O.W.C.A. Academy – Undercover Guardians
"That is it! I am not going to tolerate this anymore!"
It was an upset Terry that came walking towards us at the agency's cafeteria. His tramping steps thundered beneath his feet and made the floor shake. In the corner of my eye I saw that rings was being formed at the surface of my tea inside the cup on the table Pinky and I sat by for every step he took.
"What is it?" I asked the turtle, who exasperated pulled out the chair next to me, so that the chair's legs made a shuffling noise against the floor, and sat down with a frustrating sigh.
"Baljeet came home crying from school today again", he told.
"Is it the bully again?" Pinky asked and stirred his tea with a spoon so it clinked against the teacup's ceramic walls.
"What do you think?!" the snapping-turtle snapped sarcastic at him. Then he sighed ruefully. "I am sorry, I did not mean to sound so rude. I just get so upset when I hear that someone is harassing my boy."
"It's okay, I understand", Pinky said. "That bully has been mean towards Isabella too. He claims that she can't be in on some certain things just because she's a girl. And then he stole her bike!"
"He stole hers too?" I asked surprised. "He stole both Phineas' and Ferb's."
"As far as I know, he stole almost everyone's bikes in the whole neighborhood", Pinky said.
Terry suddenly firmly banged his both fists on the table, making the spoon in my teacup clatter against the ceramic. "You know what? I do not care about the agency's rules about not interfering in our host families lives. We can not let this continue! We have to do something about this boy!"
Both Pinky and I looked shocked at the tortoise. Since when did Terry stopped caring about rules?!
"Okay, who are you and what have you done with Terry the Turtle?" I asked.
"What? Is it not our duty as agents to preserve the peace in the society? And as far as I see it, this boy an obvious disturbance that must be eliminated."
"Um, we're talking about a six-year-old here", Pinky pointed out and frowned hesitantly.
"So what? According to statistics, bullies are at higher risk to become criminals in adult life", Terry said. "I say, it would be better for everyone if we nip this in the bud right now before the flower gets too big."
"I admit, I actually agree on that point", I said, "but exactly what can we do?"
"Yeah, it's not like we can just ask him to stop bullying", Pinky said. "That would just cause trouble for us."
He was right. If we gave out our secret identities to him there was a huge risk he would snitch for our owners, which meant all three of us would have to be relocated to new host families. Just the thought of having to leave the Flynn-Fletcher family filled me with anxiety.
"We do not have to take him on face to face", Terry said. "We could just teach him a lesson."
"And what would that be?" Pinky asked.
"Well, we could start with getting him expelled from school", Terry suggested.
"Everyone at school are already aware of his behavior", I remarked low, "and the teachers still don't do anything about it."
"Then I guess we have to spice it up a little", Terry said. "Make sure the teachers can not turn a blind eye."
"How exactly are we going to do that?" I asked.
"We could bust him for a crime", Terry said suggesting.
"How? You mean we're just going to wait until he does something illegal?" Pinky questioned.
"He does not necessarily have to commit the crime. We just need to make it looks like he has", Terry said. "For example, we can make it look like he has stolen someone's cellphone or other valuable thing."
"Hm, I don't know. That might backfire", I said skeptic. "'Cause even if we succeed he's still going to figure that someone framed him. And who do you think he is going to suspect? Right, probably our kids."
"Not if we manage to time everything perfectly", said Terry and grinned mischievously.
"Alright, seriously, what have you done to Terry?" I asked. It was strange to see the usually so reasonable and collected turtle suddenly so psyched up on misdeeds. Though, considering his kid was the one who unfortunately had turned out to become the bully's main victim, maybe it wasn't so strange after all. Maybe I would have reacted the same way if it had been any of my kids instead.
"Do you really think that that is going to make him stop bullying?" Pinky suddenly questioned. "Just because he gets expelled from school doesn't mean he's going to quit his behavior. He's still going to be around in the neighborhood. And even if his family so moves and he gets transferred to another school it's a huge risk that he'll just starts bullying other children there. As far as I see it our actions won't solve the problem, just transfer it."
"That's actually a good point", I had to admit.
"Ugh, you are right", the turtle sighed a bit dispirited, "but how else are we going to tackle this? I do not know about you, but I am not going to just sit around and do nothing while my boy keeps getting hurt."
