"Stacy, I don't think this relaxation thing is working," Candace said, because Phineas was screaming in the backyard again.
Thankfully, Lawrence was trying to handle it. Un-thankfully, he just casually accepted this as the sort of thing teenagers did, thanks to his experience with Candace.
"Why don't you try to do something else then? Like, I dunno, a job or whatever?" Stacy suggested.
"Oh! That could work! It could get me out of the house and…" Candace then remembered that Phineas had attempted to set their house on fire yesterday.
"Candace?"
"I'm gonna try and get a job," Candace decided, because she had done enough looking after her brothers for a lifetime. It was her mom's job to keep them from setting the house on fire.
(Even though, on that day, their mom was at a baking class.)
So, Candace decided to consult with Phineas to keep him from interrupting her attempts.
His response?
"Oh, it's fine, I tested out the cameras with Irving this morning. I'll just send you the footage and photographic evidence later!"
"...what?" Candace said.
"Irving's got every inch of our house under camera surveillance-"
"TELL HIM TO TAKE THEM OUT!" Candace ordered. "Oh my god, how long was that a thing?! Did he ever see us coming out of the shower?! What the-!?"
Phineas blinked, staring at her like he didn't even understand what was wrong with the idea of a friend stringing cameras around his house without anyone knowing.
He probably didn't.
And so, Candace forced Phineas to remove every camera in their household, all while on the phone with Jeremy to find out if working at Mr. Slushy Burger/Dawg was a good idea.
Answer:
"No. Candace, absolutely not. Take literally any other job."
"Noted," Candace said.
To make sure Phineas wouldn't run in and drag her around to show her things, she gave him a disposable camera she found in her drawer. Candace told him to take as many photos as possible, because most of them were going to disappear or get destroyed.
Happy and satisfied, Phineas went to the backyard to meet up with Ferb, leaving Candace in relative (and temporary) peace.
"What'cha," Isabella cut herself off with a loud yawn, "doin'...?"
Phineas and Ferb looked up from a set of blueprints, staring at her in concern.
"You okay, Isabella?" Phineas asked.
"Oh, uh, I didn't sleep too well last night," Isabella said, massively understating it.
The previous night, Isabella had turned off her computer immediately after the musical number, but she was still stunned by the realization that she had managed to fall for Ferb. She resorted to petting Pinky to calm herself as her thoughts wandered.
She wondered how to handle flirting. Or if she even could. Would she be able to ask anyone but the internet for help? No, she thought, definitely not, everyone she knew either still thought she liked Phineas, was Phineas, or was Ferb.
It was then that a terrible, terrible thought struck Isabella.
'Oh no, I definitely can't act like I did when I had a crush on Phineas.'
And for the entire night and partially into the morning, she was haunted by horrible, horrible memories and panic. And embarrassment and humiliation and regret and so much remorse.
Isabella did not know how much sleep she got before she went to the Flynn-Fletcher backyard, but it was definitely not more than four hours. She had been planning on just applying concealer and smiling through it, but she had been discovered in the first few seconds.
Predictably, Phineas reacted to this by deciding to make the comfiest, coziest sleeping experience ever. Within moments, the familiar sound of delivery trucks filled the yard.
(Inside her room, Candace sighed, shutting the window as she listened to Jenny talk about how protests, while not strictly a job, would surely keep her busy.)
Isabella had been told to rest by the tree as Phineas and Ferb made her sleep experience great, but honestly? With the summer day's warmth being lessened by the tree's shade, the scent of grass and machinery and motor oil around her, Isabella was on the verge of nodding off right then and there. Not even the sound of construction could jostle her out of her sleepy state, as she was too accustomed to it to be affected.
It was then that a glass was presented to Isabella, startling her.
"O-oh, Ferb, I didn't even notice…!" she said, taking the glass. It was warm milk. "Thanks."
Ferb nodded in acknowledgement of her words, watching her silently. Feeling a bit embarrassed at his stare, she drained the glass. Satisfied, Ferb nodded at her, before heading back to working on a bed frame with Phineas.
