Gravity Falls is surrounded by a sea of pine trees. The town is small but not enough that he couldn't get lost in it.

Not many people disembark with him: there is a blond girl with a tall woman, obviously her mother, and there is a guy with more muscle than every other person on the bus combined. The girl seems very excited by what she sees.

There is a guy holding a cardboard sign with the words "Zane Pines". He approaches Zane with a smile.

"Hey, dude, are you Mister Pines' great-nephew?"

"Hello! Yes, yes I am, as far as I know. Who would you be?"

"I'm Soos! I work for him in the Mystery Shack, he told me to meet you here and wait until he picks us up.”

Soos pauses and thinks for a moment.

“Oh, and he also said that you better react fast, dude.”

"What do you mean, react fast? React fast to what?" Zane starts looking around, on guard.

A car comes down the road at fast speed, abruptly stopping in front of them.

The first thing Zane will notice is the giant stuffed bear on the passenger seat. The second thing he might notice is the driver, his Great Uncle Stan, saying, “What are you waiting for? Get in! Get in!”

He notices both things! He's very attentive.
He scrambles into the car as fast as he can, avoiding the bear.
"Why do you have a stuffed bear in your car, exactly?"

Soos hurries him along, taking a step back to grab Zane’s luggage.

“This? This… is just something I found on the street,” Stan says, looking into the rear mirror and chuckling to himself. “Just something that was left for anyone to pick up.”

"I have no clue why you'd need a teddy bear, but whatever." Zane will stay silent for the rest of the ride unless something interesting happens.

"It was there for the taking. Which reminds me," Stan looks at Soos through the mirror. "Soos, we are going to retire the mummified two-headed mermaid exhibit. Now we are going to just have a mummified one-headed mermaid and the new abominable lake lagoon creature. I will think of something when the glue sets in."

"Exhibit?"

“For the Mystery Shack! The best roadside attraction in the Pacific Northwest!”

The car slows down and parks in front of a house with a large sign on the roof that says “Mystery Shack”, but the “S” from “Shack” has fallen off. There is moss and weeds growing on nearly everything.

“Pretty great, isn’t it?”

"If you say so. Where am I sleeping? I've had a long journey, I'm a bit tired, I'd like a short rest."

“Kids.” Stan leads him inside. “You will stay in the attic; be careful with the splinters. Soos, help me with the new exhibit.”

“Sure, Mister Pines!” To Zane: “Nice meeting you, dude!”

"You too, Soos." Zane goes up to the attic, places all his stuff in the right places and flops on the bed for a bit. The noises downstairs are annoying but he's tired enough he can nap anyway.

A while later he emerges from the attic.

Zane notices he got several mosquito bites... which spell "BEWARB".

What. WHAT. That is very, very odd. It is probably a prank.

He goes downstairs to find somebody. Who does he find?

Soos fixing a lamp.

"Hey Soos, do you know who did this to me? Is there anyone here prone to pranking people? Because BEWARB is a really odd thing to spell, if you're spelling anything on anyone's arm. With fake mosquito bites. That. Itch like real ones. This is really weird."

"Nah, dude, that’s just Gravity Falls being weird."

"Being weird? What do you mean?"

“Like the mailman, pretty sure that dude is a werewolf.”

"A werewolf? Why would a mailman be a werewolf? And how does that lead to me having BEWARB on my arm?"

“He is really hairy. And there was one day when I was waiting for him and he didn’t come. I remember that the night before was a full moon, because it was a Saturday with a Ducktective marathon.”

"If you say so." He doesn't really believe it, but doesn't really want to convince Soos that much either. "What's Ducktective?"

Coming from downstairs, Stan says, "It's a cartoon, but it has a big mystery element and a lot of humor that goes over kids' heads... Now that we are all catched up with our TV gossip, Soos, back to work. Wendy is off doing something, so, kid, I need you to work the register while I lead the tours."

"Alright. What do I do, exactly? Just show me the major stuff, I can figure out the details."

“That’s the spirit, kid!”

Stan shows Zane how to work the register and how to deal with customers. “Yes, Sir.”, “Yes, Ma’am.”, “That sign actually says no refunds, that curtain just accidentally covered the ‘no’ part.” And then how to move the curtain back into place so it looks accidental.

Zane is sceptical about doing the curtain thing, but follows instructions.

Customers arrive. They practically scream "gullible tourist". After seeing a guy spend 10 minutes doing nothing but staring at a small figure of Stan, Zane might get an accurate picture of what kind of person visits this sort of place.

Which also includes the girl from the bus and her mother. The woman is looking at the mummified one-headed mermaid, seeming oddly concerned.

Hmmm. Zane can see why Stan resorts to such tactics. Doesn't make them nice, though, so he'll warn nice people.

"What seems to be the problem, Ma'am?" he asks of the woman.

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking...” The woman shrugs and gives Zane a tentative smile. “Thank you, dear.”

“Mooom! Look, those eyeballs are following me,” says the blond girl holding a jar of eyeballs labelled “do not touch”.

"You're welcome."

Zane has not noticed the eyeballs so far and is a bit creeped out by them, but doesn't let it show. "The jar says 'do not touch', could you please put it down, Miss?" he asks, pleasantly. "I am responsible for everything in this room. My Great Uncle wouldn't be pleased at all if those eyeballs ended up all over the floor of his shop or something," he jokes.

The girl looks at the label, apparently noticing it for the first time.