"Well… I thought of what you said earlier, about nipping in the bud before the flower gets to big", I said. "Well, maybe there is a chance that we can work this out if we try to get to the root of the problem."
"You say we should try to figure out why he bullies?" Pinky asked.
"Exactly!"
"Keep going", Terry interested told me to and rolled his hand toward me as if to show that he wanted me to keep talking.
"Um, well, I haven't really thought of a plan or something yet, but I guess we could try to look him up a bit more. Like, how he has it at home, what he likes to do on his spear time, what his routines are…" I shrugged uncertain. I was really just throwing out suggestions. I had honestly no idea of what I was doing, I'd never done something like this before. None of us had by the way.
"That actually sound like a good idea", Pinky said considering. "We could start with investigating his home. That might give us a better hint of what kind of person he is."
"Yeah, there we might find some clues to if there's something eating him that gives him a reason to bully. And then maybe we can help him", I said.
"Or, we might find some skeletons in his closet that we can use to take him down. Hehe!" Terry said and maliciously rubbed his front feet.
"Okay, now you're seriously starting to scare me", I said.
"So, whatcha think? How about checking out his house now tonight?" Pinky, who seemed very excited, suggested.
"Sure! I have already taken my time to look up the address", Terry informed.
"Then it's decided. We'll meet up outside the Van Stomms house 1 a.m. tonight", I decided. "Deal?"
"Deal!" both answered in unison.
"Ouch! That's my eye!" I said and blinked as I got an orange knee in my face when the turtle was trying to find a comfortable position to stand in on top of my shoulders.
"Oh! Sorry!"
A slight clinking sound was heard above me when Terry took out the tools to pick the lock to the front door in front of us. I turned my flashlight diagonally upwards so he could see better.
"I go and make sure no one's coming", Pinky said next to us.
"Great", I said without looking at him. (Imagine having a large bill and trying to turn your head around while someone's standing on your shoulders.)
The sound of light quick steps was heard behind me when Pinky followed the short path that led down from the door to the garden gate. Terry kept working on picking the lock. After about a minute a click was finally heard, telling that the door got unlocked.
"There!"
Terry carefully climbed down from my shoulders and we called back Pinky. I pulled the handle as cautiously as possible and opened the door. Before we stepped over the threshold, I turned off my flashlight and we all pulled down our night vision visors, which were built in beneath the width of our agent hats, and gave everything detected by our visions a shade of green.
Considering it was a bully's house we were paying a visit to, I had for some reason kind of expected us to step into a quite messy and threatening house. Though, as far as what we could see of the open entry hall, which was connected to the living room, the inside of the house actually looked surprisingly normal. Everything was well cleaned and had a fresh smell. Not even an animal toy was laying on the floor. Though, of course, looks can be deceiving.
"We start of by taking a look around here at the bottom floor before we go upstairs", Terry quietly said suggesting. Both he and Pinky looked like cyborgs, or exterminators, with those visors on. I probably did too.
"Sounds good", I said and so we spread out.
I walked into the living room to start looking around by the bookshelves and by the big couch, which was placed opposite to the TV. The room's design was pretty similar to the living room at my house, apart from that this had different furniture. I walked over to the coffee table next to the couch and took a more closely look at a photograph on it, depicting two people. One of them was a middle-aged woman, and the other one was a young boy. Both were pretty chubby, had dark hair and snub nose. While the woman smiled at the camera, the boy's facial expression was rather sullen and peevish.
So, that was Buford Van Stomm, huh? The guy who's been terrorizing all the kids in the neighborhood, I thought. The woman was probably his mother.
I kept going and decided to take a look inside the bookcases. The shelves were mainly filled with atlases, cookbooks, books about gardening and a book about aquarium fishes I noted. Some of the books had titles in different languages that I didn't understand. Since the words contained letters like Å and Ø I guessed they were written in some kind of Scandinavian language. Terry probably knew which. On one of the shelves was also a small figurine depicting a girl with bright braids, wearing a bright cap with three laces, folk costume and clogs, standing next to a windmill watering tulips.
I continued into the dining room, which was right next to the living room. There, I met Pinky and Terry.
"Found anything interesting?" I asked them.
"More than that he seems to be of Dutch and Norwegian descent? No", Terry said.
