Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT Phineas and Ferb. Thank you all for the response! ONLY THREE MORE DAYS.

Meanwhile, the sky was turning ever-so-slightly lighter as Lawrence drove Grandpa and Grandma Flynn's pickup. Ferb and Phineas were up front while Buford and Baljeet were squeezed in the back. "Oh, Buford, try to move over. I can smell your breath!" Baljeet said, shrinking against the wall.

"I naturally take up a lot of space. Besides, I can beat you up, so I suggest that you move over and give the person with the bigger bones more room," Buford said, looking annoyed at Baljeet.

Baljeet sighed, looking out the window before he looked up front and said, "Phineas, how much longer?"

"Well," Phineas said, watching as Ferb shined a flashlight out, "I think the field is coming up soon."

"Oh, here we are, boys," Lawrence said as he turned the pickup. They started down a dirt road, passing a sign that said, 'Picklins' Field' with a SOLD sticker on it.

"It's so convenient that Father went on a field-buying spree after he finished with stars," Ferb said.

"You could say that again, Ferb," Phineas said.

Ferb looked at Phineas and said, "You know that I don't mince words."

"Yeah, my bad, bro," Phineas said as they parked beneath a tall street lamp.

"All right, boys, out of the car," Lawrence said as they followed his orders. He rubbed his hands together to keep warm and to also contain his excitement. "We've got a trebuchet to set up!"

Meanwhile, at the mall, Stacy, Dr. Hirano, Candace and Linda had found a parking space; they walked to the entrance of the mall, which, while the doors were closed, had an incredibly large crowd of shoppers, all chilly and excited, waiting outside of it.

"Goodness, that's a lot of people," Linda said as they passed a tent of sorts. "Let's just hope none of us get trampled."

"Hope not. It would definitely put a dent in our plan of getting Jeremy a Christmas present, right, Candace?" Stacy said; she turned to see her best friend looking off into the distance, looking annoyed at something. "Candace!" Stacy pulled her back and looking her straight in the face, said, "I recall we talked about focusing."

"Ugh, sorry, Stacy," Candace said. She frowned. "I just know my brothers are—"

"Candace, focus! I swear, we have to go over this like twice every two minutes," Stacy said.

Candace took a deep breath. "Right, focus! I will stay focused, Stacy!"

Stacy smiled, and putting an arm around Candace's shoulders, walked them toward the doors of the mall, saying, "You just keep telling yourself that."

"Ah, done!" Doofenshmirtz said. He held up a big sign that said, 'Cheap Christmas Gifts! Absolutely safe!' Perry eyed it, shook his head, and Doofenshmirtz's head came popping out from behind it. "Don't judge me, Perry the Platypus. It's called advertising!"

Doof held up the sign, and, turning away from Perry, started hawking his wares. Perry looked around. So far (since he had come around), nobody had bothered to buy anything from Doofenshmirtz, seeing as it was packaged infomercial stuff that nobody but Doofenshmirtz had the nerve to buy. Though he wasn't terribly worried, he had to stop the doctor's plan, for he wanted to go to sleep that night. It was just a matter of getting out of the unmovable cage.

"Oh boys, this is looking brilliant!" Lawrence said as he and Ferb stood back from the trebuchet. Ferb wiped at his brow and nodded.

Phineas nodded as well, "Sure looks great, Dad." He turned to a device that looked almost like a GPS and a phone combined he held in his hand and said, "I've been scanning; there's no one around here to get hit."

"Oh brilliant, wonderful, Phin, always better to be safe rather than sorry," Lawrence said. "Got the measuring thing?"

"Yep," Phineas said, holding out a piece of wood that looked like gum. He unfolded it; it grew longer and longer and longer, and in the flash- and lantern light, the marks of the inches became distinct. He put it down and adjusting it just so, said, "It measures on for two miles."

"Fantastic," Lawrence said.

Phineas nodded and turning, called, "Hey, Baljeet, Buford, we're ready for the pumpkins!"

"Coming!" Baljeet said from the top of the wheelbarrow. Buford slowly pushed the wheelbarrow along; Baljeet frowned and looking down from the top of the pumpkins, asked, "Can't you move a little faster?"

"Hey, who's the one toting a barrow full of vegetables with a pimply nerd on it?" Buford asked, annoyed.

