Hey, everyone! Sorry this one took so long, but I just could not come up with a new Phineabella plot.

Anyway, this story is the result of me being completely out of ideas and trying to come up with something that I haven't already done. But, you know…with the Ford Torino in it somehow. This story is in no way connected to any of the previous stories, but it will be in multiple parts, at least three or four, depending.

Time period: It's the gang's senior year.

How Not to Ask Someone to Prom - Part 1

It wasn't difficult to figure out what event was coming up. Isabella knew even without the banners announcing it every time she walked into Danville High. For one thing, she had helped make those banners. Adyson had broken her arm hanging them. But Isabella knew even before she'd joined the planning committee. She'd had the date circled on her calendar since she was a freshman. She'd actually made herself a calendar that stretched four years ahead just so she could put a circle around that date and count down the days.

May 18th: The senior prom.

Long had Isabella fantasized about this day. She dreamt of wearing a shimmery dress, pulling up in a rented limo, slowly swaying across a dance floor with Phineas as her date, gazing into each other's eyes, leaning in for a kiss as the last slow song of the night ended…

Maybe she did more than daydream. She had the entire evening planned out in her head. There was only one thing that could ruin it.

What if Phineas didn't ask her to the prom?

In the past, the only time Phineas had asked her on anything even resembling a date was when he took her for ice cream on her eleventh birthday, and even that he'd meant for Ferb to come, too. On every other occasion that she and Phineas had done something date-like, not only had Phineas not realized it was a date, but she'd had to ask him.

Isabella had considered this, and she was discussing it with Adyson one morning as they waited by their lockers for class for start.

"I've had the entire night planned out practically since I found out what the prom was," Isabella said. "But what if he doesn't ask me to go? The whole thing will be ruined for me."

Adyson clawed at the cast on her left arm, unsuccessful in her attempts to scratch the itch beneath. "Grrrrrrrr…I hate this cast. Isabella, you have to stop worrying."

Isabella pulled a pencil from her backpack and handed it to Adyson, who immediately slid it under her cast and started scratching. "How can I stop worrying? This is only about the most important thing that happens during high school!"

"You mean besides getting good grades and applying to colleges, of course."

Isabella placed a hand on the back of her neck. "Yeah…But that's not even what I meant. I mean the senior prom is the most important thing to do with relationships to happen in high school."

Adyson handed back the pencil. She was getting a bit tired of this conversation. It was not the first time they'd had it. "Well, as much as I hate to tell you this, there is nothing you can do, Sweet Cheeks," she said sarcastically.

Isabella turned and looked down the hallway. Phineas's locker was near the end of the hall, and through the crowd of students she could see him there, chatting with Ferb and Baljeet. She turned back to Adyson. "Maybe I should just ask him. That would certainly solve all the worrying."

"You can't do that. Everybody knows it's the guy's job to ask the girl."

"Oh, come on, Adyson. It's not the 70's anymore. Times have changed." She looked at Phineas again. "Besides, I have to make sure another girl doesn't get to him first."

"Like who?"

"Like that girl in third period."

"You mean Abigail?" Adyson thought for a moment. "You're right. Ask him. Ask him now."

Isabella turned one more time, spotted Phineas…and sandwiched herself against the lockers as he turned her way. "I can't. I'm scared."

Adyson tried to cross her arms in disgust, but it didn't exactly work with the cast restricting her movements. "I am very disappointed in you. You, who bungee jumped out of an airborne van to grab a maraca nut tree from the top of a derelict amusement park ride, is afraid to ask a boy to the prom."

"What if he says no? What if he laughs at me? What if Ferb and Baljeet laugh at me? What if everybody laughs at me? What if the earth explodes?"

Adyson rolled her eyes. "You know who you sound like right now? Candace."

"True dat," another voice behind them said.

Adyson and Isabella whipped around and found Buford standing behind them, munching on a granola bar.

"Buford? What're you doing here?" Isabella asked. "Why aren't you hanging out with Phineas, Ferb, and Baljeet?"

Buford shrugged and spoke nonchalantly. "I was down at the C-Hall boys room, giving the freshman nerds their daily wedgies." He ripped another hunk out of his granola bar, chomping noisily.

His sudden presence gave Isabella an idea that would allow her to, at least temporarily, avoid asking Phineas to the prom. After all, before she rushed off to ask him to be her date, she had to make sure he wasn't planning on asking her…or somebody else. "Say, Buford…as long as you're here, do you think you could do me a favor?"

Chomp. "What kind of favor?"

"Do you think you could find out what Phineas's plans for the prom are?"

Buford raised an eyebrow. "What exactly do you mean by 'plans'?"

"Like…" Isabella swayed on her feet, acting as innocently as possible. "Oh, I don't know…if he's planning on asking anyone to go with him?"