"I found a way that leads out to the garage", Pinky told, "and guess what. There are all the bikes!"
"We can't take just them back like that", I remarked. "Then they're going to figure out that someone's been here."
"Yeah, I know that. It's just so frustrating since Isabella misses her bike and knowing that it just stands there", Pinky said frustrated.
"We have to deal with that another day", Terry said. "Did you find anything else of interest in there?"
"Not really", Pinky said.
"Shall we take the upper floor now then?" I asked suggesting.
"Yes, let us do that", Terry thought.
We went back to the entry hall where we had seen the stairs earlier, right opposite to the front door. When we got up to the corridor on the upper floor we could hear snoring coming from one of the rooms, which all had their doors closed.
"Which room do you think is his?" Pinky asked whispering.
"Well, I am not sure, but I would guess that one", Terry said quietly and pointed at the door that had a black poster with a white (presumably, since due to our night vision visors everything just looked like darker and lighter shades of green) skull on and the text 'KEEP OUT!' underneath. Yeah, that seemed pretty likely.
Slowly we tiptoed towards the door. I grabbed the handle and before I opened I turned to my two friends and held one index finger in front of my beak to signal to them that we had to be very quiet when we entered. Both nodded perceptive in response. I slowly opened the door slightly ajar, praying that it wouldn't creak.
Unlike the rest of the house, Buford's room was quite messy. The floor was almost completely covered with clothes, toys and various food- and candy wrappers. The young, unusually big, six-year-old snored audibly in the bed, which was located in the room's farthest corner to the left. The window, which was decorated with two long, hanging curtains with fish motif on, was placed to the right of the bed's headboard, and to the right of it was a desk with a water-filled glass bowl on top. The right end of the room was mainly occupied by a big closet.
I stepped over a pair of dirty socks and carefully headed toward the desk to take a look inside the drawers that supported the table in one end. Getting through the room kind of reminded me a little of one of the exercises they used to teach us at the agency's academy when we were training on crossing a field covered with traps. In the corner of my eye I saw Pinky and Terry follow me close behind. We regularly glanced up at the snoring young boy. Since he was facing away from us all we really saw was the dark hair sticking up by the pillow. At least he seemed to be fast asleep, luckily.
I had to take a quite big step to avoid stepping on a piece of paper from an eaten chocolate bar and almost lost my balance. This room was almost worse than the exercises at the academy.
"Ouch!" I heard Pinky, who was right behind me, suddenly say.
"Sch!" I hushed at him, slightly firmed. We had to be really quiet.
We chose to take a detour around a pile of toy bricks to get to the desk.
"Ouch! Hey, stop that!" Pinky suddenly said to Terry annoyed.
"With what?" Terry asked confused.
"You hit me!" Pinky said quite upset.
"What? I did not!" Terry said puzzled, even a bit indignant.
"Oh yeah? Then who else was it?" Pinky snappishly asked disbelieving. "It couldn't have been Perry." Pinky held out his hand to show that I was walking in front of him.
Through the green imaged caused by the visor, I could see the turtle stare at him totally bewildered with his mouth open.
"Out of which logic reason would I hit you?!" Terry asked frustrated, wildly waving his fore feet, quite loud. "And now of all times!"
"Will you two shut up!" I quietly asked them to, getting a bit irritated. "You're going to wake him…! Ouch!"
Suddenly I felt something small and hard hit me right on the cheek. Both Pinky and Terry stared as petrified at me.
"That wasn't you", Pinky said anxiously to Terry.
"You do not say", Terry said sarcastic, also he a bit worried.
But who was it then?
I looked down at the floor and noticed something small and oval lying next to a tennis ball. I didn't remember it being there earlier. I picked it up, it was a pebble, a wet pebble.
Wait a minute here…
I looked up towards the glass bowl on the table. Down by the rocky bottom I saw something that I, because of the green color the visor showed, first thought was some underwater plants waving around a little. After a closer look though I realized it was actually a tail of a fish that was digging around among the pebbles. The little creature raised his head and swam up to the surface, with a tiny stone in his mouth. There he shot away the pebble, which went through the room straight towards us.
"Whoa! Hey you! Stop that!" I told the fish to while dodging with my upper body to avoid the pebble.
