September 23rd 2012

"Come on, Macie!!!" Groaning, I pull my blankets over my face and turn over in bed.

"Mabel, go awaaaaayyy!" The tugging on the blankets stop.

"Why don't you wanna get up!" I can already see Mabel's pout.

"Because, it's the last day before school and I wanna lay here 'til I die!"

"Well I think it's an opportunity to finish summer off with a bang!" 'OH GOSH!' My sister practically rips off my entire bed, flinging everything to the other side of the room. "Now, let's get you up and running so we can have some fun!"

"Ugh..." 'Fall starts tomorrow, so it's still summer and now I have no way out of this.' Bending down, I reach for my laptop, but when I see that it's gone, I just about have a heart attack. "Mabel, where's my laptop?"

"Dipper's playing on it," she says blankly. I get out of bed and quickly throw on some clothes.

Without saying anything else, I grab my phone, put it in my back jeans pocket, and march out of my room straight to Dipper's, where I throw open his door and almost burst out laughing at the startled, girly, high pitched scream he cries.

"Macie!?" he squeaks, breathing heavily and his hand on his heart.

"What the HECK do you think you're doing on my laptop at..." I check my phone, "nine forty-seven in the morning?" With the way I emphasized 'HECK' and the way Dipper is looking utterly terrified, I think he might have thought I was gonna say something else... "Dude, I may be sixteen, but that doesn't mean I cuss all the time!"

"Wha-? I-I-I- no! Haha, I didn't think you were gonna...you know... Hey! I beat the game!" Awkwardly changing the subject, the boy turns my laptop around so I can see it. 'Oh? He beat Undertale!'

"Wow, took you long enough..." I grin, leaning on my weight. He blushes and spins the computer back to him.

"Shut up..." he mumbles as I go sit by him. 

"Guyssss!" Mabel bursts in, looking annoyed. Without knowing, my male twin and I quirk the same eyebrow at the same time. Seeing that we aren't going to say anything, Mabel continues, "I have all these plans for today because it's the last day of summer! I need both of my twins to do it! You can't just play video games all day!"

We stare at her for a while until looking back to the game. "So, what route did you choose?" I ask. In my peripheral vision, I can see Mabel get taken aback and sighing dejectedly.

"Well, after the Flowey mishap- and I restarted the game- I decided to not trust anyone. You know what the Author says, 'Trust no one!'" Dipper chuckles at the quote. I look on boredly, so he clears his throat and continues. "Anyway, I just killed everybody."

"Wha- dude! You just went and committed genocide?!" he shrugs and nods. "Oh my gosh, Dipper, I didn't take you as the killer type..."

"Uh, guys!?" Mabel interrupts. Shutting up, we stare at the female. "Come on! I got plans and we gotta get 'em done!" She spins her hand around.

"Fine, fine, we're coming." Dipper rolls his eyes as he gets up.

After Mabel leaves, I ask, "So, what I'm wondering is how you dealt with Mabel when you were twins all your life."

Dipper uncharacteristically starts busting a gut. "That's a good one, Mace. Very cute. But, I wouldn't know, because my whole life I've been a triplet. Now come on." He shuts my laptop and exits his room.

I stand there with the stupidest grin on my face.

~~Time Skip brought to you by: Skype: We'll need a different name for it if we want to chat with the Stan twins! Any ideas?~~

When we reach the living room, Mabel is quivering with excitement as she shows us what she set up. "I thought you didn't want to be in all day?" I ask, eyeing the movies on the ground.

"Well, I don't want you two playing video games! But movies are okay if we watch them together! IN A PILLOW FORT!!" I take a step back as she runs and jumps on the couch.

"Mabel!" Dipper scolds, stopping her in her position, "We do not want to watch your Dream Boy High movies all day." He crosses his arms.

"Mace?" Mabel looks to me with hopeful eyes. 'I am not backing her up on this one!'

"Sorry, Mabes. I'm with Dippin' Dots on this one." 

"Oh phooey..." she pouts for the second time today. "Well, good thing I got other plans!" She smiles, then frowns, picking at her braces for a second before going back to grinning.

'Here it comes...' I ready myself for what's going to come.

"We go to the park and play our favorite game!" she announces. To the right of me, I think I can see Dipper's mouth twitch upwards a bit.

"Uh, what's our favorite game?" I ask.

"I'm glad you asked, my dear sister!" The girl stands in a weird position and points her finger outward. "It's a little game we like to call.......... Triplet Tag!" She jumps in the air with her legs bending up. 'Whoa!'

