The Pranker Gnome

It wasn’t a secret at all — Dipper was hopelessly in love with Wendy, but because he was too young, she had never paid any real attention to him. She always saw him as just a kid — a little brother — and treated him that way. There was no chance to change it… but Dipper desperately wanted to try. The boy couldn’t imagine a single day without her. He kept “accidentally” running into her every chance he got. But eventually, he ran out of ideas. He tried everything: impressing her with bravery, with intelligence far beyond his age… but that wasn’t something girls Wendy’s age usually noticed. Now he was lying on his bed. A lamp hung overhead, casting a dim glow. Dipper flipped through one of the diaries, adding his own ideas and observations. He reached a page where the text waqs written upside down and backwards, and half of it is missing. At the bottom was a link to page 55. Dipper turned to it and found information about the gnomes he had managed to meet when Mabel was just about to become their wife. Dipper spent several days mulling over the book. Until he found something written in small print in an unfamiliar language. He searched the internet for information about it and was able to find connections between the letters, then the syllables, then the words, and finally, he was able to understand the meaning. "If you want to call your love to you, go to the forest gnomes." Dipper considered this, but after a couple of days of unsuccessfully trying to reach Wendy, he decided to pay the gnomes a visit. Perhaps they weren't just trying to find a wife but were also doing something useful. Pines walked for a long time, feeling lost in the forest he'd already explored. Every path seemed identical, and he increasingly felt like he was walking in circles. The forest thickened, as if its branches were reaching out to him, blocking his path back. Fog spread across the ground, leaving a damp trail on his boots. The birds had grown suspiciously quiet—only the crunching of branches could be heard somewhere in the distance, as if someone were following him, as if repeating his steps with a slight delay. "This place is creepy," he whispered, swallowing nervously and clutching the diary to his chest. Dipper glanced around several times – no one was there. But whenever he turned back, the trees seemed to shift, obscuring his previous view. Just when he was about to give up, a rhythmic sound came from ahead – squelch, squelch, squelch, like someone vomiting… rainbows. Dipper blinked – and saw a gnome, doubled over, vomiting a multicolored mass. It hissed strangely in the grass, burning holes like acid. "You have no camouflage skills whatsoever!" Dipper blurted out. "I know! Ugh..." The gnome doubled over again. "I wonder if he ever runs out of vomit. I'll have to find out. That'll be my next research." He walked down a very narrow path and found himself in their village. "So, you've decided to give us your sister in marriage?" the leader said, licking his fingers cloyingly. Dipper barely suppressed the urge to vomit. "Actually, could you help me?" "What does a human child want?" "I need your help to make a girl love me." "Ah, I knew you'd come to us for this sooner or later. You do smell like failure." "You've come to the right gnomes," another replied. "We know a thing or two about this sort of thing," a third replied. "Yeah, we all..." the fourth one chimes in, but Dipper shuts him up. "What's the point? What do you need to do?" the teenager asks impatiently. "Um... We'll give you something," "Something," the second one repeats. "Shut up!" the third one yells at the second one. Meanwhile, several dwarves scurry about and fall silent when an object is handed to the leader. "Here! It's a candle. If your love is true, it will burn; if not, it won't. It's all up to you, kid." "I'm not a kid! I'm just a regular, average teenager," the boy protests, then softens when he picks up the candle. There's nothing unusual about it. It looks like all the millions of candles in every supermarket in the country. "What do I need to do with it?" "Just light the wick while saying the name of the one you like." "He-he-he," the other one replied. "Uh... Okay. Heh. Thanks!" The whole way home, Dipper felt like someone was watching him or following him. He turned around many times but found nothing. At home, Pines was eager to light a candle. He was already imagining himself walking with Wendy on her best date ever. Her red hair would be loose, and her dress would perfectly accentuate her figure. There would be several candles on the table, and just the two of them at the table; he just loved to fantasize. He went upstairs to his room and was about to begin, when Mabel stopped him in the doorway. "Hey, hey, where are you going in such a hurry?" "I want to sleep. Nothing more." "You're clearly hiding something, brother." She adjusted a strand of hair on her head and glanced in the mirror. "I have nothing to hide, Mabel," the boy replied with a hint of rudeness, closing the door in her face. "Oh, these boys. You never understand them." She merely shrugged and went downstairs to have fun with her friends. Dipper cleared his small desk, found a stand, and set down a candle. He found some matches in the drawer. He lit one and held it to the wick—it immediately went out. He instantly lit a second one and held it even more carefully to the candle. The wick lit, and Dipper said, "Wendy, my love, be with me forever." The candle immediately went out. The boy looked around and tried to light it again. "We..." he barely managed to say before it went out again. "What's the problem?" Pines looked around. Finding an open window, he decided to close it and try lighting the candle again. As soon as he said the name, it went out. Dipper couldn't figure out what the problem was. Suddenly, laughter erupted from somewhere nearby, and a small gnome emerged from behind a stack of books. "Did you really think we couldn't make fun of you?" he laughed, clutching his stomach. "That's not funny at all!" Dipper shouted, slamming his fist on the table. He was deeply hurt that the gnomes had treated him like that. But what else could he expect from them? "Get. Out.” Dipper, furious, was ready to throw him out the window right then and there. The gnome calmly climbed down and headed for the exit. “Humans are sooo sensitive…”