The fish angrily glared at us, then he swam back down to the bottom. He violently started digging around among the rocks again, making the pebbles loudly clattered against the glass walls.
"He is going to wake up the whole house with that noise", Terry said.
"Only if we let him", I said and tiptoed as quickly and quietly as I could towards the desk. In the corner of my eye I saw the others following my example. We got up on the table by using the desk chair and went up to the bowl. The fish swam up to the surface again.
"THIEVES! THIEVES!" he shouted.
"We're not thieves", Pinky tried to convince him.
"No, we promise. Would you, please, keep down a little and let us explai…"
I stopped talking when we all heard a sudden loud snore coming from the bed and when we looked over there we saw the young boy move under the covers. Oh no!
The three of us went over to the edge of the desk to hop down and hide next to the drawers, but before we even got down, however, we heard him mumble something.
"No mom, I don't want to pet the giant squid", it sounded like, and when we turned our heads back we watched him turn in his sleep to continue sleeping on the other side. It was first now that we managed to get a glimpse of his freckled face.
We carefully walked back to the fish bowl.
"Okay, listen here. I know this must look pretty suspicious, but I promise you, there is an absolutely logic reason to why we are here", Terry calmly tried to tell to the fish.
"Uh-huh, and what would that be?" he asked doubting.
"We promise to explain, but we can't do it right here", I said and glanced referring at the fish's owner next to us.
We decided to take the discussion down to the lower floor. We carried the quite heavy bowl out to the garage, the place we thought seemed the safest.
"Alright, who are you and what are you doing in our house?" the fish asked us stern after we had placed down the bowl on the floor next to a toolbox.
"Okay, you see, we three are agents of O.W.C.A.", I started explaining short.
"Yes, and it is our job to preserve the peace around here", Terry added righteously.
"Is that why you're wearing those weird glasses?" he asked and frowned wondering.
"Huh? What? Oh! No! These are just for us to be able to see in the dark… Uh, wait a second!" I excused myself and pushed the button on the side of my hat that pulled the visor up. I thought it would probably be a lot more polite to talk while we all could see each other's faces. In retrospect, I guess it wasn't really that strange that the fish had been so suspicious towards us. We all looked pretty shady with these visors on.
Pinky and Terry pulled theirs up as well. I took out my flashlight again so we all could see each other better. In the light we managed to get a better look at our new little friend. The night vision visors' green color had sure not done his shiny golden exterior justice.
"There! Alright, let's introduce ourselves. I'm Perry the Platypus and these are my friends Pinky the Chihuahua and Terry the Turtle", I told him friendly and held my hands referring towards my to two comrades that were standing on each side of me. "Do you happen to have a name?"
"Yeah, I'm Biff… the Goldfish I guess. So, how come O.W.C.A. has sent agents to snoop around in my boy's room?" he asked, still quite suspicious.
"Um…", I mumbled a bit dumb. We weren't actually here on order of the agency.
"Well, you see, it so happens that your boy has been torturing our human children for quite a while now", Terry told him harsh.
Biff's stern face suddenly dropped to a rather anxious look. "He has?" He didn't sound very surprised though.
"That is right! Do you see all those bicycles over there?" Terry pointed at the bikes that were laying like fallen domino bricks by the wall. "They belong to our kids, which your brat has been stealing from!" the tortoise told outraged. "And for some reason he happens to have chosen my boy as his favorite victim, so he has had to suffer from things like wedgies, physical injuries, humiliation, vandalizing and other kinds of abuse every day!"
Terry was so angry that he almost screamed.
Biff stared at him in shock. "Wait! You're Baljeet's turtle?"
"You bet I am!" Terry said angry with his arms crossed.
Biff turned to me. "And I guess you must me Phineas' and Ferb's platypus then?" he assumed as everything seemed to fall into place for him.
"Yes, yes I am", I said.
"And I'm Isabella's dog", Pinky told.
"Wow… Jeez… I'm… I'm really sorry", he said sad. "I can see why you're all so upset."
"Hmpf! I would call that an understatement", Terry muttered.
"Well, I can't really said I had no idea", Biff admitted and troubled scratched the side of his head with his fin. "I've heard that Buford's behavior against other children hasn't been very good. But I want you to know, he's not really a bad person."
"Yeah right, like you have never heard that before", Terry said sarcastic.
