Wendy Week 2026-- Another Submission. I am imagining a bit of backstory for Wendy, in relation to what I had already established in my fanfiction. This takes place shortly after her mother's death, and a few years before Dipper and Mabel come up to visit their Grunkle in Gravity Falls.
Tired. She was so tired. She’d gotten up early, as if she were a farmer’s daughter, as she always did. “Up before the crows have pissed,” her mother used to say. Her mother. Mom.
Best not think of it now.
She pulled on jeans and a tee shirt, and went downstairs to start breakfast. Her brothers’ schoolbooks were neatly arranged on the kitchen table. She’d sat up with Marcus and Kevin the night before, doing homework with them, and helping them to review their lessons until about nine o’clock. Then, after getting them to bathe and brush their teeth, she tucked them all in for the night, except for little Gus. She cradled him in one arm as she did the laundry, rocking him and crooning at him until he fell asleep and she could safely put him down for the night. Gus had taken Mom’s death pretty hard—Well, hadn’t they all? –but the baby of the family couldn’t be put down to sleep until he had been rocked and sung his lullaby, like Mom used to do. Until she got sick.
Their father was still asleep, snoring like a chainsaw in desperate need of a tuneup. Last night, he had, as he had fallen into the habit of doing for the past year, come home from work, turned on the television set, sat in front of it without really seeing it, and drank beer after beer. He stared in the direction of the TV, but he wasn’t focused on it at all. What he saw…what he watched…Wendy knew better than to ask.
Sometimes, if she caught him as soon as he got in, but before he sat down to drink, she was able to show him what bills had come in, and he would give her money for them, or write checks—but it was left to Wendy to hit the bank the next day to take care of them. Sometimes, when Dan was too far gone in his own grief and self-pity, she would sneak money out of his wallet after he’d fallen asleep. She’d take just enough to pay the bills, and the grocery money. Usually, she had to sneak out of school early to make sure she had time to get to the bank.
Wendy sighed and packed Marcus’ and Kevin’s books into their backpacks, and put them on the couch. She went to the fridge and got the lunches out she’d prepared for them the previous night, and packed those, too. It was skimpy today—a couple of baloney sandwiches, an individual package of chips each, and an apple. She slipped a couple of dollars into their lunch bags, just in case. Except for the money needed to keep the household running—gas, electric, grocery money, and the like—she never took so much from her father’s wallet that he would notice. Or that she couldn’t account for.
Wendy went outside and chopped firewood for about an hour. She came back in, grabbed a quick shower, and noted the time. She dressed quickly and went around to wake everyone for the day. There was much grumbling and grousing as Wendy made sure they all put on clean clothes. She banged on her father’s door and called for him to get up as well. An incoherent grunt acknowledged her wakeup call. Only little Gus seemed to wake up cheerfully. He followed his sister downstairs to ‘help’ with breakfast. Wendy cooked while she allowed her youngest brother to set the table. She made sure that her father had a large glass of water and some aspirin ready in anticipation of his hangover. As the others ate, Wendy quickly prepared lunch for Dan and packed his lunchbox. When she finally sat down to eat. Everyone else had almost finished.
“We need groceries,” Wendy told her father as she scarfed her breakfast. “And the electric is due in a couple of days.”
Scowling, Dan pulled out his wallet and extracted a hundred dollars in tens and twenties, and handed it to his daughter. Wendy pocketed it without counting. “I’ll hit the bank during lunch,” she said.
“Good girl,” Dan grumbled, standing up. He went to the door, where his boots and gear were waiting, grabbing his things and leaving for work.
Wendy beckoned her brothers to help her clean up now that breakfast was done. She left the plates in the sink as she got her brothers to the school bus.
“Make sure Gus gets to kindergarten okay!” she admonished Marcus and Kevin as they boarded. She waved at her brothers as they drove off.
But of course, seeing her brothers off meant that she had missed her own bus to middle school. Wendy sighed deeply, holding back tears of fatigue and frustration. Shouldering her own schoolbag, she set off at a fast jog to school. She was going to be late again.
Exhausted, Wendy half slept her way through the day. She affected a ‘cool’ demeanor to hide her weariness. Her teachers would sigh in frustration at her laziness.
She would sit at the back of the classroom where her classmates could neither see her, or reach her to tease her—twice their height, and barely able to fit at her desk…dumb lumberjane…couldn’t even count without using her fingers…backwoods white trash…dorky-looking tomboy…. Wendy would sigh and struggle to remain awake. She knew she would cut school an hour early to hit the bank and take care of the bills and shopping.
Wendy would flit through her school days like a worn-out, chronically fatigued pigeon, trying desperately to keep up with her lessons, despite also trying to hold her family and household together. And then there were those summer vacations when her father, unable to see or deal with the situation in front of him, insisted his daughter find work for the season. It was as if he never noticed all she did to keep things going.
There soon came a day when Wendy stopped trying. She became known as a slacker. A borderline delinquent. And the company she kept didn’t help her image much, either.
As she progressed through middle school, she began hanging out with a new group of friends. They were all misfits of one kind or another—at least as far as the population of the Gravity Falls Middle School was concerned.
There was her oldest friend, Tambry, whom she’d known since she was five. There was Robbie, a kid who had no right to be as moody as he contrived to be, even if his parents did run the local funeral home and cemetery. There were Lee and Nate, who sort of reminded Wendy of a pair of old cartoon characters her father used to laugh at on TV…Beavis and Butthead, was it? She wasn’t sure. And then, there was Thompson, a fat, slovenly nerd, who was mostly friendless, and desperate for others’ approval.
They made quite a motley crew.
It just wasn’t fair! So much responsibility…. Wendy hated it. But…but someone had to handle things, if no one else was going to. What would Mom do in her place? Dad was in no shape to do…well, anything anymore, really. Her brothers were too young. She became sullen and resentful. She missed her mother terribly. Did the others think that only their pain mattered? Did they just dump everything on her, assuming she was strong enough to carry everyone and everything on her back? She certainly didn’t feel strong.
And yet…this was for family. What would Mom have done in her place?
She didn’t want CPS to come break up her family and take her and her brothers away from their father, and separate them, and send them who-knows-where.
And so, she bore her suffering quietly, as best she could, hiding her real feelings from those around her. She used to get up to all sorts of trouble with her friends. A lot of it was, in fact, low-level crime. It caused no end of worry to her father; but for Wendy, the adrenaline rush she got from her shenanigans helped her cut through the perpetual fatigue.
Still, she was always as careful as she could be not to get caught. After all—her father and brothers had no one else to count on. As much as she resented having to take on so much of their responsibility…. She still loved them.
She sometimes wondered if the town constables were really as dim as they seemed. Or, did they wink at Wendy’s crimes, understanding her situation more than they let on? Or, did they fear the wrath of Manly Dan? Or…did they just…feel sorry for her…?
Something else began happening as she progressed through middle school—Wendy began growing into a beauty. This did not go unnoticed by the boys in her school, who were just beginning to feel the stirrings of teenaged hormones as they entered their pubescence. Even the older boys from the high school began looking at Wendy in ways she had never been looked at before. It felt strange. It was a new kind of attention. Positive…or so it seemed to Wendy, after the years of disdain she suffered in grade school. It was…thrilling.
