It was a beautiful morning, just like it had been the morning before, and the morning before that. Tomorrow the Tri-State Area was scheduled for a two-hour downpour, and normally Xavier would have been sitting extra comfortably to make up for it. Today, though, he had other things on his mind.
Uncle-Phineas-As-A-Kid had been right. There was more to summer than sitting under a digital tree all day. Driving around in fifth-dimensional bumper cars was a lot of fun too. Maybe even more. He'd even enjoyed building them, and he thought that Fred probably had too. It was hard to tell with Fred sometimes.
If only he could think of something to do today. Before he'd gone back to his own time, kid uncle Phineas had told them that he got his project ideas from things he wasn't happy with, like small portions at restaurants or people spelling his name wrong. And that was easy for someone from the past to say. But in the future, everything was fine the way it was.
"Hey Fred," said Xavier. "You wanna build something today?"
"Okay," said Fred. "What do you wanna build?"
"I dunno," Xavier replied. "What do you wanna build?" Fred was being Xavier, so he probably didn't have an idea. But maybe he did.
But all Fred said was "I dunno."
Xavier tried to think, but came up with nothing. It wasn't like math, where you had somewhere to start and a process to get to the end. Being creative was hard. "I bet kid uncle Phineas would have an idea," he said.
"Yeah," said Fred.
But he wasn't there. And normal Uncle Phineas was still in Switzerland. So that left... Xavier looked sideways at Fred. "Hey Fred. Can you be kid Uncle Phineas?" Fred always acted like someone else. Some kids found it weird, but it made sense to Xavier. Fred didn't have a himself. He'd said so a bunch of times.
Fred looked thoughtful for a second, then said "No. I didn't meet him long enough."
"Aw," said Xavier, and went back to trying to think.
Amanda stomped into the yard. She stomped most places. "Are you guys doing nothing again?"
"Uh..." said Xavier. They were sitting under the digital tree, but for some reason she didn't seem to count that as anything.
"Typical," said Amanda, stomping back indoors.
"We're thinking about doing something," Xavier called after her.
She didn't seem to hear.
He leaned back and sighed, then jerked forward as the tree flickered and he nearly fell into it.
"Maybe Alicia has kid Uncle Phineas powers," Fred suggested. "Maybe it's hereditary."
Xavier stood up. "Good idea! Let's go ask her."
Alicia was their cousin who lived across the street. She was more enthusiastic than anyone Xavier had ever met, and she seemed to really believe that the three of them, and their cousins Alton and Hal, were destined for something great, just because their parents were great. And Amanda and all of Alton and Hal's half siblings didn't count because they weren't the right age. It weirded Xavier out. Sometimes she rambled about it so much that Xavier had to make excuses so that he could leave.
But if it'd give them a project, talking to her was worth the risk.
They found Alicia in her backyard, trying to walk on her hands. She'd do a handstand, take one hand off the ground, and immediately fall.
"Hey, Alicia," said Xavier. "Neat skirt." He'd never seen one that didn't look unnaturally stiff when it turned upside.
Alicia grinned at him. "Thanks!" she said. "It's anti-gravity!"
"Cool," said Xavier. "Uh... We were wondering... A couple days ago, kid versions of your dad and uncle Ferb came to our house and told us all the fun things we could do over summer."
Alicia stared at them, with eyes so wide they almost touched. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Uh..." said Xavier.
"Uh..." said Fred.
"You met dad and uncle Ferb as kids! I always wanted to meet them! They were amazing!"
"Aren't they amazing now?" said Fred, sounding confused.
"They're adults!" said Alicia, looking at him like he, and by extension Xavier, was an idiot. "Adults are supposed to be amazing! That's what they're for! Besides, dad can't remember everything he did."
Xavier still didn't really understand, but it would probably be pointless to inquire further. "Anyway, building things is fun, but me and Fred don't have any ideas. Do you..."
"Oh my gosh!" Alicia interrupted. "We should all go back in time and ask them for ideas!"
"Actually, I was thinking..." Xavier began.
Alicia got out her handheld Steale computer. "I'll call the others!"
She obviously meant Alton and Hal. This was another reason why Xavier didn't like talking to her very much. She never listened.
.
Hal Doofenshmirtz lay on his back, tapping at his hover keyboard. He'd been lying in the same position for so long that he was beginning to get a cramp in his leg, but he didn't care. He was always happiest when he used a computer. So logically, he needed to use a computer all the time, so that he'd be as happy as he could possibly be. One day he'd be grown up, and he wouldn't be able to computer as much anymore. He didn't want to waste the time he had.
The back door opened, and the smell of sweat and sunscreen wafted over to the couch Hal was lying on.
"Hi, Alton," he said without looking over.
"Hey," said Alton. He sounded a little out of breath. "What are you doing?"
Hal knew from experience that his brother didn't want a full explanation. "Writing a 4D graphics library so I can make programs with 4D graphics."
"Couldn't you just get one of those off the Internet?" said Alton.
