The Hirsch Phenomenon (part 16)

"If he buys the ice cream we'll get the money back anyway." She explained. 

On their way back to the Shack, they had run into Soos, who agreed to take them back with him to The Mystery Shack. Mirra introduced him to Alex when they entered the car. Soos was friendly as usual, and he let Alex sit shotgun. (Dipper, Mirra and Mabel were a bit squished in the backseat)

"Oh, you dudes will never believe what happened to me today!" Soos said.

"It's Gravity Falls." Dipper said jokingly. "I think we can."

"Oh, well, so anyway, I got this call from my future self. I mean, woah." Soos continued. Mirra and Dipper glared at Alex from the back seat. Alex shifted nervously.

"And he was all like 'dude, there's this super awesome time machine in the forest. You should go check it out!' And I was all like, 'woah, yeah dude.' And so I go into the forest, right. And there was like, this HUGE chrysalis." He laughed. "So anyway, this huge butterfly comes out of the chrysalis. It was pretty cool."

Soos stopped talking.

"Aaand?" Dipper asked.

"Ah, that was pretty much it. And I got lost looking for that time machine." He laughed again. "Maybe future me forgot where it was." Alex looked really uncomfortable.

"That's an interesting story, Soos." Mirra said. She glanced outside. "Oh, we're here already."

Soos pulled up to the shack and everyone got out of the truck.

"Nice meeting you, dude." Soos said to Alex, shaking his hand.

"Yeah...nice to meet you too." Alex said. He glanced at the others as Soos walked away.

"Well that was interesting." Mirra said to Alex. "And considering that everyone in the truck except Soos knew it was you, well..."

"Hey, I'm not the one who decided to bring someone else into this mess!" Alex defended.

"Well I'm not the one who prank-called-" She stopped, glancing at Mabel. "Never mind..."

_____________________

It was dark now. The golf cart was parked near the Gleeful residence. Mabel was wearing a black sweater to help camouflage herself and Mirra had tied her hair in a ponytail.

"It would be bad if it got in my face." She explained.

Dipper wasn't dressed any differently, but Alex was wearing a name tag and a goofy ice cream-shaped hat designed by Mabel and Mirra. 

Alex wasn't too happy about that accessory.  

"Ok, so here's the plan." Mirra said with the group peeking at the house from behind a bush. "Me and Mabel will grapple up to the roof. We'll signal Alex once we're ready. Mabel, you'll stay on the roof while I break into Gideon's room. Dipper, you'll be keeping watch on the ground where you can see Alex and Mabel, you'll signal Mabel if anything goes wrong on Alex's end. Alex, you have a cell on you, right?"

"Yes." Alex replied.

"Then we should trade numbers. Just in case there's some other issue and there's no other way to get to you." Mirra said. 

They exchanged numbers.

"Ok, so if there's an emergency that Dipper or Mabel can't signal for, I'll call you. And you already know what to do on your end: make it take as long as possible to sell the ice cream to Gideon. Make sure he's with you when you're selling it, don't just sell it to his dad."

Alex nodded. He grabbed the cooler filled with ice-cream as Mirra, Dipper and Mabel snuck up to the house. Dipper stayed under the window as Mirra and Mabel grappled up to the roof. They tiptoed over to Gideon's window and Mirra signaled to Alex.

"This feels so unnatural...." He muttered as he adjusted the awkward hat and pulled the cooler of ice-cream to the house.