Gravity Falls: a journey

Dipper's phone had given up the fight some thirty minutes ago- it was amazing how fast a session of "agitated avian individuals" could chew up one's battery life- so now he was forced to occupy himself while Stan drove him and his sister to wherever he happened to have in mind. Though, mercifully, Stan had decided not to blindfold them this time. He had, however, warned them that the drive would be a lengthy one, which was why he brought the phone in the first place and now he was staring down the metaphorical barrel of a potential hour or more, spent worrying what strange misfortunes may well befall him because he didn't have anything to take his mind off it. And to compound this misery, Mabel had fallen asleep about half an hour before his phone lost its valiant struggle against the rigours of "fruit assassin" which left him the dilemma of whether or not to wake her up. He sat and considered it for a little while; Mabel provided cheerful, enthusiastic company and a limitless supply of ill-fitting sweaters at her best, at her worst she was cranky and stubborn and that was, more often than not, shortly after being woken from her slumbers. Eventually, he decided (between increasingly common thoughts of Wendy that floated through his mind seemingly on a whim) it was probably best to wake her- after all, having not been blessed with the ability to drift off at the drop of a hat, then having to endure Morning Mabel for fifteen or so minutes would be infinitely better than spending the whole remainder of the journey in isolation and fully compos-mentis. He nudged her gently a few times, so that she would come round gently and he would hopefully be spared the worst of her morning testiness, then gazed out of the window as she started to stir. The Mystery Shack must be some eighty miles away now, easily, and with it, the amiable company of Wendy and Soos, but, most importantly, the book. It had been his greatest mistake yet, to leave it back at the shack, but as he watched the sun set, he knew full well that whatever Stan was planning, it would involve sleeping somewhere unfamiliar and in this corner of the world, that may as well be a death sentence. Informative though the book was, there wasn't much of it, so it had only afforded him limited intelligence on adversaries before- to be without it in what could, in all likelihood, be hostile territory was simply foolish. He jumped a bit when he felt a hand on his shoulder, but quickly hid his fear when he realised it was Mabel; the last thing he wanted her to know was just how scared he was right now. She wouldn't come out of sweatertown for a year if he told her. Instead, Mabel just raised an eyebrow and asked, perhaps too loudly, if they were nearly there yet, to which Stan simply replied "yes" to avoid a long conversation over how far they still had to travel. It would be an exercise in futility to tell her otherwise. It was all his fault, he thought, as Mabel tried to strike up some conversation- it was all his fault that they were heading into certain peril, it was his fault that they didn't have the book and it was his fault that they were even in this situation to start with- if he hadn't found that book, then none of this would have ever happened, he was sure of it. And now, all he wanted was to just go home; he wanted this nightmare to end, most of all, he wanted Mabel to be safe. "It'th beautiful, ithn't it" Mabel said as she looked out the window with him, while he gazed upon the sun's last rays. The sun winked at him from behind the swaying conifers and for a second, he let his dread pass- sure, it would be dangerous, but his sister had had his back and that was all that mattered. "Yes, it is" he replied, as Stan pulled into a side-road. This was going to be the most tense night he had ever experienced.