hit the water, with a solid smack that knocked the breath out of her, like the world’s worst belly flop.
She wondered how big of a splash she’d made.
When she finally managed to drag herself back to the boardwalk, the boy was sitting in a pile of bones and black goop that was slowly seeping through the boards. Mabel scrunched up her nose at the stink of rotting seaweed, reaching down to grab the kelpie’s skull and wrench its front fangs out.
“Th-thanks for saving me,” the boy said, and Mabel blinked, leaning in to get a better look at him.
“You know how you could really thank me?” She grinned, giving him a broad wink. “Take me out to dinner, handsome.”
“Mabel? I’m…pretty sure that’s not how it went.”
Mabel’s head snapped up, and she shot her dumb demon brother an annoyed look. “Did I ask you to fact-check, mister fancy-pants?”
“No, but you can’t just make stuff up. You weren’t on a motorcycle, you were standing at the end of the pier waiting for it to run by, and you definitely didn’t jump in the ocean while riding a motorcycle and swinging a chainsaw.”
“You have not even been invited to our sleepover extravaganza,” Candy said mildly, adjusting her glasses as she looked up at Dipper.
“Yeah!” Grenda agreed, a few decibels louder, pounding her fists against the floor in the middle of the circle the three girls had made. “What should we do with the trespasser?”
Mabel grinned. It was not a pleasant grin. “I have an idea.”
Dipper hovered backwards, golden eyes flicking from girl to girl nervously. “Actually, I’m just going to -”
“Oh no, brother dear. You crashed our sleepover. Now…” Mabel held up a fistful of cosmetics. “You get to join in the fun!”
Dipper’s screams rattled windows for miles around.
Got bored. Did a late night fic-thing. Someone wanted Mabel, Candy, and Grenda taking down a cultist, right?
Just as Mabel was about to break out the pink marshmallows and blowtorch, she heard a noise downstairs like a window being cracked open.
It was eleven pm on a Friday, the woods beyond the attic window were a void of black, both her uncle and her brother were out, and she, Candy, and Grenda were set to have the best slumber party ever. The noise from downstairs made her rethink all that.
Maybe she was just paranoid—who wouldn’t be after some of the things that she had seen—but all the same there was a twinge of paranoia in her words as she spoke.
“Did you guys hear that?” she asked her friends.
“Hear what?” muttered Candy, who was currently elbow deep in a bowl of popcorn, buttery kernels sprinkled all through her hair.
“Are you trying to sca-a-are us?” Grenda sang, the ribbons woven in her hair wobbling like a windchime.
Mabel frowned. “No, just listen for a second. Humour me.”
They all shut up, and the house fell into an eerie quiet, the only sound that of Waddles snoring in the corner. Just as Mabel was about to relax and deem it a false alarm, they heard it: a muffled scuffling coming from downstairs near the gift shop.
The trio exchanged glances.
“Is that your brother?” whispered Candy, trying to sound calm, but her hushed tone betrayed the facade.
Mabel shook her head. “I heard the door open. He wouldn’t bother with the door.”
“Your uncle?” Grenda suggested.
Mabel though it over. Her uncle hadn’t said exactly why he had stepped out, and it was true that whatever illegal business he was no doubt wrapped up in could bring him home at erratic hours…
Feeling the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, Mabel called, “Grunkle Stan?!”
The scuffling noises abruptly stopped, and, if only for a second, so did Mabel’s heart. The entirety of her skin crawled, and suddenly, the attic seemed very claustrophobic.
After a moment more of silence, Candy hissed, “So, there’s a strange man in the house?”
Mabel nodded.
“I say we smash him!” was Grenda’s suggestion.
Both Candy and Mabel shushed her.
“But I agree with Grenda,” said Candy. “We have to do something.”
Mabel nodded. “Of course. We need to do this right, though. We’ve got to be super stealthy. I’ll grab the t-shirt cannon.”
Mere seconds later, they were downstairs, Mabel gripping a golf club, Candy shouldering the t-shirt cannon—as well as several other implements of glittery destruction—and Grenda rocking nothing other than her own two fists, but no one questioned her.
Pressed together like a cluster of penguins, they walked a round of the house until they reached the front foyer and peered into the living room.
Candy gasped and Mabel had to clamp a hand over her mouth and pull her back.
“What’d you guys see?” hissed Grenda.
