Chapter 20

Gleaming white in the afternoon sun, the summation of ideals and the legacy of a summer, she proudly floated high above the city. Like a sea-going ship, her name was stenciled in easily visible letters: the Make Summer Last Forever. Across the side of her northern face the red paint boldly declared exactly what her purpose was—what her builders hoped she would achieve. But dreamers though her creators were, never in even their wildest ones would they have guessed how literally her present occupants were taking this appellation.

Stacy believed this party was beginning to get a little excessive. No, that was an understatement. The teenagers surrounding her had danced and reveled their way into a sort of drunken fever. Chants of "No More School!" were breaking out quite regularly now, as were the loud crashing sounds made in the distance when a sect of partiers got a little too carried away and smashed something. More and more, the park was becoming trashed with glass shards from windows and TV screens that had been shattered, littered with cups and used cans of soda, and strewn about with bits of food and other odd pieces of junk for good measure. Once she even saw a small band of pyros setting a wooden table on fire.

It hadn't bothered her much at first. Stacy knew a good party always left a mess afterwards, that was just the nature of the beast. And when she got tired of tip-toeing over shattered glass or spilled juice, there was always the next park attraction and one of Phineas and Ferb's many amazing rides to take her mind off it. It was too bad Candace wasn't here to enjoy it with, but she'd decided to fill the BFF vacuum with her other friends while Candace waited out her grounding. Jenny, Olga, Chicago Joe, Coltraine, they were all here at this party as well, and she'd hung out with each of them already. But something about an unending party was exhausting.

The worn-out Stacy found a spot alone where she could rest her feet. Maybe this party wasn't all it was cooked up to be, she thought when a gaggle of boys a couple years younger than herself broke into another round of "No More School! No More School!" nearby. Still, if Candy was here, at least she'd have someone to be with, and it wouldn't be so bad. At that moment, Stacy overheard the name "Love Händel" and focused on where in the background din it came from.

"…The Concert Hall is right next to the Snow Cones Shack," somebody was telling her circle of friends. "That's where the Love Händel concert is gonna be."

"It starts in fifteen minutes, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, so you'd better hurry if you need to go to the bathroom first."

A Love Händel concert, Stacy mused. That should help take her mind off things, and it did sound pretty fun. She rested for another couple minutes and then headed to the Concert Hall.

It was filled near capacity by the time she arrived, exactly fashionably late. Oddly the show still hadn't started. Stacy weaved through the crowd, looking for a good place to enjoy the concert. She hadn't yet settled on one when she began to hear boos raise up from the crowd. Turning to see what was the matter, Stacy looked and saw that, instead of Love Händel taking the stage, there was a teenager in all black and a shorn head.

He looked fiercely over the crowd, puffed out his chest, and said, "You booin' me, wallaby?" Intimidated, the booers hushed.

"I love you, Tommy!" a girl somewhere screamed.

"Thanks, babe," Tommy said, and there were more than a few snickers.

"Look, I know you were expecting to see Love Händel," he told the rowdy audience, "but they ain't here. This is my ship, and what I say goes, and I say that no adults are allowed!"

The fickle throng whistled and cheered at that. Tommy held up his hands and waited for silence to continue.

"That's right. We have kicked off all the grown-ups on this entire ship. Now, it's just us, with nobody nowhere to tell us what to do! Unfortunately, that means that Love Händel is gone, too, but there are no exceptions! No adults are allowed on my ship! I don't care who you are or where you're from, if you're eighteen and older, you are done!"

Cheers rang through the auditorium once again, louder this time. Now that they were with him, the speaker let them cheer without truncation, and a few more choruses of "No More School! No More School! No More School!" echoed through the halls.

Stacy watched with mixed feelings. Something about all this just didn't feel right. Yet at the same time, she envied the thought of never having to write another essay or figure out another math problem in her life. While she struggled with her inner feelings, the roughneck on the stage went on.

"Here's the thing, guys. I want you to enjoy yourselves. I want you to have fun. I want you to be free. It doesn't make me happy that you don't get to hear a Love Händel concert today. So I'll tell you what we do have. We have a different band here to play for us, tonight. They're a personal favorite of mine, an indie heavy-metal band called The Deaf Puppies Who Had Their Souls Ripped Out and Sold, and—"

Even with a microphone, Stacy couldn't hear what this Tommy said next over the screams of pleasure that rang out. Though somehow she did manage to hear the same shrieking girl as before; "I love that band!"

"—And they're ready to blow the roof off this place," Tommy finally finished as soon as he could be heard. "But before they go, they wanted me to tell you guys to be as LOUD AS YOU CAN! This is MY ship, and the only rule besides there are no grown-ups is that THE PARTY NEVER STOPS! We're gonna stay up here forever, so stand up and welcome THE DEAF PUPPIES WHO HAD THEIR SOULS RIPPED OUT AND SOLD!"

The air exploded into noise and chants. "No More School! No More School! NO MORE SCHOOL!" Even Stacy found herself joining in on it, deciding the excitement was too contagious.

The Deaf Puppies led into their first song, and the lights went out to be replaced by strobe lights of many colors and varieties, which danced over the writhing human bodies. The face-painted lead singer screamed into the mic.

