*Mabel's POV*

Me and Dipper were having an epic syrup showdown! It was amazing! Because - of course - all things Mabel are amazing.

Sir Syrup won the syrup challenge, obviously!

Anyway, Dipper showed me a magazine page. When I saw the human-sized hamster balls, I knew we were thinking on the same page-

"No, Mabel, wrong page. This is what I'm talking about." Dipper said, pointing to a monster-hunting contest.

I slumped, but I still kept my wide smile.

"We see weirder monsters than that everyday!" Dipper exclaimed. "We didn't get a picture of that gnome creature, did we?"

"Nope, just this beard hair!" I beamed, holding up some white locks of matted hair. It had a gross smell.

"Why did you save that?" Dipper asked, gagging.

I shrugged. My eyes lit up with an idea. "I know! We could use it as a prank!" I grinned. I quickly put it away as Grunkle Stan came over.

"Good morning knuckleheads. You two know what day it is today?" He asked.

"...Happy Anniversary?" Dipper guessed.

"Or is it the day we aren't grounded anymore?" I guessed. We looked at Grunkle Stan with hopeful eyes.

Instead he smacked Dipper on the head with a rolled up newspaper.

"It's Family Bonding Day, genius." Grunkle Stan said.

"Is it gonna be anything like our last Family Bonding Day?" Dipper asked. I shuddered at the thought.

"The county jail was so cold." I said. "Good thing I had a sweater on!"

"Wait - why do you even wear a sweater? It's the middle of the summer!" Dipper asked. I squinted at him.

"My reasons are beyond your understanding." I said in a deeper tone. Grunkle Stan cleared his throat to get the attention back on him.

"I may have not been the best summer caretaker, but I promise, today is gonna be great." He said. "Now who wants to put on blindfolds and get into my car!"

"Yay!" Me and Dipper said at the same time.

"Wait what?" Dipper asked.

After a drive of being blind (and how I now understand that blind people's other sense are heightened) we finally arrived at Gravity Falls Lake.

"Ta da! It's fishing season!" Grunkle Stan said, posing in front of the lake.

"Fishing?" I said. Dipper squinted at him.

"What are you playing at, old man?"

*After the old man comes because I'm too lazy XD*

I really thought the old man was doing a happy jig. But nope!

Anyway, we headed to the dock and Grunkle Stan got into the boat. It was broken, leaking, a bunch of flies were flying around there, and Grunkle Stan had really sweaty armpits.

Soos then came along on his boat - and it was amazing. The choice was already made for us!

We headed onto Soos's ship and headed towards Scuttlebutt Island! I couldn't help feeling a little sorry for Grunkle Stan. He genuinely wanted to fish with us.

But the stakes were too high! I'm not gonna go on a dirty, broken, leaking boat the smells bad, has a bunch of flies circling it, and definitely not near any joke books! Certainly not for 10 hours!

This was the best choice. I knew it would be.

Dipper called a meeting for us and we stood in front of him.

"So - what's the number one thing that goes wrong in monster hunts?" Dipper asked us.

"The side characters die first. Wait - am I a side character? Do you even think about things like that?!" Soos suggested.

I was very intrigued but what Soos said. And if life were like that....

...Then I knew I would definitely be a main character!

Dipper shook his head, snapping me out of my fantasies.

"All right, I'll give you an example of what I'm thinking about. Soos, be Bigfoot." Dipper said. Soos did a great job acting as Bigfoot.

"Oh look! It's Bigfoot! Oh no, no camera! Wait, here it is! Oh no, no film - you see, you see what I'm doing here?" Dipper said, me and Soos nodding.

"So we have plenty of cameras to prepare for that. There's no way we can miss this." Dipper said excitedly.

"Yay! We're gonna win that photo contest for sure!" I exclaimed.

"And I'll do it with my crew!" Dipper said. I squinted at him.

"Doesn't that mean you're captain? *gasp* Can I be co-captain?" I asked.

"There's no such thing as co-captain." Dipper replied.

"Ah, whoops!" I said, throwing one of the disposable cameras into the lake.

"Okay, okay! You can be co-captain!" Dipper said quickly. Easy.

"Can I be associate co-captain?" Soos asked. Dipper nodded. "Also, I have a request. Can I lick the fish food?"

"Permission granted." Dipper answered.

"Permission co-granted!" I replied.

"Permission associate co-granted." Soos said, then picked up a piece of fish food and licked it.

He gagged and me and Dipper giggled.

"I don't even know what I was expecting!" Soos said.

Soon after that, we headed to Scuttlebutt Island. I was the best lookout ever, and we arrived there perfectly!

Just ignore the fact that the boat is sticking right out of the island!

We headed further on the island along a path, trying to make our way through the mist, when we came across a sign labeled 'Scuttlebutt Island'.

"Dudes, check this out." Soos said. He put his arm over part of the sign. "Butt Island."

"Soos, you're a genius!" I said, laughing with him. I noticed Dipper wasn't joining in.

He was looking down at something, but when he heard me come closer I quickly put it away.

"Hey, why aren't you laughing?" I asked. Then I grinned.

"Are you scared?" I sneered.

"What? No-"

I poked his nose. "Yes you are!"

I kept poking his nose despite his protests, making fart noises with my tongue. Suddenly, a beaver took our lantern!

"No! Ugh... I can't see anything..." Dipper said. I was trying to see where to go, but I heard Dipper... flipping pages?