“He’s in there,” confirmed Mabel. “He’s in a cape, and I can’t see if he has any weapons or anything, but he’s kind of weedy…”
“Let me at him!” growled Grenda. “I’ll teach him not to break into my friends houses!”
“I think he might be a cultist,” mused Candy as she poked her head around the corner once more to watch as the intruder turned the room upside down, scattering random articles and pieces of paper across the floor. “There’s been a lot of rumours about a few cults moving to town.”
Stuart Evans didn’t expect much from life. He didn’t expect to be rich. He didn’t expect to find a romantic partner. He didn’t even expect to live far past forty, not with his line of work. But he certainly didn’t expect that while he was on a job he’d be rushed by three enraged and sparkling girls, each yowling at the tops of their lungs, each brandishing a different ridiculous weapon.
The first one to make contact with his face was the burly girl’s fists.
“Grenda smash!” she howled.
“What the—“ protested Stuart, tasting blood as he was sent sprawling across the carpet. He tried to pick himself up, but was shot down by a volley of t-shirts. “Argh!”
His sight blocked by shirt fabric, Stuart felt someone kicking his shins, probably the burly girl. He brushed away the t-shirts only to have a party-popper explode directly in front of his face, dusting his eyes in glitter.
“Gah!” He scratched at his burning eyes with one hand, swatting pathetically at his attackers with the other.
“Candy!” barked one of the girls. “Get my sweaters! All of them!”
“Yes, Commander Mabel!” the girl named Candy replied.
“What do you kids think you’re doing?” croaked Stuart, feeling the kicking of his shins stop. He looked up, his eyes strained, to see a girl in a hot pink sweater and neon braces glaring down at him.
“We’re doing justice!” announced Commander Mabel. “Grenda! Drop the bomb!”
“Pile driver!” yelled Grenda from her perch on the armchair.
Stuart had just enough time to think, Uh oh, before a force like a waterfall slammed into his back and everything went dark.
A switch was flicked and Stuart found himself squinting into a blazing desk lamp.
At first, he thought he had been handed over to the police and that he was about to be interrogated by an officer. It wouldn’t have been his first time, but when he looked down he saw that the lamp was being held by a small girl, the one called Candy.
She smiled cheekily at him, and it was then that he found he was cocooned to a chair with what felt like a mile of knitted goods. Who even owned this many sweaters?
He looked back up to find the face of a grinning Mabel inches from his own. This was set to be the cutest interrogation he had ever had to endure.
“What do you want from me?” he asked, still slightly groggy. “Information?”
Mabel shrugged. “Not really. I mean, I’m sure my brother will want to have a word with you later, but we don’t really care about that.”
“Okay,” said Stuart. “Then what do you want?”
“Revenge.”
Stuart managed a laugh. “And what are you girls going to do to me? Tickle me?”
“We hadn’t thought of that,” contemplated Candy. “But thank you for the idea! We had a better idea!”
It was then that Grenda brought out the make-up case and the girls set to work. At first, Stuart tolerated it, but after a while he started to complain.
“We should gag him,” suggested Candy.
“Ooh!” squealed Mabel. “I’ll get one of Dipper’s old socks!”
“What?” asked Stuart, spitting as Grenda smeared lipstick around his mouth, nose and cheeks.
Mabel stopped in the doorway. “Do you know what a Hobbit is?”
Stuart bit his lip. “Uh, yes.”
“Well, my brothers basically a Hobbit, only he’s got a sweating problem, so you just have to imagine his socks! I’ll get duct tape, too.”
“Get my romance novels!” called Grenda.
“And Waddles!” added Candy. “He and our friend here can re-enact the kissing scenes!”
Yes but honestly, it would probably be Mabel giving a lesson to that guy, and only being held back by the combined forces of Grenda, Candy, and Dipper.
EDIT: I AM SORRY I HAVE NOT WORKED ON THIS. I AM SORRY I HAVE NOT FINISHED THIS IN TIME. I KNOW I SAID THAT I WOULD GET THIS DONE BEFORE THE WEEKEND AND I DID NOT. SO, IN EXCHANGE FOR MY FUCKUP, HAVE A FEW PICTURES OF ME DURING THIS LAST WEEK FOREVER:
For the holidays I asked for prompts. Not only did y’all deliver, but y’all gave me the best ones ever. So I decided, instead of a whole bunch of stories for each individual prompt, I would make one big story out of all your prompts. Here you go. Sorry for the delay…hope you enjoy it.
backup 