Chapter 4
Isabella laughed nervously. "Um…I'm bet you're a little confused right now…"
Phineas raised an eyebrow. "Immensely."
Isabella laughed again. Baljeet walked over, teetering back and forth a bit, feeling a little woozy.
"Um…okay…how to put this…"
"Speaking of Buford," Baljeet started, "where is he?"
"Good question," Phineas replied. "You haven't seen him this morning?"
"Well, I walked here with him this morning like we always do, but then I came over here and he went to go-" Baljeet suddenly realized what he was about to say. "-I mean, uh…he had to, uh, d- u- he…" The others stared at him. Baljeet fidgeted nervously. "You know, I think I might have a concussion from falling out of the tree, I'm going to go give myself a CAT scan."
And with that, Baljeet ran from the backyard as fast as his legs would carry him.
"That was somewhat out of character," Ferb observed.
"Anyway…" Phineas started again. "What were you saying, Isabella?"
Darn it! I was hoping he'd forgotten about that. "Oh, uh…" Isabella sighed and lowered her head. "Okay, look. I…I'm a pretty frequent daydreamer. You probably can't tell because usually I can keep my focus at the same time…usually. For instance, today, I keep getting lost in my day dreams because…weird stuff keeps happening. In my head, I mean."
Phineas cocked his head to the side. "Like what?"
"Well…Like…Buford."
"Buford?"
"Uh-huh. He isn't usually in my day dreams. At all. Today, he was in all of them."
The corner of Phineas's mouth turned upward for just a split second, not even long enough for Isabella to notice the smirk.
"But that wasn't the weird part. The weird part was that I didn't seem to have control over him."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, It's my imagination, right? I should be able to control everything that goes on inside my head, right?"
Phineas shrugged. "Right."
"But I couldn't make Buford do what I wanted him to do. I tried to imagine him leaving and…" Isabella's mouth suddenly dropped open. "And…he started talking to me! And I wasn't imagining that!"
"I don't follow."
"It's like there was a sentient 'Buford' inside my imagination doing whatever he wanted! Thinking for himself, independent of my thoughts."
"Is that even possible?" Phineas asked.
Isabella glared at him.
"Okay, point taken. We do a lot of impossible stuff."
"Phineas you gotta help me figure out what's going on!" Isabella was practically pleading. "Every time I imagine something, Buford is in there, running amuck in my subconscious!"
Now Phineas couldn't hold back the smile any longer. "Are you sure you're not thinking about Buford for a different reason?"
Isabella narrowed her eyes. "Like what?"
"Like…maybe you like him. He's not here so you can't stop thinking about him."
Isabella gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. "Phineas…It is taking all of my self control to keep from wringing your neck right now."
Phineas's eyes went wide and he took a step backwards. He looked scared. He whispered in Ferb's ear, "Suddenly, I envy Baljeet for having left." Ferb nodded. He turned back to Isabella. "Sorry, Isabella. Ferb and I will get to work."
"On what?"
"You'll see."
The lobster in the tree forgotten, Phineas and Ferb headed to the garage.
Doofenshmirtz sat on a box, thinking hard for a solution. Perry was thinking hard, too. He was thinking that Doofenshmirtz was posed exactly like "The Thinker."
Doof suddenly sat up. "Ooh, I know! I could…Oh, no, that won't work. I didn't take into account the melting point of silicon."
He started thinking again. "Oh, I could-! Nope, that won't work, either."
Perry was getting a bit frustrated.
"Oh! I got it! I got it!"
Perry perked up a bit.
"I am definitely having that ham steak in the freezer for dinner!"
Perry got up off the floor, walked over to Doof, jumped up on the scientist's lap and slapped him the face.
"Hey!" Perry put his hands on his hips and looked Doofenshmirtz in the eye. "Okay, you're right, I deserved that."
Perry jumped down as Doof stood up and walked back inside. "Don't worry, I'm still thinking. I'm just going to take the ham steak out of the freezer to defrost."
Perry rolled his eyes.