Baljeet turned away and shook his head.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." Buford brought the wheelbarrow to the trebuchet's side. "So I suggest you stop complaining unless you want to switch places."

"All right, all right," Baljeet said as he slid and then jumped off the pumpkins. The five of them started to unload pumpkins, Phineas and Ferb placing one of the pumpkins into the sling. They climbed off the trebuchet and Lawrence, looking around to see if any of them had wandered off, said, "Ready, boys?"

"Ready," they all said (except for Ferb).

"All right," Lawrence said, "fire!" Ferb started the trebuchet, which pulled back and threw the pumpkin, causing it to sail through the air and land with a sort of squishy noise some distance away.

"Let's go find it, boys!" Lawrence said. Baljeet hurried out of Buford's way, who was hurrying ahead. Ferb looked about and Phineas said, "A flashlight might help, though."

"Well, yes," said Lawrence.

Phineas brought one out of his pockets and said, "Come on, Dad, Ferb."

The three of them walked through the yellow grass of the field, using Phineas's flashlight to spy the pumpkin and Buford and Baljeet, who was letting out annoyed shouts. "Buford, stop walking into me on purpose!"

"Buford wasn't—OH, Buford found the pumpkin! Buford found it!" Buford called out excitedly. Phineas caught Buford in his beam of light. Buford let out a hiss, shielding his eyes as the Flynn-Fletchers came to the pumpkin. It was literally squashed into the ground; Baljeet eagerly skipped over to the ruler.

"Golly!" Phineas said excitedly, kneeling by the smashed vegetable.

"My goodness, what a distance," Lawrence said. "Well done, boys."

"What's the distance, Baljeet?"

"Oh, we are at eight—no—yes, seven hundred feet, six inches."

"We should probably take the truck to check on the pumpkins unless we want to walk several miles this morning," Phineas said, standing up. Ferb marked the pumpkin with a piece of wood marked '1' and Lawrence nodded.

"Let's go back, boys. We've got a lot of pumpkins to chunk!" Lawrence said, following Phineas's flashlight back to the trebuchet, "I say, I do enjoy you Americans' crazy fall traditions."

"Ugh, we're never going to get into the mall!" Candace said. She and Stacy were about two dozen people down from the entrance. She cupped her hands together and shouted, "WHEN ARE THE DOORS OPENING?!"

Several others added their complaints, and a security guard inside of the building said, "It opens at four!"

"That's five more minutes!"

"I can't wait five more minutes!"

"I've already lost two toes to this weather!"

The security guard winced and said as he walked away, "Glad I'm not out there."

Candace frowned and folded her arms. "Let's just hope they open soon or there's going to be an angry mob out here."

"Yeah, that'd be bad," Stacy said. She looked around and caught sight of a tent, with a sign attached to it, saying, 'Cheap Christmas Gifts! Absolutely safe!' She quickly turned to Candace and tugging on her sleeve, said, "Hey, how about we head over to that place?"

"Huh?" asked Candace, turning to notice the sign.

"See, there's nobody there, which is kind of weird, but yeah, let's go," Stacy said.

Candace shrugged and said, "Might as well."

Doofenshmirtz finished up his coffee, still calling out, "Hey, fresh, tasty Christmas presents! Cheap!" People ignored him. "Come on!"

Perry shook his head, but then he caught sight of two pairs of shoes he knew well. Slipper-like and white ones. Why, oh why were Candace and Stacy here? They were going to buy stuff. He knew it. He needed to get out and stop Doof from selling any of the gullible girls anything.

Perry heard Doofenshmirtz say, "Oh, hello there!" and he immediately ducked and pulled off his hat. It was a bit like Mary Poppins's carpet bag, or a TARDIS, or a magician's top hat; he reached a paw in and biting his tongue, rummaged around. He winced when he caught his fingers on something as he tried to ignore the sounds of them talking behind him.

"Hey, we're looking for something your average teenage boy would like," Stacy said. "You know, without being weird or gross or completely off the occasion."

"But relatively cheap, too," Candace said as Doofenshmirtz turned to his merchandise.

"Yeah, that too," Stacy added as she leaned forward.