A plain bed was deceptively simple for the two of them, so Isabella paid closer attention. There was no way a normal bed would need so many delivery trucks.
But then Isabella saw tiny mechanical sheep.
She blinked, once, twice, but no, the sheep were still there. Phineas was still working on adding some sort of sliding component to the bed frame, so he didn't notice that his brother had suddenly started juggling the tiny mechanical sheep.
Isabella giggled at Ferb's antics, before wondering just how many sheep he was juggling. She started to count them, but… she lost track of them when her tired mind started mixing up numbers.
She suddenly felt another yawn leave her mouth. Darnit, at this rate, she would fall asleep before she even saw what they were doing!
Isabella pinched herself to wake up a bit, but all she saw was Phineas stuffing pillows into pillow cases and fluffing them up. It was nowhere near cool enough to grab her attention.
'Maybe I can rest my eyes for a bit… and then see what Phineas is doing…' she thought, before realizing something. '...where did Ferb go?'
Isabella was stunned. She had just been watching him juggle! How did he disappear so fast?!
Thankfully, Ferb soon reappeared, carrying in a bunch of robot arms from the house. He passed them to his brother, who began to attach them to the bed frame.
"Thanks Ferb!" Phineas exclaimed. Ferb gave him a thumb-up. "Don't worry, Isabella, we'll be done soon!"
Isabella wanted to thank him, but, just then, Ferb approached her.
"Ferb?"
He handed her a set of headphones and a stuffed Ducky Momo doll.
"We'll be a bit loud," he told her.
"Oh, thanks…!" Isabella exclaimed, taking both gifts as he left. When she put on the headphones, she heard classical music that instantly dragged another yawn out of her.
'Just… stay awake a bit longer…' Isabella told herself.
Unfortunately for Isabella, that was when Ferb returned with a blanket in his arms.
'Oh no,' Isabella thought.
He draped the blanket over her, before moving to sit behind her. The blanket was perfectly warm. The smell of fresh laundry hit Isabella like a wave.
'Oh no.'
That was when Ferb gently began to massage her shoulders, skillfully undoing the tenseness of 'ohhhhhh no my crush is doing things that will kill me.'
Needless to say, Isabella didn't get to see Phineas complete the bed. She lost the battle against her drowsiness much quicker than Ferb expected. Before he could lay Isabella down on the grass, she laid her head on his lap.
Which really threw a wrench into his plans, because he wanted to finish the bed with Phineas before she woke up.
Phineas, oblivious, looked away from the robot arms to ask Ferb for something, only for his jaw to drop at the sight of Isabella sleeping on Ferb's lap. He instantly took a picture. Or twelve.
Ferb seemed mildly annoyed by the camera flashes, but he didn't tell Phineas off or anything. He didn't even flinch, too worried that he would wake Isabella up.
Phineas grinned as he went over to his brother, crouching before the two.
"So, we're not gonna need the warm milk bar or sheep counting station or massage arms or lullaby radio or stuffed animal giftshop anymore?" Phineas asked with an attempt at a teasing grin.
Ferb, however, didn't even notice, since 'Phineas' and 'teasing' were about as far apart in his mind as 'Phineas' and 'not being completely oblivious to someone having an incredibly obvious crush on him.'
So Ferb just told him to keep those in his back pocket.
But Phineas was not done, no, he was practically bouncing from his excitement.
"I'll just leave you two alone. Together. Have fun!" Phineas exclaimed.
He was about to get up when Ferb spoke.
"Phineas, you've been acting weird recently," Ferb pointed out, making Phineas flinch.
"WH- weird, me? No, no way!" Phineas sputtered out, before scratching at his ear. "I'm totally not acting weird-"
Ferb stared at him flatly.
"I mean, what's weird about wanting your brother to get along with his mutual crush?!" Phineas said. Loudly.
And then Ferb was just confused.
That was when Phineas tried to make things better, and failed, and made everything so much worse.
"O-oh come on! Don't try to deny it! You've been telling me about how great she was for years and talking about how lucky guys would be to date her and everything! You've obviously liked her for so long!"
