The Mystery Museum was in full swing. Robbie Corduroy ran the cash register for entry fees (which doubled as the one for the gift shop) while Melody Ramirez, the tour guide, led awestruck tourists through displays of fossils and other supernatural evidence.

Except that most of the displays were fake.

Mabel Pines stood in the gift shop, which had obviously fake trinkets of monsters, as opposed to the more realistic artifacts in the Hall of Mysteries. When she had first arrived with her twin brother, Dipper, she had been devastated to find out that the Mystery Museum held fake displays — until she found out that, although the Museum displays were fake, the surrounding area had all sorts of supernatural phenomena. And Mabel still had the fairy bites to prove it, too.

She glanced over to the checkout counter, where Robbie and Dipper laughed together over the comic strips in the local newspaper. "I've never seen that one before!" said Dipper between laughs. He sat on the checkout counter, and Robbie seemed fine with it.

"Yeah, that strip is written by a guy who lives here," Robbie said. "Danny Valentino. He's cool."

"Awesome!"

Mabel drifted towards them, since she had nothing else to do. The gift shop was mostly empty, since Melody was currently leading a group of tourists through the Hall of Mysteries. Mabel worried that if she was here for too long, Melody would give her chores; but she also liked being around Dipper and Robbie.

"Hey, Mabes!" said Dipper when he noticed her. "Watcha doing?"

Mabel grunted. "Being bored. What's going on over here?"

"'Bout the same thing," Robbie replied, flipping a page in the newspaper.

"What kind of things can you do around this town, then?" Dipper asked Robbie. Before the teen could answer, Dipper leaned backwards so his head was hanging upside down off the checkout counter. "Or we could go for a monster hunt," he said to Mabel.

"Oh, yeah, how are your fairy bites doing?" asked Robbie. Mabel couldn't tell if he was being facetious or not. Did he know about the fairies, or did he think the twins were making up cute stories? Either way, he didn't seem to be making fun of them; and for that, Mabel was grateful.

"They're a lot better," Dipper said cheerfully as he sat up again. Mabel agreed: The bites on their faces and necks — courtesy of some violent, territorial fairies — had healed up nicely over the past few days.

"So, there's not much to do around here," Robbie said, answering Dipper's earlier question, "but this week is the reopening of the Tent of Telepathy."

Mabel looked up, her attention piqued. "Tent of Telepathy?" she repeated.

"Yeah," Robbie said. "It's a psychic show. It opened about four years ago, but the girl who did it left a year ago. She's back, I guess, so they're reopening it."

"Sounds fun!" Dipper said. "Do you think it's real?"

"'Course not." Robbie shrugged. "Those things are always fake. They put plants in the audience to get information from them beforehand."

Dipper's brow creased in confusion. "How would plants get information?"

Mabel covered a smile. "People, Dipper, that work for the psychic. Those type of plants."

"Oh! Well, I still think we should go anyway. Should be fun. Did you ever go, Robbie? Before they closed it down?"

Another shrug. "Yeah, back when I was your age. It was okay." With that, Melody came into the gift shop, followed by a small herd of tourists. "Heads up — tourists at three o'clock. Off the counter, Dipper."

Dipper slid off. "Okay! Can I take the newspaper?"

"Sure. There's a story about the Tent of Telepathy on the first page, if you want to know more."

"Thanks!"

The twins moved to a corner of the gift shop that was fairly free of customers, and Dipper held up the newspaper. "Hey, look, Mabel! She's about our age!" he said, pointing to the picture above the headline. "Tent of Telepathy: Grand Reopening," read the headline, followed by, "Child psychic Pacifica Pleasure is back once more to mystify the locals of Gravity Rises." The picture showed a girl, dressed in purple and black, who had the biggest, blondest hair that Mabel had ever seen. Like Dipper said, she looked to be about their age, though it was hard to tell with all her make-up. She winked up at the camera with a dazzling smile on her face.