"I mean it. Trust me, I know him better than anyone else", Biff said pleading. "He once saved me from getting eaten by another bully. The reason he then decided to become the new bully of the neighborhood was because he wanted to keep protecting me, and because everyone expected that from a guy like him."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
Biff told about how Buford ever since as a toddler always had been regarded as a problem child. Apparently it went so far that he, after he'd stolen all the bikes, was sent to a clinic there they tried to "fix him". According to Biff, Buford described the place as "prison". I assumed it wasn't an actual prison, but obviously it had been unbearable enough to feel like one. The staying made him very withdrawn and insecure for a long period. It wasn't until he got Biff that he finally got someone to fight for and a reason to stand up for himself. As far as I saw it, the only reason Buford acted like a problem child was because everyone has told him that that's what he is.
"I don't think he really is a problem child. I think he's just restless and easily gets bored", Biff said, then he sighed hopeless. "I really wish he had more friends, besides me, that could help him and get him more activated."
"Well, I bet if he hung around with my boys he would probably get quite activated", I said. "Phineas and Ferb always have a lot of amazing and fun ideas, and are really good at building stuff."
"Yeah, Isabella also has a lot going on all the time", Pinky said. "She's just went over from Lil' Sparks to The Fireside Girls and is very eager to earn as many patches as possible."
"Yeah…! Hey, guys! If we can make Buford become friends with our kids I bet he would be so busy having fun that he wouldn't even have time to bully anymore!" I said eagerly suggesting.
"Yeah! That would be perfect!" Pinky cried elevated. "Or what do you think, Terry?"
We turned to the turtle, who skeptical frowned and pouted his mouth to the side. "Hm…"
"Come on pal! Isn't this why we came here for in the first place?" I encouragingly asked him reminding. "We want to help him, right?"
Terry kept pondering for while. "Well… I can not say that I am big fan of this whole idea, but I guess it is worth a try", he said, a bit reluctantly. "One question though, how are we supposed to persuade our kids to accept Buford into their circle? Because I do not think Baljeet is going to be very excited about that."
"Maybe not, but I bet Isabella would", Pinky said. "She's very positive and open-minded."
"Yeah, and so are Phineas and Ferb. Phineas always says: 'The more, the merrier'", I said a bit lilting and happily swung my arms, trying to imitate my overly optimistic youngest kid. "Besides, I've got an idea. Remember that we're all going to go the water park 10 a.m. tomorrow. Er, well, technically it's today since we've past midnight… Anyway! Since Django got sick in otitis yesterday I suspect he won't be able to join us. That means we've got an extra ticket over."
"Oh! Then we can try to make Buford tag along instead", Pinky, who understood exactly were I was going, finished excited. "That's totally brilliant!"
"Would you really do that for him?" Biff asked us, pretty amazed.
"Of course we would. After all, we are agents of O.W.C.A.", I reminded him and proudly hit myself on the chest. "This is what we do."
"I would be forever grateful if you'd like to help him", the fish said and seemed quite moved.
"Not that I like to sound pessimistic or anything, but exactly how are we supposed to make our kids bring him along?" Terry questioned, still pretty skeptical.
"Did you say you're leaving 10 a.m.?" Biff suddenly asked.
"Yes", I answered.
"Buford always takes me out on a walk 9:30 every morning on free days."
"That's perfect! Alright guys, I've got a plan, but we're going to need your help, Biff", I said.
"I'm in on whatever you think might help my boy", Biff said.
"I wanna, wanna, wanna have fun, fun, fun!"
"Yeah, that was Lindanas old hit single from the 80s that you just heard this lovely morning. Very soon we're going to play some Love Händel and after that you'll get the 9:30 news…"
The sound of the radio inside the Van Stomm's kitchen was heard clearly out through the open window just above me. I had hidden myself among the briers growing by the building, right next to the front door. I looked down at my watch/wristcommunicator to check what time it was. It was 9:27. They should probably pop up at any time now. According to Biff, the Van Stomm's are very punctual. Patiently waiting, I leaned my back against the wall, enjoying the sound of 'You Snuck Your Way Right into My Heart' and took the opportunity to take a little snack, consisting of tiny white moth caterpillars that were crawling around among the branches. Yummy!