"Phineas-"
That, however, was when Isabella woke up. Because even with headphones on, she could hear Phineas' panicked rambling.
"Mmm…?" she groaned as she wearily opened her eyes. It was so not pleasant of her to be woken up so abruptly.
Phineas scrambled away, ostensibly to keep building or something, letting Ferb do whatever. 'Whatever' turned out to mean lifting Isabella up and carrying her to the couch, so she could rest without more screaming.
Ferb noticed Isabella suddenly starting to panic with a red face, but attributed this to being startled after just waking up, combined with having a blanket thrown over her in summer. So he let her down on the couch and adjusted the blanket so it wasn't completely covering her.
Ferb returned to the backyard to find Phineas holding the camera again. He sighed loudly at his older brother.
"Phineas… you do realize that I was saying that so you could date her, right?" Ferb asked.
"What?" Phineas asked.
"Phineas," Ferb said with an intensity that spoke of an approaching headache, "please don't tell me you think she has a crush on me."
Phineas replied by pouting.
"You better not tell me that she had a crush on me or something. I don't know why everyone thinks that!"
Ferb just up and left, off to introduce his head to a hard forest.
This, by the way, was around the time Doofenshmirtz was trying to convince Perry no, no this inator is a good idea, please don't explode it and report that I'm doing crime, I can explain-
Perry, for his part, sighed and crossed his arms over his tiny platypus chest, clearly impatient.
"I, of all people, know just how badly a person's past can weigh on them," Doof began desperately. "That's why, I built the Get-over-it-inator, to help people conquer their demons! It's encouraging!"
Perry began to tap a webbed foot.
"Listen, all I have to do is just aim it at someone and they will be confronted by visions of their worst fears and anxieties and traumatic memories, and they will be able to overcome them handily! Isn't that a good deed? Aren't I nice?"
At that last question, Doof began to bat his eyes innocently at the platypus, who, if anything, only glared harder.
That glare made the former evil (but not quite good) scientist realize something.
"Well, they might panic at the sudden appearance of their worst fear… and, well, that… b-but that will only contribute to the-! No, it would just… really freak people out, now that I think about it."
Perry placed his hands on his hips, making Doofenshmirtz deflate.
"Time for the old self destruct button…" he said sadly.
Perry gave him a smile and a thumbs up as thanks for being so reasonable.
Unfortunately, when it exploded, it kinda fired off a beam that hit a car mirror and then bounced off a stop sign and then into the hall of mirrors.
The beam ricochetted off one mirror, then another, then another, over and over until it exited the building, somehow aimed directly at the Flynn-Fletcher house.
It entered Candace's room through the window, bouncing off her three mirror vanity while she was preoccupied asking Stacy what an assistant assistant manager even was, exiting into the hallway. Lawrence, who had been carrying some of his tea set upstairs, quite naturally tried to shield himself from the bright laser aimed at his face.
With a very shiny silver-coated tea tray, causing the beam to bounce into the living room, where it hit Isabella, who had fallen back asleep on the couch.
Back at Doofenshmirtz Good Incorporated, Doof and Perry had been staring off the balcony, desperately hoping that the beam hadn't hit anyone.
Unfortunately for them, that was when Isabella screamed so loud they could hear her from downtown, causing Doofenshmirtz to wince.
"That's… definitely going on my record, isn't it."
Perry nodded in the most reluctant way possible.
Quite naturally, people tended to check on someone who screamed super loud in the middle of their house.
Isabella, however, reassured them that she was alright. Just a bad dream, she said.
So, reluctantly, Phineas, Candace, and Lawrence let her be.
Ferb, however, had been in the garage, looking for something to smack his head into out of sheer exasperation at Phineas. While he failed at that, he had managed to find things like multi-lens glasses, soundproof earplugs, a wide-brimmed hat, an extendable hand, and the back half of a horse costume.
Quite naturally, Ferb decided to try all of them on at the same time, because it would be absolutely hilarious to freak the others in the house out at the ridiculous monster he could cobble together.