Something about her gave Mabel the chills.

"She's really pretty, huh?" said Dipper. Mabel glanced at him and shrugged.

"That would be so cool to be a child psychic," he continued. "We should totally go see the show."

"I guess," Mabel said. "Like Robbie said, it's probably fake."

"But this is Gravity Rises," Dipper said. "And besides, fake stuff can still be fun. I mean, just look at all the stuff in Ford's Museum!"

Mabel shushed her brother, looking around them nervously to see if any tourists had heard him. She suspected that the tourists knew this place was fake — that they were just here for the experience — but there was no need to advertise that fact.

"Let's go ask Grunkle Ford if he'll take us," said Dipper, heading for the Employees Only door that led into the house.

Mabel followed, though she had misgivings. "I don't know if he will. He doesn't want to do anything else with us," she said sourly.

"It can't hurt to try."

The twins found their uncle in the kitchen, making himself a sandwich. Dipper held up the newspaper and told Ford about the Tent of Telepathy. "Can we go? Please?"

Ford glanced at the newspaper. "No," he said simply.

"But, Grunkle Ford!"

"I have no desire to go see a so-called psychic," he said. "If there's anything worse than fooling around with the supernatural, it's believing in the fake supernatural." As he spoke, he spread mayo over a piece of bread.

"But your Museum is fake," Dipper pointed out. He joined Ford and started making his own sandwich; Mabel supposed it was a good time to eat and did the same.

"Yeah, Grunkle Ford, it's just entertainment," she said. She didn't particularly want to go to the Tent of Telepathy, but there wasn't much to do around here unless you went out into the forest. Ford had (albeit unsuccessfully) forbidden the twins from going there; if he kept them from going to the Tent of Telepathy as well, what was left to do?

"There are plenty of other things around here to keep you entertained."

"Like what?" Dipper asked, sounding genuinely curious underneath his annoyance.

"Like. . ." Ford paused, hand hovering over his half-made sandwich, then grunted. "I'm not in charge of your entertainment."

"Okay, then let us go to the psychic show!"

"I am not paying for you to go see some prissied-up girl with fake powers," Ford said with a sideways glance at Pacifica's picture in the newspaper.

"What if you're not the one paying for it?" Dipper asked.

Ford sighed. "If you can find someone else to finance the trip, then I won't stop you." He finished making his sandwich and left the room, taking it to eat somewhere else.

"How come Grunkle Ford doesn't try to stop us, but he won't come with us, either?" said Mabel, frustration in her voice.

Dipper shrugged and took a bite of his own sandwich. "He's not very fun," he said with his mouth full.

Mabel looked away and momentarily squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the image of Dipper's half-chewed sandwich swirling around his tongue. "So, who are we going to get to pay for the psychic show?" she asked. "Melody?"

"Yeah, or Robbie." Dipper sat down at the table, where he had left the newspaper, and looked down at Pacifica's picture. "She looks so cool," he said.

Mabel finished making her sandwich and sat down with him. "I don't know, Dip. She looks creepy to me."

"You're just saying that because you hate make-up."

Mabel shrugged. Guilty as charged. But there was something else, too. That dazzling smile looked fake. Most photographed smiles did, but. . . there was something about this one that didn't sit right with her.

Her eyes flicked up from the picture to her brother. "Do you want to go to the show to actually see a psychic show, or to get a closer look at a pretty girl?"

"I want to see her show," Dipper said defensively, "and if I want to talk to her afterward, that doesn't mean anything."

"Except that you have a crush," Mabel said with a knowing look. Dipper got crushes often, on all sorts of girls. They rarely lasted, but every crush was an adventure for both twins: Dipper, because he was busy trying to woo the girl; and Mabel, because she got dragged along after him.

Dipper shrugged. "Maybe," he replied. But a little smile on his face — one that he couldn't quite hide — gave Mabel another answer entirely.