6.7 Inches (Gravity Falls)

||Chapter 1|| "It's...a box."

Alright, guys! Another fanfiction... Please feel free to leave comments and feedback throughout the story; I love hearing your input! Happy reading! Here we go...

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"Dipper! Come help me with this!" A loud, male voice called through the large house, echoing up the stairs and claiming the attention of 13 year old, Dipper Pines.

He sighed, dragging himself away from the Harry Potter book he was currently reading and got off his bed, trudging to the door and starting the ridiculously long (or so it seemed) trek down the stairs.

Dipper hopped down the final step of the staircase and strolled through the kitchen, blinking tiredly at his mother who was perched over the kitchen island, making sausage and eggs.

"Dipper," his mom greeted in a suspicious tone. "How late did you stay up last night? It's already twelve and you hardly ever sleep in."

The young teenager gazed blearily at the clock on the stainless steel oven.

12:09, the clock read.

"Not that late," Dipper answered honestly, trying to look like he'd been awake for a while. "Only about two..." It was, at least, early for him.

"In the morning?!" Dipper Orion Pines!" His mother scolded, looking angrily flabbergasted. "What were you doing all night?!"

"Reading," the boy replied curtly, grabbing a sausage link from a plate on the counter and headed into the living room before his mom could keep ranting about needing to get a good night's sleep and how it "nourished" a teenaged body and made it fully functioning for the next day. He could almost recite his mother's bedtime speech from memory at hearing it so many times.

"I finished another book!" He called back into the kitchen where Mrs. Pines was beating the eggs ferociously in a small bowl. She huffed loudly in response as Dipper walked down the hallway into the garage.

He opened the door, peeking his head in and looking around, chewing the moist, crispy sausage.

"Dad?" Dipper whispered hoarsely, swallowing the piece of meat and stepping inside, an instant vent of cold air descending over him.

The garage light was on, indicating that someone was in here. Besides, who else could've called the teen when he was upstairs, tugging him away from the fantastical fantasy world of witchcraft and wizardry?

"Dad?" He tried again, louder, listening for any noises to tell him where his father was.

"Ah, Dipper!" His dad crowed cheerfully, stepping out from behind some storage bins to stand a few feet away, in front of his son.

Naturally, the young teenager yelped, jumping in surprise, causing him to trip over some cardboard boxes behind his feet, onto the cold, hard floor.

Mr. Pines leaned over Dipper, blocking the ceiling light slightly and he extended a hand out to the jumpy boy. Dipper took it gratefully, standing up and brushing himself off.

"You okay, champ?"

Dipper nodded. "You just spooked me, that's all."

"Sorry, kid," his father laughed softly, clapping his son's shoulder lightly. "I wanted to show you something."

Dipper was immediately intrigued and followed his father to his workbench, curiously.

Mr. Pines had quite the hobby for building things from scratch; and he was really good at it, too.

Last week, he had made himself multiple "floating" shelves that hung on the wall, in which to organize his various crafting tools on.

The week before last, he'd created a stout, rectangular wooden box, where the inside happened to be blanketed with a fuzzy white carpet, for the Pines' pet pig, Waddles, serving as a secure bed, of sorts.

Well, the pig was really Mabel's pet; she just claimed that the whole family got the "pleasure" and "enjoyment" of living with farm livestock.

Mabel was Dipper's twin sister, whose personality was the exact polar opposite of the paranoia boy; a silly and carefree, energetic spirited girl.

Dipper's father stopped Dipper right before they entered his acclaimed "corner" of the garage, where his wife had given him the free will to do whatever he wanted with it. He had put his section to good use, all his woodwork and materials neatly crowding the limited space.

"Cover your eyes," Mr. Pines told Dipper, walking ahead of his son towards the sheet covering his large counter space and power tools.

Dipper did as he was told, his body quivering with excitement.

"Okay, open them."

Dipper watched as his dad tore the sheet away from whatever he thought was too spectacular to be sitting in plain sight.

"It's...a box," Dipper speculated disappointedly, taking slow steps to the table.

"Yeah..." His father responded in an anticipating tone, like he was expecting something amazing to happen any minute.

Dipper cast a side glance at his dad, who was practically beaming.

Was this some sort of joke? The boy thought miserably. Had his dad dragged him away from Rowling's captivating magical universes, just to come and stare at a box?! A plain, brown cardboard box, nonetheless.

"Well?" Mr. Pines asked anxiously, cutting Dipper out of his thoughts. "Aren't you going to open it?"

Right. Of course. There's something inside.

Dipper grinned sheepishly and got closer to the box, gripping the lid. How much to bet it's another box? He thought bitterly. His family always did that to him. One box, after the next, and then another, so on and so forth until it finally revealed some minuscule gift.

But it wasn't another box.

It was something that didn't take up the capacity of the box, whatsoever, as it sat neatly at the bottom, in the center of the cardboard, wrapped in a single sheet of tissue paper.

Dipper reached inside, pulling it out carefully.

What if he meant to give it to Mabel instead of me? Why is he giving me this? His nervous thoughts drifted around inside his head as he unwrapped the small object.  What should I expect?

Whatever Dipper had been expecting, it certainly wasn't that.