Right when the song came to its end the front door suddenly opened and out stepped the young chubby boy. In his hand he held a translucent water-filled bowl with Biff inside. It was another, smaller, bowl than the one from yesterday, made out of plexiglass according to Biff.
I took a quick glance at my watch. Right on time.
"Mom! I'm going out with Biff now!" the boy cried into the house with a pretty hoarse voice.
"Okay!" a lilting female voice responded from indoors before Buford closed the door.
I followed them both with my eyes as they walked down the small path, leaving the garden. I saw the boy's dark-brown hair stick up behind the hedge that grew by the garden edge as they continued walking along the sidewalk to the left. Just as expected.
I started dialing on my wristcommunicator, calling Pinky.
"The target is moving in your direction", I whispered to the little chihuahua, whose face appeared on the communicator's round display. "The fish is in the bowl."
"Got it! I let the sound be on for you so you can hear if everything goes as planed", the puppy, who was hidden behind another shrubbery one block away, replied.
"Perfect", I said.
"Oh, I see him now", Pinky announced with his head turned away from the screen. "Alright, see ya soon!"
"Good luck!" I said before the puppy turned off the screen. From the speaker I could hear footsteps coming closer and closer.
"Arf arf!" I heard Pinky playfully bark in the other end. Then the sound of teeth closing around the edge of something made of hard plastic was heard.
"What the…? Hey! Stupid dog! Give that back! BIFF!"
The sound of whining wind and gravels repeatedly getting crushed under several pairs of running feet roared out of the speakers like the sound of a broken tape recorder.
I put the call on hold and then called Terry. It took a little while before he answered, probably because he needed time to go somewhere safe so we could talk undisturbed. When the turtle then answered I could see in the background that he's hidden himself under the kitchen sink at my house.
"It worked. They're on their way", I informed.
"Great!" Terry said. "They have already started packing over here. You better hurry back, Phineas is starting to wonder were you are."
"I'm there in a few minutes", I promised, already starting to get up on my feet, using my free hand to hold away the branches from my face.
"Okay, see you soon! Over and out!"
"Over and out!"
I hung up and crawled out of the bush. I hasty dusted dirt and bark pieces off my fur on my way to the Van Stromm's trashcans around the corner of the house where I knew O.W.C.A. had an entry to the agency's underground tunnel system. I checked my communicator to make sure the tunnel was still connected to the Flynn-Fletcher's house, just in case the system had been used by an other agent since the last time I went through it. It had not, which I suspected. I pressed on the remote control that was inbuilt in the communicator and watched as a square part of the lawn in front of me descended into the ground a couple of inches and then get pulled aside into a narrow jack underneath, revealing the end of a circular pipe that was about two and a half feet in diameter. I could feel the suction power that came from the tube getting stronger the closer I leaned towards it. Without wasting time, I jump forward, feeling the power grabbing me and pulling me down into the pipe.
Going through the tunnel felt a bit like riding on air surrounding your whole body. The strong suction made that I was hindered to hit the walls and instead was held firmly in the center. Although it was possible to see that the tube was getting curved during the trip, it was impossible to tell in which direction you were going, or even if you were turned up-side-down or not. It was an awesome journey that tickled in the stomach, I could do this all day. WHEEE!
I noticed that it started to get lighter inside the tunnel due to that I was approaching the end, and after just a few seconds the gray walls was exchanged to a light blue sky. I felt the suction ease and I instinctively turned myself in the air and landed with both feet on the grass behind the big tree in our garden. I landed just a few feet in front of the waiting Terry.
"Admit it. The only reason you came up with your part of the plan was because you wanted an excuse to ride through the pipes", he said.
"Ah, don't be so grumpy, you'll get to ride the waterslides later anyway", I said and couldn't help but smiling jokily. I was still a bit elated after the ride. "So, how are things going around here?"
"They are by the garage loading the car", Terry told.
"Alright, then let's go and join them", I said and took off my fedora. "Pinky and Biff should be here any minute."
"Sounds good", Terry said and also hid his hat away. Then we both went down on all fours and walked in through the open back door, which led into the kitchen. In the dining room we run into Phineas and Baljeet.
"Oh! There you are, Perry!" Phineas said when he noticed us and happily picked me up in his arms. "Lucky we found, or else you would have missed all the fun."