Suddenly he screamed and I heard a thump. It was that glowing book thingy again! A monster with a long neck suddenly shot out of it, and it roared!

"The Gobblewonker!" I realized. Soos and I ran, but Dipper stayed behind, taking pictures. I also saw him pick up the journal before Soos ran back to grab him and run.

While doing that, Dipper dropped his camera. "No! The photo!" He said.

"If it's any consolation, I managed to snag a picture of that beaver who took our lantern!" Soos said.

"Why would that help?!" Dipper asked, and then the Gobblewonker roared.

We hurried onto the boat, and Soos steered. But because of the mist, we couldn't see where we were going and crashed into a broken wooden ship with a bunch of beavers living in it!

The beavers were eating the ship and attacked Soos and Dipper! While they were fending off the beavers, I was steering the ship. Once the beavers were fended off, Dipper came over to me.

"Go to that waterfall in the distance! I think there might be a cave behind there!" Dipper said, flipping through the journal's pages.

"Might be?!" I asked, worried. I didn't really trust Dipper's nerd book because of what it did last time, and what it did just now, and I had good reason, but I listened to Dipper anyway because it was our only hope of escape.

We screamed as we neared the waterfall, getting ready for impact-

We burst through the waterfall and into a cave. We landed in there and got to our feet, wounded from what our crash. The Gobblewonker tried to crawl through the hole but it couldn't. It was stuck.

Dipper searched for cameras in his jacket, but he couldn't find any and panicked.

"Boop!" I said as I lifted his hat to reveal a disposable camera. He took plenty of pictures with excitement.

Mabel to the rescue!

"Get any good ones?" I asked. He grinned at me.

"They're all good ones!" He said, chuckling. We high-fived until a boulder smashed onto the head of the Gobblewonker and knocked it out.

We froze.

"Uh... did it just...?" Dipper asked. I smiled widely.

"No, it didn't do that. It must have been a sleeping boulder! The sleeping boulder smashes into the Gobblewonker and boom! Gobblewonker asleep." I said, making hand gestures to go along with it.

Soos nodded along with me, but I noticed that Dipper looked distracted. I thought this was the bet time to talk to him about the journal.

"Dipper, you've got some explaining to do. Why did you have the journal back there?" I asked. Dipper sighed.

"That's because... I kept it from last time."

"YOU WHAT?! We're going to get in so much more trouble if you keep that thing around! We'll be in danger multiple times! You're gonna cost me my summer romance and my chance to actually make friends here!" I shouted.

"Well, I had to figure out what it was doing! Why it was spitting out monsters! Who the author of this journal is, what this 'he' person the author's talking about is!" Dipper argued.

I grabbed the journal and kept it out of his reach, but that didn't stop him from trying to get it back.

"I'm not about to let you ruin my summer!" I yelled.

"Dudes, calm down! We can settle this normally-" Soos started.

"Give the journal back!" Dipper said, jumping to grab it. I was barely able to keep it from him.

"No! This journal has to be destroyed! It's gonna kill us all! I'm not about to let a nerd book keep me from my summer dreams!" I screamed at him.

"I SAID GIVE IT BACK!!" Dipper shouted. He tackled me to the ground and I lost my grip on the journal, but he didn't realize.

We kept punching each other and fighting to get to the book, but none of us even got close to it. Eventually, Soos got it.

"Dudes, stop!" Soos yelled. We went quiet and stopped attacking each other.

"Listen dudes. This book is mega spooky and dangerous. I don't want any of you to get hurt. I think we should show this to Mr. Pines-" Soos said.

"No! Grunkle Stan will burn it if he gets his hands on it!" Dipper protested.

"Soos, he'll ground us if he discovers anything about it! But I still agree with you that it's too dangerous!" I said, glaring at Dipper.

He snatched the journal from Soos and ran away from us.

Me and Soos chased after him, and somehow he'd gotten the boat back in the water. He was in the steering room and I noticed the lock on the door when we got on the boat with him.

I tried to see if he left the journal anywhere else on the boat, but it seems like he kept it with him.

I groaned.

Dipper steered the boat back to the dock, and he ran off the boat with the journal. I was about to run after him but Grunkle Stan was on his boat and he looked so sad.

I sighed and decided it was best to have some fun with Grunkle Stan. We steered the boat to Grunkle Stan's boat and we got on. I put on my hat.

"Where's the other knucklehead?" Grunkle Stan asked.

"Oh, um... he got seasick! He was about to puke so we got him back to shore and he's heading back to the Mystery Shack right now." I lied. Soos gave me a look, but I didn't look back.

I hoped he wouldn't actually tell.

Luckily Grunkle Stan believed me. "Alright, guess he'll have to miss out on the family fun. That's karma for you." He said.

I grinned. "Family photo!" I said, holding up the one last disposable camera we had left.

"Dude, am I in the frame?" Soos asked, right as I took the picture - selfie style.

Even better - Mabel style!

The guilt I felt earlier today came crashing down on me again as we had fun together. But I ignored it. We were making up for it now by having family bonding time!

But I still felt negative emotions. I tried to figure out why - until my thoughts wandered to Dipper and my negative emotions sprouted. And I realized the cause.

I felt anger and desperation, but I tried to push them deep inside me so that Grunkle Stan wouldn't know what happened.

I always knew this summer would be filled with an epic romance and great besties, but I didn't expect something like this to happen, an argument, let alone danger and secrets.

Well, at least it'll make Dipper happy.

But if it jeopardizes my summer dreams, not letting it happen!