Chomp. "Hmmm…what's in it for me?"

Isabella shrugged. "I don't know…what do you want?"

Chomp. Buford pointed at Adyson. "How about you go to the prom with me?"

Adyson frowned at him. "I think you're forgetting that I have a boyfriend."

"Django doesn't count if he isn't in the country."

"He's doing landscape paintings with his dad in Alaska."

"Exactly. He's out of the country."

Isabella pulled her United States History textbook from her backpack and flipped through the pages. She pushed the book under Buford's nose and pointed to the lines of text as she read aloud: "After being purchased from Russia for $7.2 million dollars in 1867, Alaska was finally admitted to the Union on January 3rd, 1959, becoming the 49th state." She closed the book. "Django might not currently be in the continental United States, but he's still in the country."

"Not only that, but he'll be back in a few days, in time for the prom," Adyson added.

Buford put a finger to his chin and thought carefully. "Alright, fine. How about this. Since Adyson refuses, while I find out what Phineas is up to, you find me a date for the prom. Because I'm not having any luck on my own. We'll meet by the flag pole after school and exchange information for my date."

Without any hesitation, Isabella grabbed Buford's hand and shook it. "Deal."

Buford finished his granola bar and tossed the wrapper over his shoulder. He raised one arm heroically. "I shall not fail!" Then he spun on his heel and headed down the hallway toward the guys.

Isabella looked at her watch. "We've still got a few minutes before class starts," she said. "We'd better start searching for a date for Buford now."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Adyson interrupted, waving her uninjured arm and shaking her head. "What do you mean 'we'? Why am I getting sucked into this?"

"Come on, Adyson, I can't do this alone! There's a lot of kids that go to this school, and at least half of them are girls!"

"According to Danville's population demographic, exactly half should be girls." Adyson sighed. "Alright, fine. I'll help you. But only because I am really sick of listening to you sigh dreamily every time you see Phineas and then never do anything about it."

Isabella grabbed Adyson by her uninjured arm and started dragging her down the hallway. "You're the best, Adyson! Now come on! We've got a lot of girls to cover and not much free time to do it in."

Adyson sighed again and muttered under her breath. "This is going to be a long day, isn't it?"

Six and a half hours later (give or take 15 minutes) Isabella and Adyson made their way to the flag pole in front of the school, waiting for Buford. He eventually emerged from behind a nearby tree, dressed in a trench coat, dark sunglasses, and a fedora.

"Psst. Hey," he whispered loudly, looking around as if afraid he'd be spotted. "You got the stuff?"

"What in the world are you doing, Buford?" Adyson asked.

He removed his sunglasses. "Finally gettin' some use out of my 'shady guy with sensitive information' costume."

Isabella raised a confused eyebrow. "Why do you have that costume?"

"I have a lot of get-ups for specific situations. Now, let's get down to business. Which lovely lady am I going to the prom with?"

Isabella sighed. "Buford, we tried. We literally asked every girl in school, but none agreed to go with you."

"Ah ha! I knew it! I knew you didn't care enough to really try!"

"Buford…" Isabella looked slightly embarrassed. "We really did ask every girl in school."

"We made a list," Adyson said, handing him several sheets of paper. "We kept track of every girl we asked and wrote down their responses."

Buford thumbed through the pages, reading some of the things the girls had said. "'Not even if you paid me,' 'Not in this lifetime,' 'Not in a million years…' ooh! Beth said 'Maybe if he was the last boy on earth.' That's about the closest I've ever gotten to 'yes.'" He looked back at the girls. "Alright, I give you props for trying. I didn't really expect you to succeed. But you owe me one now."

"Of course," Isabella said.

"I'm gonna hold you to it, too. I'd like to have that 'Of course' in writing."

Isabella took the papers from him and turned them over to the back of the last page, then pushed them back into his hands. Buford read the short note scribbled there. "'I owe you one. Signed, Isabella Garcia-Shapiro.'" He folded the pages and placed them in one of the deep pockets in the trench coat. "Good enough for me."

"Time to hold up you're end of the deal," Isabella demanded.

"Don't worry. Van Stomms always hold up their prospective end of bargains. We even have a song about it." In a split second, he'd swapped his fedora for a tall top hat. "Wellllllll…"

Adyson lashed out and knocked the top hat from Buford's head. Isabella grabbed the fedora from where he'd dropped it on the ground on pushed it over Buford's eyes. "We don't want to hear the song. Just tell me about Phineas," Isabella said.

"Are you sure? The 'Van Stomms Always Hold Up Our Prospective End Of A Bargain' song has a great Coda."

"We're sure," Adyson practically growled.

"Fine. But you don't know what you're missing…"

"Yes, we do…" Isabella returned.