"Now we just need to find Pinky, and then we can leave", Baljeet said and picked up Terry from the floor.
The two boys carried us along out through the front door to the red car, which was standing outside the garage, where Ferb was helping his father to organize all the bags in the luggage space. I noticed that Candace had already taken place in one of the car's eight seats, texting on her cellphone. From outside the driveway, Isabella came running towards us.
"Oh! You found Perry, great!" she said. "You don't happen to have seen Pinky as well?"
"No, I'm afraid not", Phineas said sorry.
"GIVE ME BACK MY GOLDFISH, YOU LITTLE CREEP!"
Everyone's heads turned to the driveway where Pinky suddenly came running with Biff's fish bowl in his mouth. Nearly half of the water had got emptied during the trip, and if I wasn't mistaken I think poor Biff looked a little nauseous inside. A few seconds later, a panting Buford also came up behind them.
"Pinky! What have you been up to?" Isabella asked shocked and took the bowl away from the puppy's mouth.
"That's your dog?" Buford asked upset and went up and snatched back the fishbowl. "You better learn to get that thing under control! He tried to eat my goldfish!"
"I am really sorry, Buford. Bad, Pinky! Bad dog!" Pinky whined a little and hung his head in shame. Poor Pinky! "Though, I don't think Pinky wanted to eat your fish", Isabella said and picked the chihuahua up in her arms. "He probably just wanted to play with it.
"Oh yeah? Well, Biff sure didn't want to play!" Buford snapped.
"I didn't know you had a pet, Buford", Phineas suddenly said.
"Um… Okay, so what?" Buford said.
"Aw, it's so cute!" Isabella said and leaned forward to take a closer look at the little goldfish. "You said his name was Biff?"
"Yeah, but that's none of your business!" Buford snapped and pulled the fish bowl away from her. Then he glanced a bit curious at the car behind him. "So, you're going somewhere or so?"
"Yeah! We're going to the water park!" Phineas told excited. "You know, the new one where you can swim with your pets. We're going to bring ours." He referring held me up towards him.
"Uh-huh", Buford mumbled in an attempt to sound indifferent, but I could see how he wistfully continued to glance at the car on and on.
"Django was supposed to have joined too, but he got sick", Phineas told. "So, if you want to come along we have an extra ticket left."
I couldn't help but to proudly smile a little bit for myself on the inside. That's so Phineas. I knew he would suggest that.
"Is that really a good idea?" Baljeet questioned quiet and frowned skeptic.
"Ah, come on Baljeet. You know, the more, the merrier!" Phineas said optimistic.
Do I know my boys or what?
"Why would I want to go with you nerds?" Buford asked a bit crusty.
"Well, because it's fun", Phineas said and shrugged a little. "Who doesn't like having fun? We're going to ride waterslides, jump from trampolines…!"
"You're not planning any of your crazy ideas again, are you?" Candace, who suspiciously stuck her head out of the car's open door, asked, frowning.
"Besides", Isabella said to Buford, "I think Biff sure would enjoy it."
"Hm…" Buford frowned thoughtfully. He held Biff's bowl closer to his face and looked wonderingly at the fish. "What do you think, bud? Would you like that? Swimming in a big pool and all?"
Through the transparent plexiglass all I could see was Biff stint staring back into his eyes. After a moment, the oversized boy lowered the bowl and turned back to us.
"Fine, I'm coming along, but only because Biff wants to", he finally said. "But I need to get home and tell my mom and get my stuff first."
"Wonderful! Then we'll drive over and pick you up right after we're done here", Lawrence said behind the car. "I'll go and tell Linda the news."
"Can we finally leave then?" Candace asked impatient.
As decided, we all got ourselves ready and after a few minutes we were all seated inside the car on our way to the water park. Pinky, Terry and I were in the trunk, in our respective travel cages, along with Biff in his lidded fish bowl.
"I can never thank you enough for this", the fish said deeply gratefully to us. "Buford is very happy and excited to come along. He probably won't admit it, but I know."
"Oh, that was nothing", Terry said.
"Yeah, like we said, it's our job to help people", Pinky reminded.
"That's right", I said. "Wherever there is trouble in the world, you can count on that the agents of O.W.C.A. will be there to help out. Remember that."
THE END