The first person he ran into was his dad, who was too used to everything Danville had to offer to react with anything but, "that's a peculiar costume, Ferb." It was actually disappointing.
The second person he saw was Isabella, who was looking vaguely out of touch with reality. Ferb assumed she was just spacey from having been woken up too many times, so, with no idea of her ear-piercing scream before, he spooked her.
It should be noted that Isabella had met her first alien when she was ten and had her fiftieth 'Phineas and Ferb'-related near-death experience that same summer. She didn't scare easily.
Isabella's reaction was, at most, a startled gasp, before she gave him a good look up and down.
Then she started laughing.
This was when Ferb pulled out the earplugs and took off the glasses. The glasses, because it was hard to see much with them on, the earplugs, because hearing his friends laugh made Ferb happy... as cheesy as that sounded.
This meant that he took out the earplugs just in time to hear Isabella say, "wow, Ferb… thanks."
Ferb had no idea what she was thanking him for, but the giant sun hat he was wearing kept her from seeing his confusion. He took that off next.
"I really needed that laugh," Isabella said softly, "otherwise, I'd be remembering that nightmare all day."
Now, Ferb didn't know what she was talking about at all, but he still worried. So, he sat on the couch next to her in a silent show of support, kicking off the horse legs as he motioned for her to keep talking.
"I-it's just a dumb nightmare," Isabella said quickly. "It was just…"
She trailed off, avoiding his gaze.
Ferb, realizing that this was a sensitive topic, decided not to pressure her into talking.
Instead, he patted her on the head with the extendable hand he had found.
Isabella froze at the contact, then looked up at the hand, then at Ferb.
And then she broke out into a fit of giggles.
"You don't have to comfort me or make me laugh or anything! It's just silly," Isabella said.
She confessed that, for some reason, she dreamed of a pharmacist's voice trying to summon her greatest fear: being inadequate.
"But, we actually got into an argument," Isabella confessed. "He had a really hard time trying to figure out something I couldn't do."
Ferb let out a silent snicker at that, the two of them remembering her patch-covered sash.
"And then he was like 'oh come on! You've got to have a weakness!' and I felt a bit bad for him, so I went 'my love life isn't that good.' And then he laughed and told me that it must have been because people didn't find me attractive. And then I yelled at him to shut up so hard I woke up screaming."
Ferb stared at her flatly.
"That is stupid," Ferb told her.
Isabella felt a bit embarrassed by his bluntness, when Ferb continued.
"It's plenty obvious that you're attractive."
"A-ah, uh, um-?!" she yelped while blushing.
"This isn't about Phineas, is it?" he asked. "Because it turns out that he-"
Before Ferb could say, 'apparently he thought we were meant for each other for a very long time now,' Isabella cut him off, for the sake of her heart, her sanity, and general wellbeing.
"No! No, it's not about Phineas! Obviously not!"
Ferb nodded in acknowledgement of her words.
Unbeknownst to them, Phineas was doing Phineas things again. In this case, in an attempt to show Candace proof without walking through the living room and disturbing the pair, he extended the bed's legs so he could knock on his sister's window and show her the photos.
Unfortunately for him, this was when Doofenshmirtz, clinging to Perry's ankle as the platypus walked, got an idea to fix the situation.
"Wait! Wait, wait, that's not my only inator today!"
Perry gave him a dubious glance, then stopped, allowing Doof to get up and explain his next mistake.
"I was in the park, trying to feed some birds, but none of them came anywhere near me! It was disheartening, really," he said, reaching into his lab coat to pull out a gun-looking doohickey mcthingamabob. "That's why I made the Birdfeed-inator! Anything it hits will become nutritious, delicious, irresistible bird food!"
Perry then pointed at Doof.
"Uh…" Doofenshmirtz sweated as he tried to decipher what the pointing meant, only for it to come to him in a burst of lightning. "Oh! Oh! You're trying to ask me what happens if it were to hit a tree in the woods with no birds around!"
Perry facepalmed.
