it starts the first day of school after they get back when some of the same old bullies that have been tormenting the twins for ages show up for the first shakedown of the year. they expect fear, embarrassment, anger, like they’ve gotten before. they’re completely floored when the twins just start laughing like they’re the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. unnerved, the other kids wind up slinking away without throwing a single blow.
in gym class it’s discovered that the twins play dodgeball for keeps now. no one can touch them, and no one quite understands when Dipper got that arm strength or how Mabel can practically thread a needle with those nerf balls. the gym teacher overhears them talking to each other about how “this is nothing compared to Globnar”. when questioned, they trade glances and hastily claim they’re talking about a video game.
for the section on presidents in their history class all the kids had to pick a president and do a report on them. most of the kids picked Washington or Lincoln. Dipper and Mabel picked William Henry Harrison and Martin van Buren, respectively. the teacher doesn’t get why they kept smirking at each other the whole time they were doing their reports, or why Mabel did hers in a top hat.
they trade notes all the time that appear to just be random configurations of letters. none of the teachers can figure it out and are convinced the kids are just trying to get a rise out of them, but the school librarian finds one left in a returned book and realizes it’s an Atbash cipher. he doesn’t tell anyone, but he sneaks a reply into the next book Dipper checks out. before long the twins have a new friend.
Dipper’s science textbook is ridiculously heavily annotated. a lot of stuff is crossed out or just has WRONG written over it. when he has to write a report on a famous scientist, he picks Carl Sagan. the finished product is three times as long as it needs to be and contains some odd comments like “red turtlenecks are necessary scientist attire” and “unfortunately alien life is not as benevolent as he predicted”.
Mabel joins the school’s Model UN and somehow manages to establish a new country and then take over the world. no one is quite sure exactly how that happened, but she’s established world peace.
there’s a new kid in their class this year, and he has a birth defect; two of the fingers on his right hand aren’t fully formed. someone calls him ‘freak’ once, and only once, because as soon as the word is out of their mouth the twins are suddenly right there telling them to take that back. word gets around and no one makes fun of him ever again; no one’s quite sure what would happen but somehow they don’t want to risk it. the twins have lunch with their new friend every day. his name is Henry and he likes to draw. by mid-October he’s been included in the Atbash circle.
both the twins have a habit of scribbling over any triangles that show up in geometry homework or tests, especially if they’re equilateral. their answers are fine, they show their work, but apparently they just don’t like triangles. sometimes even the dollar bills they use in the cafeteria vending machines have X’s over the pyramid. their teacher is flummoxed and brings it up at the next parent-teacher conference. the twins’ parents shrug. this is a new one on them.
sometimes the kids don’t seem to have slept much the night before and often they’re a lot twitchier than your average thirteen-year-old. their stories about their summer vacation don’t always line up. their parents worry. they’re sure they only left their kids with one uncle, but sometimes they seem to be talking about two.
