Here it is, the long-awaited second installment of "I'll Keep You My Furry Little Secret!" I'm really, really sorry for waiting so long to publish (almost four months! Yikes!), but I've had a lot going on both with schoolwork and in my family, so I've had to put it on hold for a while until I got the inspiration again. I'm glad so many people like my writing and want to read more. Thanks for being so supportive about this attempt at a serial publication, everyone!
Also, to restate the disclaimer, I don't own Phineas and Ferb, or any catchphrases, characters, or elements contained therein.
Anyway, without further ado...
I'LL KEEP YOU MY FURRY LITTLE SECRET
Chapter 2: A Plan Emerges
Perry's Log, Entry 745, July 21, 10:50 AM:
I know the Agent Log System is supposed to be private, but lately I've been keeping these entries exclusively on flash drive. Maybe there was a time when I didn't have to keep secrets from people, but if so, it was so long ago I can't even remember it. I've never had to hide anything from OWCA before, though…
Ever since Candace's friend got caught up in the whole "Bugs Me-inator" fiasco a week ago, I've been uncharacteristically jumpy. I always realized that the division between my agent life and my pet life was fragile at best, but now that Stacy Hirano knows my secret identity, I feel like my everyday life is going to come crashing down around my ears at any moment.
Truth be told, I'm not sure I trust her to be discrete about this. It was easy enough to agree to this arrangement when she was standing right in front of me, but now that I'm leaving her unattended with Candace every day, I'm finding myself wondering if she'll really be able to keep it to herself…
-Perry
"Wait, so what was it that you said Phineas and Ferb were doing?"
Stacy really didn't want to encourage Candace to jump into another one of her daily frenzies of failure, but the alternative was telling her the truth, and that wasn't an alternative at all.
"Like I said, pheromone experiments and disgusting bugs." Candace rolled her eyes. "Today the boys are designing a super pheromone serum that attracts every bug in existence. They've got the whole backyard crawling with the things! Mosquitoes, spiders, worms, you name it! Because obviously there aren't enough of them around already."
"Well, now, 'bug' is a pretty vague term to be throwing around," said a cheerful voice from the sliding door into the backyard. After wiping his shoes on a mat, Phineas Flynn stepped inside, followed by his stepbrother Ferb. "Are you talking exclusively about insects, or are you considering arachnids 'bugs' as well? Because several of our Peruvian spiders and scorpions don't seem to respond to the formula at all."
"And worms aren't actually 'bugs,' even in the colloquial sense," added Ferb briefly, "they're called annelids."
"Yeah," agreed Phineas, "the skinny things in that tub you fell into a little while ago were insect larvae. Completely different."
Stacy glanced at Candace and suddenly noticed a white pill-shaped critter climbing on one of her signature red shoes. Stacy groaned inwardly. Yep, that would happen to Candace.
Her wry observation, however, quickly gave way to guilt. Wow, she thought, as it suddenly occurred to her: I'm usually around when Candace blunders into these sort of things.
Well, her defensive side chimed in, it's not I could have prevented it even if I were there. After all, she's managed to bang my thumb with a hammer, wallpaper me to a wall, and then destroy the entire house with a jackhammer, all by accident. Honestly, it's like I'm best friends with a hurricane.
But that's not the point! The bottom line is, I was so wrapped up with the whole 'Perry' thing that I didn't even notice my friend falling into a tub of worms!...er, insect larvae. Ever since I found out about Perry's identity, I haven't been able to focus on anything, even my friends…
"Whatever!" shouted Candace, who appeared to have noticed the bug on her shoe and was now shaking it vigorously. "Usually I'm very tolerant about these sort of things-"
Stacy rolled her eyes and coughed quietly.
"-but this is crossing the line! I will not let you turn our backyard into this disgusting mess! Just look at it! YOU ARE SOOOOOOO BUSTED!" At that, she dashed back out into the backyard, and began waving her hands wildly at the towers and towers of small, white cages that Phineas and Ferb had somehow managed to cram into the backyard. "I mean, there's no way you can move all these cages out of here by hand before Mom comes home. What are you going to do, make them disappear?"
As if every word out of Candace's mouth possessed immeasurable magic, a white beam of light flashed momentarily, and suddenly all 6,528 cages vanished simultaneously.
The writhing former occupants descended like a black hailstorm on everyone in the backyard. In other words, Candace. To give her credit, she took it rather well:
"AAAYIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"she screamed, with a pitch and volume that would shame the lead soprano in a Carnegie Hall performance.
After thirty seconds of buzzing, crawling, biting, and stinging, the insects left the backyard, leaving the rest of Phineas and Ferb's laboratory a shambles and Candace a shuddering wreck.
"I'll…never…forgive…you…for this…" Candace murmured, one eye twitching spasmodically as she collapsed on the ground.