"Well," Doofenshmirtz said, searching around his items. He picked one up. "How's this?" He set down a grandfather clock that was about two feet tall. He managed to swing the pendulum despite it being wrapped in plastic and said, "Instead of ding-donging when an hour's passed, it plays your favorite song. For example," he wound up the clock and it started to sing, "My name is Doof and you'll do what I say, WOOT WOOT."

Candace and Stacy exchanged looks as it repeated the song and Candace said, "Yeah, no."

Perry let out a breath he'd been holding and started to sweat, despite the cold, as Doofenshmirtz offered many other different things to the girls, which they didn't buy. His paw finally found what he needed; he pulled it up and slapped his hat back on. It was a small container of corrosive acid. It'd work.

"You know what, I think the mall is almost finished with whatever they're doing in there and is going to open, so, thanks but no thanks," Candace said. She grabbed Stacy's arm and said with dragon's breath, "Come on, Stacy."

"We tried," Stacy said as Candace pulled her away.

"Wait, wait, come back! Come on, I'll throw in the apple grater for free! Please! Ugh!" Doofenshmirtz wiped his face with his hands and turned to Perry. His hands slipped away and his eyes widened as Perry looked up, having poured drops of acid on the bottom of the bars.

"Perry the Platypus, really? With my back turned and dealing with customers and everything? Really, Perry," Doofenshmirtz scoffed.

Perry didn't really care what he thought of him; he put away his container of acid and sitting against one end of the box, pushed at the bars with his feet.

"Why do you even try? Those bars are guaranteed to stay locked onto the floor," Doofenshmirtz said. He sighed and said, "Well, I guess I'll try to sell more, though it's not really working. Maybe I should invent a Make-People-Buy-Stuff-inator. You know, I really should. I'm always selling stuff, you should check me up online—"

That was when he was punched in his back. He had failed miserably at being a villain, where you must always have an eye on your nemesis, even if they're caged up in something you bought off of the TV. Especially then.

Perry's bill jabbed at his neck as Doofenshmirtz let out a yelp.

"Ouch, Perry the Platypus! How is your bill so sharp?! What do you do to it in the mornings? Sharpen it? Ouch, stop it!"

Meanwhile, at the front of the mall, the security guard gulped and whispered to himself, "I hate Black Friday," and unlocked the doors. He was promptly knocked about; he had to hold onto a potted plant to avoid getting knocked over by the large crowd. They all hurried in, flooding the concourse. The store owners gulped and immediately unlocked their doors before they raced behind their cashier's desks.

Linda, Dr. Hirano, Stacy, and Candace stood with their backs to everyone as others rushed past them. "All right, we meet back here in two hours, okay?" Linda said. Stacy and Candace nodded and Linda turned to Dr. Hirano and said, "Come on, Elizabeth. I've got a desk with my name on it."

The two moms walked away and Candace let out a loud squeal as she turned to Stacy and said, "What first?"

"Okay, okay, we need to get Jeremy something, first thing. No exceptions, right?"

Candace nodded and said seriously, "Right, no exceptions!"

"All right, first we're going to the sports store by the food court, but, their schedule is weird and they may or may not open at five. If we don't find anything there, we're heading to the music store," Stacy said; she looked up to see Candace at a store's window. She sighed and headed over to the window.

"Candace—"

"Shoes," Candace said.

"WAIT, SHOES?"

Ten minutes later, they came out with two large shopping bags. "Okay, now, we head to the sports store—" Stacy said.

"Wait, Tiny Cowboy exclusive?" Candace said, darting to the music store.

"Yeah, music store can work too," Stacy said as she rushed after Candace.

Upon entering the store (which was stuffed with teenage girls and teenage boys who were dressed sluggishly), Candace squeed and immediately hurried over to the setup of the Tiny Cowboy CDs. "Wait, THREE NEW SONGS? Why haven't I heard of this before?" Candace said excitedly as she grabbed one and hugged it to herself.

"What are they called? Wait, Candace!" Stacy said, breaking out of her music-induced stupor. She turned to Candace and grabbing her shoulders, her bag hanging on her elbow, said sternly, "Focus. Jeremy only tolerates Tiny Cowboy for your sake. We can get him a CD, but it has to be something he likes."

"But . . . Tiny Cowboy. . ."

"You can buy it, but we have to get something for Jeremy too, FYI."

"Yeah," Candace sighed. It was just a matter of finding something.

Thank you all for reading! :)