"Okay, it went something like this…horizontal divider and switch to italics for narration…"

"Ah that's better. So I was eating lunch with the guys, like always, and Baljeet was rambling on about something to do with his plans for the prom…"

"…so Ginger had to go back and have the dress altered for the third time," the Indian boy was saying.

"Boy, sounds like you guys had quite an adventure."

Baljeet rested his head in his hand and prodded at his salad with his plastic fork. "Yup. Being Ginger's boyfriend is a nonstop thrill ride. Can we please talk about something else?"

"Baljeet wanted to change the subject and ended up doing all the work for me."

"How about you, Phineas? Do you have anything planned for the prom?"

"Like what?"

"I do not know! That is why I am asking!"

"I took that as an opportunity to interject my own question."

""Yeah, Dinner Bell. Who ya askin' to go with ya?" I said."

"Okay, Buford you can stop with the narration."

"Aw, but I like narrating."

"Then keep it to a minimum."

"Fine. Now where was I? Oh, right, Phineas's response to my question."

Phineas took a bite of his sandwich and swallowed before replying. "Oh, I don't know. Gretchen somehow roped me into giving her and Ferb a ride there, and I'm sure at some point during the night, I'll get an idea and say, 'I know what I'm gonna do tonight,' and rush off to build something cool for everyone to enjoy. I'd hate to have a date to leave behind on her own, so I think I'm just gonna fly solo."

The second half of Phineas's statement was lost on Buford. "You're driving Ferb and Gretchen to the prom? Wha's a matter, Ferb? Too cheap to rent a limo?"

"No," Ferb said. "Gretchen just really likes Phineas's Torino."

"That does not at all seem to fit Gretchen's personality," Baljeet added.

"Well, the author needed a way to work it in."

"Phineas isn't planning on asking anyone?"

"Yup."

"Alright! That's great!"

"But that's actually not the end of the story. I think you'll be interested in what happened next."

"Really? You are not going to ask anyone to the biggest dance of our school careers?" Baljeet asked.

"Nah."

"Not even Isabella?"

"Baljeet asked that! What the heck?! I'm gonna kill him!"

"Don't you want to hear what Phineas said first?"

"Yes, I want to hear what Phineas said!"

"Hmm…I suppose if Isabella was my date and I went to build something, she could help me…but I wouldn't want to do that to her. I'm sure she doesn't want to spend the prom working on some construction project. Besides, I'm sure there's plenty of guys in this school who want to ask her to the prom. I hang out with her all the time, I can share her for a night."

"He actually said that? Wait, is that the end?"

"Yeah."

"Can we get out of the flashback so we can get out of italics?"

"Sure."

Isabella sat down in the grass, clutching her knees to her chest. "Phineas doesn't want to go to the prom with me? Then that means…"

Adyson crouched down and put her arm around Isabella, a small smile on her face. "I think you're missing something really important here. Phineas isn't going to ask anyone to the prom."

Isabella lifted her head. "Hey…you're right! Even if Phineas doesn't reciprocate my feelings, I can at least go to the prom with him and have one great night!"

"We have to make sure we think this through. You have to come up with a way of asking him that will give him no choice but to say 'yes.'"

"Uh, girls?" Buford said. They had forgotten he was standing there. "Do I still need to be here?"

"No, no you don't." Isabella stood up. "You're free to go. Thank you very much for your help, Buford." She gave him a quick hug.

"Hey, hey, hey!" he said, quickly backing out of her grasp and smoothing out his trench coat. "Don't forget, you still owe me one."

Isabella laughed. "Don't worry, I won't forget."

"You better not. Now, if we're done here, I have to go see a guy about a '65 Impala."

"Geez, what is it with this author and cars?" Adyson exclaimed.

"I don't know! It's getting a little annoying even though I really want that Impala. Damn it!"

Buford left, muttering under his breath.

Isabella went back to thinking. "Now let's see…What's the best way to ask Phineas to prom?"

"Well, based on how crazy this author is about cars combined with the title of the story, I could probably take a guess what's going to happen here."

"What?"

"Nothing. I didn't say anything."

"Hmm…" Isabella snapped her fingers as an idea popped into her head. "I've got it! It's not very original, but I think it'll get his attention. Now, here's what we'll do…"

This is one of the best things I've written in a long time. It seems like lately when I write stuff, it just doesn't come out the way I want it to and it seems juvenile.

I'm really excited to include Adyson as a main character in this story. I really like her and she doesn't really have much screen time, but even for the little amount of screen time she's had, she's built up a lot of personality. I hope you are all enjoying Adyson's role as much as I am.

Don't worry, this story isn't going to have a lot to do with cars, I just couldn't resist those couple of fourth wall gags. Only the recurring Torino appears, and even that is only in it for, like, one short part. Don't get me wrong, the part it's in is critical to the plot, but it's not another story of mine based around cars.

Anyway, please review and the next chapter should be way quicker than the last.