"All this time I've cried to myself every night!
I've fallen down the footsteps of life!
My dreams grow dark, and I come home
To find my fears left me alone.
Some doors, they faced me, I looked away,
Poverty's doorstep, every day!
We sent the toothpaste on its way,
I fought it! I fought it! I fought it!

When we come crashing down,
You know the time is right to send it packing!
I stand, but kneeling, I'll be shown
Can't stop hegemonies on your own!
Can't stop hegemonies on your own!

Even though nobody had any idea what the lyrics meant, they spun and gyrated to the fullest extent their bodies could achieve. The electric guitar solo electrified the listeners to move at superhuman speeds that they maintained by a level of endurance only dancing frenzied teenagers could hope to manage. In short, it was a typical heavy-metal rock band concert.

When the water buffalo shine the lights
The ancient Greeks didn't know how to burn,
Charlemagne is gonna play the tambourine
While red fish dance in shores forgone.
The stars fall down and the oceans rise
The earth meets up with the cloudy skies
And lightning ricochets across the night.
You'll find out it's a glorious sight!

Stacy didn't even like heavy-metal that much, she just got caught up in the emotion of it all. Now she wondered how she could ever have thought a party that went on forever was a bad idea! It rocked! She danced and whooped just like the rest of them.

Outside the Concert Hall, the police squadron approached the noisy venue. Loud music could be heard coming from inside, attracting the force to converge on the concert. As one, they burst in and found the spectacle of hundreds of teenagers banging heads and flailing arms to the beat. It was so loud, nobody noticed the intruders arrive and begin hand-cuffing people in the back of the crowd.

The lead singer finally saw what was going on and stopped screaming into the microphone mid-sentence. His band noticed and gave each other questioning looks. "Stop, stop, stop," screamed the singer, although it was no longer the screamo type of scream, but the fearful type. "The cops are here! Everybody scram!"

It took several seconds of confusion for the words to register in the listeners. But the music had screeched to an ear-grating stop, and the wailing in the rear could now be heard. Now everyone began to see the cops toward the back of the room as they rounded up as many kids as they could reach. It suddenly became pure pandemonium as they all stampeded for the exit.

The police chased after, arresting every soul they caught. Within minutes, the only people still in the Concert Hall were those who were handcuffed. The rest of the partiers scattered across the park, like a herd of gazelle that had been attacked on the prairie by a pride of lions, with more being captured every minute. Everyone who was arrested was brought back to the Concert Hall to wait, while the police officers headed back out to bring in more of the rebellious partiers.

Stacy was being thronged on all sides as she escaped through the side doors. There was lots of pushing and shoving, and the bottleneck made progress agonizingly slow. Finally she squeezed her way through and sprinted to a nearby building for cover. It was a Hall of Mirrors, and Stacy weaved through the maze of reflections to hide with a group of girls maybe a little younger than her in a corner. It was dark inside here. Crouching with the others, she paused to catch her breath.

"What are we gonna do, you guys?" one girl asked the rest.

"I dunno, but my Mom's gonna kill me."

"Yeah, they're gonna catch us, and then they're gonna take us to jail! I'm too young to go to jail!"

"I'm scared!"

"Me too!"

"Well, they're gonna find us for sure, if you keep talking!" Stacy found herself rounding on the others. "Shush!"

Everyone stopped and listened, and sure enough, they heard the sound of boots somewhere in the building.

"They're coming for us," one of the other girls whispered. "Shouldn't we run?"

"Shh!"

Stacy peeked under a row of mirrors through a tiny gap near the floor. "I think I see one of them," she offered. "Maybe we can find a way to sneak around behind them."

Before anyone could react, however, the girl that kept talking lost control and bawled loudly. Everyone cringed as her wails rang out through the building, and Stacy facepalmed. One of the crying girl's friends slapped a hand over her mouth to silence her, but it was too late.

"Police, freeze!" shouted an officer with a flashlight as soon as he spotted them, leading a group of four other cops with him.

Stacy just sighed as she raised her hands up in surrender.

Like Stacy, many who were on board the ship found refuge in the attractions Phineas and Ferb's park offered. One group of young boys were running from two cops when they jumped on a roller coaster to keep away. The cops got in a car behind them and rode the coaster on their tails. As soon as the ride looped back to end where it began, the boys jumped out—exiting to their left, like the voice recording on the loud speaker commanded—as did the cops, and the chase continued on.

At one of the swimming pools, several kids jumped in and swam to the opposite bank of the pool. Some cops who had followed stopped at the water's edge.

"Aw, man!" one officer expressed. "How are we supposed to get them now? It's all wet!"

His partner rolled his eyes before shoving the hesitant man in, then jumped into the water himself to swim after them.

"Oh, great," complained the first officer, as he dumped water out of his cap. "Now my badge is gonna rust!"

Elsewhere in the park, five or six cops were trying to force open a locked door. Overhead, the kids locked inside had climbed onto the roof, and wielded slingshots for taking aim at the cops below with a small supply of water balloons. They let them fly, and Splat! Splat! Splat! The cops below were drenched.

"Yeah! All right!" The kids on the rooftop high fived, then ducked back out of sight to find someplace else to hide.

The biggest party in the history of Danville had officially been crashed. The battle for the Make Summer Last Forever had begun.