Chapter 18

Though his mind was still buzzing and the room was spinning, Ferb tried his best to move his way towards the bedroom. He tripped on his feet over towards the closet and snatched between his teeth one of David's T-shirts and jeans that were lying on the floor. Phineas was right: Ferb had a feeling his might need these in a few minutes.

Instead of falling over onto the carpet like he so desperately wanted, Ferb forced himself towards the hallway and headed to the bathroom. He dragged the shirt and pants over the tile, wishing that he could have been able to shut the door behind him.

Flinging his mouth over the edge of the bathtub, the clothes landed strewn and un-folded. Ferb took this chance to leap around the shower curtain to land on top of the clothes, and worked his nose under the bottom of the shirt.

He managed to stick his head through the head-hole, and it seemed that it took him a while to slide his paws through the sleeves. This was most likely because his arms were longer by the time the shirt reached his shoulders.

Now he could feel the clothing fabric on the skin of his back, instead of the itchy sensation of fur. He found himself lying on his stomach with his elbows supporting him. Once he had slid on the pants, he was situated on his back with his feet scrunched up against the side. It appeared that his legs had grown too long for the bathtub.

"Hey, buddy? What's going on up there?" Martha asked with concern, leaving the living room as she started her way up the steps.

"Ferb, are you okay?" Phineas also called, attempting to follow her. But he was stopped on the chest by David.

"Hold on, don't just go running into our house," he prohibited Phineas cautiously as he surveyed him up and down. "…You've already fed a strange pill to our dog. You can wait down here with me."

"Oh! I'm sorry," Phineas apologized honestly, with a step backwards and a submissive look upwards. He linked his fingers together and stared up to the top of the steps. "…I just wanted to make sure that he's okay, is all."

As Martha disappeared near the staircase's top, David just kept looking at Phineas. "…Are you the boy from the supermarket?"

"The supermarket?" Phineas asked after a second. Then he thought and replied, "Mmhmm, I was there on Saturday."

"You had lost your brother?" David repeated.

"Yeah…" Phineas mumbled. Then he pointed back up the steps. "But I just found him!"

"The dog… is really a human being?" David thought through in bafflement.

"Supposed to be," Phineas nodded.

"So what was that pill for?"

"That'll change him back into himself," Phineas explained as he held up the empty plastic box. "That was why he was sick, he needed to be a human again."

Pointing his own finger up the steps, David asked in disbelief, "So then, what is he doing up there?"

"Changing into a human," Phineas answered. "Cause he didn't want to do it down here in the living room. I bet he went to go do it in the bathroom."

Martha slowly walked her way down the hallway. She had lost sight of her dog when he went over the steps, and now she peeked into each room in an effort to find him.

"Little buddy…?" she whispered as she pushed into the bedroom. "Where did you go?"

As she left the empty bedroom, Martha turned to the next door in the hall: the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar as she slid it open.

"Did you come in here…?" she asked, looking around. The tile floor was vacant, yet the carpet rug by the shower was bunched up a bit. She edged her way inside and looked around.

Then she thought she heard a light noise. It sounded like breathing, like deep breathing. It was coming from behind the shower curtain.

"Did you jump in the bathtub, little buddy…" Martha softly questioned, taking a corner of the curtain and peeking behind it. She saw half of the tub, lightly enshrouded in a light blue shadow from the tinted curtain. The breathing had stopped now.

Panning a little, Martha pulled the curtain further, so that she could look at the other end of the tub. It was then that her eyes fell on a tall, green-haired teenager who was pressed up with his back and arms against the corner of the tile wall. He was staring at her with huge, wide eyes and appeared to have held his breath.

"AHH!" Martha and Ferb both shrieked in unison. Ferb attempted to push himself closer to the wall, but in the process slipped on his bare feet and landed with a thump in the bottom of the tub. He reached around frantically in an effort to remain hidden, and grabbed the shower curtain over his face and chest. Yet, it did no real use because his elbows and long legs were still clearly visible lying in the bathtub.

"You… are you…" Martha started. She couldn't take her gaze off of him as his bright eyes stared up at her. Ferb scrunched the curtain over his nose.

"Are you… Ferb?" she requested with an inspecting squint of her eyes. Ferb kept their gazes locked and nodded slowly. Now that he had the chance to breathe again, Ferb's chest was moving up and down rapidly. His heart was still pounding; he could have sworn Martha could hear it.

"Can you…" Martha began again. She was almost searching for another explanation as to how this teenager ended up in her bathtub. "Can you… talk?"

Ferb nodded and gulped. "Yeah… I can—I can talk."

"My dog… came up…" Martha explained, pointing out into the hallway. Then she pointed to the base of the door, and then at the tile floor. It seemed as though she was tracing the path of an invisible puppy. "My dog came up here… and he was sick."

"I'm feeling a lot better now, though, thanks," Ferb answered after a breath. He wiped some sweat away from his forehead.

"…Your hair is green," Martha observed.

Ferb just nodded again, and flicked a strand out of his eye. "Yeeeppp, it sort of grows that way."

When Ferb gulped again, he realized that he still felt the red fabric collar around his neck. He released his grasp off of the curtain and tried to look downwards at his chin. Then, he pulled on the buckle and unsnapped it, rubbing the spot where it had been.

"This is… I think this is yours…" Ferb mentioned as he leaned forward and draped it on the edge of the tub. "…You can have it back, if you like."

But when Ferb pulled back, he found himself staring intently at his fingers. He flexed them in and out and switched between looking at their fronts and their backs. Then he reached up and showed his palms to Martha.

"L-l-look," he said marvelously. "I have… fingers!"

Then he tipped his gaze down past his somewhat-too-small jeans to his big toes that were sticking up from the end of the bathtub. He wiggled them and stretched them out. "And I have feet!"

Now Ferb had leaned forward far enough to rub his hands all up and down the bottoms of his shins and ankles. "And my legs are long and I…"

He sat back up and wrapped his arms around his elbows, squeezing. "…and I'm myself again!"

But Martha stood quietly on the white floor tile as she looked at him. She was examining with an inquiring eye at the way that David's T-shirt sat loosely in folds over Ferb's shoulders.

"But you're so… thin," she said with heightening concern. "Are you alright?"

"Umm, well no, not really," Ferb started as he rubbed the side of his arm and looked shiftily to the left and right. "I've kind of been starving myself. You know, dog food isn't particularly appetizing."

"D-dog food?" Martha stuttered with her hands on her mouth. "We were feeding you dog food?"

Ferb tried to grin bashfully as his eyes moved over towards the doorway. He lifted a finger to point at it. "…May I go downstairs and see my brother now?"

Martha turned around and looked at the door. Then she spun back to Ferb and reacted, "Your brother?"

Simply nodding, Ferb clarified, "He's been crazy worried about me. I just want to let him know that I'm fine."

"Your—your brothe—Yes, yes he's worried about you!" Martha reacted, suddenly stepping forward to offer out her hand. Ferb took it gratefully. However, by the time he had situated his feet under him, Ferb realized that his legs felt like rubber.

He tripped out of the bathtub to land on the tile floor. After a moment, he attempted to push himself onto his knees and used the edge of the tub as a hand-hold. The second time worked better, and soon he was hobbling on two feet out of the bathroom doorway, heading for downstairs where Phineas would be waiting for him.