"Tag? I love tag! I used to play it in elementary school! Sometimes we'd get half the kids to be in on it!" I recall the memory.

"That's great! But this tag is special for us triplets!" I crinkle my nose, confused. "Well," Mabel starts, "this game is where we only play with each other and whoever loses, has to do whatever the winners want!"

"Wait, what!? No! That's like a wager. What kind of game is that?" Dipper smiles mischievously.

"Oh come on, Macie, we've always played it this way." I shake my head.

"No. No way am I..." I stop and think. 'What am I thinking? I was really good at tag. I still should be, right? Oh yes, I am gonna win this!'   "You guys are on!"

The two smile widely and link arms, leading the way.

~~Time Skip brought to you by: Pillow fort wars!~~

"Kay, who's it?" We stand in a circle at the park.

"Before starting, I'm going to set a timer." Dipper pulls out his phone and sets a timer for 20 minutes. "Whoever's it when the clock goes off, loses." I nod, understanding the rules.

"Nose goes!" both shout at the same time. Panicking, I throw my finger and touch my nose.

"Ha! You're it!" Mabel cries, then runs away. Dipper sprints away, too.

"Oh come on!" I throw my head back, groan, grin, and bound after my siblings.

I breathe heavily as I traverse around the playground. 'Those little-! I don't know this structure as much as they do!'

I catch sight of bright turquoise. 'Bingo!' 

I turn the corner, thinking I got the jump on my sister, but it's just her headband. "Dangit!" I pick up the band. "She's good..." I continue breathing heavily.

'Huh?' I spin around and see a pair of eyes go wide and back behind the wall they peered over. 'Gotcha, Dipper...' Picking up speed, I round the corner to surprise him.

Only to find that he's not here. 'Ok, this is getting annoying...' My chest heaves up and down as my lungs start burning from lack of oxygen intake.

"Guys?" I shout as much as I could. "Come on, this isn't fair!" I climb up the stairs of one of the play structures and reach the top, scoping for any triplets. Sluggishly, I grab onto a nearby fireman pole to slide down, but I lose my grip. "GAH!" I fall onto the ground.

Groaning, I give up and lie there, accepting defeat. "Mace?" I hear a voice get closer and closer. "Macie, you okay? I heard a thud." Someone's right above me by now.

"Mmrrmmrm," I mumble incoherently.

"Oh geez, Mace, what'd you do?" Dipper asks, lifting me from under my arms up to my feet.

"Fell. Off. The. Pole. What does it like what happened!?" I trudge over to a bench I set my stuff down on. Opening my bag, I pull out my trusty inhaler.

"Yikes, we're sorry, Mace, we shouldn't have gone so hard on you." Dipper looks away sheepishly with his hands in his shorts pockets.

"Ya think?" I breathe in three puffs for good measure.

"Dipper? What are you doing? Did the timer stop?" Looking up, or in Dipper's case, behind, we see Mabel on the tip of a structure, calling out with her hands cupped around her lips.

"Uh." The male looks to me with a questioning gaze. I look down to the timer and see that there's still 8 minutes left. Sighing, I stop it and nod. "Yeah, yeah, It's over. We won!" he shouts back.

"Whoopee!" Mabel celebrates.

I didn't see what happened, but Dipper did. He cried "MABEL!" and rushed over to her. My head shoots up at the distress and see my sister on the wood-chipped ground, holding her knee.

Blood is visible. "Oh gosh," I whisper and stand up, jogging over to the boy and girl as fast as I can. "What happened?" I take out my back pack and kneel on the ground.

"I-I was happy that we won...and-and fell off," Mabel sniffs.

"Alright, lemme get a look at your knee," Dipper slowly moves her hand off her limb. She winces as I recoil at the sight.

A big gash is obviously present. "I don't think a bandage is going to work for this one..." I anxiously put back the small blue package of bandages back into my bag.

"Macie, you got water, right?" Dipper asks.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Here." I hand him my half gone bottle of water. He twists off the cap and pours it all over Mabel's injury.

"Ahh!" Mabel shuts her eyes. "It stings!"

"I know. I gotta clean it, though, so it won't get infected," Dipper explains. I rub the girl's shoulder in an attempt to comfort her.

"This is not how I wanted to spend the last day of summer..." Mabel's voice cracks. I frown deeply.

"Kay, let's get you home." Dipper stands up and we both help Mabel to stand on her feet.

