Chapter 15

Monday. Yes, it was Monday. The infamous Monday morning sun warmed Ferb's nose as he opened his eyes off the bed that sat in the kitchen corner. Martha and David were both already bustling around him as they prepared for the day.

"You don't have to work until 9am today, honey?" Martha asked in passing, as she buttered a slice of toast.

"Yep, not for another two hours," David replied, his mouth half-full with a spoonful of cereal.

Martha gestured to Ferb, who was still lying on the puffy cushion, as she walked past him. "Can you give him a walk before you go? I think he's comfortable enough to be shown the block."

"Sure thing," he answered, slurping up the milk and putting the finished dishes in the sink. He snatched the leash from its place on the coat rack, and addressed Ferb. "Where should we go, boy?"

"Are we taking requests?" Ferb whined, lifting his chin. "I'd like to go to Maple Drive, please."

But David only heard Ferb's noise and thought nothing of it's meaning. He opened the front door after he had clipped on the leash. "Once around the neighborhood, then."

Ferb trudged out the door unenthusiastically. The streets were lined with a few houses and tall buildings, but Ferb frowned when he recognized none of them. Without bearings to get him straight, he couldn't tell where in Danville any of these streets were.

The brisk air ruffled his fur, making him uncomfortable. It was bad enough that he even had fur to begin with, and he dipped his nose with a whining moan when he remembered that 7:30 tonight was when his serum would have worked. If he had been safe at home with Phineas, that was. He could have been looking forward to losing his tail and having his own feet again this evening.

But no, come eight o'clock tonight, he would be lying—as a dog—sick in a bed that wasn't his.

The street that Martha and David's apartment building sat on looked different from his own Maple Drive. The walls were close together, and it looked like a more commercial area than the residential one Ferb and Phineas lived in.

The line of tall company buildings or small businesses was occasionally broken by a few houses. Several of these had dark alleys between them.

David led Ferb along the block as they passed building after building, turning a corner near one made of red bricks. A disgusting smell hit both David's and Ferb's noses.

"Ugh, I hate walking by here," David commented out loud.

"Smelly rubbish…" Ferb returned with a bark as they walked past an alley filled to the brim with black trash bags.

David stopped moving and just stood in front of the alley, peering up and down the mountain of bags. He lightly chuckled with surprised confusion. "That was odd..."

"What was?" Ferb asked curiously as he came by his side and looked up at him. Then Ferb reacted by jumping off the concrete sidewalk when, a few seconds later, he heard a crackling voice through static coming from beneath the pile.

What was?

"Hello...?" David suspected. "Uhh...Is someone under there?"

Ferb leapt upwards and approached the black trash bags. "Did that just-?"

Now that he was closer, the crackling voice took shorter to reply. Did that just-?

"It did!" Ferb exclaimed, following the sound and ignoring the smell, sticking his face beneath one of the bags. Soon, he had drawn out a square box with a few wires attached to it. He held it in his mouth, when David took it from him.

He was eying it with investigation, before thinking to himself, "Someone threw away their radio?"

"No," Ferb barked, as he hopped up towards the device. "It's me talking, it's my old translator!"

"Right," David answered with skepticism, looking all around the alley. He said factually, "My dog's not talking."

"Yes, I am," came Ferb's voice again through the speaker.

"Ah! Randy, it's you isn't it?" David concluded, looking at the box. "You're getting back at me for that thing about the pen. Are you nearby in a bush or one of the buildings?"

"No, it's me. I'm sitting here by your feet!" Ferb barked again, and the translator rang out.

"Though how you got him to bark on cue is beyond me," David observed as he looked down at his dog.

"Listen. My name is Ferb Fletcher, and I'm supposed to be a human being," Ferb's voice in the box informed him. "I need you to call my brother! He's worried about me and he needs to get here, soon!"

"Hah Randy. Nice story, but puppies have cell phones now?" David returned with an amused laugh. He clearly still thought he was talking to his coworker.

"No. My brother's not a dog, he's a human!" Ferb pleaded as he ran around David's feet to get his attention. "You just talked to him on the pho-!"

