Some say he's just weird, what with his bright green hair and his dark brown eyes; some say he's like an animal, there to fill the blanks, not speak; some say he's just as good as Perry, quite and mysterious. But she knows who he is. She's his mother, of course. Her name is Louis Brown, Ferb's biological mother. Her brown eyes flair with anger whenever she hears her son referred to as "Phineas's older brother," or "Phineas's manual labor," or "the silent dude in the background"—he was so much more than that. She raised him, for the Big Lord's sake! Okay, so what? Maybe he was sixteen now, and maybe he never knew that Louis existed? So what? Who was the one that Linda came to when Ferb did something so unlike Lawence that she didn't understand it? Who was the one that the redhead came to when Linda didn't know what to do? It wasn't Lawence; it was Louis.
Louis was the one that judged what the green-headed boy did and what it earned—whether it be a pat on the back or a week in his room. She also heard the story Lawence told him about her. She can repeat them word for word:
"Your mother was a monster, Ferb. Don't bother asking. She left us when you were three years old." "She was killed on the street, Ferb." "She was a Mafia, Ferb. The less we knew the better." "We'll never visit her in Britain, boy, not even her gravestone. She hated us; I love her too much to disrespect her last wish: that we leave her be—that we not bother her in the dead."
He was always a good liar. How else would he get her to buy the, I love you routine he pulled with her? She never left them; she was never killed; she wasn't a Mafia; she never wished for them to leave her alone; she didn't hate them. No, none of those tall tales. She was an addict, a drug addict, a crack addict, and thus she was put in jail and rehab. But she was let out five years ago, when her boy was nine. From then on, she was the one raising Ferb. Not that Ferb knew it. But he was about to. She would make sure of it.
Raising her green curls into a ponytail and grabbing her little girl's—which was Ferb's half-sister—hand, Louis smiled.
Yes, Ferb had a half-sister. She wasn't going to lie—she'd been raped in prison by some guard whose name wasn't even mentioned and she's been impregnated. That little fetus turned into the cute little green-headed three-year-old with the brown roots and highlights holding tight onto Louis's hand. Though she hated the way the girl got here, she loved that she was there.
"Mama, why are we here?" the girl asked, a British accent layering her words cutely.
Louis smiled her charming smile at her baby girl. "To visit your brother, baby," she answered as she walked. Pride and anticipation assured her stride and kept her back ramrod strait. The girl with her mother's curls nodded and grasped Louis's hand tighter.
They'd been in America for the last three years, after Louis got out, and Brittany had inherited Louis's voice, or accent at least. The girl also had the green curls and beautiful sky-blue eyes of her mother. Brittany was her name, as aforementioned. She looked like a mini Ferb, minus the highlights and eyes. So cute.
"Mama," she whispered, "what will Big Brother Ferb think of us?"
"I don't know, Britt."
The girl nodded sadly. She wanted her big brother to like her, so, so bad. She was like any three-year-old—seeking approval. And the approval of an older brother was the one thing a baby could never get enough of.
She took a step, dragging her mother along with her.