Slowly but surely, we make our way home with the limping girl on our shoulders.

~~Time Skip brought to you by: A change of plans! I was gonna have Macie have an asthma attack but decided against it because I've never actually had one~~

"Hey kids, how was the park?" Right as we get in the door, our mom voices her question. Before we can speak up, she turns around from the kitchen and smiles at us...until she sees her daughter is injured. She gasps and comes running over immediately with a rag, kneeling down to our height. "Mabel, honey, what happened?"

Dipper answers for her, "She fell off the play structure. Hit her knee pretty hard."

Mom tsks, looking at the damage before getting back up. "You two, finish dinner," she points to me and my male twin, "Mabel, dear, come with me." Mabel follows suit with the adult while Dipper goes to the kitchen.

I follow and ask, "Wait, finish dinner? I don't know how to make..." I stop and check the food, "I don't know how to make beef stroganof."

"You never made dinner back home?" Dipper asks, stirring what looks like gravy. 'Smells good!'

"No, not really. I can make...pancakes...and maybe macaroni and cheese." I swivel my hand side to side with uncertainty.

"Well, whenever Mom needed us to finish dinner, for whatever reason, we'd all work together." I smile at the boy.

"That sounds nice." He smiles back, but recoils his finger as a spew of gravy got on it.

He sucks on it for a minute before going to stir again. I quickly grab the wooden spoon out of his hand. "Wha- Macie?" 

"You just sucked on your finger! Go wash your hands!" I scold, pointing to the sink. 

"What about you?" he whines, but does what I say. 

"I used hand sanitizer from my backpack earlier." He looks unconvinced, but if I were to tell you I washed my hands, then I washed my hands.

"Alright, alright..." Dipper gives up, walking over to the stove and taking the pot of gravy off. "Looks like it's done."

"Good, I'm starving." I start setting the table with plates, forks, napkins, and a container of, what I hope is, Kool-Aid. "What juice is in here?"

"Chill-Aid, but we're not allowed to have it for dinner. Chocolate milk should be in the door. Or orange juice, but, you've never liked fruit."

I roll my eyes, "Yup, hate all fruits. And, what the heck? No juice with dinner? This is like when I was younger! I had to have chocolate milk with supper all the time. When me and my siblings got older, though, we could have whatever."

"Well, maybe that'll happen for us," Dipper says hopefully, placing trivets on the dinner table.

"Heya, squirts, where's your mother?" I startle by the new voice that has entered. Dad stands there with his hands on his hips and a smile, smelling the air.

"Washing Mabel up," I answer and when he frowns, I continue, "Mabel tripped and fell at the park. Hurt her knee pretty bad."

Sighing, Dad finishes putting the food on the table. "Well, I hope she's okay. You three are always getting into trouble, you know that?"

"Heh, yeah, we know," Dipper says quickly, before I could get another word in. 'What, did he think I was gonna say something stupid?'

"Dad!" Mabel bursts into a visibly painful sprint, jumping into Dad's arms, giggling.

"Hey! There's my big girl! How's your knee?" 

"Better! Mom made it all good!" Said mom comes in, putting a rag in the sink and sitting down. 

"Mabel, sit," our mother nicely commands the silly girl, to which she obeys.

'Smells so good!'

I dig in right away.

~~Time Skip brought to you by: Bedtimes: Mine is 9:30. What's yours? (If you have one!)~~

"Are you kids all ready for tomorrow?" Mom is leaning on the doorway of our room.

"Yup!" Mabel cries, putting her things into her backpack.

I groan, placing a composition notebook into my bag. "Macie, it'll be fine, you got your siblings there with you." Mom tries to help, but this isn't what my despair is about.

'I have to redo 8th grade...and 9th! It's gonna be terrible! Not to mention I haven't been to public school since 4th grade!!'

"Yeah, don't worry, Mace, we'll be right there with you." I turn my head and see Dipper peaking through the doorway, smiling. I smile back.

"I know," I sigh, zipping my bag. 

"Alright you three, get to bed. You've got a big day tomorrow so you need sleep." Mabel giggles and follows the adult's orders, jumping into bed and hugging onto her stuffed animals tightly.

I crawl into mine soon after Dipper and Mom leave.

~~Diary Entry~~

9-21-12

Tomorrow is the first day of school. I wonder how it's going to go? Will I even be popular? Do I have friends? I want my old friends back...

Here we go...

Macie Pines~~

'Here we go' is the line who says and when?