Just as Isabella was about to walk out with Phineas, someone grabbed her arm and yanked her back into the still-very-noisy lunchroom, which covered her gasp of surprise. When she turned it was only Ferb. He did, however, look very suspicious.

"Alright, spill it." Ferb said. "There was nothing wrong with the alarm clock we made in less than a hour, which means there was definitely nothing wrong with the one Phineas gave you that he spent a couple days on. And there is no way Phineas did not explain to you how to use the thing. You chose not to do it."

Isabella swallowed. "So?"

"Why would you do that?"

"Does it really matter that much?" she said, trying not to let her nervousness show and failing miserably.

"It's a little suspicious when someone who stayed up until 3 AM, when offered a chance to get a good amount of sleep, refuses. That doesn't make any sense. I'm just trying to get to a reasonable conclusion because I'm a little confused."

"Um…"

"Do you have something against my brother?"

"No! No, definitely not."

The bell rang for class and Ferb calmly set the alarm clock and hit the button on top. Suddenly there were people leaving the lunchroom again. "So what is it?" he continued.

"I'm trying to avoid him." Isabella blurted, and then smacked her hands over her mouth.

Ferb tipped his head in confusion. "Why?"

I think I have a massive crush on your brother and I'm trying to ignore it so it'll go away but so far I'm doing a really terrible job because he's cute and amazing and every second I spend with him only makes me like him more?

"Because! Because I think sleep is immoral!"

Ferb raised an eyebrow. "Wow. You are an even worse liar than Phineas."

"No, I— I'm a big rule follower. I don't like breaking rules, and the Laws of Physics fall under that category. I don't want to participate in your law-breaking inventions." She crossed her arms and turned her head away.

A second later she opened one eye to see Ferb still standing there, also with his arms crossed. "Sorry, but I stand by my former statement. Not to mention the fact that almost every single one of our inventions you've seen so far has broken the Laws of Physics, and you haven't had a problem with any of those."

"Shoot." Isabella said to herself.

The bell rang again, and Ferb hit the button on top of the clock. He could do this all day.

Isabella groaned. "Fine. I— I like Phineas."

"Yeah, I would think so."

"No. I mean I like like him."

Ferb stared at her for a minute, as if he couldn't comprehend what she was saying. Then she realized that he probably couldn't. Despite the ideas of practice rounds, dating before your soulmate was still pretty rare. Isabella sighed and tried one more time.

"I like him like we're soulmates. But we're not."

Ferb's eyebrows shot up. Isabella couldn't read his face for a minute until finally he said: "That… explains a lot."

"It does?"

"Yeah." Ferb said, but Isabella had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't talking about what she'd just said.

"Wait, what does it explain?"

Ferb hit the button on top of the alarm clock one more time and suddenly Phineas walked over next to them.

"Hey, how'd you guys get over here so fast?" he asked.

Isabella jerked backwards and put both of her hands behind her back as Ferb casually tucked the alarm clock into his bag. "No reason!" she practically screamed.

Phineas gave a look that said he sort of knew something was going on but he wasn't going to press, and then the two walked out of the lunchroom together, with Isabella casting a glance over her shoulder at Ferb at the last second.

Ferb smirked and gave a little wave.

Oh, that son of a—

…

And of course Phineas was in the Garden Club.

Isabella had originally joined because Katie said it was kind of fun. But after a couple weeks, Katie had grown bored and quit. Isabella had not. She had found she actually enjoyed the planting and the digging. And she really loving yanking out the weeds— the parts of the garden she didn't like or that would choke other plants. Sometimes she wished she could do that with the rest of the world.

Phineas, after realizing Isabella was in the club too, spent almost the entire time next to her talking about many different topics. Isabella would soon forget how those topics connected, because she was spending most of the time responding while trying not to look at Phineas or remind herself of how cute he was.

At some point Phineas said he needed to get the hose and stood up abruptly. Just a little too abruptly apparently, because he slammed right into someone else.

"Oh geez, sorry!" Phineas called.

"It is alright." said the boy. "Do you need the hose?" He handed it to Phineas, who started to use it. "Thanks."

