Mabel bolted awake. Morning. It was morning. She took a few seconds to orient herself — cold, sparkling sunlight streamed through the triangular attic window — before throwing the covers off and standing up. A shiver traveled up her spine as her feet protested against the chilly wood floor. She got dressed, pulling socks and boots over her cold feet. Then she ran downstairs.

At the base of the stairs, she nearly collided with Melody, who was passing the stairs on the way to the kitchen. "Good morning, Mabel," Melody said.

"Morning," Mabel replied. "Where's Ford? I want to help him with — "

But Melody was shaking her head. "Ford isn't working on the laptop today."

Mabel stared. "Wh-what?"

"He's on bedrest."

Mabel knew what that really meant: Melody was forcing him to stay away from the laptop. "But Melody!"

"No." Melody shook her head firmly. "He's come down with a cold. A bad one. One that he wouldn't have gotten if he hadn't stayed up for so long."

Mabel couldn't believe this. "He's trying to rescue Stanley! You can't just — "

"Mabel." Melody knelt down so she was at eye level with her. "I want to rescue Stanley as much as the rest of you. But if we kill ourselves in the process, we'll be no good to him."

Mabel looked away.

Melody sighed and stood up. "Ford says he used to do this kind of thing all the time. But he forgets that he's not a young man anymore. It's been thirty years since he's done anything this strenuous."

"Can I go talk to him?"

"Do you want to catch his cold?" Melody waited for her question to answer itself. "I'm going to go get him some breakfast."

Mabel frowned. "Won't you catch the cold if you do that?"

Melody laughed. "Oh, Mabel. I don't get sick." And with that, she went on towards the kitchen.

Mabel stood frozen on the stairs. Now what? She wanted so badly to help with the laptop — she figured even she could help decode the password. Even if she was just typing whatever Ford told her to. Now. . . now nobody was going to be working on the laptop?

No. No, Mabel had to do something. Ford would expect her to pick up where he left off, right? Or at the very least, he'd be pleasantly surprised.

Mabel stepped off the staircase and padded down the hall towards the lab. A quick glance over her shoulder into the kitchen confirmed that Melody wasn't looking.

As she passed Ford's room, she hesitated. Should she ask him? Tell him that it was okay, that she had it? Or would he just tell her that she couldn't handle it?

She laid a hand on the doorknob and eased the door open.

A soft white noise filled the room. It seemed to be coming from a small machine on the floor that sprayed gentle mist into the air. Mabel couldn't see Ford, only a bundle of blankets on the bed. She could hear him, though; his rhythmic breathing carried above the white noise. Asleep, probably.

"Grunkle Ford," Mabel said softly, not sure if he could hear her. "I'm going to try to crack the password, okay? I'll take the laptop and see if I can find anything in the Journal o-or something. So you don't have to worry about it." She took a step back. "Feel better soon."

She closed the door behind her, feeling a little better. Then she continued down the hall.

The door to the lab was unlocked, thankfully. The laptop was still there, surrounded by the clutter of the desk, waiting for someone to take it.

So Mabel did.

She found the third Journal and the black light pen on a different desk and nabbed those too. With the laptop under one arm and the Journal under the other, she started for the door.

Wait.

Melody.

If she went back that way, Melody would catch her for sure, and probably stop her before she even started. Nowhere in the Museum would be safe, even if she could make it up to the attic.

The lab had three doors. The one she came from, one that led to the Hall of Mysteries, and one that led outside. Her eyes flicked to the last one.

She could go the library. It would have dictionaries and maybe even code-breaking books. No one would find her unless they were looking really hard.

Mabel snuck out the side door.

The frigid morning air hit her as soon as she opened the door, but she pressed her lips together and stepped out onto the snow. Closed and locked the door behind her. Headed for town.

"Hey Mabes! Heads up!"

A snowball hit her back.

Mabel whirled around. Dipper was standing by the side of the house, a pom-pom hat on his head and snow on his mittens. "Dipper! Scrabdoodle!"

Dipper tilted his head slightly. "Scrabdoodle?"

"It's what Ford's assistant used to say."

"Did you find that out from the laptop?"

Mabel tried to move it behind her back. "Um, no. . ."

"Melody said nobody was going to work on the laptop today."

"Melody is being overprotective," Mabel shot back. "Just because Ford is sick doesn't mean I can't help. I'm going to the library to find a book on breaking codes."

"You're going to the library to hide from Melody, you mean," Dipper said.

Mabel glared at him.

He shrugged apologetically, but then looked at her seriously. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Not you too!" Mabel moaned. She turned and started stomping off.

"Mabel, wait." Dipper jogged after her and touched her shoulder. She turned back. "Can I come with you, then?" he asked. "Come and help?"

"Come and keep watch on me, you mean," she said grumpily.

"Maybe. But two twins are better than one, right?"

She looked at him warily. "You're not going to tell Melody I have the laptop?"

"Nah, I'm not a tattletale." He frowned. "Unless someone is about to hurt themselves. You're not gonna stay up all night and get sick like Ford, are you?"

