Phineas and Ferb's Dinosaur Adventure – Chapter 6: A Sticky Situation
A/N: Once again, we've got several species of dinosaurs appearing in this chapter. I'll also spend some of this chapter focusing on Irving and a rarely seen character from the show. Please enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Phineas and Ferb.
Irving whistled to himself as he managed the control panel. He was really excited just to have the opportunity to manage one of Phineas and Ferb's inventions. He sung to himself: " Oh, never lick a tree below the dog line. If it's brown and sticky do not pick it up! "
"Hi, Irving," said Django as he approached.
Irving looked up and waved. "Oh, hi there."
"What are you doing today? Where's Phineas and Ferb?"
"Oh they're back in time. See the time portal?"
Django whistled in amazement. "Wow, they made that? It actually goes back in time?"
"Yes siree it does. They went back to the Jurassic."
"Can I go through it?"
"I don't know if that's such a good idea," Irving explained. "I don't know where they are and if you go in there alone . . ."
"I see."
"But Phineas promised to let me see a dinosaur before we close the time portal. I can't wait!"
"Yeah, they're pretty amazing kids. If I had half the amount of talent they have . . ."
Irving straightened his glasses.
Django asked, "So what are we doing now?"
"Well, we're just going to have to wait until they come back. They could be a while, but that's OK, because I have books to read."
"Did anyone else go in there with them?"
"Yeah. There was Buford, Baljeet, Isabella and the Fireside Girls, Candace, Stacy and your sister, Jenny."
"Jenny's in there? No fair. Oh well. Hey I'm kinda thirsty. Why don't we go into the house and get something to drink."
"I don't know." Irving looked thoughtful. "I don't want to leave the machine unattended."
"Don't worry about it. We'll just go in right quick and come right back out. What could happen?"
"I guess . . . only if it's quick."
"Then let's hurry."
Django and Irving dashed for the kitchen."
"No more than 60 seconds though," Irving added.
"Whee!" Isabella chimed as the Gargoyleosaurus mother walked briskly through the forest. She and the other girls were all sitting on the back, neck or tail of the ankylosaur and were riding her through the area. The mist on their faces felt cool and refreshing. The only occasional discomfort of this was when the low tree branches would slap against their faces. Otherwise, it was fun.
"Low branch!" Adyson said.
The girls ducked.
"So where is this dinosaur taking us?" Stacy asked.
"Who knows," Isabella answered. "I think this is kind of fun."
"She's heading for that cave over there!" Milly noted.
Indeed, the Gargoyleosaurus and her baby trudged toward the mouth of a relatively small cave. The girls didn't speak as they entered it. Like most caves, it was dark and damp. Stalactites and stalagmites protruded from the cave ceiling and floor. Water droplets fell from the roof of the cave. The baby Gargoyleosaurus squealed and nuzzled his mother's leg for comfort.
"He's so cute," Ginger said.
The cave turned out to be small, and soon enough they reached its end. On the other side, as they came out into the light, they saw a large pool of water, surrounded by sand and a few trees and other plants and rocks. The area was in situated inside a crater, meaning there was a wall of rock on all sides. The only way in or out of this area was via the cave.
"Wow! This is awesome! Let's check it out!" Gretchen suggested.
The girls hopped off the dinosaurs and began walking around.
"OK, could someone tell me where we are?" Stacy asked.
"I think we're in some kind of bowl-shaped crater," Katie said.
"That's how craters are supposed to be shaped," said Gretchen.
As the girls looked at the water, they noticed clouds of steam were rising up from it. The ankylosaurs took no notice of the water and began licking some strange rocks nearby.
"What are they up to now?" Jenny questioned.
Isabella scanned the field guide for information. "Aha! It says here that some animals will lick special rocks to obtain precious minerals from the salt on the rocks. So apparently, that's what our ankylosaurs are doing. That's why they came here."
Ginger pinched her nose. "Does anyone else smell that?"
Stacy asked, "Smell what?"
"That rotten egg smell? It stinks!"
The other girls sniffed the air – yes, they all could smell the scent of rotten eggs.
"Where's that smell coming from?" Katie questioned.
"I know!" Milly said. "That's the smell of sulfur. It comes from the water and produces a strange rotten eggy-smell. My grandmother once had a water problem in her house and it made the whole place smell rotten."
"But what's with the steam?"
"It's probably volcanic."
"Well, in that case," Jenny began, "I don't want to stay here too long."
