Gravity Rises (S1)

DRB: Part One

The Mystery Museum was in full swing. Robbie Corduroy ran the cash register for entry fees (which doubled as the one for the gift shop) while Melody Ramirez, the tour guide, led awestruck tourists through displays of fossils and other supernatural evidence.

Except that most of the displays were fake.

Mabel Pines stood in the gift shop, which had obviously fake trinkets of monsters, as opposed to the more realistic artifacts in the Hall of Mysteries. When she had first arrived with her twin brother, Dipper, she had been devastated to find out that the Mystery Museum held fake displays — until she found out that, although the Museum displays were fake, the surrounding area had all sorts of supernatural phenomena. And Mabel still had the fairy bites to prove it, too.

She glanced over to the checkout counter, where Robbie and Dipper laughed together over the comic strips in the local newspaper. "I've never seen that one before!" said Dipper between laughs. He sat on the checkout counter, and Robbie seemed fine with it.

"Yeah, that strip is written by a guy who lives here," Robbie said. "Danny Valentino. He's cool."

"Awesome!"

Mabel drifted towards them, since she had nothing else to do. The gift shop was mostly empty, since Melody was currently leading a group of tourists through the Hall of Mysteries. Mabel worried that if she was here for too long, Melody would give her chores; but she also liked being around Dipper and Robbie.

"Hey, Mabes!" said Dipper when he noticed her. "Watcha doing?"

Mabel grunted. "Being bored. What's going on over here?"

"'Bout the same thing," Robbie replied, flipping a page in the newspaper.

"What kind of things can you do around this town, then?" Dipper asked Robbie. Before the teen could answer, Dipper leaned backwards so his head was hanging upside down off the checkout counter. "Or we could go for a monster hunt," he said to Mabel.

"Oh, yeah, how are your fairy bites doing?" asked Robbie. Mabel couldn't tell if he was being facetious or not. Did he know about the fairies, or did he think the twins were making up cute stories? Either way, he didn't seem to be making fun of them; and for that, Mabel was grateful.

"They're a lot better," Dipper said cheerfully as he sat up again. Mabel agreed: The bites on their faces and necks — courtesy of some violent, territorial fairies — had healed up nicely over the past few days.

"So, there's not much to do around here," Robbie said, answering Dipper's earlier question, "but this week is the reopening of the Tent of Telepathy."

Mabel looked up, her attention piqued. "Tent of Telepathy?" she repeated.

"Yeah," Robbie said. "It's a psychic show. It opened about four years ago, but the girl who did it left a year ago. She's back, I guess, so they're reopening it."

"Sounds fun!" Dipper said. "Do you think it's real?"

"'Course not." Robbie shrugged. "Those things are always fake. They put plants in the audience to get information from them beforehand."

Dipper's brow creased in confusion. "How would plants get information?"

Mabel covered a smile. "People, Dipper, that work for the psychic. Those type of plants."

"Oh! Well, I still think we should go anyway. Should be fun. Did you ever go, Robbie? Before they closed it down?"

Another shrug. "Yeah, back when I was your age. It was okay." With that, Melody came into the gift shop, followed by a small herd of tourists. "Heads up — tourists at three o'clock. Off the counter, Dipper."