“I’m sorry!” she says, putting the jar on the floor, then, noticing the logic of what she just did, takes it back again. “I can place it back! I was trying to find the wires or something! How do you make the eyeballs follow you?”

"It's fine. I'm not entirely sure, I'm new here. Maybe it's an illusion? ...Just put it here, on the counter."

Francine puts the thing on the counter, next to the register. That sure is a fun object to have around while Zane works.

"This place is fun! Do you work here? I saw you on the bus station, do you live in Gravity Falls? Are you on vacation too? What's your name?" The girl babbles excitedly.

"Three questions, dear," the tall woman reminds the girl.

"Oh, right. Thanks, mom."

"I'm replacing someone else who is missing right now, I think her name was Wendy. I am also on vacation, yes. Zane, pleased to meet you."

"I'm Francine! We are going to say here until the end of summer! How about you?"

Francine's mom goes away to look at something else and likely to give them space.

"Yeah, me too, my dad wanted some alone time. How are you liking it here so far?"

"Yes! I've never seen so many trees! I want to hike in the forest!"

"Tha sounds very interesting!" Stan says showing up from nowhere, "and since you don't want to work at the register, maybe Soos can do that. You can go put up these signs in the forest." He shoves signs in Zane's hands.

What? But he was fine with the register... Okay, whatever, ship has sailed, let's go with this.
"Sure, okay, let's go." He shrugs.

"Do you want me to come with you? Sure." Francine turns and shouts to her mother. "Mom, I'm going to walk in the forest a bit!"

"Don't go too far," the mom says absently.

"Okay, let's go!"

Into the forest they go, Zane hanging signs every five trees.

Oh look, they have a couple of stalkers!

Francine basically runs in circles around Zane and touches ALL OF EVERYTHING.

"Weird place to put garden gnomes," she says, turning to Zane at one point, pointing at a place without garden gnomes.

They bolt while no one's looking.

"There are no... garden gnomes... here. As far as I can see. If I have vision problems, please tell me."

"What? I swear they were just there! Few things have those pointy hats," Francine says. "I'll take a closer look."

Far, far away by now. There is a tiny footprint but it could just as easily have been some normal animal, the gnomes don't exactly make their shoes out of rubber.

Francine is curious enough that she will take five minutes looking, and she does notice the weird footprint.

Meanwhile, Zane might notice that the tree he is nailing a sign to sounds oddly metallic and hollow.

He knocks on it with his fist. Yep, hollow. Strange.
Can he open it?

He can, and there is a compartment with a weird

He flicks both switches, does it even work at all?

It reacts with weird noises and flickers... and a hatch behind him opens.

O...kay...
He goes up to the hatch.

Beneath cobwebs and dust there is a old worn out book with a six-fingered hand with the number 3 in it's cover.

He dusts it off and opens it.

The first page reads:

June 18,
It's hard to believe it's been six years since I began researching the strange and won'drous secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon.
In all my travels, never have I observed so many curious things! Gravity Falls is indeed a geographical oddity.

The following pages include diagrams, gibberish and descriptions of all sort of creatures. Eventually there is a page with a picture of a wheel with several symbols around it. This page reads:

Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed, I'm being watched.
I must hide this book before He finds it.
Remember-- in Gravity Falls there is no one you can trust.
TRUST NO ONE!

Okay then. That. That is a good book.
...He will just take it because it looks very abandoned and hope that nobody needs it.
If the stuff here is true, this will be useful indeed. If it's not, well, it's a great reference for writing a fantasy novel.

Hmm, maybe he should leave a note for if someone needs the book. He removes all the spider webs and uses a stick dipped in mud to write 'Mystery Shack' on the bottom of it.

"What are you doing?" Francine says loudly, suddenly showing up behind him.

"Oh hey! I found this tree that had a machine in it," point, "and one of the switches opened this hatch," point, "and there was a book in it which has lots of interesting stuff in it."
He shows her the book.
"It tells you not to trust anyone in Gravity Falls, somewhat paradoxically."

"Why paradoxically?" Francine says skipping to the three. "Wow. This thing looks so real. I wonder how much it cost to make it? It must have been expensive!"

"Because, you know, it is from Gravity Falls and we're not." He follows her.
"I think it's probably fake," he thinks about his BEWARB again, "but it'll sure be useful if it's all real. The book says there are zombies and unicorns and all kinds of things and some of them aren't too nice. However, most have very specific weaknesses, apparently."

"Oooooh, unicorns!" Francine says, coming closer again. "Let me see it?"

He demonstrates the unicorn page.

"Magic hair? That is just like Harry Potter!"

Eyebrow raise. "I admit I don't remember there being any magic hair in it, when was that?"

"Unicorn hair is used for wands!"

"Ah, right. Completely forgot that! Heh."

They look at the book some more before remembering about the signs. They returns to their task. Or rather, Zane returns to that task and Francine runs around like a maniac.

Eventually they run out of signs and go back.

They exchange addresses and phone numbers and bid each other goodbye at the Shack. Francine goes to her house and Zane back up to the attic, now with his book.

Back in the shack, Soos asks a question. "Mr. Pines, what happened with the rack behind the counter?"

“A crazy customer made a scene because of her credit cards,” Stan says.

“The credit machine isn’t working?” Soos asks.

“No, the cards accidentally fell out of her purse into my jacket. No reason to make a scene because of some credit cards.”

Soos just nods along and turns around, quietly saying to himself, “heh, a credits scene.”

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