"Wow, it's a good thing we weren't testing the serum on any poisonous insects," noted Phineas, stepping back into the backyard once the coast was clear.
"But didn't you say you had spiders and scorpions?" Stacy asked, concerned. "Those sound pretty poisonous to me."
"Hm…well, those aren't 'insects,' but you have a point." Phineas replied. "Er…Ferb, what kinds of antivenin do we have left in storage from that African expedition?"
"Over the course of your history with Doofenschmirtz, he has committed some heinous acts, but this may be his most evil move yet."
Major Monogram gestured to Carl, who obligingly displayed the relevant photographs on the lair screen for Perry's (aka Agent P's) benefit. Perry simply sat attentively, but his mind was still partially hung up on his conversation with Stacy:
"I DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS!"
Well, actually, she was the one who proposed this arrangement, right? But she clearly hadn't thought about the implications she was facing… What choice did they have now, though? If Perry turned her in, he'd be in huge trouble for concealing someone who hadn't been mind-wiped—maybe he'd even lose his job. But did he have a right to let this go on any longer? She was just a girl, after all…
"…CONVICTS ARE ROAMING THE STREETS! CARNIVOROUS BEASTS ARE TERRORIZING THE CITY! AND IT'S ALL BECAUSE OF—um, Agent P? Are you getting all this?"
Major Monogram must have recognized the blank stare in Perry's eyes. Perry blinked a few times, shaking himself out of his thoughts.
"Ah, there we go. Ok, now where was I on this speech?" Major Monogram glanced downward, and Perry heard papers rustling. "Hm…convicts roaming the streets, beasts terrorizing the city…oh, here we are, AND IT'S ALL BECAUSE OF DOOFENSCHMIRTZ'S NEW 'UNCAGE-INATOR!' That's why we need you to get over there right now and put a stop to this horror!"
An "Uncage-inator," huh? Frankly, Perry was surprised Doofenschmirtz hadn't made one already. Even more surprising was the efficacy with which he was causing havoc in the city. Had the doctor actually come up with a successful scheme to rule the Tri-State Area for once?
Well, I guess I'll find out once I get there, Perry thought, then suddenly felt something cold crawling onto his shoulder. Instinctively he slapped his neck, and to his shock felt it crush the offending object with a sickening splat.
He withdrew his hand gingerly to discover the remains of a bug—an insect larva. Yuck. I have to eat enough of these on a daily basis just to keep the Flynn-Fletchers unsuspicious; I don't really want to see any more.
Before stepping out of his chair and climbing behind the wheel of his platypus-sized hover car, he tossed the remains into a nearby trash can.
I wonder where the thing came from, though? he wondered. After all, OWCA usually kept their facilities pretty sparkling clean.
On the back of his neck, an indicator light on the silver box affixed to his collar winked green.
"So, the entire setup just vanished again, huh?" Candace asked, taking a large slurp of milk out of bendy straw while lying on the sofa. Twenty minutes of nursing, antivenin, and rest had restored Candace to a typical, if exhausted and thoroughly bug-bitten, version of herself.
"Yeah, pretty much," Phineas replied, crossing his arms. "The swarm even knocked our entire supply of serum into a jug of neutralizer solution, so we can't even get them back."
"I think we should probably be aiming to keep the bugs AWAY from Candace," Stacy said, concerned. "Are you feeling any better? I can put some more lotion on those bites if you'd like."
"Yeah, I'm feeling a little better," Candace replied. "Thanks for taking care of me."
"No problem," Stacy said, "I'll always be there for you. We're best friends, right?" It was a sentence with more question in it than statement-of-fact, though.
"…Of course we are," Candace answered, slightly confused. "Is everything ok with you?"
"Ah, of course," Stacy answered, a little too quickly. "Anyway, you're the one I'm concerned about! Do you need us to call Poison Control?"
Has the shock made Candace more aware of me? Stacy wondered internally.
Candace laughed for the first time since being attacked by bugs. "No, I'm feeling pretty ok."
Maybe I'm imagining it. In any case, I can't let her know that I know anything about-
"Hm," said Phineas suddenly, "where's Perry?"
"I don't know! Why are you asking me? Why do you even care?" exclaimed Stacy, terrified.
"Oh, well, it's not a big deal…" Phineas said, alarmed by the outburst. "I just remembered that we put a collar on him while he was sleeping that releases serum at regular intervals."
"Wait, what?" Candace asked, her interest piqued.
"Yeah, we partially started this project with the intention of creating something that would attract insect larvae for Perry. You know, since he's a platypus, I figured he'd like having an endless supply of his natural food source. He can even turn it on and off by doing that platypus chirp of his."