"I didn't take you for a Garden Club person, Baljeet." Isabella said, raising an eyebrow. "I've never seen you here before."

"I… lost a bet." Baljeet admitted.

"Baljeet?" Phineas asked, turning around. "That name sounds familiar."

"Oh, he's a nerd legend." Isabella said with a grin. "He figured out that unsolvable math problem in AP calculus. First one to do so in 20 years."

"Hmm." Phineas said, sounding unimpressed. "I bet Ferb could've done it in 10 minutes."

"Is that a challenge?" Baljeet asked in slight disbelief.

"Only if you want it to be." Phineas said with a little grin.

"You know it's a little weird to challenge him… for Ferb." Isabella pointed out.

"Eh." Phineas said with a shrug.

"Tomorrow morning in the library." Baljeet said curtly, then turned and walked away.

"You made him mad." Isabella warned.

Phineas cracked a knuckle. "Bring it on."

…

After Garden Club was over, Isabella found herself yet again in Phineas' company, standing in front of the school. In the four minutes since they'd gone inside to get their things it had apparently started pouring rain. Both were just standing there, neither wanting to move.

"I don't have a ride." Isabella said.

"Ferb and I have a teleportation system. But we don't know Danville well enough to build one for it yet. I was going to walk home."

"That's what I usually do." Isabella said. She paused. "Wait, you have a teleportation system?"

"Of course we do. But it takes a lot of work. Teleporters are surprisingly complicated for how simple the idea is."

"Do you guys realize you talk about groundbreaking inventions like they're common household items?"

Phineas shrugged. "They are. For us, anyway."

"So, what, your mom just appears in the grocery store when she needs to shop?"

Phineas tipped his head. "No, she prefers to drive. I try to mention that it's better for the environment if she uses them, but whenever I do she just acts like I'm being cute."

"Maybe she doesn't know you actually have them."

Phineas shook his head. "I don't see how that's possible. We've used them for what, six years?"

"Why would I know?" Isabella said with a shrug. She glanced back at the sheet of rain. "You wanna wait this out?"

"Are you crazy?" Phineas asked in disbelief. "I'm not bowing to Mother Nature!"

"Well." Isabella said. "Of course nothing silly like that."

"Give me 10 minutes." Phineas said. "And we're still gonna get a little wet." He walked back inside the school, already digging inside his backpack.

It was almost exactly ten minutes later when he reemerged, carrying—

"Oh my god." Isabella said. "That's as amazing as it is cliché."

Phineas was holding a pair of detachable wings. He grinned. "I can be cliché when I want to."

"Or when you're trying to avoid getting soaked?"

"Something like that." he slipped the wings on over his bag. "Hold on tight." He grabbed Isabella, backpack and all, and the two soared up towards the clouds through the rain.

"We're still soaking wet!" Isabella laughed when they broke through the cloud layer. "And those clouds were frickin' cold!"

"We're like 20,000 feet in the air, they're probably made of thin ice!" Phineas called back. "Hang on." He did a number of barrel rolls, and they were dry at the end of them.

Isabella laughed. "And now we look awesome, I'm sure."

"Speak for yourself." Isabella glanced up. Phineas' hair was stuck flat to his head and his cheeks were bright red from the cold. "I always look this good."

Isabella snorted into her hand.

"Oh, are you making fun of me? I could drop you, you know."

"You wouldn't."

"People can survive drops of 20,000 feet."

"Oh yeah? Prove it."

Phineas grinned maliciously.

"ON YOUR PHONE WHEN WE GET BACK ON THE GROUND!"

And then Phineas cackled.

After about five minutes of gliding in silence and taking in the view, Phineas said something about it being five miles to the horizon at this height, so they should probably head down now. Apparently he timed it right, because when they flew low enough to make out the houses they were right above their neighborhood. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and Phineas offered to have her stay for dinner, but she said she should probably be getting home. (She had spent far too much time with Phineas that day.)

"But… thanks for that. It was amazing."

"Anytime."

The two parted ways until later.