He was going to ask him about his daily exercise. Hal knew he was. "But it wouldn't be mine. I'd spend weeks debugging every program I made with it." He hated his daily exercise. Alton did lots of exercise, enough for both of them. Hal didn't see why he had to as well.
"Uh..." said Alton. "Okay. Have you done your..."
"No!" said Hal, more loudly than he intended. "I mean, I'll do it later." He kept his eyes on the screen that his Evv was projecting.
He felt Alton sit down on the other side of the couch. "Come on, Hal, mom says you have to do it, or you'll get sick."
"I'm not sick," muttered Hal.
"Your legs are nearly as skinny as mine," said Alton, poking Hal's knee.
"That doesn't make me sick," said Hal, who didn't believe him. Alton had the skinniest legs out of anyone Hal had ever seen. It was because he had cerebral palsy and couldn't move them very well.
Hal's Evv informed him that he had a message, so he brought it up. It wasn't often that anybody wanted to message him.
It was from Alicia. It read "hal! me and xavier and fred are building a time machine! you should come too! so should alton!"
That sounded like fun. He'd never tried something like that before, but he was sure he could do it. He'd read a few articles about the mechanics of time travel. He thought he had a good grip on the basics.
So he replied "OK Ill ask Alton. :)" He usually ended his sentences with emoticons. People couldn't always tell what he meant even when he spoke out loud, so he thought it was a good idea not to take any chances.
He looked up at Alton. "Does building a time machine count as exercise?"
Alton looked at him with an expression that, as usual, Hal was unable to decipher. "Uh... I guess."
Hal turned off his Evv and stood up, wincing a bit. "Okay, then let's go!"
"What?"
.
Alicia paced back and forth through Xavier and Fred's yard. Hal had said that he and Alton were coming over more than ten minutes ago! Where were they?
"Can we start building yet?" said Xavier.
"Not until Alton and Hal get here!" said Alicia for like the billionth time. "You just keep doing whatever."
"I'm sitting under this digital tree," said Xavier.
"I'm sitting next to him!" said Fred.
Alicia wished they'd stop saying that. She could see that for herself.
"Hurry up, we're almost there!"
Alicia braced herself on the fence and jumped a few times. That sounded like either Alton or Hal. They insisted that they had different voices from each other, but Alicia couldn't hear it. They sounded the same to her.
She jumped as high as she could, and caught a brief glimpse of green hair. It was them! She couldn't tell who was who, but Alton was probably in front and Hal was probably trailing behind, panting. That was usually how it went.
Alicia jumped up and down, waving her arms frantically.
Alton came in through the gate. "Hey, Alicia. We see you. You can stop waving."
Alicia stopped waving. "I'm so glad you could come! We're making a time machine so we can go back in time and meet the kid versions of my dad and your dad!"
"Uh, cool," said Alton. He didn't sound very enthusiastic. But he rarely did. He was probably so excited on the inside that he couldn't think straight. "Why can't we take a teleport and talk to our dads now?"
"Because Xavier and Fred got to meet them, and I don't think it's fair that we can't meet them too!" said Alicia.
Hal finally came up to the fence. "What were they doing here?" he said, between gasps for air.
"They needed Fred's fwooshawizzledoo!" called Xavier.
"I was sitting on it!" called Fred.
"You gave them a tool from the future?" Alicia demanded. She couldn't believe these two. Didn't they watch TV? "Do you know what this means?"
"The past will have become infected with things with stupid names?" suggested Alton.
Alicia glared at him. "Shut up, Alton, this isn't funny! That thing could really mess up the past!" And it wasn't even that stupid of a name. She liked it.
"What if they come back to the present and give it back?" Hal suggested
"Mom told..." Xavier began.
"We can't leave this to chance!" said Alicia.
"Mom..." Xavier began again.
"Perry probably made their time machine disappear!" she continued. That was always happening in the past, or so she understood.
"Mom told them..." said Xavier.
"It's all up to us!"
Xavier waited for a second, then said "Mom told them not to travel to the future anymore. She said it was dangerous."
"Then it's clear!" said Alicia, and posed dramatically. "We go back in time and retrieve Fred's fwooshawizzledoo!"
It didn't have the effect she'd hoped.
"Okay," said Xavier.
"Okay," said Fred.
Alton still looked like he was going to laugh, but he said "Hal can help you with that. He knows how to program in the fourth dimension."
"That program was Euclidean!" said Hal indignantly. "You use spacetime for time travel! They're totally different!"
"But you can do it, right?" said Alicia, suddenly worried. She had no idea where to start.
"Of course," Hal said, so Alicia gave him a hammer.
Hal immediately dropped it, nearly on his foot. "I'm gonna... draw up some blueprints."
.
They'd completed the general structure and most of the circuitry when Amanda came outside. "Now what are you not doing?" she demanded.
Xavier looked up. "Building a time machine."
"I can't believe you're just sitting there when you could be building a time machine!" said Amanda. "I'm telling mom!"
She went back inside.
"Your sister is weird," said Hal.