"Okay…It is really boring in here."
Buford had been sitting in the dark for at least ten minutes now. And he was bored.
"Well, I gotta do something to pass the time." He removed the ball of twine and the quarter-twenty nuts from his pocket and set them on the "ground." He started threading the nuts onto the twine, one at a time and tying them in place, evenly spaced.
"I don't know what's worse: The constantly changing scenery, people, and impossible occurrences, or the never ending blackness." He picked up the string and inspected the spacing of the five nuts he had strung so far. "Or the fact that I'm stringing nuts onto twine to pass the time."
"All done!" Phineas announced.
Isabella had been sitting against the tree on the side facing the fence, trying to keep her mind clear of any thoughts at all. She stood and returned to Phineas and Ferb when Phineas spoke.
Before her was a small table, just big enough for one person to lay out on, and a large computer console next to it, a bundle of wires connected to it laying on the key board.
"That's great, Phineas!" Her apparent excitement faded. "What is it?"
"Uh…we didn't actually think of a name for it. But, not important. This device will allow us to see what you're imagining. We hook these electrodes up to your head-" He pointed to the bundle of wires on the key board. "-and then we'll shut down your cognitive functions so we can get a-"
"Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!" Isabella cried, waving her hands out in front of her. "Back up the truck! What are you gonna do to me?"
"We're going to shut down your cognitive functions."
"Okay, explain that to me in a way that doesn't make it sound like you're going to kill me!"
"We're not going to completely shut down your brain. All your involuntary bodily functions, like your heart beat and breathing, will still continue. We only shutting down the part of your brain that does conscious thinking."
"Mmm…I don't feel much better. Besides, if you do that, how are you going to see what my imagination is doing?"
"Well, your imagination isn't really dependent on your ability to think. That's why every night, you have multiple dreams but don't realize it. By shutting down your cognitive thought, we can see what you're imagination does on it's own, with only your memories as a guidance system."
Isabella looked a little confused. "Alright," she sighed. "I don't really completely follow, but I trust you guys."
Phineas smiled. "Great! Just lay down here on this table. Ferb will attach the electrodes while I get the computer ready to go."
Isabella sat down on the table and slowly leaned back. Ferb picked up the electrodes and separated the first one from the group. He licked the suction cup on the end and stuck it right in the middle of Isabella's forehead before she could protest.
"Ugh! Ferb, that's disgusting!"
"How else am I supposed to make them stick?"
"I have it easy, you know," Doof told Perry as he filled the kitchen sink with water. "I never have to worry about fixing my mistakes because you always blow them up for me."
He shut off the tap and dropped in the ham steak to defrost. "That's why I can't come up with any ideas. I don't usually have to do something I already did backwards."
Perry suddenly had an idea, but of course, being that he couldn't talk, he needed to find another way of conveying it to Dr. Doofenshmirtz. He scanned the kitchen until he spotted a large carving knife. On the counter next to it was a loaf of Italian bread.
This gave him an idea. He grabbed the loaf of bread and the knife and put them on the table. He sat down in a chair and started carving up the bread into letters. He was spelling out a message.
"Ready, Isabella?" Phineas asked.
"I guess so."
"Okay, here we go!" Phineas pressed the ENTER key. "It might take a minute to completely shut down your mind."
Isabella stared up at the sky. Though she had tried to keep her mind completely free of any thoughts, she couldn't help it as she prepared to lose consciousness. Don't think about Phineas. Don't think about Phineas. Think about anything but Phineas!
As her vision started to fade to black, the last thing she pictured in her mind was Phineas's face.
Darn it!
And then she was out.
I just saw on the Phineas and Ferb wiki, and , that next year, summer of 2014, there is going to be a Phineas and Ferb hour-long STAR WARS episode! YES! I have never been so excited!
It's kinda ironic, too, because in P&F Industries #7: Phineas and Perry-Intrepid Avengers I gave Perry, Doofenshmirtz, and Phineas lightsabers.
Only thing that could make Phineas and Ferb more awesome: lightsabers.