"Hey guys!" Holly yelled. She was standing near some bushes not far from the rock wall. "Look at this."
The other girls came over and saw the skeleton of a small Jurassic mammal. No one was able to identify it.
"Poor little guy," Isabella said. "I wonder how it died."
"There won't be anything left of it soon," Holly said.
Suddenly, a loud call echoed across the landscape. Even the Gargoyleosaurus looked up. The mother bellowed worriedly. The call seemed to have come from a large dinosaur. Perhaps this would be a good time to check it out.
"I guess we should get a move on, girls," Isabella said at last. The girls said goodbye to their Gargoyleosaurus friends and trekked back into the cave.
"You do know that 60 seconds is a minute, right?" Django asked. The two of them were exiting the Flynn-Fletcher house with cold glasses of lemonade.
"Of course I do," Irving responded. "Everybody knows that!"
"So why'd you say 60 seconds rather than a minute?"
"Because a lot of people use the word 'minute' to mean a short amount of time. When I say 60 seconds, I mean literally 60 seconds!"
They reached the control panel and began to drink. Django looked in the direction of the time portal and noticed the entrance didn't show any green and purple swirling stripes anymore. In fact, you could see right through the circle, meaning the time portal was off.
"Is that thing supposed to be off, Irving?"
Irving looked up in surprise. "Hey, that's strange." He walked onto the platform and went through the circle. "This is never supposed to be off, just in case they need to come back in a hurry." He quickly went to the control panel: it was off too! "Wait, you know, I think I tripped on something on the way back here from the kitchen. Maybe it was the cord . . ."
". . . and it was pulled out of the outlet," Django finished. The two boys followed the cord all the way back to the outlet.
"You know when something's not working on TV shows, it's almost always because it's unplugged."
"Yeah, I did notice that."
They reached the outlet with the cord fully plugged in! Plugged in!
Irving and Django looked at each other in alarm.
"Come here little dinosaurs," Doofenshmirtz called. "Come out, come out wherever you are. I know they're around here somewhere."
Dr. Doofenshmirtz was still walking through the red wood forest. Unlike before, the forest was more open and fog was absent, so the blue sky and sunshine could be seen. Perry sat in the T. rex skull, waiting for Doofenshmirtz to sit his cage down so he could escape. As always, Perry was planning on how he'd escape ahead of time, not that he needed a long time to figure out the traps.
"I don't know about you, Perry the platypus, but I'm wiped out from all this walking." Doofenshmirtz sat down. "Phew! Maybe I should invent some kind of pick-me-up-and-take-me-there-inator or something . . . all that walking and we haven't seen any dinosaurs yet. Well, I'm sure we'll find them pretty soon, I mean, how hard could . . ."
Bird-like squawking and chattering was heard from not too far away. Doofenshmirtz got up and stretched. "Well, I wonder what's making those noises." Quietly, Doofenshmirtz snuck into some shrubs with his time-alteration-inator in hand. He didn't want to alert whatever was making the noises. The closer he got, the louder the sounds grew. Must be dinosaurs, he thought. Peering through the foliage, he finally saw them: six or seven small dinosaurs, about 4 feet tall and seven feet in length. They were theropods, as they walked on two legs and had grasping forearms with sharp claws, long tails and jaws lined with sharp teeth. Their heads were long and had large eyes; they were black on the upper-half of their bodies, but the lower half was pale. These dinosaurs were called Ornitholestes.
The male Stegosaurus began to settle down; his mate was still glancing around the area cautiously, looking out for other predators nearby. About 15 feet away, Phineas watched the creatures in amazement, looking at them from head to toe. The majestic dinosaurs were each about the length of a school bus and must have weighed 4 tons. They had strong legs to stand upon and 17 diamond-shaped plates running down their necks, backs and tails. At the end of their tails were four spikes, each one a meter long; just as Phineas and the others had witnessed, these were used to ward off predators, like Ceratosaurus.
"I hear Stegosaurus has a brain the size of my walnut," Vanessa said.
"Well, it is actually about the size and shape of a dog's brain," Baljeet explained. "Not the size of a walnut."
"Still, that is pretty small," Candace agreed, "for such a big animal." The male Stegosaurus began nibbling on some ferns; it glanced back at the human observers with a similar expression to that of a staring cow. "Yeah, they're not too bright."
"They don't need big brains to survive," Phineas said. "That's why they've got brawn."