"What? What else would it hit? Buildings? People? Buildings and people?"
A moment of silence ensued as Perry glared.
"...oh. It would be bad… if it hit… buildings or people," Doof said slowly, making the platypus nod. Sheepishly, he added, "well, I'll just… cross a wire here, add a dial here, and…! Ta-dah!"
He presented the addition of a switch that said 'no hitting people or buildings mode', then hit it.
"Eh? Eh? How do you like that, Perry the Doubty-pus?"
Perry just pulled a clipboard and pen out of his hat, much like a judge would at a competition. Doof, knowing his track record with competitions, moved over to the balcony to shoot it at some easy target like a bike rack.
The beam hit a car mirror, then a stop sign, then went into a hall of mirrors.
"PHINEAS WHY ARE YOU OUTSIDE MY WINDOW GET DOWN FROM THERE!" Candace screamed through her window.
"Look at these first!" Phineas answered, holding out a set of photos to her.
That was when a laser hit him.
However, since the laser was modified to not affect people, it bounced off of his skin, hitting the camera and photos in his hand and the bed beneath him.
And then a mob of birds happened to devour everything, forcing Candace to grab Phineas's hand to keep him from falling, as he no longer had the bed keeping him up. It was not the first time she had to save his life in that way, nor would it be the last.
"Next time, use a digital camera," she told Phineas as she helped him up. "And make backups."
"Noted…" Phineas said.
Doof was anxiously waiting as Perry jotted things down, begging for feeding birds to be enough to make up for whatever terrible torment he had accidentally inflicted on some poor soul earlier.
Just as Doof was about to hit his sweaty-palmed, stomach-flipping, panic-inducing limit, Perry handed him the paper.
"'On a scale from Diabolical Deviousness to Bonafide Benevolence," Doof began reading, "your deeds this week have been scored… Nebulously Neutral!"
He threw his arms in the air in celebration.
"Yeah, baby! Neutral! That means I'm still in the clear! Thank you, Perry the Platypus!"
Perry gave him a thumbs-up in return.
Vanessa, meanwhile, didn't have much time to go on the forums. She was on the phone with her friend, looking over said friend's resume to help her find a job.
The resume happened to get scanned by a weird O.W.C.A. file, adding a line just under 'Skilled with machinery.'
"Yeah, Candace, it looks pretty solid," Vanessa said, before noticing something, "hey, apparently you're eligible for a position where I work."
"Huh? You mean the zoo is looking for more caretakers?"
"Uh, no. Apparently you're legally considered a monkey," Vanessa said. "We could always use another monkey."
Agent M heard this, by the way, and was now keenly listening in with hopes of having a cute monkey coworker.
"Yeah, no, I am not doing that," Candace answered. "I'm good at reining in monkey business, not participating in it."
"That's fair," Vanessa said. "Good luck finding another job. We'll be listening in case you reconsider."
Agent M's hopes were quickly dashed, however, as Vanessa hung up. Agent C laid out a funeral for the monkey's hopes and dreams.
That was when Vanessa got a call from her dad.
"Dad?"
"Pumpkin, is there any way you could help me with, you know, ideas for inators?"
"Nope, not allowed to help morally ambiguous scientists," Vanessa said instantly.
"But I'm good! I just have… bad ideas."
"I'll say."
"I just need someone to bounce ideas off of! Someone who is good with machinery, sensible, and good at reining in monkey business!"
And Vanessa realized something. Someone good with machinery, sensible, and good at reining in monkey business...
"What about Norm?"
"What, Norm? He's busy with his baking lessons."
"Oh, I think this cake turned out great!" Linda said, grinning up at her robotic partner in pastry-making. "You're really good at this!"
"I use sugar to cope with the stresses of life!" Norm replied.
"Don't we all?"
"It doesn't have to be a permanent thing, it can just be like, a few minutes? I can even pay you for your time?" Doof offered, making Vanessa's eyes widen.
"Hold that thought, dad!" she said, before hanging up and calling Candace again.
"Candace, I think I have the job for you!"