Chapter 7

Walking out of the veterinary clinic's doors, Phineas and Ferb headed towards their car.

"Well that went well," Phineas commented as Ferb jumped into the side door and Phineas got in the driver's seat beside him. The translator was still lying carefully on the seat cushion.

The next stop Phineas was sure to make was the Superduper MEGA Superstore, that had everything from light fixtures to didgeridoos. He had no delays finding a Lithium Double-D 10 Volt in aisle 27 just as he had thought. He even found a new screwdriver that he could use to unlatch the battery compartment.

"Good as new," crackled Ferb's voice after Phineas had snapped in the cover and pressed the power button. He leaned back into the seat of the car and put his hands on his knees.

"Well, now we have lots of time," Phineas started. "What should we do?"

"Go back to the house?" Ferb suggested. "Though I don't know what we would do there."

"Yeah..." Phineas agreed. Then he jumped up in an idea. "But the park is fun!"

"The park?" Ferb asked in clarification. Then he paused for a moment. "You're not going to make me play fetch, are you?"

"Naaa, you don't have to," Phineas reassured. "But I'm sure there's tons of other stuff to do at the park."

Taking a moment to look to the corner of his eye in debate, Ferb conceded, "Some sun might be nice."

Ferb was right; when they left the parked car and walked their way over to the wide open grasses, the sky was bright blue and the green of the grass shone in the light. It was quite a nice day.

As they walked on the path, Phineas moved his head down to see Ferb following near his feet.

"You don't have to walk behind me," Phineas pointed out, slowing down slightly. Ferb looked upwards at the comment.

"Oh, sorry," Ferb replied, coming along beside him. But he was watching his paws as he placed each step in the gravel.

Once he had tipped his gaze up, Ferb saw the many other park goers who were walking casually past them. Ferb felt funny and self-conscious while he lowered his head and flattened his ears in discomfort. Everyone should have been staring at him and how different he looked, Ferb thought. But, as it was, the passing pedestrians saw nothing abnormal about a boy and his dog.

"...I used to be taller than everyone," Ferb mumbled. He kept his stare up, but his head low as he trotted alongside Phineas' legs. "...I liked it when I was tall."

"Cheer up, Ferb. You'll get your tallness back," Phineas promised. "You have human-changing serum running through your veins, and it's sticking on to your DNA as we speak."

"Where is the pill?" questioned Ferb anxiously.

Phineas patted the side of his pants purposefully. "Right here still safe in my pocket."

"Good," Ferb replied with a breath.

"And you're already down to 106 hours!" Phineas continued at him. "Doesn't that make you feel better?"

They had stopped walking and were standing near a fork in the path that led further into the open grass field. Ferb looked up. "Yeah, I suppose it does."

"So while we wait, you should have some fun," Phineas pestered him.

Slightly confused, Ferb said, "Like what?"

"I dunno. Something fun," Phineas repeated. "There's plenty of stuff a "dog" as smart as you can have fun with!"

Ferb glanced away from Phineas, and began to survey the park grounds. He spotted a wooden bench in the sunlight, with a young girl sitting on its seat. She seemed to be about a year or two older than Phineas and Ferb themselves, and had what looked to be a textbook on her knee.

"Some fun, you say?" Ferb elaborated. "Stay here, Phin. I'll be right back."

Ferb trotted through the long grass to approach the park bench. Deep in her studies, the girl did not glance up until Ferb was staring at her from the base of her feet.

"Oh, hi doggie," she greeted, looking away from her book. Her eyes went up to take a haphazard search for the owner.

"Hullo," the translator crackled as the little green light lit up on the metal contraption.

"Oh! It's a-talking dog?" she reacted in surprise.

"Yep," Ferb answered casually. He jumped up onto the bench to investigate her book.

"Doggie, you can talk?" she asked innocently. Ferb nodded in response.

The girl smiled. "Say 'apple.'"

"Apple," Ferb said.

She giggled. "Now say, 'Sawdust'."

Ferb cocked his head. "Why should I say 'sawdust'?"

The girl crept on another grin. "Sentences, too!"

Ferb poked his head over her shoulder at the thick white textbook. "What are you doing?"

"Aww, curious," she responded. Then she opened her text further and rearranged her notebook. "I'm doing summer math."

Ferb made a cute sound at her. "I like math."

"Oooh, you do?" she asked, intrigued. She scooted to face him. "What's two plus two?"

"Four," Ferb explained.

"Smart talking dog, you're good!" The girl thought for a moment. "What's two TIMES two?"

Ferb grinned. "Still four. That's not changing."

"Alright," she addressed. "Two plus a zillion."

Ferb's neck translator stayed silent for a moment, then it sounded, "A zillion and two."

Then Ferb stood up to look at the scribbles in the girl's notebook. She looked curiously at where his eyes were, before Ferb commented, "You know you don't have to hit it with L'hôpital's if you just divide everything by x to the third."

She froze. She looked down at her homework. She looked at Ferb. "What?"

"See, if you try L'hôpital's Rule, then you would have to use it three times, because the highest power of x in the numerator is cubed," Ferb explained over her shoulder. She just gave him a gaping blank expression.

"It would be a lot easier to just divide all the expressions in both the numerator and denominator by x squared. That way all the fractions with x's in the denominator go to zero, all the variables cancel out, and the entire thing just turns into five."

"You," the girl gasped. "Are one smart dog."

"It's not too difficult," Ferb replied modestly. "All you really need to know is that when you're in a limit going to infinity, one over x is zero. Then the rest is just simple algebra."

The girl had pulled out her expensive math calculator and typed some numbers in. Then she opened her eyes wider. "Woah, you're right. It really is five."

"Yep. If you want to save paper, graphite, and thirty minutes of your time, don't use L'hôpital's. Dividing through is a lot easier and quicker."

As the girl began to scratch her eraser over her homework, a shadow was cast over them. Ferb looked up and saw the figure of Phineas.

"There you are, Ferb. I was wondering where you went off to," Phineas greeted.

Glancing up from her notebook, the girl took a second's hesitation before pointing at Ferb and asking, "Is this your dog?"

"Umm well no, not really," Phineas thought. "Sorta-kinda."

With a subtle gesture to her textbook, she asked in bewilderment, "Where did he learn College Calculus?"

"Oh, from our AP math course in school," Phineas waved it off. "He's really good, he doesn't even need the formula sheet that our professor provides for the test cause he memorized them all."

"Not on purpose, though," Ferb pointed out. Both of them turned to look at him as he said it. "I can just recall them easily so I don't bother to look them up."

"Aahh, you're just being nice," Phineas teased. "You know you have the highest grade in the class."

Ferb turned back to the girl and digressed, "But I'm sure you want to get back to your studies."

He hopped down off of the bench, saying, "You were right, Phineas. That was rather fun."

As he and Phineas proceeded to walk down the path, the girl thought about stopping the two of them to riddle them with more questions. Yet instead of calling them back, she could only sit in silence and scratch her head.