The male Stegosaurus bobbed his head up and down and growled. The female looked in his direction, curious. Then the male's plates began to turn bright red once again. He swayed his enormous body from side to side, and the female began to approach slowly, bobbing her head in return.
"What are they doing now?" Buford asked. "If they're trying out some new dance moves . . . they need a new instructor."
The 5-ton Stegosaurus were oblivious to the kids watching near them. They seemed completely focused on each other. At one point, the female Stegosaurus knelt her head closer to the ground, taking on a crouching posture, while the male stood straight and tall, showing off his colorful plates. He gently swayed back and forth.
Phineas grinned. "Aw, I think they're courting. See how the male's trying to attract the female's attention, kind of like a peacock."
The male dinosaur bellowed again and stomped the ground with one of his back feet. So far, the female was very impressed. She responded to his affections by gently rubbing her body along his. Her plates slowly began to turn bright red as well.
"Looks like it's going pretty well," Phineas said. "You know, no one's ever really known what Stegosaurus actually did with its spinal plates. Well . . . I guess we know now."
Candace said, "Yes, yes you do." Candace seemed transfixed by the actions of the courting dinosaurs. Somehow, these large creatures were able to move in a graceful and elegant fashion. They're beautiful. Candace raised her camera to take a picture. Then a thought occurred to her: Wait a minute, I can use these pictures as proof to show Mom when we get back!
Just then, the bellow of another Stegosaurus was heard from not too far away. The two dinosaurs Phineas, Ferb, Baljeet, Buford, Candace and Vanessa were watching froze and looked in the direction of the noise.
"I wonder what is going on over there," said Baljeet.
"We'd better go and check it out," said Phineas. "We'll these two love-saurians to themselves."
"Yeah, good idea," Vanessa agreed. She looked over at Candace, who was still eying the dinosaurs. "Hey, girl. You coming?"
"Huh? Oh me? Yeah sure."
Phineas rounded the corner of a huge rock face, a couple hundred yards from the Stegosaurus pair. Then he was able to spy a large mud-colored pond surrounded by trees and cycad plants – a welcome sight to an herbivorous dinosaur. In the middle of the pond was another Stegosaurus. It was roaring loudly.
"Here's the source of the noise, guys," Phineas explained as he watched the stegosaur through the binoculars. "I wonder what he's doing in that pond."
"Probably just taking a bath," Vanessa said.
"But he's in the mud, it can't be helping too much," Candace objected.
"Hold these, twerp," Buford said to Baljeet as he piled his backpack and other safari gear into Baljeet's arms.
"Where are you going?"
"What does it look like? I'm going for a dip." With that, he ran toward the muddy pond.
Candace sighed. "Well, some of us prefer staying clean."
"Yahoo!" Buford cried as he landed in the mud near the edge of the lake. "This is what I'm talking about."
The others walked over to the pond, but they rejected the idea of going in because they didn't want to get dirty.
"Ah!" Buford sighed in relaxation.
Vanessa wrinkled her nose. "For crying out loud. I prefer hot tubs, myself."
"Hey, my Ma said that if there's a five-ton Jurassic reptile otherwise known as a Stegosaurus sittin' in a muddy pond, I should too."
"That doesn't even make any sense!" Baljeet exclaimed. "She was probably speaking metaphorically."
Vanessa whispered to Candace, "Is he always this . . . uh . . . resistant?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Candace answered.
The Stegosaurus meanwhile, didn't seem very happy to stay in the pond; he was bellowing and moaning while continuously pulling its feet up out of the mud before trying to do the same with another foot, only to get the first one back in the mud.
Vanessa winced. "You know, I think he's stuck."
Phineas frowned. "You might be right, Vanessa."
"Buford! How on earth is anyone supposed to get those mud stains off of your clothes?" Baljeet asked.
"Easy," Buford answered. "I'll use you as a sponge." He gave a relieved sigh as he closed his eyes, relaxing in the mud.
A growl came from behind the group. They whirled around to see the Ceratosaurus had also been attracted by the sounds of the Stegosaurus!
"Ugh! Not him again!" Candace complained.
"Hold on, I don't think he's hunting us," Phineas cautioned. "Nonetheless, we should give him a wide-birth, just in case. I think he wants the Stegosaurus. Buford, you'd better get out of the pond."
Buford sighed. "Well, if I must." But as he tried getting out, he realized he wasn't budging. "Hey, wait a minute, this isn't mud!"
The others gasped.