"So…let me get this straight…" Candace said, her eyes narrowing and the ghost of a smile twitching on her lips. "You still have some working serum…and if I could find it, it would still have impressive insect-attracting properties that a pair of normal children couldn't duplicate…and I could then take this collar to show, say, hypothetically, a female parental unit?"
"Um…" said Phineas, trying to follow Candace's logic, "…hypothetically, yes?"
"AHA!" shouted Candace, "So all I have to do is get this collar, show it to Mom, and you'll be BUSTED! Busted busted bus-ted, Busted busted bus-ted!" Candace exclaimed, leaping suddenly from the couch and performing her usual rendition of the "busted cha-cha."
Stacy rolled her eyes. Seriously, after just being attacked by a swarm of insects?
"But Candace," interjected Phineas, "Perry's gone, and he usually doesn't come back until the end of the day."
"Hm…" thought Candace. "I can wait. …Oh, but I'm sure it will just fall off before he gets off! Or it'll run out of serum! Or it'll spontaneously combust! Or turn into a flock of doves and fly away! I HAVE to find it NOW!"
At that moment, Candace felt something itching on her arm. She looked down, and saw a white larva crawling on her skin. With a shriek, she shook her arm, causing the thing to fly off and descend in an arc onto the carpet.
"Oh yeah, that larva from your shoe," Phineas observed. "If you hadn't brought it in the house before all the cages vanished, it would have left with the rest of the specimens."
"Get rid of it, get rid of it, get rid of it, get rid of it…" Candace chanted, backing away from the offending creature. "Get-rid-of-it get-rid-of-it get-rid-of-it!"
"Sure, no problem," Phineas said, grabbing a piece of paper from the table and scraping the critter onto it to bring outside. After a second, however, he paused. "It's weird, though…it seems to only be crawling in one direction. Maybe it's going after something?"
Suddenly, Candace's facial expression changed drastically, and she started giggling.
"Um, Candace?" inquired Stacy.
"Hehe…how far can the collar attract insects from?" asked Candace, ignoring Stacy.
"Um, we haven't run exact tests yet," replied Phineas, "but I'd guess about ten miles?"
"Heeheehee…and we haven't taken out the recycling for the week yet, right?"
"Huh?" asked Phineas, confused by the sudden change in topic. "I…I think not?"
Candace resumed her giggling, and dashed to the kitchen. Within ten seconds she returned with an empty plastic water bottle and a needle.
"What's that for?" asked Stacy. "You haven't COMPLETELY lost it, have you?"
Without answering, Candace began to poke holes recklessly into the plastic shell. After a minute of frantic poking, she uncapped the bottle, and, despite her previous fear, seized the paper from Phineas's hand, complete with occupant, and scooped the larva unceremoniously into the bottle, quickly replacing the cap.
"Oh, I see!" Phineas said. "That's so smart! You made a chamber for the larva, and poked holes so that the larva can breathe but also smell. So when it picks up on the serum, it will start crawling towards the direction of the scent, and…"
"And it will lead us straight to the collar," Candace finished, a confident gleam in her eye.
"Awesome!" Phineas replied. "Let's go! Give Ferb and me a second to pack up, and we'll be ready to go!"
Candace held the bottle triumphantly in front of her, watching the bug inside begin to crawl in a northeasterly direction.
"Watch out, Perry," Candace said, "soon we're going to see EXACTLY where you are!"
A black tidal wave of dread rose up inside Stacy, then drowned her with a deafening crash.
I have to put a stop to this, Stacy realized. Now. Or else…
…or else Candace will see "exactly where you are"…exactly WHO you are, Perry.
And when that happens, she'll see exactly who I am, too…
END CHAPTER 2
So there's the second installment. Again, I'm sorry for getting out so late, but I've been really busy lately. If my recent trend is anything to go by, please don't expect anything for a while, but I'll try to get something out when I can. In my defense, I have an IRL (in-real-life) friend who's a FanFiction writer who's left a work started but untouched for even longer... Feel free to give me comments on where you'd like the story to go, because, while I have the end in mind, I don't have all the parts in the middle figured out, yet, and I'm mostly writing it for all you P&F fans out there.
Hang in there!
-LiteraryDragon
Formatting note for the curious: It seems as though the doc manager ate all the nice "***" transitions I originally put between the sections in this chapter, making things very confusing for all you readers out there. I guess it doesn't like author-generated breaks? And it won't even let me insert two lines in a row to make the story separations different from my author's notes...
So, to partially thwart these creativity-stifling formatting restrictions, I'm adopting a new strategy of putting "I'LL KEEP YOU MY FURRY LITTLE SECRET" between lines (won't let me do stars in between) at the top and putting "END CHAPTER _ " at the bottom between similar lines. I will adjust the previous chapter accordingly as well to conform to the new style.