But then the rusted metal box sparked and stopped emitting sound. Ferb moaned and dug his forehead into the concrete. The thing had been sitting in their garage for seven years; it was only a matter of time before the wire connectors had corroded.

"Well, you know I'll be late for work if I don't get home soon," David spoke into what he thought was a radio. "Thanks for the laugh, Randy! You got me good."

Ferb groaned at him and his ignorance, leaving the sidewalk by the alley and trudging their way back towards the house. But it wasn't David's fault, Ferb told himself. Who would believe only the word of a talking dog?

After dropping Ferb off at the house, David had headed to work. Now Ferb sat sprawled out on the living room carpet, as the hours passed by.

"You're feeling sad?" Martha asked as she came by to sit beside him. She had been laboring in the kitchen all afternoon, and had just put her casserole in the oven. Ferb blew a puff of air out as he stared nowhere in the distance.

Martha petted him on the back. "You can tell me all about it."

"Well, I'm sad about lots of things," Ferb started. "For one, I miss my own house, and my bed, and doing projects in my backyard."

Ferb rolled over on his side to stop Martha from petting him. "I miss my dad, and my mom, and Candace. And I miss my brother."

Pausing for a second, Ferb waited as Martha kept looking at him. He sighed sadly and continued, "But most of all, I miss being myself. I wish I had hair on my head, ears on the side, and arms that were longer than my body. My own self isn't even in the mirror anymore.

"…I suppose the old me only exists now in photographs," Ferb realized. He looked upwards at Martha, and said softly, "You would've liked me. I think I was taller than David."

He set his chin on his paws again. "…Just by an inch."

"…I love it how you bark like it's in sentences," Martha watched him. "I've never seen a dog bark like that."

Then they both glanced upwards to the front hall when a click in the lock was heard. Martha leaned around to peer behind the opening door. "Oh hi, David."

She turned to look at the clock in the kitchen, and commented, "Back from work, is it 5:30 already? Time sure does go by fast."

Ferb kept his distant stare at the wall. "You have nooooo idea."

"Well, I was just talking with our buddy, here," Martha let him know, pointing down to Ferb as she stood up.

"Talking with him?" David asked curiously, putting his coat on the rack near the door.

"Yep, he barks like he's trying to talk English. Like he thinks we can understand him or something," she speculated. "It really is pretty cute."

"That reminds me," David started as he came over to sit on the couch. "One of the boys at work played a trick on me this morning, with him."

David laughed as he made some hand gestures. "He had hidden a radio on the side of the street and talked into it so that it sounded like the dog was talking!"

Martha giggled into her hands. "That's so funny! It was Randy, wasn't it? He's always doing things like that to you."

"Pretty sure, though I asked him at work and he swears he didn't."

Martha breathed with another laugh. "Just like Randy. What did he make him say? Did he like the walk you were giving him?"

"No, actually…" David thought. "He didn't really say any dog-like things at all. He said something about being a human, and his brother…?"

"Oh…" Martha answered sadly; it seemed that something had occupied her mind. "Is everyone missing their brothers lately?"

"What do you mean?" David questioned, leaning up from the couch.

"Oh, you just reminded me of a boy I met at the supermarket the other day," Martha explained. "He had lost his brother."

"Phine…" Ferb mumbled. He had no energy to say anything more. "Phine… was there… Nobody… told me… that…"

"I wonder what happened to the boy's brother. I hadn't stopped to think about it until now," Martha kept speaking. "Ooohh, I really do hope that they found him. It absolutely breaks my heart to hear stories like that."

"I sure hope so, too," David commented. He was deep in thought as he added bleakly, "It's so sad to know that half the time they never do."

"And the poor boy seemed so distraught." Martha fought to wipe away tears. "I bet they were close."

"We…" Ferb moaned, "… were close."

"It hurts to know that there's nothing we can do about it," Martha moped. "They probably had the whole town out looking. What could just two more people do?"

Then the timer on the kitchen stove let out a shrill beeping sound. Martha stood up from the couch in reaction, telling David that dinner was almost ready, and headed into the kitchen.

The tops of Ferb's ears twitched a bit at the buzzer, but his mind was spinning and he had let his clouded brain zone out of the room long ago.