"Oh no! It is quicksand!" Baljeet exclaimed.
Now the Stegosaurus and Buford began to panic as the Ceratosaurus began its slow, cautious approach.
The flock of Ornitholestes appeared to be foraging for whatever they could find on the forest floor. Their body design was not too unlike a bird; the way they bobbed their heads and the way they walked. The creature cawed to each other with bird-like calls. One Ornitholestes bent down to scratch at a fallen log with his hand claws. This is when Doofenshmirtz noticed the double row of quills going down the top of each of the dinosaurs' necks.
"Alright, now to shoot them with my time-alteration-inator," Doofenshmirtz told himself. He raised the device and fired. A green beam zoomed from the machine and hit the nearest Ornitholestes. The dinosaur stood up to its full height and squawked; its eyes turned from dark yellow to a bright green. The other dinosaurs didn't understand what was going on. Then Doofenshmirtz fired at the other six and they suffered the same effects. "Ha! Now I have the beginning of my dinosaur army! Follow me, my minions."
Agent P scanned his trap. Surely there was a way to get out. He normally found a way out sometime before Doofenshmirtz figured out how to finish his evil plan. A few minutes later, he heard the sound of squawking through the foliage. This is when Doofenshmirtz paraded into view, behind him was the beginning of his dinosaur army that would build and defend his empire. Perry figured that the machine had scrambled the animals' brains so that they would think Doofenshmirtz was their leader. They would do anything he asked.
"Hello, Perry the platypus. I'm back!" Doofenshmirtz said. "Meet the beginning of my dinosaur army!" Perry glared at the scientist. "Now they're going to start their work." Doofenshmirtz began giving orders to the dinosaurs: "You two, go get me some more Ornitholestes minions. You three there, start building a fort. Uh, we'll just call it Fort Doof or something. You last two can start guarding the place. Let's get this thing started! Ha!" He turned back to Perry. "Watch, Perry the platypus, as I finally take over the entire Tri-state area!"
Buford realized he was sinking deeper into the quicksand and tried struggling free. "Hey guys, get me outta here!"
"Hang on there, Buford," Phineas said. He looked over at the Ceratosaurus; it was definitely getting closer to the pond. At the moment, Phineas still wasn't sure if it wanted to hunt them again or if it was after the stegosaur. But he still didn't want to take any chances. "You have to quit struggling, Buford, otherwise you'll only sink deeper."
"We need some rope or something," Baljeet said, getting panicked.
"Here, use this!" Vanessa said. In her hands she was holding some rope from her backpack. She lunged it at Buford. The boy grabbed onto the other end. "Hang on, Buford."
Phineas, Ferb, Baljeet, Candace and Vanessa grabbed their end and tugged hard, trying to pull Buford out. Buford hung on as tightly as he could.
"Get your body level with the mud!" Baljeet exclaimed.
Buford forcefully was able to get his body in a horizontal position and slowly but surely, he was being pulled from the mud. But Ceratosaurus was getting closer. He stopped and looked at his two menu options. Baljeet squealed.
"He is coming!" Baljeet exclaimed. "Pull harder! Harder!"
"Looks like Buford needs to take off a few pounds," Candace said.
"Hey!" Buford said.
The mud gave way and Buford flew onto the dirt; everyone fell backward.
"That was close, let's get out of here," Phineas said. Without another word, Phineas and the others got away from the quicksand. Fortunately, it didn't appear Ceratosaurus was after them anyway. He was focused completely on the trapped Stegosaurus. The poor animal flailed around in the quicksand, whipping its spiked tail from side to side. Unfortunately, as Stegosaurus couldn't turn its body to use its tail, it was useless. Phineas frowned. "Aw, the poor dinosaur's stuck. I wish we could help."
Candace said, "I don't think that's possible. I mean, he weighs 5 tons, right? Unless you guys can build something–"
"We don't have the tools. Besides, I'd hate to mess with the space-time continuum thing. Maybe sometime in the future, this Stegosaurus will become an important and revolutionary fossil skeleton. Don't want to stop that discovery from being made. So maybe rescuing him wouldn't be such a good idea." Clicking his claws, Ceratosaurus continued advancing toward Stegosaurus.
"Wait, why'd the stegosaur get in there in the first place?" Vanessa asked.
"Oh, he probably thought the quicksand was a water source. Animals make mistakes like that all the time, only to realize that when it's too late. This is a natural predator trap. I learned about them from watching a TV show. When an animal becomes stuck, it makes alarm calls, which attracts carnivores and scavengers, who also become stuck."