"No," Mabel said. "I'll be fine."

"In that case, let's go crack ourselves a code!" Dipper bounded through the snow away from the Museum.

Mabel followed. It was obvious Dipper was just tagging along to keep tabs on her, but she had to admit it would be nice to have his help. And he was pretty good at keeping her from going crazy. She'd probably need that.

So she let him tag along. If nothing else, he wouldn't be able to tell on her while he was with her.

The library was down the street from the Museum. Mabel spent the short walk thinking up possible passwords and telling Dipper what she knew about Ford's assistant.

"His name is Fiddleford McGucket. I think I can figure out how to spell it. The laptop password had eight letters, right? McGucket is eight letters, I think. We can try that."

"That's a weird name."

"He was a strange person," Mabel said, repeating what Ford had told her when she had said the same thing. "Ford just said he was smart and that he worked with him and Stanley back in the day. The Journal talks about him a little bit, but I'll have to look again. And look with the black light. I haven't been able to do that yet."

She kept trying to come up with passwords. "McGucket. Maybe something to have to do with the Journals? Hey, Ford's full name is eight letters long."

"Mabes. . ." Dipper grimaced as she turned to him. "What if there are numbers? Or what if it's gibberish or code?"

Mabel stiffened. "Let's just try what we can think of," she said tightly.

Dipper fell silent, and Mabel listened to her boots crunching softly in the packed snow on the road.

"Sorry," Dipper said. "It's already overwhelming enough, huh?"

Mabel told herself to just stay quiet. If she started talking, everything would come out.

Fortunately, the library was just ahead. Mabel forced herself to feel excited again and took the steps two at a time, Dipper on her heels.

It took a while for them to find a table away from everyone and get settled. Mabel looked around for computers as they passed through the library, but there didn't seem to be any. She grimaced. Hopefully nonfiction books were sorted by section so she wouldn't have to ask a librarian.

"You want me to go ask a librarian about code-breaking books while you get started?" Dipper asked.

"You read my mind," Mabel said in relief. Librarians had always scared her — not because they weren't nice or anything. She just hated asking for help.

Dipper grinned. "That's what twins are for."

"Thanks, Dip. Grab a dictionary, too. One that sorts words by length, if you can."

He wandered off.

Mabel set the laptop down on the table with a deep sigh. Safe at last.

She pried the lid open and booted it up.

The laptop's whirs and beeps filled the silent library air, and Mabel bit her lip, looking around. The library was mostly empty, though, and she couldn't see anyone from her table.

BZZT!

//UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS FORBIDDEN//

ENTER PASSWORD.

Mabel narrowed her eyes at the computer. That BZZT sound was going to really get on her nerves.

"Well, might as well start with the most obvious," she said to herself.

She started typing.

P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D, she typed.

BZZT!

"Yeah, I didn't think so."

S-T-A-N-F-O-R-D.

BZZT!

M-C-G-U-C-K-E-T.

BZZT!

"Urgh," Mabel said back to it. "Do you have a mute button?"

The laptop didn't reply.

J-O-U-R-N-A-L-3.

BZZT!

J-O-U-R-N-A-L-2.

BZZT!

J-O-U-R-N-A-L-1.

BZZT!

Mabel slammed her hands onto the keyboard.

E-R-G-J-E-O-G-H.

BZZT!

Well, it was worth a shot.

"How many letters does Fiddleford have?" she asked out loud. "Fiddle-ford. Ten. Hmm."

F-I-D-D-L-E-F-O.

BZZT!

D-D-L-E-F-O-R-D.

BZZT!

F-D-D-L-F-O-R-D.

BZZT!

She kept trying variations of "Fiddleford" until Dipper returned with a stack of books. "How goes it?"

"Nothing yet. Did you find a dictionary sorted by word length?"

"Yep!" He flipped through it. "Okay. . . it says here that there are seven-point-two million eight-letter words in the English language."

Mabel stared at him.

Dipper grinned feebly back at her. "You type, I read?"

"Mmph," said Mabel, lowering her head to the smooth wood of the desk.

"Mabes?"

She mumbled into the wood.

"What?"

"I just wanted to be useful," she said, sitting back up. "But this is going to take forever."

"Useful?" Dipper repeated. "What do you mean?"

"I dunno," Mabel said. "You found the laptop, Ford fixed it up. . . all I did in the bunker was get knocked unconscious and hallucinate."

Dipper frowned. "Hallucinate?"

"Either Gideon Northwest magically followed us down into the bunker, or I hallucinated him being there. I don't know," she added quickly, mentally kicking herself for mentioning Gideon. It probably wasn't a hallucination, but. . . he hadn't taken the Journal. He hadn't done anything wrong. No need to tell anyone, right? She kept talking, trying to fix her mistake. "Let's just — get started, I guess."

"We don't have to do this," Dipper said gently.

"I want to," she said. "I want to show Ford that I — that we — can help."

"Okay," said Dipper. "Then let's get started." He set his dictionary on the table and smiled at her.

She smiled back. "I'll type, you read."