"Speaking of predators, look who else is joining the party," Baljeet said to draw everyone's attention to a trio of dinosaurs appearing at the top of a hill. One of them roared, causing Ceratosaurus to look back in alarm.
These new dinosaurs were larger than Ceratosaurus, with a height of about 10 feet and they stretched 25-28 feet long. Sharp teeth protruded from their mouths and deadly claws from their hands and toes. The carnivores were grayish-brown in coloration with black vertical stripes on their sides. Each dinosaur bore a small horn above each eye that was bright red in color. These dinosaurs meant business!
Candace gasped. "No, no, no! Not T. rex! Not T. rex! We've done this before! We've got to get out of here!"
"Relax, Candace," Phineas encouraged. "They're probably after the stegosaur. Besides, like I said before, T. rex lived in the Cretaceous."
"So what are these guys then?" Candace asked, half-sarcastically.
Ferb started taking pictures of the new carnivores as they walked briskly toward Ceratosaurus' meal. The smaller theropod roared back at the local bullies, flashing his crest in a vain attempt to frighten them away.
"I think we've got a pack of Allosaurus here," Phineas said. "Someone check to see if I'm right, please."
Buford got the dinosaur book and said, "They're red-crested Tyrannosaurus. Sorry, Dinnerbell, you're dead wrong." Buford laughed.
Phineas rolled his eyes. "Give me that." After looking it up, he glanced at Buford. "Like I said, they're Allosaurus. They aren't even big enough to be T. rex! This book says that, 'Allosaurus were the lions of the Jurassic. Though they looked a little like the more famous T. rex, Allosaurus were very different dinosaurs. They were slightly smaller, had longer arms and were faster, able to run up to 30 mph in short bursts. Their teeth are very differently shaped from those of T. rex too; they were used for slicing through meat rather than crushing bone'."
"Real comforting, Phineas," Candace groaned.
The Allosaurus had reached the Ceratosaurus and growled loudly. Ceratosaurus had no other choice but to retreat. As the larger dinosaurs roared at Ceratosaurus, he ducked his head to show submission and quickly ran out of the area and toward the forest. The Ceratosaurus had no idea that the Allosaurus had saved his life from the quicksand. With the other dinosaur out of the way, the Allosaurus could pay attention to the trapped Stegosaurus. The three of them slowly approached their prey, roaring loudly.
"Hey, Allosaurus isn't that bad," Buford said. "They know how to muscle weaklings out of the way."
"You do remember that 'weakling' nearly ate you a few minutes ago, right?" Baljeet asked.
"Yeah, sure thing, Ceratosaurus."
"Why are you talking to the dino. . .?" that was when Baljeet realized the nerd Buford was referring to. "Ha, ha, very funny," came Baljeet's sarcastic reply.
Poor Stegosaurus didn't stand a chance against its attackers. The first Allosaurus started moving toward Stegosaurus, its bird-like feet trudging through the thick mud. The carnivore stood over its prey, roaring. Now it was time for the feast to begin. The second Allosaurus went to the opposite side of the Stegosaurus. Little did the two dinosaurs know that they were now trapped.
Phineas looked up at the sky and saw that the sun was leaving its noon-time position and was starting the journey toward the horizon. Within a few hours, it would be getting dark, and Phineas didn't want them to try and get back home at night in a strange ancient land such as this. "Hey guys, we should find the Fireside Girls and start heading back to the time portal."
"Yeah, we should," Candace agreed. "Where do we go from here?"
"That's easy, we'll just use the GPS. Ferb and I installed a tracking system in here that laid mental checkpoints along the path we used to get here every 100 feet or so. This way we won't have to find out way back at all."
"Good," Vanessa said.
The group started walking away from the quicksand. Candace looked back to get some more pictures to use as evidence for when she'd show Linda what the boys had been up to today.
A/N: Candace just can't seem to get busting out of her mind, can she? Well, I've done six chapters so far, so what do you guys think? I hope by now the story hasn't gotten too boring or anything. In the next chapter, expect Agent P to do his usual thing with Doofenshmirtz and maybe we'll even find out what's wrong with the time portal. Hopefully Irving and Django can figure it out before Phineas and the others get back! Until I publish chapter 7, please review, favorite and follow this story if you haven't already, and check out my other fanfiction: "Take 2 With Phineas and Ferb". For now, r&r!